Myguide

The government has a program to get everybody up to speed with the internet, web, browsing, email etc. What they say is "15M adults are not using the computers and the internet", well lease them a computer. "70% of people living in social housing aren't online". Well simple install broadband in all social housing as part of the rent. Problem solved.

Instead the government bleats about "social exclusion" and sets up UK online centres all over the place (6000 of them, imagine the cost). There actions consist of two parts, local computer training centres and a web site called myguide.gov.uk .

The Myguide web site cost £2.5M to set up and has a annual running cost of £500,000. This is ridiculous.

They have 250,000 users, but they each only send an email every 10 days. 250,000 only (!) after 5 years running, 6000 centres, and with 15,000,000 potential customers. This is ridiculous.

Yet they have recently committed yet an other £30m to these matters.

What a waste of money! Why?

1. People who don't use or understand the web are simply not connected, because they don't know how, don't have a computer or don't have broadband access.

I am sure they are interested who wouldn't be these days. It is part of life. So get them connected. Make broadband a public service like water , sewage, electricity.

2. The myguide web site is pathetic on many fronts.

- It treats people like children with automated (read a bit, get tested on it, move on), not investigatory, learning paradigms.

- It sets up an email account for you at myguide.gov.uk when most people in the world would chose a goolemail, yahoo or hotmail account as the easy way on.

- It only works with IE browsers, or Firefox. The government itself has already declared IE to be dangerous and not be used. (the civil service and the NHS still use IE6 which is full of bugs and holes...). It does not respect web standards but uses proprietary web pages and lots of Flash.

3. I have quoted above what it cost, and it has automatic lock-in, as as soon as anyone sets up their email there the site must keep going to support them. What a great way to do business!!! I wonder who is the sub-contractor?

4. I registered but forgot my password, so I have emailed them to see if they can tell me. When I was connected I was completely frustrated by the site, its complexity just trying to be childishly simple is ridiculous. It is nothing like the real web out there, very poor page layouts, unclear links etc etc. Update: I re-registered as they could not help me. [By the way when you register they give you a user name of firstnamesurname, so if you want to get something like my syganymede then put first name "sy" and surname "ganymede"...]

I have made, in just 4 hours, a web site to tell people about the internet and set up hotmail. And it is free. Here it is: Computer ABCD

Try it and see if it helps you. And if you are new to computers and the internet, then save up and buy an Apple iPad, simplicity itself and you don't have to understand any of that computer goobldy-gook to use it.