Category Archives: Projects

Ruby web scraping tutorial on morph.io – Part 4, dealing with pagination

This post is part of a series of posts that provide step-by-step instructions on how to write a simple web scraper using Ruby on morph.io. If you find any problems, let us know in the comments so we can improve these tutorials. In the last post we finished collecting the data we want but discovered […]

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Ruby web scraping tutorial on morph.io – Part 3, continue writing your scraper

This post is part of a series of posts that provide step-by-step instructions on how to write a simple web scraper using Ruby on morph.io. If you find any problems, let us know in the comments so we can improve these tutorials. In the last post we started writing our scraper and gathering some data. […]

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Who comments in PlanningAlerts and how could it work better?

In our last two quarterly planning posts (see Q3 2015 and Q4 2015), we’ve talked about helping people write to their elected local councillors about planning applications through PlanningAlerts. As Matthew wrote in June, “The aim is to strengthen the connection between citizens and local councillors around one of the most important things that local […]

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Ruby web scraping tutorial on morph.io – Part 2, start writing your scraper

This post is part of a series of posts that provide step-by-step instructions on how to write a simple web scraper using Ruby on morph.io. If you find any problems, let us know in the comments so we can improve these tutorials. In the past post we set up our scraper. Now we’re going to […]

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Ruby web scraping tutorial on morph.io – Part 1, setting up your scraper

This post is part of a series of posts that provide step-by-step instructions on how to write a simple web scraper using Ruby on morph.io. If you find any problems, let us know in the comments so we can improve these tutorials.   With just a few lines of code, you can write a scraper […]

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A massive week for They Vote For You

Forget what politicians say. What truly matters is what they do. And what they do is vote, to write our laws which affect us all. — They Vote For You Australia got a new Prime Minister last week. As the media detailed the step by step drama, tens of thousands of people visited and shared […]

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Another 2 million people can get PlanningAlerts

Another 2 million people in Australia now have a simple way to impact development in their local area. Last month the OpenAustralia Foundation teamed up with a group of volunteer engineers from Google and have expanded the availability of our project PlanningAlerts to 21 more local council areas. The event was part of the GoogleServe […]

Also posted in Event, PlanningAlerts.org.au | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Responses

The next 3 months are going to be really busy – here is our plan

Since the beginning of this year the core team at the OpenAustralia Foundation has been getting together for a day every quarter to make a plan for the upcoming 3 months. As our team grows (we’re now 3 full time people) these kinds of occasional but regular planning sessions help to keep us working well […]

Also posted in Morph, OpenAustralia Foundation, Planning, PlanningAlerts.org.au, RightToKnow.org.au | 1 Response

A little scraping goes a long way

Last night, about 10 of us got together in Sydney for a fun night of scraping and learning about morph.io. I organised the get together because I’m just really excited about writing scrapers and using data from morph.io at the moment. I’ve only been writing scrapers for the last few months as Matthew and I […]

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A step forward for open government in NSW and the NT

Millions of people in New South Wales and the Northern Territory can now easily make requests for information from their governments and local councils. We’ve added hundreds of new authorities to Right To Know that cover state, territory, and local government in NSW and the NT. Right To Know makes it simple for you discover […]

Also posted in Announcement, RightToKnow.org.au | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Responses