Review: The Food Programme BBC Radio 4

A Special (Food) Relationship (Mon, 21 Nov 11) Available as a podcast for a limited time

“Mark Bittman, chief food writer at the New York Times, journeys to the UK to see what he can learn from campaigning chefs Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Jamie Oliver and Arthur Potts Dawson.”

Not something I normally follow, BBC Radio 4’s rather earnest, self-congratulatory, middle-class sop for the food trendy is typically a little too rich for me. However, this special show, triggered by NYT food writer Bittman’s research trip to the UK departed the usual track, focusing on the food campaigners influencing both commercial practices and public policy.

Bittman had covered Jamie Oliver’s healthy eating campaign, transplanted from the UK to the US, where he met with an intense level of vitriol. Inspired by that campaign and aware of the lead Oliver and others had set, Bittman tapped the BBC for contacts with Oliver and fellow campaigner HF-W which Radio 4 then recorded.

News: Chromebook Price Drop

Not surprisingly, Google announced a few days ago that it was lowering the price of the Chromebook to just $300. It’s not exactly the HP Touchpad fire sale, but nonetheless it looks like we’re on a countdown to the end of the Chromebook.

The Chromebook is designed as the personal cloud computing device, the ‘breakthrough’ was the thin-client notebook PC, which is always online, with no applications software except the browser installed and no local storage of data. Running the browser-based Chrome operating system, Google has two partners, Acer and Samsung, making the devices, but they haven’t sold in numbers since the product launch in May.

Review: Stephen Fry on the Phone

“I am the kind of tragic (and inexcusably proudly tragic) figure who just has to have the first version of every toy technology can devise.”

A self-confessed technology junkie and ‘early adopter’, Fry is the front-man for this gentle history of the mobile phone for the general consumption of the afternoon audience, in what is now the “narrative history” slot.

To help soften the blow of Radio 4’s recent schedule changes, the BBC evidently decided that a bit of Fry in the afternoon is a good thing. The opening programme outlined the technical challenges in setting up mobile networks, our heroes the American engineers who devised the cellular transmission system in the 1960s. Skirting the idiot’s guide to radio spectrum, much of the show concerned the intervention of the US telecoms companies spouting “it’s wasteful and it’ll never catch on warnings” to defend their existing radio business from mobile telephony.

Review: Microsoft Disaster Preparedness eGuide

“Disasters happen. Is your business ready?”

This is a free e-book in PDF and e-Pub format, all of 1.7Mb (produced using Adobe InDesign CS5 we note), available from Microsoft themselves. I got hold of it from the Microsoft Windows Small Business site.

Aimed at corporate customers, I include it here because it includes some sage advice to the home user and small business owner, too.

As you can guess it’s a Microsoft-produced publication which aims to introduce the unready business leaders, middle-management and newly promoted corporate execs to the tricky, but essential responsibility for Disaster Recovery Planning, or as we call it these days, Business Continuity Planning.

News: Google Offers App on Android

“…announcing our new Google Offers mobile app, that allows you to discover, buy and redeem your favorite deals on the go. The free app will notify you about all the great Offers that match your interests. You can purchase offers in just a few clicks and even redeem paperlessly with select merchants.”

After much rumour and debate, it’s officially here. The Google Offers app, announced alongside Google Wallet, is in the Android market for download.

The Google Offers website has been in beta since May and now covers 18 US cities. ‘Subscribe’ to the time- or volume-limited offers in your city and you can purchase directly through the app.

Review: Onepager Website Build and Host

Remember at the start of the dot-com boom, every telco, hosting company, two-bit email provider and ice-cream vendor was offering “simple, easy, out-of-the-box,” templated, idiot-proof web-sites? Web 2.0 went further, with drag-and-drop website design tools.

Well, another one popped up liveried in Easyjet orange: Onepager sets out to offer you a simple, easy, out-of-the-box, templated, idiot-proof web-site. Or more accurately, a one-page site. A One-pager.

If you walk through the try-before-you buy one page sampler, you can indeed create a customizable one-page site for free in less than ten minutes.