Stop Food Waste - OS Open Data & SQL Azure

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Stop Food Waste - OS Open Data & SQL Azure

Paul Brewer

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Points: 2955
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June 13, 2012 at 10:18 pm

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Comments posted to this topic are about the item Stop Food Waste - OS Open Data & SQL Azure

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UKGav Say Hey Kid Points: 678 More actions · Answer 1

Just for starters, are you @pdbrewer on twitter?

Paul Brewer SSCrazy Points: 2955 More actions · Answer 2

Pablobrewster , long story but Paul Brewer was taken.

UKGav Say Hey Kid Points: 678 More actions · Answer 3

Oh, strange! @pdbrewer is also doing Open Data stuff as he works for B&H Council. Check him out..

Anyway, I'll be looking at your article in detail when I have time, looks great on the surface.

Gavin

@ukgav

+ @godhackday (Government Open Data Hack Day)

Paul Brewer SSCrazy Points: 2955 More actions · Answer 4

Thanks Gavin , that is a coincidence, I'll look him up.

Cheers

BarneyL Ten Centuries Points: 1044 More actions · Answer 5

Interesting project,.

I know the person who runs the food bank\homless charity in a town near to me and this could turn out to be useful when up and running. It might be useful if everything worked in reverse too i.e. organisations in need of food can register and suppliers search for them as well.

Getting the food is another matter though - her son used to have the job of pouring bleach over the leftover bread at a local supermarket to make sure no one made use of it and they won't give away a thing. Local restaurants might be more willing to help as they might not see it as lost sales.

UKGav Say Hey Kid Points: 678 More actions · Answer 6

The fine line between sellable and edible is a time critial problem, but not impossible.

I'll help where I can - contact me on twitter @UKGav

I'm sure there is a website which already deals with this subject as well, I'll try to find it later tonight.

Paul Brewer SSCrazy Points: 2955 More actions · Answer 7

It was impossible to get a SQL Azure instance, hopefully there will be some sort of developer edition eventually.

davoscollective SSCertifiable Points: 6355 More actions · Answer 8

Very interesting project. I've also made use of that Shape2SQL program.

I find that a lot of the shape files available are way too detailed for most practical mapping purposes. Loading a few hundred megabyte shape file into SSRS makes for a very slow report.

I am wondering about the financial problems. I'm not sure how it works in the UK but I know in Australia you can get a business number for your organisation and register it as a not-for-profit or charity. If you use a tax agent there is a fee but if you apply directly with the government then there is no fee.

You could also register for tax deductible donations which might encourage people to donate to your "stop food waste" charity.

I think there is a lot of value in what you are trying to do here, not just as an excercise for you to learn Azure but that this can actually work. If you set up a basic wordpress website for this and set up a kickstarter account people would definitely donate to help with the setup and ongoing costs. I would!

These numbers on kickstarter success & failure rates are quite interesting

http://www.appsblogger.com/kickstarter-infographic/

Paul Brewer SSCrazy Points: 2955 More actions · Answer 9

Ukgav suggested getting a proto type running which I'll try to do (on a local instance of sql) but it won't be until the end of July. It's a good point about reporting services being slow loading huge shape files and thanks for that link.

Best wishes

Paul