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Month: August 2007

Josh Bancroft: Domain names free to a good home

Rick Turoczy on August 27, 2007

Josh Bancroft, an admitted domain-name-aholic and well known Portland-area blogger, is offering a few of his registered domains to good homes. All it takes is a good idea:

That’s where you come in. If you’re interested in one of the domains below, and have a good idea for something to do with it (basically, NO SPAMMERS!), post a comment telling me which one you want, and what you’d like to do with it, and it’s yours. If multiple people are interested in the same name, then I’ll decide which idea I like best. Oh, and I can be persuaded with cool gadgets or cash, if you’re so inclined.

Interested in seeing what’s available or maybe trying to adopt one of these domains? Visit Josh Bancroft’s Tiny Screenfuls blog.

Attensa and Kapow co-host Webinar on RSS and Web 2.0 apps

Rick Turoczy on August 27, 2007

Portland-based Attensa and Bay-area Kapow Technologies will be co-hosting a Webinar on September 6, Attensa’s blog announced today. And it will be bright and early for you late-night coder types:

On September 6th at 8:30 am PDT see Kapow’s Mashup Server and the Attensa Feed Server in action and join the conversation between Stefan Andreasen, Kapow’s CTO and Charlie Davidson, Attensa’s CEO as they discuss and demonstrate the ability to create feeds from any web based source using the Kapow Mashup Server and channel role based feeds to specific users and groups across the enterprise with the Attensa Feed Server.

This is part of Kapow’s Mashup series. You can register to attend the event on Kapow’s site.

By intelligently analyzing information about RSS articles and how readers are interacting with the articles, the Attensa RSS network can deliver more relevant, timely information individuals on the devices they choose and businesses can take advantage of RSS technology to streamline communication with employees, partners and customers.

For more information, visit the Attensa site.

[NOTE: In related news, former Portland-area exec John Cimral has recently been named CEO of Kapow.]

Northwest Innovation interviews YourList CEO

Rick Turoczy on August 27, 2007

YourList, a recently launched classified service headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, is the latest offering to take on mainstream media classified ads. Oh, and a little Web site called craigslist.

Charlie Parks, CEO of YourList, recently sat down with Northwest Innovation for an interview, discussing YourList and its place in the crowded classified ad market:

[Charlie Parks:] No question that the online classifieds space is crowded right now. A lot of companies are trying to offer a different take on the established Web sites. There is a lot attention on the industry and new sites keep coming out with different business models as they compete for market share. We’ve spent the last couple of years studying the sector and believe there is a lot more room for growth –if you pay attention to the needs of the online consumer.

To read the full interview, visit Northwest Innovation.

WordPress plugin: AJAX Search

Rick Turoczy on August 24, 2007

Portland-based developer Matt King has released an AJAX search plugin for WordPress. It is currently available for download from his site.

Matt describes the inspiration for the WordPress AJAX plugin on his blog:

I use the Spotlight feature in OS X an awful lot. While some people would rather use things like Quicksilver, I like just hitting command+space and typing in what I’m looking for, be it a document or even an application I want to open.

That’s the inspiration for AJAX.search, a search system built on Prototype’s AJAX framework. It will make a call to a URL you specify and display the results under your search box like Spotlight (and now, like the search at Apple.com). From there you can hit the up or down arrow keys to select a result and then hit the enter key to visit the link.

For more information on the plugin, to see the search in action, or to download it for your WordPress blog, visit Matt King’s blog.

Buy Local: OpenID support

Rick Turoczy on August 24, 2007

Are you the developer of a Web app? Do your users have to login?

Well then why in the heck aren’t you supporting OpenID yet?

What’s OpenID, you say?

OpenID means the elimination of multiple user names and passwords and a smoother, more secure, online experience. For businesses, this means a lower cost of password or account management, the opportunity for easier and higher numbers of new user registrations and the elimination of missed transactions because of user frustration with lost and forgotten passwords. OpenID allows for innovation in the authentication space beyond just using a password to “unlock” your OpenID identity, but the ability to strongly protect your OpenID and have that benefit move with you everywhere you go online.

And recent news from Portland-based OpenID-proponents JanRain indicates that the OpenID ecosystem continues to grow. But it’s not so big that it can’t use a few thousand more sites supporting the cause.

Over 1,000 website operators have not only lowered the bar for entry to their site by implementing OpenID support but have also taken the extra step and made it easy for new comers to get an OpenID from MyOpenID.com by becoming an affiliate. The more people who get an OpenID the more the OpenID ecosystem grows and everyone benefits, not just the individual website operator who sees an increase in sign ups, but all other affiliates and OpenID supporters get to ride the tide as well.

And, just to put my money where my mouth is, you can now comment on Silicon Florist by using your OpenID URI.

If you’re looking for an OpenID to use on Silicon Florist or any other of the OpenID-enabled sites, you might want to look at JanRain’s myopenid.com.

For more information on OpenID, see the JanRain post or visit the OpenID site.

Gigs: FINE is hiring

Rick Turoczy on August 24, 2007

San-Francisco-based FINE is a high-end studio focused on the marriage of form and function. The company approaches every project with a fresh perspective and open minds, and strive to determine the most appropriate solution for the task at hand. They believe subtleties in design and behaviors make an important difference.

Think you’re subtle? There may be a gig for you—in Portland.

That’s right. They also have a Portland office.

FINE Design Group’s looking for developers with advanced skills in HTML and CSS layout, able to work with variety of web technologies: PHP, JavaScript and maybe even a little JSP.

I’d love to provide a direct link to the gig descriptions, but the entire site is Flash. So, I can’t.

Please visit FINE Design Group or email josh@finedesigngroup.com.

(Hat tip Portland Web Innovators)

Jive Software releases Clearspace 1.5

Rick Turoczy on August 24, 2007

News keeps rolling out of Portland-based Jive Software, this week. More money. More customers. And now, more, um, well, more recent software, with the release of Clearspace 1.5.

The change log for Clearspace 1.5 reveals at least four new features and more than 40 bug fixes.

Clearspace is enterprise software built from the ground up for teams, companies and communities looking for an easy and productive way to work with each other without time or location limitations. Eliminate redundant conversations, meetings, emails and ideas by opening doors to new co-workers, partners and customers.

For more information on Clearspace and Jive Software, visit the Jive site.

Grabb.it releases microblogging feature

Rick Turoczy on August 23, 2007

Portland-based Grabb.it has announced the release of a new microblogging feature for its users.

Following the lead of services like Twitter, Jaiku, and Pownce, the new Grabb.it feature allows users to post short messages (less than 140 characters) and provides a feed to which others can subscribe. An example can be found here.

The recent development efforts—like the iPhone interface—have led to a growth spurt for Grabb.it, forcing them to have deal with (welcome) growing pains.

Vimeo releases Hubnut widget

Rick Turoczy on August 23, 2007

Now, I know Vimeo (Connected Ventures) is based in New York, but did you know that they have a tie to the Rose City?

They do. The Community Director for Vimeo, Dalas Verdugo, lives here in good ol’ Portland. I think. I’ll have to admit, I can’t confirm that he lives here. (Chris Anderson, however, can.) But it certainly appears almost certain that he does.

He just posted a photo of IKEA Swedish meatballs. And everyone knows that Portland is still all gaga over the new IKEA. So, he lives here. Probably.

So there’s a tie.

Well, Vimeo just released a widget they’re calling Hubnut Projector (it was referred to as “Projector” when I originally posted; now they appear to be calling it “Hubnut”), that enables you to embed a series of Vimeo videos within a Web page. And since we’re all big fans of the embeddable media—like SplashCast—around here, I felt it worthy of a mention.

An example can be found, below. Scratch that. I tried to embed it and it appeared to conflict with the site template. An example can be found here.

Tweet: New SplashCast player in the works

Rick Turoczy on August 23, 2007

Word around the campfire—if Twitter is a campfire—is that there is a new SplashCast player currently undergoing testing.

[UPDATE] More SplashCast folks twittering about testing, testing. This leads me to wonder if there is some Twitter hook in the new SplashCast player. Or at least the ability to “post this to Twitter.” Of course, they could just be testing, seeing as their posts are coming via Twitterific.

Stay tuned. I’ll be sure to post more news on the latest SplashCast release as it becomes available.

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