.

Month: December 2008

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for December 15

Rick Turoczy on December 16, 2008

Portland Gets WiMAX Service

Via GigaOm “Web surfers in the Pacific Northwest will soon join the denizens of Baltimore, Md., in their ability to get WiMAX service. Although those in Baltimore are still surfing under the old Xohm brand offered by Sprint, Clearwire plans to launch the first citywide Clear branded service in Portland, Ore., on January 6 — a little more than a month after Clearwire and Sprint completed their spectrum deal, and raised $3.2 billion for a nationwide WiMAX network.”

Why I’m running for the OpenID Foundation BOD

Scott Kveton writes “I’ve been on the OpenID Foundation (OIDF) board of directors since the organization was founded. I was also lucky enough to serve as the Chair over that time and I would love to continue to serve the community in some fashion on the board of directors again.”

WordPress Love: the Portland 2.7 Release Party » Another Blogger

Aaron Hockley writes “Last Friday, Chris O’Rourke and I hosted a release party in Portland for WordPress 2.7. We had around 60 people drop in to hang out, have some pizza and beer, and talk about WordPress. A few folks brought laptops and actually did the upgrade at the party*; even more wanted to just talk about their blogs and pick others’ minds about various bloggy topics. A big thanks to CubeSpace for allowing us to use their facility and helping with logistics.”

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for December 14

Rick Turoczy on December 15, 2008

Portland Snow Day Pictures: Grab Your Cameras

Via PDX Pipeline “The Portland Snow Day 2008 was a good one for PDX photographers. Many, undaunted by the flury of frozen percipitation, donned their Portland Boots and got out there. You still have time to get many pics until Portland Snow Day 2009 occurs. Below are several shots around the city, some snow-picture thoughts, reports from the Portland Twitter Storm Team, Trimet updates and a message from our Mayor on how to survive the Portland Snowpocalypse….”

Oregon’s creativity lights up

Via Oregon Live “When Josh Bancroft moved to Oregon a decade ago, the tech community was pretty fractured. Now people meet at Beer & Blog, develop ideas at freewheeling BarCamp conferences and stream into the Bagdad Theater four times a year for Ignite Portland, a deliciously geeky form of entertainment that gives presenters five minutes to pitch an idea.”

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for December 12

Rick Turoczy on December 13, 2008

Let’s Hear It for CubeSpace! | Our PDX Network

Betsy Richter writes “CubeSpace is one of those businesses that’s also successfully transitioned itself into an essential hub as well. Sure, you can rent office space or meeting space by the hour from CubeSpace, and it’s been the place where plenty of technology events happen (WordCamp, BarCamp, Start Up to Side Project, CyborgCamp, etc. etc. etc.)”

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

New Legion of Tech board members announced… err tweeted

Rick Turoczy on December 12, 2008

In a very Barack-Obama-naming-his-running-mate-esque moment, I saw Bram Pitoyo congratulate the new Legion of Tech board members in a tweet. I’m struggling to find an “official” post on this , but If texting is good enough for Barack, then Twitter is absolutely perfect for Legion of Tech. [Update] Legion of Tech has posted the new board for 2009.

New Legion of Tech board

The new board members are Amy Farrell, Craig Fisk, Chris O’Rourke, and Chris Pitzer. They join existing board members Josh Bancroft, Adam DuVander, Dawn Foster, Todd Kenefsky, and Raven Zachary.

An advisory committee is being established, as well. Names of the advisory committee were not announced (or tweeted by Bram, either).

Congratulations to the new board members! I know we’re all looking forward to another amazing year of Legion of Tech events.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for December 11

Rick Turoczy on December 12, 2008

Looking forward: Free Geek, Personal Telco, Intel, more – Silicon Forest

Mike Rogoway of The Oregonian shares this week’s installment of the positive things happening in the Silicon Forest.

Kudos to Joe Smith and KGW | Our PDX Network

Geoff K writes “I wanted to give some major props to KGW, Stephanie Stricklen and her producer Aaron. In over 15 years of living in Portland I’ve never seen a program so devoted to connecting and covering the community. Also, given the fact that many local magazine shows are ‘Pay for Play’ now you are an extremely welcome breath of fresh air in an otherwise stuffy market space. I look forward to watching 7 @ The Square online every night and with the open mics and cameras during commercials you make us all feel a part of the show.”

MySpaceID Added to RPX and more…

Via the JanRain blog “Today JanRain is announcing support for MySpaceID in RPX. We worked closely with the MySpace product team to integrate their MySpaceID open platform in RPX. Now website operators that use RPX can easily register and sign in MySpace users at their site and bring their profile data including friends and interests to create an instant social community.”

Time Magazine Names Portland Developed Field Runners in Top 10 Games of 2008 | Our PDX Network

Geoff K writes “Time Magazine named Field Runners as it’s pick on their Top 10 games of 2008. This list includes ALL games on all platforms and so it was pretty amazing to see an iPhone game make this list (especially one which has only been on the market for a couple of months.)”

tech.brianwestbrook.com: Surviving Layoffs: How-To Guide

Brian Westbrook writes “For those recently unemployed — my condolences… I’ve been there. After your week of decompression and relaxation, I’d like to offer some tips for finding that next job (even if you’re not subject to a layoff)….”

WordPress 2.7 Release Party! at Beer and Blog Portland

Via the Beer and Blog, um, blog “Keep in mind that Beer and Blog will start at 5:30pm, a little later that usual, to coincide with the start of the WordPress 2.7 release party. And while there’s bound to be a couple of us at our regular haunt at the Green Dragon waiting until it’s time to party at CubeSpace, the extra time will give you extra time to grab some brews. It’s BYOB, baby!”

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

JanRain RPX: A login buffet of OpenID, Facebook Connect, Google Friend Connect, and MySpaceID

Rick Turoczy on December 11, 2008

JanRainAll of the sudden everybody in Portland is going all Hollywood on us.

First SplashCast announces that they’re partnering with Hulu. And now JanRain has announced that their RPX solution—a product that makes managing the ever-growing variety of distributed login credentials easier for developers and users—is going to be helping Interscope Geffen A&M, a division Universal Music Group, give fans an easier way to connect with their favorite artists.

Using the RPX interface, fans who’d like to connect with say, Lady Gaga, have the option of using their Facebook identity, Google identity, MySpace identity, or any variety of OpenID flavors, like AOL, Yahoo!, or Portland’s MyOpenID or myVidoop.

RPX login box

Where did all of these options come from all of the sudden? Well…

It’s been quite the month for the world of distributed social networking. Both Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect – two services designed to help user manage a single profile across multiple sites – launched on the same day. Then, MySpace followed in close succession with their MySpaceID offering, another distributed social option built on the Open Stack. In a matter of days, the distributed social space went from nascent to completely confusing.

JanRain is hoping to make it a little less confusing, for both developers and users. And if they have to work with big-time music types—like 50 Cent, Fergie, and Guns n’ Roses—to get that done, so be it.

For more information, see JanRain’s RPX specific site or read the release. If you haven’t had your fill of my writing for the day, you can also read my write-up on ReadWriteWeb.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for December 10

Rick Turoczy on December 11, 2008

Ten Thousand Tiny Twitter Tweets

Josh Bancroft writes “Twitter has become an integral part of my life. My friends there, who number in the hundreds, really are people I consider friends. I have real connections with each of them, even the ones I’ve not met yet ‘in real life.'”

Trust and Corporate Blogging

Dawn Foster writes “The real message here is that trust has to be earned. Trust has to be earned for each new corporate blog and each individual blogger. Jeremiah Owyang put together an informal checklist to help you evaluate your current company blog. A great corporate blog can be a trusted source of information, but it takes real work and diligence to get to that point.”

Calagator in the News

Via the Calagator blog “2008 has seen a huge surge in events, new projects, and other interesting tech activity, and the Calagator team is happy to be a part of this, both as an ongoing software project, and something that facilitates our community meeting up and geeking out.”

Layoff watch: Yahoo Hillsboro – Silicon Forest

Mike Rogoway writes “No immediate word from the company on how many Yahoos lost their jobs today in Hillsboro, but the twitterverse has an answer.”

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

OpenSourcery has open gigs

Rick Turoczy on December 10, 2008

OpenSourceryOr should that read “OpenSourcery has open open gigs”?

Whatever the case, Portland-based OpenSourcery, an open source development shop that also tries to be as green as it can be, has open positions it’s trying to fill.

At a time when the news is all-too-full of layoffs and dire economic forecasts, it’s incredibly uplifting to see an open source company looking to expand its staff—especially a company that so quintessentially reflects the ideals of the Portland community.

So what’s up for grabs? I’m glad you asked.

Not interested in working there? No problem. You can still come have lunch with us there, next year.

For more information on the company and the available positions, visit OpenSourcery.

SplashCast channels Hulu

Rick Turoczy on December 10, 2008

splashcast.jpgPortland-based SplashCast, the service that makes it easy for anyone to embed entertainment channels practically anywhere on the Web, has just entered a partnership with a little online video company of which you might have heard, called Hulu.

Under the partnership, SplashCast will be building a bunch of custom players for Hulu shows. Anyone can pick their favorite show, take the player, embed it in their Facebook page or MySpace profile, and enjoy piping hot episodes of their favorite show delivered to their channel as they become available on Hulu.

Which shows? Well, a number of popular Hulu titles made the cut:

SplashCast has plans to carry 20 popular Hulu shows from a variety of networks. For NBC, the shows include The Office, Saturday Night Live, 30 Rock, Chuck, and Heroes. FOX offerings (which I’m betting will get the most play with the social media crowd) include The Simpsons, Family Guy, Arrested Development, House, Bones, Fringe, and Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles. Additional shows include Battlestar Galactica, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and Nip/Tuck, among others.

If users can already embed Hulu videos, why do they need SplashCast? Because SplashCast enables users to embed channels—wrapped with social features—that can carry entire seasons of shows, if not a library of multiple seasons. Plus, it gives Hulu another mechanism to push content to its users, rather than expecting them to swing by Hulu to find the latest and greatest.

This is huge news for SplashCast. Hulu is currently one of the darlings of the Web, because it’s a traditional media play with high production value that understands how to work within the new constructs of the Web. That and they’re on track to make $90 million in their first year.

I’m not seeing a post on the SplashCast blog yet, but you can read the press release, CenterNetworks, or my write-up on the SplashCast Hulu partnership on ReadWriteWeb.

Lunch 2.0 at OpenSourcery

Rick Turoczy on December 10, 2008

Have you sensed something missing in your life this month?

It’s Lunch 2.0.

Usually, this is about the time when I remind you to check out the monthly Lunch 2.0, generously hosted by one of the many great Portland (or suburban) hosts who open their doors for good conversation, networking and free food.

Not so this month, since I’ve decided to take a break. Fine maybe you’re too busy with Holiday stuff or watching Rick on KGW Live @ 7 (w00t!) to notice, but in case you were jonesing for that sweet Lunch 2.0 nectar, here comes another announcement.

Thanks to Amye Scavarda and the good folks at OpenSourcery, you can plan on another Lunch 2.0 in March, the 11th to be exact.

opensourcery.pngHere are the details:

Hosts: OpenSourcery

Where: 1636 NW Lovejoy St, Portland, OR 97209

When: March 11, 2009 from 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM

Please RSVP on Upcoming so the hosts can get an idea of how much grub to get. If you’re vegetarian or vegan, drop a comment on the event page for planning, unless you don’t want to eat.

OpenSourcery recently moved into new offices on NW Lovejoy, and they want to have an office-warming, Lunch 2.0. From their About page:

In December of 2008 we moved our offices into the Lovejoy Building at SW Lovejoy and 17th Street. The Lovejoy Building is LEED Gold certified, with a host of design features that reduce OpenSourcery’s impact on the environment. Originally built in 1910, the edifice has since been renovated by Opsis Architecture so that every feature — including lighting, mechanical/electrical systems, heating, cooling, nightly air flushing, and the materials that went into construction — contributes to our commitment to sustainable practices. The ample bike parking and easy access to public transportation don’t hurt, either.

I’m pretty sure it’s NW, not SW. Anyway, the new digs reflect OpenSourcery’s commitment to open and sustainable business. Check them out here if you want to do some research before March.

Upcoming Portland Lunch 2.0s

1 2 3 4