Month: January 2009
Only you can prevent bloglessness
Blogs. Everyone has one. Or do they?
Living in the bloggy world that you do, it may come as a shock to you that—are you sitting down?—many intelligent, thoughtful, and opinionated individuals are currently without a blog of any sort today. In fact, some of them don’t even read blogs, let alone publish them.
I know! WTF?
There, there. Wipe away that tear, sunshine. We’re looking to avert this tragedy. In Portland, at least.
Thanks to the good folks at Beer and Blog, we’ve got End Bloglessness, a half-day workshop designed to get even the most neophytic luddite up-and-blogging in no time flat. And as is common in the Portland Web tech scene: it’s all free.
Bloggers and would-be bloggers of all skill sets are welcome. Just show up Saturday, January 10 at CubeSpace. From noon until 5 PM, you’ll be walking through the entire blog setup process, everything from installation through promotion.
We are focusing on launching WordPress blogs for this workshop. We’re also focusing on self-hosted blogs, so you’ll need a hosting plan and your access information with you at the workshop to get assisted help. Owning your own hosting account, and therefore your blog, is important and the reason we want to do this workshop is to expand access to blog ownership to more people.
By the time you leave the workshop, you’ll have a blog that is ready to go and some direction on how to connect with other local bloggers. We are expecting people from all skill levels, including the technically challenged. Everyone will be treated with respect and will be encouraged.
Or, if you’re interested in hearing more, swing by Beer and Blog, this Friday at the Green Dragon.
Remember, only you can prevent bloglessness.
Visit Upcoming to RSVP for End Bloglessness or this Friday’s Beer and Blog.
Portland Web Innovators Demolicious: Everything old is new again (well, okay, two things)
Last night, Portland Web Innovators kicked off its 2009 gatherings with Demolicious, the quarterly showcase of cool new products.
Of the five demos, two were products we’ve seen before—but they’ve been retooled for the new year.
Mugasha
Akshay Dodeja demoed Mugasha. Originally developed during Portland Startup Weekend, the site has gone through several iterations in development—now it’s ready to launch in private beta.
If you’re into electronica, you’re going to want to check it out. What’s it do? Basically, it parses DJ set podcasts—usually one long multi-hour track with no song info—into separate song tracks, allowing user to play the songs they want to play and actually know which tunes they’re playing.
Metroseeq
Taking a different cut on a previous iteration, Kevin Chen demoed a new version of Metroseeq, a mapping application that gives you the options to search for resources around a town, in-between two locations, or by marking your own route and allowing the service to plot resources along that route.
The new version of Metroseeq relies on the Google API and returns to the four closest resource for any search.
The other three demos showed off some new development.
Foodisms
Michael Kelly showed us Foodisms, an early version of a restaurant and food searching site with a twist: rather than searching by cuisine, you search by ingredient. Foodisms then looks for that ingredient and suggests a variety of dishes at any number of restaurants.
The current dataset is currently limited to 100 Portland restaurants (which, for Portland, is a narrow subset) but the foundational structure for the product has been established. If they can scale the data entry—dish by dish, ingredient by ingredient—this is going to be very cool indeed.
Sunago
Scott Andreas shared Sunago, community management software for nonprofits—especially advocacy groups. Its mission is simple:
“We’re tired of companies charging exorbitant amounts of money for apps that, well, suck. We’d rather you to spend your money on your vision, not software. That’s why Sunago is free for small organizations, and affordable for larger ones.”
Sunago has already been deployed with several nonprofits and Scott is constantly adding new features.
OpenLaszlo
Finally, Dave Miller demonstrated OpenLaszlo, an ECMAScript tool for building “rich internet applications” that will let the developer script structured content that can be compiled and deployed as either HTML or Flash—from the same code. Dave showed off some of the capabilities and demoed an app he had built.
Based on the beginning of his demo, I’d also offer that Dave is available to perform as a mime for your kids’ birthday parties or your next corporate function. Or not.
Demolicious was streamed live via UStream, but I’m not seeing an archived copy available yet. [Update] In the meantime, here’s some additional analysis and insight from David Abramowski.
If you missed the event, the next Demolicious will be April 1. What a fortuitous date for demoing.
Well worth the read: The Oregonian’s coverage of the Winter Coders’ Social
It’s not often I get the chance to sing the praises of The Oregonian, but the coverage of the Winter Coders’ Social is exactly the kind of mainstream coverage this whole Portland open source community deserves.
Because much of the programming work in Portland is of the freelance or consulting nature, gatherings such as these are good for getting job leads or for simply taking a break from staring at a computer screen. But competitive Silicon Valley this isn’t. Here at CubeSpace, partygoers never get more aggressive than wearing shirts to advertise their preferred programming language — “Perl Mongers” or “Ruby Brigade.” And once the party ends at 10 p.m., plans are made to head up the street to Aztec Willies for another beer.
Silicon Florist favorites Calagator, Ward Cunningham, Selena Deckelmann, Audrey Eschright, Igal Koshevoy, and Bart Massey are all mentioned.
“The rate of change can drown you,” Eschright says. “You have to stay on top of things and get involved. Be a co-producer. Technology needs to represent who you are.”
As I’ve mentioned before, this is exactly the kind of coverage people have been asking me to pursue—shedding more light on the activities of the open source development community and user groups in the area. I’m glad to see The O beating me to the punch.
Grab a cup of coffee—or beverage of your choice—and take few minutes to read “Geekathon potlucks unite computer herd.”
Using your Android phone as a remote for controlling music playback
Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for January 07
Oregonian’s Top 100 Picks on the Web
Helping Announce: Ignite Bend is Coming » Techcraver.com | Craving tech, craving life!
Fieldrunners 1.2 Announced
You Must Fail if You Don’t Want to FAIL | Internet Astronauts
SXSW Interactive 2009: Portland Meetup, January 19
In a little over two months, a good chunk of the Portland tech scene will begin its annual pilgrimage down to Austin, Texas, for SXSW Interactive.
Maybe you’re going. Or maybe you’ve been toying with the idea of going. Either way, Dawn Foster highlights an upcoming meetup that you should seriously consider: SXSW Interactive Portland Meetup.
This will give you an opportunity to learn more about SXSW from the people who organize it. If you’ve never attended or were on the fence about attending, it’s a great opportunity to learn more. For those of us who already love SXSW, it gives us an opportunity to get to know some other Portland people who plan to attend.
The event will be held Monday, January 19, beginning at 6 PM at the Fez Ballroom.
And now here’s where it gets a bit weird. If you would like to attend, you should RSVP by emailing interpress@sxsw.com with “Portland” in the subject line. Because nothing says “cutting-edge interactive conference” quite like email.
Ahem.
Okay, here. I created a Calagator entry for the event. While you can’t RSVP there, that definitely makes it a little more cutting-edge—and Portland-y to boot.
All kidding aside, SXSW is an amazing conference. A place where you’ll find yourself talking to the best and the brightest in the industry and feeling like you’re definitely among people who “get it.” What’s more, the Portland contingent promises to be even bigger this year, so we’ll be able to take that shared experience back here—and we’ll continue to benefit from it all year long.
You should go. It’s well worth the time. And I’d love to see you in Austin in March.
Masterbacon: More techie bacon love than you can shake a strip of bacon at
There are some things that just go well together. Chocolate & peanut butter. Beer & Blog. And, of course, technology & bacon.
What’s that? You’re not aware of the kismet-like connection of cured meats and coding?
Well, then Masterbacon is for you, my friend.
It’s all about techies doing what they do best: geeking. Only this time, rather than geeking about some obscure algorithm or arcane coding language, they’re geeking about bacon.
Have you ever wanted to get together with a bunch of other bacon geeks and just geek out about bacon? What if there was an event specifically catered to bacon geeks to be able to share their favorite bacon treats with the world? Wouldn’t it make sense to make it a competition complete with trophy and prizes? Of course it would.
Masterbacon is just such an event.
So much bacon love, even the most vegan of geeks is sure to appreciate it. Maybe.
Masterbacon will be held on Saturday, January 17, at the newly opened Davis Street Tavern in Old Town. Participation is mandatory. That means you’re cooking, judging… something.
For more information, see Masterbacon on Bacon Geek. To RSVP, visit Upcoming.
I can’t wait to see how you get your bacon on. That is, just so long as this isn’t how you get your bacon on.
Photo courtesy the bacon geek, himself, Scott Kveton. Used under Creative Commons.
REMINDER: First Portland Web Innovators of 2009 (tonight!) will be Demolicious
Flirting with its third year, Portland Web Innovators is one of the old guard when it comes to the new Web tech scene in Portland. For many developers, it’s the best place to get together on a regular basis to share ideas.
As such, there’s no better way to get an early glimpse of the next big thing here in the Silicon Forest than with Demolicious, PDXwi’s quarterly demo round-up of new products.
And you’re in luck. It’s tonight.
Currently scheduled to appear:
- Dave Miller, An Open Laszlo Project
- Michael Kelly, Foodisms
- Akshay Dodeja, Mugasha
- Scott Andreas, Sunago
So come on out and see your peers demonstrate the cool stuff they’ve been building, tonight at 7 PM, hosted by NEMO design. To RSVP or for more info, see Demolicious on Upcoming.