Category: Links

Mike Rogoway writes “Portland’s culture of socially networked startups: With a social calendar any undergrad would envy, a host of Portland Web startups knitted a vibrant tech culture concentrated in Old Town. Jive, Vidoop, Splashcast and many, many others made this a good year to be young (or a young company, anyway). And while many have cut jobs, these microbusinesses are holding up better to this point than many tech titans.”

Dawn Foster writes “Instead of music, I fill my iPod with audio podcasts. I don’t watch the news on TV or listen to the radio, so I rely on podcasts as my primary way to consume some types of news (blogs and feeds are also a big part of how I consume information). I use iTunes subscriptions, which allow my podcasts to automagically appear on my computer every day, and I sync my iPod first thing in the morning so that it is ready at all times.”

Adam DuVander writes “We had ten excellent gatherings in 2008. New Year’s Day seems like an apporiate time to look back, as we get excited for 2009.”

Dawn Foster writes “I was looking at my Google Analytics for 2008, and I thought it would be fun to share some of the info.”

Selena Deckelmann writes “Audrey started a meme that I liked – so here’s my answers…”

Audrey Eschright looks back at a busy—and successful—2008.

Dawn Foster looks back at 2008 and plans for 2009.

Aaron Hockley recaps his achievements in 2008.

Via the Vidoop blog “The OpenID Foundation just announced the results of the annual board elections and two of Vidoop’s employees voted in: Chris Messina and Scott Kveton. Chris was elected to a two year term and Scott a one year term. In addition to the OpenID Foundation elections, Scott Kveton has just joined the Board of Directors for the Software Association of Oregon for the 2009 term.”

Mike Rogoway writes “Through November, Oregon’s high-tech employment was down 2,400 jobs from a year earlier. That decline, 4.1 percent, is the sector’s steepest fall since February 2004. Here’s a look back at who took the hits.”

Beer and Blog expands to another city known for its beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

Via WebVisions “WebVisions is now accepting submissions for sessions, panels and workshops for WebVisions 2009, which will be held from May 20-22, at the Oregon Convention Center. Submissions are due by December 31.”

Mediachick writes “Recently Justin and I talked about what the first part of 2009 should look like for Beer and Blog, and Oh! It’s an impressive list: better use of the WordPress MU for the chapter blogs; development of docs to assist new Beer and Blog chapters in getting up and running quickly; and Beer and Blog badges for members to use on their sites, as well as members-only perks. There are also plans to make Beer and Blog swag available in late February. Yay!”

Chris Messina and Scott Kveton of Vidoop and Brian Kissel of JanRain have been elected to the OpenID Foundation Board

Via Forbes “Ken Westin will help you find your stolen BlackBerry–and give you an opportunity to mess with the thief who pinched it. His company, GadgetTrak, a Portland, Ore.-based computer security firm, develops software that gives you remote access to a missing gadget.”

We’ll bring the cocoa, you bring your arm! Because of the snow and the holidays our donor numbers have seriously dropped this week. We’re in need of intrepid, kind-hearted souls who would like to spend an hour this Christmas Eve giving blood. You’ll be warmly rewarded with cookies, hot cocoa, and the company of fellow Twitter friends.

Dawn Foster writes “Many of you already noticed that I have started blogging on GigaOM’s WebWorkerDaily site. Thank you so much for all of the congratulations, well wishes, comments, and more. The plan is to post an article or two a week on a freelance basis. I even got a head start before I left, so I have a couple more posts in the WebWorkerDaily publish queue that should go out sometime next week.”

Mike Rogoway’s latest installment of positive Silicon Forest news.

Via the Beer and Blog, um, blog “This Friday we’ll get together and toast to 2008 as we enjoy the last official Beer and Blog of the year (although people may still show up on the 26th).”

Via The 451 Group “I was thinking of writing a round-up of the key open source agenda items in 2008 but then I got distracted putting together some graphics, so – two birds with one stone – here’s open source in 2008 in pictures.”

John DeRosa writes “I greatly enjoyed OSCON 2008. But I won’t attend OSCON 2009, because its locale was moved from Portland to San Jose.”

Matt Youell writes “At a local tech discussion here in Portland a couple of weeks ago, one of the attendees said that if Twitter started charging money, he’d move to identi.ca. His rationale was this: software is easy to change but hardware is hard to change. That thought has stayed in my brain for two weeks now. Is software easy to change? No. Absolutely not. That is a flawed premise.”

Dawn Foster writes “People often ask about my favorite technology blogs and podcasts, and I was inspired by the recent ReadWriteWeb post on a similar topic to do a post with a few of my favorites. These are in no particular order.”

VIa Public Radio on Jive Software “Consider this: During the recession of the early 1980’s, Bill Lynch was still in diapers. In the ’90’s recession, he was nerding out in middle school playing computer games. By the time Lynch and his best friend, Matt Tucker, landed jobs in Silicon Valley just out of college, the dot-com boom was well into its heyday and headed for a crash.”

Via the Tarpipe blog “There’s a growing discussion around the Web about the future of OpenID and whether it’s really making lives easier for users. The article ‘OpenID Is Here. Too Bad Users Can’t Figure Out How It Works’ on Webmonkey shows some of the concerns users seem to have about this open authentication mechanism”

Current progress on giving back to Free Geek. Your help is still needed. Here are some examples of how others are helping.

Via ReadWriteWeb Jobwire “Many employees that have been laid off from high-tech companies and software startups are getting other work relatively quickly. One example is Jim Goings, who was Director of IT at Jive Software. Goings announced yesterday that he is now the Director of Technical Support at The Advisory Board Company, Optilink Division.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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….”

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.”