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Category: Links

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for January 29

Masterbacon contest is real heart-stopper – OregonLive.com

Via The Oregonian “To pay homage to their favorite pork product and win golden piggy trophies, 32 competitors showed up with tin-foiled pans of their beloved ‘meat candy’ dishes, ready to impress, boast and barter.”

LinuxCon 2009 Portland

Via the Linux Foundation “LinuxCon is a new annual technical conference that will provide an unmatched collaboration and education space for all matters Linux. LinuxCon will bring together the best and brightest that the Linux community has to offer, including core developers, administrators, end users, community managers and industry experts. In being the conference for ‘all matters Linux,’ LinuxCon will be informative and educational for a wide range of attendees. We will not only bring together all of the best technical talent but the decision makers and industry experts who are involved in the Linux community.”

Looking forward: SiOnyx, Iovation, RNA & more – Silicon Forest

Mike Rogoway covers the positive news coming out of the Silicon Forest this week.

Ignite Portland 5! (…oh, i think i’m gonna be sick) | Positively Glorious!

John Metta writes “The line-up for Ignite Portland is in, and yours truly is on the freight train headed straight for Public Humiliation, USA. I think this must be some kind of payback or revenge for laughing so hard when Cami Kaos went on about ‘her bluff being called.’ There I was, sitting with A.J. and Jon laughing it up. ‘Ha!’ I said, ‘She sent an idea as a joke and totally got called on it!’ Now here I am with waves of nausea spreading over me. Why? Because payback’s a bitch.”

From Planned Obsolescence to Community Innovation

Wende Morgaine writes “Are you worried about technology and information literacy in K12 and higher ed? If you are, I say, let’s get together. Let’s brainstorm. Let’s come up with one idea, or 100 ideas. And let’s implement something. Portland is a tech haven and heaven. Its an open source mecca. And we have the most engaged tech community (possibly in the world.) Let’s implement something great and create a model for school revitalization that will be copied in cities the nation over. We live in Portland. From our transportation to our city government to our tech community we create the kind of innovations that is studied and copied all the time. Yes we can. I am thinking we should meet each other at Ignite5 and plan our first brainstorming meeting in March 2009.”

FiveEdge Media has officially joined the Innerecho family!

Portland’s FiveEdge Media (John Weiss of Refresh Portland fame) gets adopted by innerecho “FiveEdge Media and Innerecho were both founded at about the same time with the same values: we believed in small teams, personal relationships, and the power of great experience design. This was not merely a coincidence. We the founders had actually begun a friendship five years prior.”

Hungry Nerds Flock to Lunch 2.0 – Social Dining for Fun and Profit

Amber Case writes “Are you into tech? Do you want to meet other tech types? Are you tired of eating lunch with the same people? Well you can meet a bevy of interesting people just like you if you attend a Lunch 2.0 event. Here in Portland, 100-150 Nerds flock to a local tech company to eat, greet, get clients, get hired, find employees, and exchange memes. Basically, it rocks—-nerd-style.”

Social Media and the Open Web

Tim Sears writes “Our personal web footprint really is no longer just what we blog about, but is really a collection of our interactions across various social media. I can see this being the future of blogs, in that they are no longer blogs at all, but rather centralized portals to the content that person contributes across the web. The first natural question to this is how do you manage the firehose of content that we each contribute to social media every day? If people wanted to read every tweet you make, wouldn’t they just follow you on Twitter? This is where tags and hashtags come into play, in that we find meaning and value in content we contribute through the metadata we and others provide with it. It’s machine-readable, so it’s easy to process.”

11870.com and Strands partner to offer the best personalized recommendations of services and places

Via Strands “We are happy to announce that Strands is partnering with the Spanish start-up 11870.com to offer the best personalized recommendations of services and places to their users. 11870.com, the European equivalent to Yelp, is used for people to save, share and keep track of the places and services they like around the world through reviews, pictures and videos.”

How Ignite Portland Presentations are Selected

Aaron Hockley writes “With the fifth incarnation of Ignite Portland coming up in a few weeks, one issue surrounded in a bit of mystery is the process used to select the presenters. With far more entries than speakers (Ignite Portland 5 had over 80 submissions with less than 20 chosen to speak), many people wonder why they weren’t chosen or how the field is narrowed.”

What Twitter could have given Sam, and Portland | Our PDX Network

Abraham Hyatt writes “Late last month, when the whole Gov. Blagojevich indictment situation was threatening to taint Barack Obama’s transition, two writers at the Politico put together a list of “five rules of scandal response” that the president-to-be had intentionally, or unintentionally, imposed on his staff. Rule No. 1 was simple: ‘Be transparent, to an extent.’ Sam Adams didn’t get that memo. As the opening days of the Breedlove scandal unfolded, Adams hid. He hid from the press, from his critics and from his city. And it’s too bad, because whether you support the mayor or not, he had an incredible communications tool at his fingertips: his Twitter account.”

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for January 28

Startup funding ideas for tough times

Via TiE “Finding the money to invest in your startup is tough even in normal times. With the global economic climate being what it is today this task is even harder. How do you find the right funding in this environment? Join our experienced group of Venture Capitalists – Venky Ganesan – Managing Director of Globespan Capital, Carolynn Duncan – Micro-business expert and subject matter expert in VC /Angel funding & Bobby Kandaswamy – Director Strategic Investments at Intel Capital on Feb 5th to discuss the best ways of funding your company in a downturn. “

Thanks to everybody who attended Recked. Presentations are now available!

Via the Strands blog “Thanks to everybody who attended Recked, the informal event for engineers interested in recommender systems. It was awesome. And thanks to Robert Gaal for putting the event together. You can find the three presentations (Strands, Wakoopa and Reccoon) below.”

Master of 500 Hats: Great Entrepreneurs are PASSIONATE about Customers & Products, NOT about being Great Entrepreneurs.

Dave McClure writes “I DO hope some of you young-ass whippersnappers get your heads out of your collective asses and get a little more practical about what you’re likely to encounter should you decide to do your own startup. and a little more real about what you may face at the end of a rough hand of poker.”

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for January 27

Will digital history simply disappear?

Via Iterasi “Referring back to the article in the Guardian, the iterasi archive has 29 pages on Whitehouse.gov from the Bush administration and zero pages of the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia. On the former, hey that’s 29 pages that perhaps don’t exist anywhere else on the Web. I can’t feel too bad about not having web pages from the 2000 Olympics as we started iterasi in 2007. So if you use iterasi, realize that you are also a librarian and a historian. So go forth and save the Web! Someone in the future may benefit from your efforts.” (FULL DISCLOSURE: Iterasi is a client of mine.)

Test site fixed! | Oregon Blogs

Via the Oregon Blogs ORBlogs 2.0 blog “Please go ahead and create yourself an account, add plenty of (appropriate) feeds, file issues for anything that is broken or otherwise obviously wrong, and chat us up on the mailing list with ideas for improvement! Please don’t be shy, we need as many people beating on this thing and providing feedback as we can get!”

86 IP5 Talk Ideas Submitted. Those Chosen Notified Soon. at Ignite Portland

Via Ignite Portland “We received a record 86 talk idea submissions for Ignite Portland 5 (we usually get around 50). There was a definitely ‘bathtub curve’ to when they came in – lots were submitted right after Ignite Portland 4, when lots of people surely thought ‘I should do a talk about *subject*.’ Then there was a lull, and, as usual, a nice big rush of submissions right before the deadline. You Portlanders sure are a bunch of procrastinators. ;-)”

Portland Data Plumbing User Group 1/27/2009

Footage from the Portland Data Plumbing User Group on January 27, 2009, featuring Marshall Kirkpatrick and his RSS magic.

Group widgets & Facebook integration

Via the Walker Tracker blog “Facebook Connect is now implemented (at least barebones – likely more to come, here). If you post your steps, you’ll see a button that will allow you to post your daily step count/blog post/picture to your Facebook feed if you have a facebook account.”

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for January 26

 

Online Community Manager: Yes, It’s Really A Job

Dawn Foster writes “I have also noticed that online community management positions tend to be weathering the current economic downturn better than some other jobs. Community managers are still being hired on a regular basis, and I’m still seeing openings on various job boards for companies looking to hire community managers. Here are just a couple of examples of companies who are currently looking for or have recently hired a community manager….”

Portland Twitter Storm Team #pdxtst – Explained

Aaron Hockley provides a quick history of the local Twitter meme.

SLL: beer & blog, oh and a podcast too | Our PDX Network

Cami Kaos writes “Friday night we had the distinct pleasure of chatting with Beer & Blog’s Justin Kistner for round about 4 hours. Now we didn’t record all of it but we went over time on both the tech edition and afterhours because we all had so much to say. Justin was an excellent guest and he’s welcome back anytime. We were also joined by his lovely wife Christine and Strange Love Live and Beer & Blog regular Verso.”

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for January 23

Amid Economic Downturn, Tech Industry Struggles

The News Hour with Jim Lehrer featured a number of Portland, Oregon, companies in a segment on the tech industry’s trials and tribulations, including Ambric, Elemental, and TriQuint.

Getting Things Done | Oregon Blogs

From the ORBlogs 2.0 team “I feel like we have been stalling a bit, so I have done a few things recently to try to make the development process more transparent, as well as easier for anyone who wants to just jump in and do what they can, but may have been stymied by not knowing where to start.”

Looking forward: Keiretsu Forum, Tektronix, InnoTech – Silicon Forest – The Oregonian – OregonLive.com

Mike Rogoway digs for some positive news on a less than positive week.

Federal Reserve, designed by Pietro Belluschi, gets renovation

Via Daily Journal of Commerce “Also altering The Reserve is a new, 13,000-square-foot penthouse that was built on top of the original building. Taking advantage of the building’s view of the city, Hennebery Eddy designed the penthouse with floor-ceiling windows and a wrap-around porch with a continuous overhang to provide shade and block intense sunlight. Once it’s completed this week, the $5 million penthouse will belong to tenant Jive Software, which has occupied the building’s third and fourth floors since May 2008.”

Who Wants a Free Web Application?

Via the Symfony Project “Looking for something to do with all that brain power? We’re happy to announce an upcoming community event that will harness the power of the symfony community toward a variety of social causes. Help us get the word out! This event will take on the basic structure of other 48 hour web application development competitions, such as Rails Rumble, but with a special twist unique to symfony. The applications we create during the course of the competition will be gifted to different socially-minded organizations around the world. Once the fun is over, our work will live on and hopefully do a lot of good.”

Nerdabout Portland : Open Tech Space

Amber Case writes “There’s just one little problem. You live in a house. You work at an office or coffeeshop. There’s no really large space with tons of powertools, saws, and electronic equipment nearby. Your garage is lacking a 9′ wood lathe, and the basement has no more room for electronics. Enter Open Tech Space.”

OpenID Case Study: AFI Begin Transmission Project

Via the JanRain blog “We’ve been building a portfolio of OpenID case studies and just finished one that is pretty exciting, so wanted to share it with the community. AFI is a leading rock band with an exciting approach to fan engagement – a competition for six fans to perform on their next album.”

Elan3.com : Plenty of Layoffs But No Hiring Freeze

Tim Sears writes “Despite this dark news we keep seeing in companies across the tech industry, I keep asking myself if things are really as bad as they seem. Microsoft is actually still hiring a large number of Software Development Engineers – over 150, in fact – to help grow and support a variety of their different product platforms. Some positions were posted as recently as today. Intel, on the other hand, does not have anywhere near as many position openings, but there is no clear evidence of a hiring freeze.”

The iPhone App Store Gold Rush

Jason Grigsby writes “Don’t get me wrong. There are a lot of good applications being built based on solid business plans. And after evangelizing mobile for so long, I’m pleased that people are excited about the possibilities. It’s just important to recognize that it is a gold rush. During a gold rush, there is a lot of money to be made. But the part that makes it a rush is the irrational exuberance of the chase.”

Nerdabout Portland : Top Ten Places to Find Tech Nerds

Amber Case writes “Need help with your software project? Looking for a logo or WordPress hack? Interested in some of the brightest minds in Portland Tech? Whether you’re looking for community, coffee, or Wifi, Portland Tech hangouts abound. I’ve compiled a list of the top ten Portland Tech hangouts and what they’re like. If you’re in the area, make sure to stop by, or follow me on Twitter @caseorganic and I’ll give you tips on where we’re going to be next. “

Tech Strategy 2009: More for Less at Lucky Lab beer hall (Tuesday January 27, 2009) – Upcoming

Via NTEN “This meeting will be talking overall tech strategy. Do you have a technology plan in place? What types of things should you be thinking of? We’re going to take a look at the big picture and help you see what ways you can be using technology to make your nonprofit’s work more efficient. This will be a joint meetup with the Nonprofit Technology Network’s, Portland 501 Tech Club. Speaker details are still being finalized but be sure it will be some great local tech talent!” (Don’t be so sure. It’s me.)

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for January 22

Top 10 Tech Companies to Work For in Portland, Oregon

Amber Case writes “I’m putting together a list of Top 10 Tech Companies to Work for In Portland, Oregon and I need your advice. If I don’t get your advice, I’ll probably choose the wrong ones. After all, I’m not capable of knowing which ones are the best to work for — you are. And while I’ve consulted with many interesting Portland Tech Companies (this excludes design companies, which will be covered in a later roundup), I don’t have the inside perspective that you can provide.”

Las Vegas Weekly : – Suds and buds

Thanks to Justin Kistner, Portland’s Beer and Blog is all growed up. Via Las Vegas Weekly “As with most things that come to Vegas, Beer & Blog originated somewhere else, in this case Portland, Oregon. Last Thursday, Justin Kistner, the founder of Beer & Blog, was on hand (beer in hand) for the Vegas inaugural, held at the Freakin’ Frog. And, as is so often not the case, Vegas got into Beer & Blog early enough to be almost at the vanguard. “We started January 16, 2008,” Kistner says. ‘And now there are five cities.’ Three are in Oregon, and the fourth is St. Louis. Vegas is No. 5.”

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for January 21

1 year anniversary, job fair, and 15 Seconds of Flame, oh my! at Beer and Blog Portland

Via Beer and Blog “This Friday we’re going to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of our first Beer and Blog meet up. Naturally, this calls for a celebration!! So, we’re going to have a cake and maybe some party hats.”

SXSW Interactive Rocks Portland’s Tech Community | SXSW.com

Via the SXSW Interactive blog “Last night, Portlanders turned out to meet, greet, socialize, nibble, and talk about the state of tech in general and SXSW Interactive specifically…. Portland truly proved it is a sister city to Austin last night, and we have the feeling this is only the beginning of a beautiful friendship!”

Engaging the Mobile Market with iPhone Web Apps

Via StepChange Group “Some of our own data shows that average times spent viewing an iPhone web app (versus, say, a similarly focused widget targeted for desktop browsers) is noticeably lower. This isn’t surprising; in fact, it reinforces one of the things we know about mobile users: they’re less likely to be generous with their time. What’s interesting is that the number of actions a user takes per visit is actually slightly higher on an iPhone app, despite the shorter visit times. In short, the growing popularity of mobile browsers gives you another opportunity to engage your users.”

IP5 Talk Idea Clock Goes Tick Tock at Ignite Portland

Via Ignite Portland “Did you know that the deadline to submit a talk idea for Ignite Portland 5 is only about 3 days away? After 11:59 PM PST on Saturday January 24, it’ll be too late. That burning idea in your head wants to be free! It wants to be shared on stage at IP5 with 500 of your closest friends! Head over to the “Submit a Talk” page and set that burning idea free.”

451 CAOS Theory » Obama administration seeks advice on benefits of open source

Via The 451 Group “President Obama has already been positioned as a friend of open source, starting with his support for universally accessible formats, the technology used to run his campaign, and his use of collaboration techniques, not to mention some of his early policy group appointments and his promotion of ‘open source democracy.'”

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for January 20

Get Ready – Tickets to Ignite Portland 5 Become Available Feb. 5 at 10AM at Ignite Portland

Via the Ignite Portland blog “So, to hopefully make the process a little more accessible to everyone, we’re pre-announcing when we’re going to make the free tickets to Ignite Portland 5 available – 10AM PST on Thursday, February 5, 2009. When the time comes, details will be posted here at http://www.igniteportland.com. Make sure you’re subscribed to the feed, and follow @igniteportland on Twitter.”

Why Websites Should Accept Multiple Third Party Identity Account Logins

Via the JanRain blog “There’s been some discussion lately about the ‘competition’ between Facebook Connect and OpenID-based third party authentication. From our experience, its in the best interest of most websites to accept multiple third party authentication solutions, since users may prefer to use a wide variety of accounts to facilitate registration and login. Why would you want to tie the success of your website to only one third party identity provider and risk missing some prospective user registrations or not let your users login with their preferred provider?”

Our Man on the DC Scene

Via OurPDX “Dieselboi’s at the inauguration RIGHT NOW! And while he’s having spotty cell connectivity, I thought I’d throw up one or two links so you can vicariously live through his experiences RIGHT NOW!”

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for January 19

 

Portland’s burgeoning tech scene

Garett Croft Stenson writes “Want to get acquainted with Portland’s under/above ground tech scene? Want to start a tech business in Portland? Maybe network a bit more? Things you might look into/research below.”

ReadWriteWeb on New Zealand’s TV3

Given that ReadWriteWeb has such an established Portland presence, it seems only fitting to share a recent piece on the blog. (If you’re not interested in the other news, feel free to fast forward to about the 12:00 mark.)

TweetDeck’s Funding Shows Good Ideas Can Still Attract Good Money

Take heed Portland. Louis Gray makes a very good point. “The popular Twitter application, which has only been around for just six months’ time, spent very little time in obscurity, jumping out of the gate and racing to the top of the charts, alongside Thwirl and Twitterific. While most of the headlines in the financial space of late have been filled with doom and gloom, Dodsworth’s strike of fortune displays the best apps showing serious momentum can still attract forward-thinking investors.”

Open Source Bridge: Hitting the ground running in 2009

Via the Open Source Bridge blog “Maybe it’s just me, but today seems an especially appropriate day to talk about dreams. While Selena’s and Audrey’s dream might not be as far-reaching as the dreams of Dr. King, it is a significant dream, nonetheless. It’s a dream of an Open Source conference for developers, by developers. An Open Source conference that focuses on being a good Open Source citizen, rather than focusing on the languages in which those citizens choose to code. An Open Source conference where the Open Source culture permeates the entire event—from the composition of the tracks to the volunteer-based management of the event. “

Three Useful Research Tactics I Learned Last Week

Marshall Kirkpatrick writes “I’m always trying to figure out how to get more out of the tools I find online. I spend a lot of time figuring out new ways to discover good sources of information on a wide variety of topics; setting up systems for our writing staff at ReadWriteWeb and for consulting clients through my personal blog. Some of the things I’ve discovered lately I can’t disclose publicly, but here are three I can share. I hope you find them useful.”

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for January 18

It’s Hip to be The Square

Via Strange Love Live “Friday night we were joined in studio by Stephanie Stricklen and Aaron Weiss, the host and Senior Producer (respectively) of KGW’s The Square. It was a full house as fans of both The Square and SLL settled into our little studio audience to see what happens when Newscasters and Podcasters collide.”

New user group checklist

As Audrey Eschright accurately predicted, 2009 is shaping up to be the “Year of the User Group” in Portland. If you’re thinking about starting a user group, Igal Koshevoy has provided some invaluable tips to help you get the group going.

Oregon VC funding held up OK in ’08 – Silicon Forest

Mike Rogoway writes “Given Oregon’s small base of venture activity, neither a single quarter nor a single year can point to a coming trend. But at the least, the state held up OK as the venture markets froze up late in ’08.”

Tweaks of the Week: RSS, Staying Connected, Beta API and More

Via Shizzow “It’s been a long time since our last Tweaks of the ‘Week’ post. With all of the refactoring happening in preparation for the Shizzow API, we held off on deploying anything new on the old code. While the API beta stole most of the thunder during our update this weekend, you might have noticed that we also snuck in a few cool improvements. Again, this is just more proof that we actually read all of the stuff you send us through Get Satisfaction.”