.

WordCamp Portland: WordPress geeking slated for Sept 27

Rick Turoczy on June 27, 2008

WordPressEver been to an unconference? We had one here in Portland at the beginning of May called BarCamp Portland. And during that BarCamp, a number of folks had the opportunity to lead and attend a few sessions on hacking WordPress, the popular open-source blogging and content-management system. Those sessions formed, by design, a mini-version of WordCamp, a series of grassroots, locally managed conferences for WordPress developers.

So how was the mini-WordCamp received?

Well. Very well, in fact. Interest was high. And the discussions were good. (One of the more packed sessions I attended was a WordPress session.) And that got Aaron Hockley to thinking: Maybe we should get rid of the “mini” and have a full-fledged WordCamp.

And guess what? That’s exactly what he’s done.

Announcing WordCamp Portland

Hockley has announced that we will, in fact, have the opportunity to attend a full-fledged WordCamp Portland.

Do you use WordPress? Want to get more out of WordPress? Need some WordPress tips? Well then, mark September 27 on your calendar with a big W. Simply WordPress curious? You’re welcome, as well.

I’m excited. And I know some other folks around town are already champing at the bit to attend WordCamp Portland, as well. Among them, Betsy Richter of the newly launched Our PDX—a WordPress blog, itself:

[I’ve] already blocked September 27th off on my calendar and am volunteering my time to help make this happen – I really loved the energy at BarCamp & am a total WordPress idiot savant (brilliant at some things, not so hot at others), so am thrilled to see this coming together.

As with every unconference, there’s a dire need for three things: sponsors, volunteers, and participants. So, if WordCamp Portland sounds even remotely interesting to you, why not take a second to RSVP on Upcoming to help give the organizers an way to better gauge interest?

Vidoop Troop #3: Portland by way of Tulsa

Rick Turoczy on June 26, 2008

Well, it’s happened quickly, but it’s been fun. As Vidoop has brought various groups of employees up for a tour of their new hometown, we’ve had the pleasure of meeting Vidoop Troops one, two, and—after this Friday’s Beer and Blog—three.

After that, all that’s left is actually getting them moved up here. And that, my friends, is going to a-whole-nother adventure.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We’ve got new Vidoopers to meet and welcome to the Rose City.

Who? I’m glad you asked.

Nick Davis, Founding Software Developer

What? I’m involved in several projects, but tend to focus on designing and developing authentication solutions. I also work on some information security related things when not writing code.

How? Raised in Southeast Oklahoma (Spiro), I moved to Tulsa for college and have been here ever since. I earned my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Computer Science at the University of Tulsa, and did research in secure operating systems (SE Linux) while at TU. I joined Vidoop as a founding member in March 2006. Outside of work, I enjoy hanging out with family and friends, reading, video games, biking, working out, and movies (especially sci-fi/cyberpunk). Recently, I got married to a wonderful girl named Adrienne, who manages to put up with my various technology obsessions (still trying to get her on Twitter 🙂 )

Links? Nick on Myvidoop, Nick on Twitter, Kernel trap, Bruce Schneier’s blog, FreeSCI

Questions about Portland?

  • Good neighborhoods to live for young married couples?
  • Good biking trails in and around the city?
  • What are the best “weird Portland” places that are unique to the city, and what things must I do/see to have the whole Portland experience?
  • What is the best seafood restaurant in the city?

Rachel Garrette, Marketing + Copy Writer

What? I write and edit copy, assist in the development/maintenance of our websites, create and maintain marketing videos as well as other marketing material, work with vendors, etc.

How? Born and bred in Oklahoma, I graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a B.A. in Journalism / Broadcast and Electronic Media. After college, I worked for a couple of years as a video editor at the largest independent sports production company in the U.S., serving clients such as ESPN, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox Sports Net, Discovery, Major League Soccer, and many more. One fateful night in 2006, I met Luke Sontag at a concert. He pitched what then seemed like only an outlandish idea, and it soon came to fruition in the form of Vidoop. A year later, I finally joined the wild ride.

I enjoy music, art, traveling, history, puppies and fireworks (though not fireworks in, on, or under puppies). My favorite food is cereal. I love a good estate sale. I despise banana flavored taffy, and I’m the clumsiest person you’ll meet. I have an astute adolescent sense of humor eloquently coupled with a love for corny jokes. My Boston Terrier, Henry, can’t wait to explore Portland’s parks.

Links? FreeIndie.com, @rachelpalooza

Questions about Portland?

  • I’m having trouble finding a rental property in the NW district that accepts dogs. What gives?! Any suggestions?
  • Where is the best place to go for a run outdoors?
  • Where is the best place to hear live music outdoors?
  • What is the best place to get your hair cut?

Adam Kuert, Lead Web Developer

What? Attend a meeting, write some code, upgrade a server, accidentally delete a vital directory, restore from backup…you know, the usual life of a web dev.

How? Got a degree in Computer Science; realized programming was slightly more complicated than TI-83 BASIC. Ran my own company from 2 years, escaped to find job security, found… another startup. When I’m not coding, you can find me on the soccer field pretending I didn’t get cut from the team in High School. I Lived in Kenya for 18 years and I’m hoping Portland weather is just like Kenya’s: when it’s not raining…it’s perfect.

Links? http://adam.kuert.net

Questions about Portland?

  • Is the weather really as great as hear? Or does everyone trudges through the rest of the year just waiting for summer to return? [Editor: Truth be known, it’s really more of a “slog” than “trudge.”]
  • Do people actually ‘ski or go to the beach only 90 minutes away’ or is that just a sales pitch for getting people like me to move? [Editor: We have a beach 90 minutes away? Oh wait. I mean, yes.]

Steven Osborn, Founding Software Developer

What? I built the first prototype of our ImageShield technology and since then I’ve worked on nearly every project conceived at Vidoop. Currently working on alien browser plug-in technology to take over the world.

How? I’ve lived in the Tulsa area most of my life, excluding a short tour to Afghanistan. I previously worked for a healthcare software company developing web applications. I’m involved in just about every technology group in Tulsa including Tulsa PHP, Python, Ruby, and even .NET and Java which means I have access to more free pizza than any human can safely consume in their lifetime. Some technologies I’m currently excited about: Django, Python, Android and Mercurial.

Links? Steven’s Blog, Steven’s Twitter, Steven’s LinkedIn

Questions about Portland?

  • I have a 18mo son who was born 16 weeks premature. Does Oregon offer a program similar to SoonerStart? (They send out therapists on a regular basis to check up on his progress regularly free of charge.)
  • Are there any outstanding childcare facilities?
  • What are your favorite fun weekend family activities?

John Whitlock, Software Developer

What? Lead of the RecognitionAUTH team, making the backend service that runs myVidoop faster and smarter, then packaging it for licensees. I think in Python, write C++, and study software management.

How? I was raised in Arnold, just south of St. Louis. I begged for a computer, then a Borland C++ compiler, and spent my allowance on programming books. I got an electrical engineering degree from the University of Tulsa, because I wanted to dive one level deeper into computers. However, code mistakes are less painful than electrical mistakes, so I put away the soldering iron and stuck with programming. I worked for 8 years at a flight simulation company, helping to make pilot training simulators and learning
more Fortran than I ever wanted. When my company started to dissolve, I was surprised to find a web startup in our own backyard.

My wife Jennifer is a research librarian, advocating for new technologies to support the information needs of customers. She is also the Foundation Center Coordinator, helping local non-profits find funding. Our daughter Ainsley recently turned four, and confuses Austin and Portland.

Links? Ambient Librarian, John @ Twitter, CppUnit Wiki, ConfIdent Technologies Software Development Kit

Questions about Portland?

  • Where are the good, affordable, all-day child care centers / pre-schools?
  • Was is the difference between Austin and Portland? [Editor: We have better beer. Our parks feature green grass as opposed to dead yellow grass. And our birds know to quiet down at night.]
  • Are earthquakes a problem? Is there something we tornado-dodgers should do to prepare?
  • Can someone please babysit for Corin so that Sleater-Kinney can put out another album?

How can I meet Vidoop Troop #3?

Well, the place to meet and greet the past two troops seems as good of a place as any don’t you think? C’mon down to Beer and Blog on Friday afternoon. We’ll be back at one of our favorite haunts: the Green Dragon. That’s right. Not that other place. The Green Dragon. You know. The one where they have more than one bartender? Yeah, that one. Let me give you one more nemonic device to remember that: Green Dragon.

And no Justin Kistner, this week. And no substitute appointed.

Looking forward to seeing you and the last flight of the Vidoopers there.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for June 25

Rick Turoczy on June 25, 2008

Why Web 2.0 Is No Bubble: Corporations Are Willing to Pay for It – The Groundswell Effect

From Harvard Business “Everyone seems to want an answer to the question ‘When will Web 2.0 startups start making money?’ The implication is that unless we can answer the question, the ‘bubble’ of Web 2.0 will burst and all of us who believe in this stuff will be revealed as fantasists. The fact is, it’s incredibly hard to make money as a Web 2.0 startup aimed at consumers.”

Social Networking; Bubble or Bankable?

From Fast Company Buzz “And since Fast Company Buzz is all about finding out whose doing what and what’s working, I talked with the CEOs of two companies that are riding the bubble all the way to the bank. Michael Berkley CEO of SplashCast Media, a company that distributes branded content channels in social networks, explained how his company creates effective and profitable advertising on Web 2.0 platforms like Facebook. Mike said, ‘If you want to advertise to the social media crowd you need to make sure you do a couple of things…'”

Help Me Understand Techmeme and Their Selection Process

Jason Harris writes “Techmeme is, by and large, a fantastic way to stay up on the present buzz occurring in the tech blogosphere. However, I’m confused at how the system works so I’m hoping to shed some light on the subject with this post and the conversation that ensues. In talking to other blogging friends, I’m not the only one who is curious about this subject.”

Lighthouse member/invites system gets some love

Will writes “Last Wednesday, we took Lighthouse offline to deploy some bug fixes and give it some serious feature love. Our original intention was to blog about the new features the next morning so that users would wake up to something pretty cool, but we got a little sidetracked tweaking some last minute details. Now we owe our users a blog post, so without further ado…”

Clicky releases new weekly and monthly views for all data

Via the Clicky blog “When we introduced the new line graphs, one key feature of Clicky was removed because it was quite challenging to implement in this new flash software, and we didn’t want major differences between the two different views. Also, I was feeling lazy.”

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Internet Strategy Forum Summit: Gaining momentum

Rick Turoczy on June 25, 2008

Internet Strategy Forum Summit 2008The Internet Strategy Forum Summit, the homegrown Portland event that focuses on “a diverse array of important and complementary strategy areas including general digital strategy, social media strategy, personalized marketing, e-commerce, email marketing and customer metrics,” is drawing ever closer. Only a few weeks remain until the fifth incarnation of the event, July 17 and 18.

This year’s Summit promises to draw a wide-range folks from out-of-town. But more importantly, it’s drawing an all-star line up of speakers, including:

But it’s not just the Summit that’s gaining traction. The Internet Strategy Forum (ISF), the group of Internet professionals on the corporate side of the desk for which the Summit serves as an opportune annual meeting, has been growing by leaps and bounds. In fact the ISF is on track to double its membership—doubling since December 2007.

Considering that it took the organization three-and-a-half years to grow to 850 screened members, adding another 850 in six months is impressive, to say the least.

Interested in attending the Internet Strategy Forum Summit and getting a chance to see all the cool folks listed above, firsthand? You’re in luck. Silicon Florist readers are entitled to a 10% discount on their Internet Strategy Forum Summit registration. Simply enter the discount code FLORIST.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for June 24

Rick Turoczy on June 24, 2008

Future of this site: PortlandSmallBusiness.com

Kevin Spence writes “PortlandSmallBusiness will be a year old in August. I’m trying to figure out how to make the time working on this site worthwhile. There are aspects of this site that I enjoy but it has cut into my livelihood over the past year. I decided early on that this site would be distinct from my primary business (not a blog promoting that business) and should stand on its own. I’ve enjoyed some success growing the site but I’m not sure how to be make the site worthwhile to users and myself.”

OpenID, The Chicken or the Egg

Eric Nelson writes “Us Intrigees have hopped on the OpenID bandwagon. For me personally, becoming involved in the Portland community and companies like Vidoop and JanRain have really opened my eyes to the prospects and work going on with this piece of technology. Most of the conversations I hear about OpenID revolve around usability, including our own Nathan Bell’s thoughts on putting OpenID in the browser. However, I myself am not a tech guy, and see a bigger issue with adoption that needs to be addressed by those of us in the believer category, making it relevant to the majority of users.”

Announcing The Substance Summit

David Lowe-Rogstad writes “The first in a series of conversations with the Portland creative community to help each other understand how we can be more inclusive, collaborative and effective. We have been inspired by Portland’s creative technology community (Legion of Tech and Silicon Florist to name a few) to help facilitate an environment where we share ideas and create a place that draws the best talent and the best clients to Portland to get the best creative work possible.”

Web Worker Daily: Use Your OpenID via Email

From Web Worker Daily “We’ve looked with some skepticism on OpenID in the past. Nevertheless, as more sites accept OpenID for login, it’s worth knowing about advances in the field. One recent change is the introduction of Emailtoid (that’s email-to-id, not some sort of android), which allows you to use your email address anywhere that you could use an OpenID.”

OEN Blog: “Rogues and Renegades” (aka entrepreneurs) for the 15th Annual OEN Tom Holce Awards for Entrepreneurial Achievement

The Oregon Entrepreneurs Network has selected thirteen “Rogues and Renegades” (aka entrepreneurs) for the 15th Annual OEN Tom Holce Awards for Entrepreneurial Achievement. Finalists and award winners will be recognized during the event at the Oregon Convention Center on September 18, 2008. Congrats to all of the nominees!

Is Twitter Changing Real Life Social Interactions?

Corvida writes “Last week I had the pleasure of flying out to Portland for Ignite Portland 3. I had a fabulous time and met some really awesomesauce people including one of my biggest idols Marshall Kirkpatrick, fellow Grand Effect Network member and now team writer for ReadWriteWeb, Frederic of The Last Podcast, and a host of other people that I’ll mention in another post that’s all about the trip to Portland. What I’m going to talk about in this post is what occurred at the after party hosted by Strands at Imbibe. “

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Fast Wonder Dawn Foster launches consulting practice

Rick Turoczy on June 24, 2008

If you’ve had the opportunity to attend any Portland tech events over the past year or so, it’s highly likely that you’ve come in contact with some of the handiwork of Dawn Foster. Chair of the Legion of Tech and a staunch advocate of the Portland startup tech and unconference scene, Dawn’s influence has been a critical ingredient in BarCamp Portland, Ignite Portland, the Legion of Tech Happy Hours, Portland Lunch 2.0, any number of Jive Software events, Portland is Awesome… the list goes on and on.

And now that Dawn has announced that she’s leaving Jive, some of that magic touch is for hire:

Recently, I’ve seen a number of companies struggling with how to get more savvy about social media and interacting with online communities. My focus will be on providing consulting services to help guide companies in developing a comprehensive social media and community engagement strategy. I will help companies engage with their community both online and offline to help generate buzz around their products. I can also help companies find, monitor, and respond to what others are saying about them online.

No doubt, Dawn’s expertise will be highly sought. I’m looking forward to her continued success on the other side of the desk and would like to, again, congratulate her on this exciting new endeavor.

For more, see Fast Wonder Consulting or for a (now slightly dated) bio, see Dawn Foster on Portland on Fire.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for June 23

Rick Turoczy on June 23, 2008

Microsoft’s First Step In Accepting OpenID SignOns – HealthVault

Jason Kincaid writes “Over 16 months after first declaring its support for the OpenID authentication platform, Microsoft has finally implemented it for the first time, allowing for OpenID logins on its Health Vault medical site. Unfortunately, Health Vault will only support authentication from two OpenID providers: Trustbearer and Verisign. Whatever happened to the Open in OpenID?” Concerns are also raised about security, and Vidoop is mentioned as one of the companies improving the security.

Ignite Portland 3 photos from Aaron Hockley of Hockley Photography

Relive Ignite Portland 3, or see it for the first time, through the eye of Aaron Hockley.

Speaking at Velocity Conference : Cloud Four

Jason Grigsby writes “I’m speaking today at the Velocity Conference in San Francisco. Back in 2003 when John and I spent weeks working on performance, we never thought performance would reach the point where a whole conference would be focused on it. It’s an amazing thing.”

Platial News and Neogeography: A Glimpse Of The World Around Me

Di-Ann Eisnor writes “So, where does Platial/Frappr go from here? That’s what we’re thinking about these days. Maybe you are thinking about where you go now as well. In case you are, I thought I’d share a few ideas from The Art Of Travel that are helping me rediscover the original spark of our work.”

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Our PDX Network: You can’t keep a good team down

Rick Turoczy on June 23, 2008

Our PDXNot so long ago, there used to be a Portland team blog that I read multiple times a day. Great voices. Great insights. And a really, truly great team vibe.

They had meetups, they had banter with their readers, and—most importantly—they had Portland paying attention.

Not only did I want to read the blog, I wanted to write for them. To comment. To be part of the vibe. To be part of that team. To be part of that talent that was doing a better job of keeping Portland informed—for free. Better, in fact than many of the paid journalists in town.

And then, much to my chagrin, that blog stumbled. Badly.

And the worst part of it was that it had nothing to do with the writers, nothing to do with teamwork, and absolutely nothing to do with Portland. It had to do with the fact that they were part of a much larger network that had less concern about the Portland site than they did the network as a whole. And they made some mistakes.

And now, it seems like ages since we’ve had that vibe. The blog never recovered. They lost the team except for a few who stuck around. They lost the banter by implementing an oppressive comment system. The list goes on and on.

And since then, it’s been some irreparable shell of a blog, mocking its former instantiation, dribbling out half-hearted and insipid posts on an irregular basis.

And Portland sat. Waiting for the voices to return. Or for someone to pick up the torch.

But now, that wait is over.

Our PDX Network charts a new path

I hear you. Whoa whoa whoa, Mr. Sourpuss. Don’t start my Monday morning off on such a depressing note. Geez.

Okay.

How about this, sunshine? They’re back! Meet Our PDX. It’s going to be good, so add it to your feed reader, right now.

“Last Saturday, a local story dropped in my lap. But I had no outlet,” said Betsy Richter, the driving force behind Our PDX. “And, I got frustrated about the fact that I didn’t have much of a local presence any more (Twitter notwithstanding). So, I bought a couple of domains. And sent off email to a few people, asking for a review/feedback.”

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Now, it’s not the entire team, but it is a good chunk of the team. Richter, Dieselboi, PAgent… they’re putting the band back together.

Now bear in mind, it’s not a repeat of their former existence. This isn’t a “2.0” of the prior site, by any means. No, my friends, it promises to be better. Way better.

By Portland and for Portland, Our PDX promises to be a true hub of Portland news and happenings. You’ll see content developed by the Our PDX authors, but you’ll also see a great deal more. They’ll be working to aggregate publicly accessible media from throughout Portland, be that via Twitter streams or RSS feeds.

And they’ve really focused on getting the conversation going, again. Which is a very, very good thing.

Based on what I’ve heard about their vision, I’m excited. And I think it could really become that hub of activity for Portland that we’ve all been seeking.

Long story short, Our PDX will truly be a community blog.

I know that these folks know how to do it right. And I’m really looking forward to having them back.

Please join me in welcoming them back from their respective sabbaticals.

I can’t wait to see where this goes.

For more information, visit Our PDX and join in the conversation.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for June 22

Rick Turoczy on June 22, 2008

Announcing Emailtoid: mapping email addresses to OpenIDs | FactoryCity

Chris Messina writes “The other night at Beer and Blog in Portland, fellow Vidooper Michael T Richardson announced and launched a new service that I’m both excited and a little apprehensive about.”

Ignite Portland 3: An Event Review « Link En Fuego

Bram Pitoyo writes “But to tell you the truth, I’m having a hard time deciding between what got me more excited about Ignite Portland: the wonderful presentation lineup, or the fact that I get to meet and connect with so many Twitter friends in real life?”

Twitter…Three Months Later

Andres writes “The tweets that I find most valuable are those in which someone either a) shares a URL to something worth checking out (e.g., geospatial news, a blog post, practical content, or videos that clearly show why John McCain is a complete dumbass), b) asks a technical or theoretical question that engages others, c) provides a collaborative discourse, or d) ‘re-tweets’ a valuable tweet by someone that I may not be following.”

What I Believe: My 10 Web and Blogging Expectations

In his usual brilliance, Louis Gray does a great job of capturing many of the reasons that I started Silicon Florist. He writes “Sometimes, when I talk to people about why I blog, and what I set out to accomplish through covering what I do, and engaging where I do, I say that I am trying to help shape the Web, and blogging as a whole, to be what I want it to be – a better community with some strong standards for engagement, ownership, news gathering and innovation.”

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for June 21

Rick Turoczy on June 21, 2008

A Two-part Rule for Naming Your Startup

I honestly don’t even know where to begin here. But it mentions Vidoop, so I’m including it. Beyond that, it has some redeeming value as one of the most brilliant examples of absolute puffery and non-sequitur logic I’ve seen in some time. Of course, there’s always the possibility that it’s simply an ingeniously crafted trap, too.

Portland MetroFi: Coming Down

Sam Churchill writes “I’m sorry to see it go. I’m using MetroFi’s ‘free’ service in Portland right now, and posting this story using it. The wireless service has been good enough for me not to abandon it. Many of the early glitches seemed to have been resolved (for me at least).”

New LinkedIn group for Portland Oregon technology people – join us!

Greg Hughes writes “Jeff Martens had an idea, one I had been thinking similarly about – but he vocalized it first (or ‘tweeterized it’ might be more accurate). I jumped right in and created a new LinkedIn group called ‘PDX Tech,’ a networking group for people in the Portland, Oregon general area who work in what we will loosely define as the technology marketplace. “

FOSSCoach at OSCON 2008

FOSSCoach is a series of events designed to share and improve the essential skills required to participate in collaborative, free and open online projects like Firefox® and Wikipedia. The first FOSSCoach session will be held from July 23-25 in Portland, Oregon, USA as a part of OSCON 2008. Participation is free.

Now Featuring the FriendFeed Plugin

Jake Kuramoto writes “Commenting on FriendFeed opens the conversation normally reserved to your blog readers to others in the extended network. However, the conversation becomes fragmented as some people comment on FriendFeed and others comment directly on the blog post. A few months ago, Glenn Slaven (thanks!) wrote a WordPress plugin to unite the comments in a single view, and I’ve finally got it installed and running here on our little blog. “

Portland Says C’est La Vie To Wi-Fi Shutdown

From InformationWeek “As expected, municipal Wi-Fi network provider MetroFi is switching off its free Wi-Fi service in Portland, as well as smaller projects in California and Illinois. The company ceased expansion of its existing networks last fall and said earlier this year that they would be shut down if no buyers emerged. Portland wireless chief Logan Kleier, who was instrumental in getting the MetroFi deal signed and underway, responded in surprisingly philosophical fashion to the project’s end. “

Good night all | Portland Metblogs

I would have commented on this post, but I had to login to do so. Buh dum bah. Oh settle down. I’m only kidding. Glad to see Brett (dieselboi) moving on to greener pastures. I’m looking forward to seeing this new effort flourish. I’m also looking forward to providing more details on that new home, next week.

View all my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia

1 … 558 559 560 561 562 … 611
×