.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for April 20

Rick Turoczy on April 19, 2008

Want a BarCampPortland T-Shirt? Act Now!

Dawn Foster writes “This year we’re asking Portland BarCampers for a small donation if they want an event t-shirt. For a donation of $20, before April 26th, you help support the event (things like the space, food, and supplies) and get an awesome shirt designed by local design group Brash Creative.”

VC investment turns down, especially in Oregon

Mike Rogoway writes “By no means does one quarter constitute a trend — especially in Oregon, where the small sample size makes for high quarter-to-quarter volatility. And Dow Jones VentureSource says it’s too soon to attribute the dip to the national economic slowdown”

It’s official: Venture investment declined in Q1

Venture investment fell 8.5 percent during the first three months of 2008 compared to the final quarter of 2007, according to the new MoneyTree Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association. The report is a big, comprehensive study that reinforces what everyone already kind-of knew, or at least suspected. It tracked a total of 922 venture deals worth $7.1 billion — in terms of dollars, that’s an 8.5 percent drop.

Unix Rockstar Job, CD Baby

CD Baby writes “Small department specializing in digital distribution for independent musicians seeks one laid-back, self-motivated geek to join our growing content delivery team.”

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Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for April 18

Rick Turoczy on April 18, 2008

Five Wrong Ways to Pitch RWW and One Great Way

This is great advice from Marshall Kirkpatrick for any startup looking for coverage from the major tech blogs. And here’s the thing… it works for exceedingly micro blogs like Silicon Florist, too. The first question out of my mouth is usually “Do you have a blog or an RSS feed I can follow?”

Design resources for everyone

Michael Sigler writes “In preparation for my presentation at Beer and Blog I hastily put together this list of useful design resources. I hope people find them helpful. I’m also quite positive I’ve left off quite a few things that are obvious. Please feel free to leave suggestions.”

TannerVision: Updates from the field on EeePC pilots

Via TannerVision “For those keeping up with the status of the ASUS EeePC pilot project, here is some feedback from the teachers actually implementing it. I have included the schools, grades, and subject areas, but not names.”

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Interesting gigs from the Silicon Florist Gig board

Rick Turoczy on April 18, 2008

Okay, okay. These are the only gigs on the Gig board, but that makes them interesting, doesn’t it? Sure it does.

Remember, if you’ve got a gig or 12 you’d like to post, feel free. Literally. Use the discount code freebie to post job openings, contract gigs, gigs you wish you had, internships, or whatever else.

Reminder: Meet OpenID developer David Recordon

Rick Turoczy on April 18, 2008

If you’re like me, you’re a huge fan of the potential of OpenID. (Even though my current implementation continues to malfunction here on Silicon Florist. And that’s my fault, not OpenID.)

And while we get to chat with Scott Kveton, the Vidoop (and now ConfIdent) guys, and the JanRain folks on a regular basis, sometimes it’s nice to get to hear from some of the other leading voices in OpenID development.

That’s why I’m really excited for lunch on Monday with one of the original OpenID developers, David Recordon.

David currently serves as the Vice-Chair of the OpenID Foundation and works as the Open Platforms Tech Lead at SixApart. You may also remember him as a collaborator and editor of Brad Fitzpatrick’s “Thoughts on the Social Graph.”

And to keep this all on the up-and-up as far as Silicon Florist goes, Recordon has Portland ties, as well, having graduated from Catlin Gabel.

If you’ve got time on Monday, come on down to Huber’s for lunch to meet David, Kveton, and a number of other OpenID-o-philes. RSVPs are appreciated so that Huber’s has an idea of how many to expect.

For more information or to RSVP, see A Great Portland Geek Lunch on Upcoming.

Beer and Blog: Michael Sigler will make you pretty

Rick Turoczy on April 18, 2008

[Editor: Due to a slight hiccup with ma.gnolia‘s autopublisher last night, some of the links meant for the “daily arrangement” didn’t quite make it through to you. This one was time sensitive, so I’m posting it manually.]

Just a reminder that today’s Beer and Blog will feature Michael Sigler, lead designer for Jive Software.

Everyone knows that a blog with no images is hell to read. We also know that many times a picture is worth a 1,000 words. As nice as all of that is, most of us are not designers. Well, Michael Sigler is going to show you some tips from the pros about how they make kick-ass images to make posts more inviting.

Rest assured, the irony is not lost on me that there is no image associated with this blog post. So I’ll be trying to make it.

As an added bonus, word is that Justin Kistner, Beer and Blog’s creator, and Sigler will be unveiling the new look and feel for Beer and Blog.

Beer and Blog begins around 4 PM at the Green Dragon. If you’re planning to attend, please RSVP for Beer and Blog on Upcoming.

Vidoop is ConfIdent, Portland gets two for one

Rick Turoczy on April 18, 2008

I’ll have to admit that this one completely slid past me. But luckily I took the opportunity to swing by the Vidoop booth at InnoTech. At which point Kevin Fox and Michael Richardson brought me up to speed.

I blame myself.

When Scott Kveton announced he was joining Vidoop and opening a Portland office, I was pretty excited. Exciting young company. Cool technology. OpenID focus. All good things.

But I never imagined that Portland would be getting two companies out of the deal.

Meet one of Portland’s newest startups: ConfIdent Technologies, the Athena bursting from the head of Zeus spinoff, from Vidoop.

ConfIdent Technologies, a Portland, Oregon-based software technology company, has unveiled a revolutionary secure login authentication technology. RecognitionAUTHâ„¢ promises to change the face of Internet security with a new secure login solution that eliminates passwords, adding a layer of security that is more secure yet intuitive for users to understand, without requiring additional hardware.

But, just so you don’t completely hate me for missing the breaking news, I’ve got something else. I found it buried at the bottom of the Vidoop post, announcing the launch:

Both Vidoop and ConfIdent Technologies LLC will be based in Portland, Oregon.

Obviously, given my myopic view, this could easily be the most exciting part of the announcement. Portland getting a Vidoop office was great news. Portland getting to be Vidoop and ConfIdent Technologies headquarters? That’s a huge step forward for the town and the Portland startup community.

I’ll continue to track and report on this development as more information becomes available.

For more information on Vidoop’s spinoff and the technologies that fall under its purview, visit ConfIdent Technologies. For more on the parent company, visit Vidoop.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for April 18

Rick Turoczy on April 18, 2008

Transmit 3.6.5 released

Steven Frank of Panic writes “Transmit 3.6.5 has been posted to our web site. The main changes are a fixed crasher and numerous S3 improvements, including the ability to create buckets on the European S3 servers.”

Intrigo is Sponsoring Barcamp Portland 2

I can’t tell you how happy I am to have the Intrigo folks up here. Yet another example of why? Okay. Here you go. “The Intrigo Team is proud to sponsor BarCamp Portland. Starting Saturday, May 3, Portland’s tech community will be gathering at CubeSpace for an open forum where we can get together to share and learn. All of us at Intrigo are excited about the opportunity to meet all of the interesting folks, and being a part of the amazing tech community in Portland.”

Portland Neighborhood

A new Ning-based social network for Portland types. “Meet other Portlanders, view Portland pictures, read what’s going on in the blog, and more!”

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Now on tap: Portland Startup Drinks

Rick Turoczy on April 17, 2008

Portland Startup Drinks: Not that they are going to be drinking beer out of a can mind youJust saw that Portland has launched its own chapter of Startup Drinks.

What’s Startup Drinks, you ask? Well, it’s another startup idea from the same folks who brought us—or more accurately will be bringing us—Startup Weekend.

A simple concept: startup culture in cities around the world gathers around a bar to have a pint and discuss what they are working on, what they need help with and what they can do for each other.

Pints and startups? I, honestly, can’t think of anything more Portland than that. Well, okay, maybe Beer and Blog.

Here’s hoping that Portland Startup Drinks will add their get-togethers to Upcoming so we can track them in the Silicon Florist Upcoming group.

Looking forward to seeing where this goes.

Silicon Florist’s links arrangement for April 16

Rick Turoczy on April 16, 2008

Twitter First Posts

Jason Grigsby writes “Many of the most prolific people on Twitter had the same thoughts as people who look at Twitter now and think it won’t work for them. I thought it might be interesting to go back in time and see if they tweeted about their impressions.”

Platial + Widgetbox + Facebook

Tracy Rolling writes “I have been experimenting with using Widgetbox to put Platial Maps on Facebook. I’m working on a little how-to video for everyone, but in the meantime you can try out the ones we have up already.”

Embargoes: Managing the Embargo Process from Either Side of the Desk

If you’re in a startup and are thinking about working with the blogging community to get your news out or if you’re a blogger who would like some guidance on the whole embargo process, I’ve got a series of posts going over on CenterNetworks that may offer some insight. Or not.

The App Engine Sweet Spot

For those of you considering how to add Google’s App Engine to your arsenal, Chris Anderson writes “The App Engine sweet spot is a lot closer to GeoCities than to Joyent. It’s defining characteristic is fire-and-forget, with standardization as a close second. When clients need to add features to an existing application, bringing a new developer up to speed will be even easier than on a Rails project.”

Come see Vidoop at InnoTech Oregon

From the Vidoop blog “Vidoop / ConfIdent Technologiesâ„¢ will be exhibiting at this years InnoTech Oregon. Come see us at booth 506 and learn about our cool online security and identity technologies.”

FIRST Robotics Competition

Akshay Dodeja writes “I have been part of FIRST as a participant, volunteer, mentor and a Judge for the last 8 years now. It has been a big part of my life and its has set the foundation of my passions. There are many people who still don’t know what FIRST exactly does, some have never even heard of it. Ill do my best to explain what FIRST is and how and why I have been involved with it in the past few years.”

NW Education Cluster: Accelerate Oregon

From the Clarity Innovations blog “Come meet us at the next meeting of the NW Education Cluster, April 17th. At the meeting will be a presentation from Accelerate Oregon, a group that’s trying to leverage public and private commitment to Oregon’s K12 education system to improve teaching and learning through the integration of technology.”

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InnoTech Oregon 2008, Day 1

Rick Turoczy on April 16, 2008

The first day of InnoTech Oregon 2008 is officially in the books. And from what I was able to surmise, it’s been a great event. Crowded sessions. Active discussions between the audience and the speakers. Even more active discussions in the hallways.

There’s some good energy in the crowd. And that crowd is pretty diverse. Lots of suits. And lots of tweets.

If you didn’t get a chance to make it over to the Oregon Convention Center today, bear in mind that today was the “light” day. On Thursday, there’s the keynote and the exhibit floor opens, not to mention a whole new slate of sessions.

If you get the chance, head on over.

Still not convinced? Well, here’s some of what you missed, today.

  • There was a very active Twitter contingent at InnoTech, filing 140-character reports and quotes from the event throughout the day. Read through the tweets that were tagged #inno on hashtags or search for “inno” TweetScan.
  • Dawn Foster “Why companies should have online communities“
    “I’m here at Innotech this week, and this question came up on my panel about Online Communities. I wanted to share and elaborate on my answer to the question of ‘Why build an online community in the first place?'”
  • Jeff Hardison “Tech Marketing Professional Development: InnoTech“
    “This morning, McBru CEO Kerry McClenahan and I participated in an InnoTech panel called Strategies for Planning and Building an Online Community as part of the conference’s eMarketing Summit. I really got a lot out of not only the insights from fellow panelists Dawn Foster and Barry Tallis of Jive Software, but also the audience questions.”
  • Mike Berkley “What the heck are Widgets? (And why I hate ‘widgets’)“
    “I spoke on a panel today called ‘What the Heck are Widgets?’ I shared the stage with the VP Sales at eROI , the VP Biz Dev at KickApps (somewhat a competitor to SplashCast), and the VP Biz Dev at FlightStats.”
  • Andrew Hay “Understanding LINQ“
    “Since I’m posting this in advance, I hope my session titled Understanding LINQ was a huge hit and everyone loved it. I’ve been working on the content for a while and its tough whittling it down to fit inside the specified time slots; there’s just so much cool stuff. I probably phat-fingered some keys once or twice, but hopefully I didn’t start my sentences with ‘So….’ too often or speak so fast that I made a whistling noise. I hope you enjoyed it.”
  • Peter Imbres “Thoughts from InnoTech“
    “Just finished my panel at InnoTech in Portland a few hours ago and it went really well. I’m glad I got there early to gauge the audience a little because it turned out that they were much more social media savvy than I originally thought.”
  • Bill Winett “Innotech“
    “Went to Innotech today. Glad I did.” (Includes session recaps)

Is your InnoTech write-up missing? Add it to the comments below and I’ll be sure to add it to the list.

And, of course, be expecting a similar round-up, from me. tomorrow.

For more information on InnoTech, Thursday’s agenda, or the speakers mentioned above, please visit InnoTech Oregon.

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