Portland startups, open source, and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
Having worked in coworking spaces for many years, I can say, with confidence, that there’s only one thing that typically prevents me from using the space as often as I should—the commute. And that’s why I’m excited to hear about a new coworking space that’s going to kill the dread commute for our neighbors to the north. Meet Prototype Coworking. Read More
Ah, summer camp. That time to get away from the house. To make new friends. And to spend a few moments immersed in activities that made you the person you are today. Yes, summer camp was great. But as an adult, similar opportunities are few and far between. Except when it comes to Startup Weekends. Read More
In Oregon and Washington, there are many activities that give startup companies the chance to present to Angel Investors.
[Editor: John Sechrest has put together what is, arguably, the most comprehensive collection of Oregon Angel events and organizations in existence. It’s an honor to have the opportunity to publish this guest post.]
[HTML1]Just as the sun is starting to fade and the rain is starting to be a daily occurrence, the Northwest Startup Ecosystem is starting to bloom. During the quiet of the summer, seeds were being planted, companies reviewed and now in October, things start to move. In Oregon and Washington, there are many activities that give startup companies the chance to present to Angel Investors.
In Oregon, there is a flow to the year. Beginning with small opportunities to get out in front of people and followed by big events that can put you in front of potential investors. Read More
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Okay, okay. So I may have made a mistake when I chose this domain name. It was like 2 AM. And I admit, in hindsight, my reasoning may have been a bit flawed.
Silicon Forest + The Rose City == Silicon Florist
Really? What was I thinking?
Well, over the past year and a half I’ve learned a thing or two. First, covering Silicon Forest side projects and tech startups is a great gig—but it’s not exactly paying the bills. Second, people clearly want to hear about florists. Especially florists in Oregon.
So, I’ve decided that it would be wise to expand my coverage a bit. I mean, florists can be startups, too. Right? That’s right.
So from now on Silicon Florist will not only be providing you with the best information about Portland-area and Silicon Forest startups, it will also be your premiere spot for finding the latest cutting edge information on florists in Oregon and southern Washington. And florist ads.
I mean, I think the florists in the area could use a little more tech. And the tech types? They could clearly use some more flowers and floral arrangements.
So here’s my inaugural post on some of my favorite Oregon and Portland-area florists.
I’ve used City Flowers for about as long as I can remember. Helpful people, creative flower choices, and brilliant arrangements.
“Catering to the style-conscious clientele of downtown Portland, business-to-business flowers is the focus of our work. City Flower’s success in this area reflects its attitude toward customer service: It must be the best for it to be outstanding in our field. Every order we design and deliver is viewed as a commitment to the customer. We will deliver the freshest flowers possible designed with artistic flair while also providing the highest level of customer service possible. Your satisfaction is our primary goal.”
“We are a real Flower Shop, FULL of Flowers, located in Corvallis, Oregon – not just a phone number of an office somewhere, or just a URL on the web. Calling us directly, via our toll free number 24 hours a day (1-800-405-5666), saves you expensive relay fees and assures you will get full value for your money. We are Florists first, marketers second. Most importantly, we live and do business in the city we serve (Corvallis), and care about our reputation and your continued business. Our goal is to provide you with exemplary service and outstanding products and turn you into another one of our satisfied returning customers. as well as providing your recipient with quality of flowers and design that will make them also want to use us as their personal florist.”
“Our Mission: Offer one of a kind floral arrangements by using fun, rare and unique flowers as well as other mediums such as fruit, twigs, leaves, vegetables, pods and anything else to create the perfect arrangement. And even more important, show courtesy and respect to all people in and outside of our floral shop.”
“Ralph Beck’s dream of opening a flower shop started in 1943 over on Lombard Avenue next to his greenhouse that he used to grow his product. After 18 years Ralph and Vi opened in ½ of our current location on 2nd and Watson Ave. in central Beaverton. In 1962 they sold the business to Paul and Delores Jakobson. During the 60’s and 70’s Paul and Delores grew the business and remodeled the building. In 1980 they decided to retire and sold the business to Richard and Florence Hill who continued to expand and grow the business adding space by taking over the entire building and increasing sales. Keith & Sheri have continued to grow and keep Beaverton Florists in the Top 100 florists in the nation ranked by FTD.”
“Flowers Tommy Luke proudly serves the Portland/Vancouver area. We are locally owned and operated. We are committed to offering only the finest floral arrangements and gifts, backed by service that is friendly and prompt. Because all of our customers are important, our professional staff is dedicated to making your experience a pleasant one. That is why we always go the extra mile to make your floral gift perfect. Let Flowers Tommy Luke be your first choice for flowers.”
Of course, my list wouldn’t be complete without a blog from Prineville, OR, featuring the Posie Girls. Blogging and flowers? Clearly hitting close to home for me.
This is just the first of many posts covering the world of flowers in the Silicon Forest. If you you’re not seeing what you’re looking for, the following links may help.
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Or maybe you have some local Oregon florists you’d like to suggest? Feel free to comment.
(Hat tip to Avante Gardens for the idea and to GRMFWKLSNAXP for showing me the errors of my altruistic ways)
I just wanted to take a second to say “Thank you.”
I wanted to thank you for caring about what’s happening in the Silicon Forest. To thank you for keeping your eye on the Web and mobile startup scene. To thank you for giving all of the amazing developers in the area the attention they so richly deserve. To thank you for giving the entrepreneurs of Portland, Corvallis, Eugene, Bend, Ashland, Hood River, Vancouver, and all of the Oregon and Washington towns in between the opportunity to wow you with the products they’re building and the problems they’re solving.
I’m constantly reminded of how incredibly lucky I am that I get the opportunity to write about this stuff. And even luckier that you swing by to read about it. So thanks for letting me into your browser or feed reader or mobile device every once in awhile to share what people are sharing with me.
SXSW Interactive always reaffirms my belief in how lucky we are to have the community we do.
Thank you for being part of it.
[Editor: Full disclosure, Iterasi is a client of mine, but I was not involved in this announcement.]
http://www.iterasi.net/user/siliconflorist?format=widgetN1Vancouver-based Iterasi, the service that allows you to create your own personal Wayback Machine, took a huge step forward in making its network of users more social, today, when they announced three major additions to their offering: public pages, RSS feeds, and widgets.
Josh Lowensohn at Webware broke the news:
Web page archiving tool Iterasi is getting a small but important update Tuesday morning. Users can now share their stream of archived pages with others as an RSS feed, letting anyone view their saved items either directly in their browser or in a feed-capturing tool like Google Reader or desktop e-mail clients.
In my opinion, these seemingly innocuous changes actually mark a decided change in Iterasi’s stance. With these features, Iterasi moves from being an interesting personal service toward becoming a valuable social service. And by embracing features that allow me to distribute my saved pages to a much, much wider audience, they gain the benefit of more people encountering their service.
I have found a great deal of value in being able to save pages for myself. But now that I have the option of sharing pages with folks? It opens a whole new realm of use for me. Like a more typical social bookmarking service.
Fringe benefits abound. With RSS feeds and widgets, Iterasi just increased its exposure exponentially. I’ve added the widget to this post and I’ll likely add it to the blog (once the Mac version is out and I can use the service regularly.) And, I’m adding the RSS feed to my lifestreaming services, like FriendFeed and Strands.
What’s more, by launching public pages, Iterasi has the potential to rapidly increase its online footprint for search engines and the like—like any other public-facing social network service.
Now, it’s not all rainbows and unicorns. As with any new feature on a BETA product, there are some rough spots and some nice-to-haves that didn’t make the cut. There are some areas over which I would like to have control, like skinning the widget and dealing with the publishing function.
But as I’ve mentioned, I see this release as less about “features” and more about “vision.” It’s clear to me that Iterasi is taking a much more social stance. And that’s a very good thing.
To test drive the product, visit Iterasi. To see the public page in action or to get the widget code, please visit the Silicon Florist page on Iterasi.
[Full discloure: Iterasi is a client of mine. I worked with them a great deal on the initial announcement of their product in February, but aside from some ad hoc consultation, I did not participate in this launch.]
Vancouver-based Iterasi, the service that allows you to run your own personal Wayback Machine, has come out of private BETA and announced general availability for the Windows version of their browser toolbar. Using the toolbar, you gain the ability to capture an entire Web page, exactly as you see it—dynamic elements and all—and save it in that state, forever.
Sound interesting? Head over to the site to register and download your Iterasi toolbar.
The team has added some compelling features since the last time I wrote about the product back in February. Most notably the ability to embed captured pages within Web pages.
I’ve posted one of my favorite examples—the ability to save a Google search for future reference—below.
http://www.iterasi.net/embedded/?sqrlitid=_usQPoEYdU6mizC1xaJXOQ
As you’ll see from the embedded page, Iterasi saves the entire Web page as fully functional HTML, including any AJAX wackiness or completed form fields. In many ways, it’s the evolution of bookmarking. Moving from saving the location of a Web page to saving the Web page, itself.
But even that description might not give you a full feel for the potential of the product. So, if you’re a Windows user or have access to Windows on your Mac, I’d encourage you to download it and give it a shot.
The Mac version of Iterasi’s toolbar is still under development.
For more information, visit Iterasi.
Vancouver’s Aaron Hockley is fed up.
I’m going to take a bit of a stand. Effective immediately, I will no longer comment on tech blogs that don’t support OpenID for comment authentication.
And I, for one, really respect his taking this stance. I think it’s these small, self-admittedly “mostly insignificant” kinds of actions that make things happen. The journey of 1000 miles and whatnot.
Aaron makes a strong argument for every blog pursuing its own OpenID login for comments:
OpenID is a win-win for blog comments. It’s a win for the comment author, since it means less info to type. It’s a win for the blog owner, since it means the comments have a “real” identity behind them.
I mean, if you really want to be part of the conversation, shouldn’t you make it as easy as possible for others to join in the conversation?
Of course you should. And OpenID can help you do that.
And you—as a Portlander or Silicon Forester—should be more than embracing OpenID. You should be singing its praises from the rooftops, if only to support great companies like Vidoop, ConfIdent, and JanRain who are the forefront of OpenID development.
OpenID is like the Portland Trail Blazers of technology around here. Only better. Like the ’76-’77 Blazers. That’s right. You know what I’m talking about. The plucky young upstarts who win despite all odds.
And OpenID has more than a fighting chance. But it still needs the support of each and every one of us.
But what if it’s a technical issue that’s preventing your adoption? (Like me, for instance. I wrangled my OpenID WordPress implementation for hours before Chris O’Rourke was able to pinpoint the issue and help me resolve the problem.)
Well, you don’t have that excuse anymore. Because Aaron has offered to help:
And I’ll put my time where my mouth is: I’ll help you. If you follow those links above, and can’t figure it out, or you try it and it doesn’t work. I’ll help. Send me an e-mail. I want you to have OpenID.
I’m looking forward to using my OpenID to comment on your blog the next time I swing by.
In fact, how about this? Let’s round up a list of all the Silicon Forest based blogs and services that support OpenID.
If you’re one of them, use your OpenID to comment below.
I’ll work on gathering a comprehensive list for posting. And then we’ll work on promoting your blog or service for being one of the ones who’s supporting OpenID.
Just as a way—albeit minor—of saying “Thank you for using OpenID.”