Things For You To Do While I’m On Vacation

I know my thousands (ok, maybe a dozen) of readers will not know what to do this week when I go camping and become unplugged.  Don’t worry people, I’ve got you covered.

First of all, if you live in Portland, for god’s sake people go outside!  We get precious little sunshine around these parts and if you are as pasty as I am, you need it.  Geeks can find wi-fi in many outdoor locations in Portland.  Or better yet, give yourself a break from it.  The night after I went offline for an entire day once, I slept like a baby.  But if you just can’t pry yourself away from the ‘ol “Google Box”, here are some cool things to do this week:

1. Join my club!-  PCC Multimedia Club needs new blood.  This summer we are volunteering at FreeGeek to build computers for needy students and have big plans for this fall.  You do not need to be a student to join.  Contact Greg Walters, PCC Multimedia Club Coordinator and get started.  I hear the club President is really cool!

2. Geeky Gatherings-  Like I said before, Portland is a great place to be if you are into multimedia/tech/internet.  There are at least three events that I would go to if I were going to be in town:

Substance Summit ,  ( Wednesday July 9th, 3:30pm, Lucky Lab beer hall )
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.

CHIFOO Meeting: Understanding the Multi-User Experience ( Wednesday July 9th, 6:30pm, Techtronix Building 38)                                                                                                                                                      Presented by Jen Young & Matt Arnold, Second Story.  “Jen and Matt , members of the stellar Second Story Studios team, will show how understanding people’s needs and tendencies—and the learning curve for people that must be managed in multi-user experiences—can be squared with innovations offered by ever-changing technology and hardware, design obstacles and opportunities, and the desire to wow visitors while offering designs that are appropriate to the content.”

iPhone 3G & App Store Launch Party: ( Friday July 11th, 6-9pm, Platial, Inc. )

“In celebration of the iPhone 3G & App Store launch, join members of the Portland iPhone community…”
* Check out the new iPhone 3G
* See demos of App Store applications
* Meet members of the local iPhone community

3. Investigate the Portland geek scene:  Portland is literally crawling with ambitious, creative and talented geeks.  There are several local blogs and websites I have discovered lately and read every day.

Silicon Florist is my favorite local blog lately, and not just because they used some of my coverage of Demolicious, but because they cover Portland tech news that may slip through the cracks of Read Write Web, TechCrunch, etc..  The “…Willamette Week for the Portland tech scene”, if you will.  Rick Turoczy, a big player in the Portland tech scene, writes this blog.

Portland is Awesome is …”a celebration of the many fun and interesting things in Portland, Oregon. Many of the Portland blogs just seemed too corporate, so I thought it would be cool to start a new group blog where people can blog about anything related to Portland. It doesn’t even have to be “awesome”; we can talk about anything happening in Portland.”  Super-blogger Dawn Foster writes this blog and also writes another great local blog, Fast Wonder.

PDX Web Innovators is “…a technology-agnostic group where you can meet like-minded web people without the excuse of a networking-only event.”  They do great things for the Portland web scene.  I am looking forward to their next event and using their great website resources.

Twitter is how I keep in touch with what is going on in the PDX  tech scene.  Some my local favorites are @brampitoyo (this kid has his finger on the pulse of the PDX scene), @marshallk, @geekygirldawn, @turoczy, @caseorganic, and others.  Check out my page and see who I am following.  My very favorite so far is @corvida

4. Put up a page or join a group on PortlandNeighborhood.com:  “Portland neighborhood social network. Meet other Portlanders, view Portland pictures & videos, join a group, have a discussion, and more!”  This is a very new Portland site and has much potential.

5.  Leave Me a Comment:  Let me know what you think of my blog.  Let me know what you would like to hear about in this blog.  If this is all unreadable crap, let me know that too.

There you have it, something geeky and fun to do until my next post.  Look for more good stuff next week.

Demolicious, Baby!

If you are a relative newbie to the whole multimedia/tech scene like myself, Portland is a great place to be.  If you look hard enough, you can find a geek gathering almost every night.  I found such a gathering this evening, put on by PDX Web Innovators.  Demolicious showcases…”the great stuff your fellow Portlanders have been working on.  Several ten minute demos of new products and side projects”.  Tonight there were five demonstrations:

Kevin Chen (MetroSeeq):

Any product that grew from a college student’s free food association is alright in my book.  MetroSeeq uses Google maps to provide users with targeted, local information about businesses in your neighborhood offering coupons, discounts and deals.  Both business owners and users can aggregate coupons and deals.  Having trouble deciding what to have for dinner?  Spin MetroSeeq’s “Wheel of Meals” for several cheap options.

Don Park (Do It Yourself FriendFeed):

Those of you whores with thousands of friends need a way to find those friends on other networks.  I am still new to social networking, so I will let Dawn Foster explain…”You can manage your own friend lists with rel=”contact” in a regular html page, and you can also use rel=”me” to connect pages that describe you. XFN Spider can look at those me links, spider to the friends listed on those pages, create an OPML file and get all of this information in an rss reader”. (Fast Wonder)

Matt King (Interface Content Management Framework):

Coming soon from Instrument, a “CMS (content management system) that builds CMS’s” or a CMS framework.  For someone like myself that is interested in building content managed sites, this is cool.  It should make my life easier.  I will look for it when it is released.

Mounir Shita (GoLife Mobile):

GoLife Mobile is open source technology that “…lets software developers easily create useful, useable, personalized mobile software that run(s) on any of our user’s phones”. (GoLifeMobile.com)  Their built-in advertising generator automatically generates revenue for your applications and objects and shares it with you.

Lev Tsypin (Green Renter):

Once again, Portlanders are leading the way in the whole “green” movement.  Green Renter provides information about green residential and commercial rentals in the Portland metro area.  They also allow building and property owners to promote their properties and provide detailed information about what makes their properties green.  Green Renter hopes to be the resource for sustainable living in Portland and plans to expand to other cities.

There are so many exciting things happening in Portland.  I am happy to be part of such a thriving, creative and nurturing scene.  I am looking forward to the next event put on by  PDX Web Innovators.