Planet PDX

Molly Young of The Oregonian highlighted Bend’s VentureBox today, a new accelerator in central Oregon.

The new accelerator takes the typical startup accelerator models—like Portland Seed Fund, Upstart Labs, and PIE—in a different direction. Like 180 degrees different.

Now, before I say anything more, it’s important to note that I work for a startup accelerator (PIE). And I’m a big fan of anything that helps startups. Also, I don’t see VentureBox as a competitor. And I’m sincerely hoping that they help the Bend area startup scene. The more the merrier, quite frankly.

That said, what jumped out at me—and others—was the way that they had tweaked the model. You see, to participate in this accelerator the startups don’t get capital. They pay the mentors, ala the university system.

The cost to go through the VentureLanch is $1,500 per company. You will need to incorporate a company during the semester, which will cost money, and you may have other business expenses. VentureBox works to reduce the cost of launching a new business by working with our sponsors to help create scholarships for our Founders. There is a good chance an organization in the Central Oregon community will step up to provide a scholarship for you so don’t let the tuition cost keep you from applying.

So $1,500 to get in. And when you graduate? You provide 2% equity of your company to VentureBox, too.

If an enrolled Founder graduates or continues to the last 30 days of the program, the enrolled Founder is asked to contribute two additional fees. First, the Founder is asked to grant a warrant for 2.0% of their company stock to join a Bonus Pool of shared equity upside with VentureBox’s Mentors and Staff.

In a day and age when the most successful accelerators—Y Combinator and TechStars—are finding ways to give their startups more funding and more funding, this approach seems, well, backwards.

But maybe that’s just me.

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In just a two weeks, Portland will be hosting NodePDX—a software conference for the Node.js community.

Over the last few months there have been major releases, advances, and products delivered around Node.js. From increased support across dozens of platforms, integration into PaaS… even full Windows Server and Windows Azure support from our noodly masters up north, Microsoft.

With all these advances there have been a number of conferences that have sprung up such as Node Summit and NodeConf which provide businesses, enterprises and other entities the chance to discover what Node.js is all about.

NodePDX, however, is focused almost solely on the developer. We’re focused on technology first. Of course business interest is invaluable but we there are products to build, code to write and services to run—so we’ve put together a conference here in Portland for just that.

NodePDX is an independent grassroots technology conference for the Portland Node.js and Javascript communities. The two-day conference will bring together local professionals from the Portland/Pacific Northwest area who are working with Node.js and Javascript to create highly-scalable, bleeding-edge internet/web-based applications.

This conference will be focused on technology and software development (as opposed to business/product development) and will draw an audience of extremely talented engineers who are passionate about pushing forward the latest and greatest advancements in web application development, cloud computing and a variety of related technologies.

So get your code on and come join in this February 11th and 12th for code, demoes, presentations, and battle bots!

For more information, visit NodePDX or RSVP on Lanyrd.

[Editor: Thanks to Adron Hall for writing this up!]

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Being a professional is doing the things you love to do on the days you don’t feel like doing them.

Jeff asked this in the comments:

Do you have experiences moving an organization to a culture of “it’ll probably work/we’ll deal with problems as they happen” from “you haven’t convinced me yet/what if it doesn’t work”?

What if you’re trying to effect change in your organization? Where do you start?

Here are five things that can help you implement a fail-fast, fail-often culture:

1. Find out who your supporters are
2. Focus on implementing working solutions to problems
3. Use rough consensus
4. Get management support for implementing solutions
5. Manage the irrational well

I’ll take each of these points:

1. Find out who your supporters are

You do need to assess if you really are alone in wanting this change. Talk with people! Because if you really are completely alone in your opinion, you might want to reconsider whether this is the right time, or place, for the change.

2. Focus on implementing working solutions to problems.

“Working code” is a good metaphor for this. You want to offer possible ways to try out a fail-fast way of working, maybe by focusing on small projects or just your own work first. Prove that your way is better!

Stating your pre- and post-conditions around the change is a powerful tool (see, life is just like code!). But we’re hacking people’s behavior, and the organization’s ability to recover from failures.

And accept that maybe you never get everyone on-board. But at least your own work will benefit from the changes.

You must also make sure your solution solves a relevant problem. Assessing relevancy of problems is a whole other topic. It’s likely the most important question someone working in IT needs to answer before making changes. We’ll talk about that in a future blog post!

3. Use rough consensus

Cultural change affects everyone in an organization. So, to make it happen, you need most, but maybe not all, of the team to support it. Once you propose tests to try things out, or you’re implementing new policies, you’ll need a process for deciding what to do next, when something isn’t working and when you’re done.

In my keynote, I referred to the IETF’s model of rough consensus. They refuse to define a method for determining what exactly this means, to avoid gameifying the decision making process.

Identifying a chair, or project leader who is responsible for articulating the “sense of the group” is critical. This avoids letting a single vocal person paralyze decision making.

Also, there needs to be some kind of back channel that records opinions. Mailing lists with searchable and linkable archives are great for this. Corporate email hidden away in personal inboxes are a waste. Collaboration tools like wikis or other kinds of shared documents on the web can be critical for building consensus. And they are underused.

4. Get management support for implementing solutions

Nothing kills revolutions in business faster than management opposition. If you want something to change, part of your work is convincing your manager or boss that the change is important and necessary.

Present evidence of the problem and clear thinking about the solution you’re proposing. Maybe you come up with test output, customer complaints, or concrete examples of how much better things will be after the change.

If you’re the boss, you need to support the people who are making these changes. Give them room to make some mistakes, and help them out when they face inevitable opposition from their teams.

5. Manage the irrational well

When I listed my first three points to a colleague last week, she pointed out that I’d completely overlooked irrational situations.

Change can inspire fear. When a person is afraid, they can get irrational and oppose anything that might threaten them. Managing irrational people is a skill that you can learn.

There are some books on this, like Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, Second Edition. In the end, you just need to practice talking with people, and talking about difficult subjects.

The first step is recognizing the early signs that a person is feeling afraid, and finding ways to accommodate or work around their feelings. No two people or situations will be exactly alike, but there are recognizable patterns and learnable responses.

Epilogue

While writing this, I enjoyed this brief interview with Steve Jobs about collaboration.

I also enjoyed this article: Design Principal. In it, the firm’s leader talks about when to say no to a client – with a “four Ps checklist”: People, Project, Profit, Plate. Along with prompting questions. Great food for thought when tackling big changes projects.

If you’re in an early stage startup, you’ve probably heard of AngelList. If you haven’t, you should check it out. It’s the best way for early stage companies to get in front of early stage investors. In a way that makes it both comfortable and natural for both parties.

Well, now, Angel List has released an API. And that means that whether you’re a member of the AngelList community or not, you can keep an eye on Portland startups.

The reasoning behind this tool? Here’s the gist of Startup Data Trends:

Our hope is that startupdatatrends.com will help foster a discussion about market transparency in some traditionally hidden areas (round size and price) and create a new view for the AL platform that is less about social proof and more about market + product. While imperfect and simplistic, the location and market data does take a small step forward towards understanding what an early round of financing may look like based on recent data. The thought, planning and strategy that can come from that will hopefully help people raise their own bar and make those initial discussions with investors a little easier.

To get to mucking with the data yourself, visit Startup Data Trends.

(Hat tip Mat Ellis)

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For those of you following Leatrice Eisemen's training schedule, her 4-Day Color Training Program is off to a start this very morning in Burbank, CA. LindaHolt and ModernMuse (aka Michelle Stroescu), the two COLOURlovers who won full and half scholarship for the class back in November are excitedly enjoying their first day of learning and meeting Leatrice.

To tide you all over until we get to do a followup with both Linda and Michelle about the class experience, Leatrice kindly took the time to answer the intriguing questions each winner had asked at the time of receiving the announcement that they had won.

Q & A From LindaHolt

Linda: I would love to know what the process is and what goes into choosing the Color of The Year? 

Leatrice: I literally travel the world looking for clues.  If I see a color that I think is ascending in importance, I make special note of it and then look for evidence in it gaining momentum.  Fashion is always a good indicator, but it is not the only design area that must be examined.  There are so much creative design areas that must be considered including graphics, the world of art, product design, home furnishings and so on .  Another very important part of the choice is tapping into the “zeitgeist ‘ of the world around us and the emotional message that the color imparts.  For example, with the that big gray elephant  (the economy) still looming large and the concern that is being felt internationally, we would not want to choose a color that could be a “downer’.  Instead we listen to people’s aspirations and try to give them a color that, at least symbolically, satisfies and encourages their needs and hopes.

Linda:  I would like to know if you have had a life long love of color and what was your path to becoming the color guru you are today?

Leatrice: Yes, I was destined to do something with color.  Even as a child, I was super-aware of the presence of color and was always fascinated by it.  I learned early on that wearing separates was the way to go because you could contrive so many more color combinations that way.  I also had a mother who let me have full reign in color choices—even in painting my room.  And I came up with some pretty dramatic combinations.  The proviso was that if and when I got tired of it, it as my job to purchase the paint and make the changes myself!  I started to take design classes very early and then realized that color was not just about fashion and home, but the psychology of color was equally important.  So my degrees are in psychology, but I combined that with design and color was a natural part of that. And for a shortened version of what happened next, I taught color, consulted with various industries, wrote the first of eight books in color, was invited to become the Executive Director of the Pantone Color Institute, while at the same time teaching color programs through the Eiseman Center for Color Information and Training.

Q & A: Michelle Stroescu (ModernMuse)

Michelle:  How does Pantone take into account the current social/ political environment when deciding on future color palettes - or do they at all?

Leatrice:  Yes, those factors considered, as they are a vital part of color trends.

Michelle: I tend to believe our economical, political, and social situations by country affect color trends... 

Leatrice:  Again, yes they are.  For example, one of the important areas to look at, especially in this age of mass communication so readily available, are the colors  that are indigenous to a certain country in which a large sporting  event such as the Olympics is going to be held, as most of the  world is anticipating and then watching those events.  Another example: When there is war in any country, or some traumatic event, like 9/11,  in the U.S., it is  quite characteristic of a particular country to turn to the colors of their flag as they are symbolic of patriotism.

source

Michelle: Did Michelle Obama by chance choose a yellow inauguration suit when that was the same color of the year?

Leatrice:  I truly don’t know for certain why she chose that color--  It could be that she had a stylist who was very savvy about those things and made that suggestion to her or that she inherently understood that the color was symbolic of the hope and optimism that had been do much a part of the Obama campaign.

Michelle: Are there really and truly color meanings related to a person’s personality and characteristics? In color consulting is this taken into account and are they analyzed personally and in business branding solutions...regarding color choices in branding?

Leatrice:  To respond to the first part of the question, yes there are color characteristics that people can relate to their own personalities.  Faber Birren was the first credible resource on this aspect of color and many of his books are still available, although some relating to color in business are somewhat out-dated.  But those relating to the psychology of color are still quite relevant. I have also written about this aspect of color in several of my books, including More Alive With Color and the Color Answer Book.

Michelle:  Of all of the Pantone company's "Color of The Year," which color and what year had the most impact on businesses and sales? Is this something that is tracked by business sector? Fashion, home, retailing, advertising, etc?

Leatrice: This question cannot be answered without doing extensive research that would involve tracking each area mentioned. And many companies will not divulge their sales figures, but keep it internal.  Pantone  provides the tools for assigning a color to a product, interior or apparel but does not track how every one of their 2000 plus colors sells in every industry.  That would be a mammoth undertaking. What I have done in the past  (and continue to do) is to track consumers’ responses to specific colors based on color word association studies and I will be discussing those in the class you will be attending...

Michelle:  In my past business "blue" was always the dominant sales color within my customer base. That may be due to the fact that I dealt primarily in young mens and mens businesses...

Leatrice:  And that might have been a very viable reason for using blue—you instincts were correct.  I don’t think I have ever done a line that did not include some shade of blue, as it is still a highly preferred color.

Michelle:  One more question for you that I didn't give Molly, but it would be really helpful if you could advise in your opinion what would be the most important inclusive, informative text to use in teaching COLOR THEORY to fashion design/marketing students? Currently we use the book COLOR by Zelanski/Fisher.

Leatrice:  That is an excellent resource, but in addition there is a wonderful book by Enid Verity called Colour Observed.  The publisher is MacMillan Press and it was published in 1980 in England. Surprisingly, there aren’t many color photos, but the information is excellent and succinct. You will get a booklist as part of your hand-outs when you attend the class.

Thanks for answering these questions in such detail Leatrice, we can't wait to hear from Linda and Michelle, post class and full of tons of color knowledge! 

If you look really closely at a recent CNN post entitled “50 new tech tools you should know about,” you’ll see a little glimmer of Portland in there. No, not there. Right there.

Yep, Portland’s Gramfeed gets a mention. And Vizify gets a nod in that list of 50 for their work on Tweetsheet. Right there among the likes of Card Munch, Hipmunk, and Path, to name a few.

GramFeed (free): Instagram has put all of its eggs in the mobile basket. But some Instragram fanatics want to see images on something larger than a smartphone screen. GramFeed is the closest thing I’ve seen to a Google search experience for those gorgeous filtered Instagram pics.

Tweetsheet (free): This very cool Web tool from Vizify pulls together an instant infographic of your personal Twitter universe: retweet info, geographic impact, best followers, a word cloud of your tweets and more.

For the other 48, read 50 new tech tools you should know about.

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• Meet the Startup: Chatting with Portland mayoral candidate Jefferson Smith (6)
• Political party: Mayoral candidate Eileen Brady celebrates the Portland startup scene (2)

You might have heard that buying a bunch of domain names and pointing them to your website will help you out with getting your website to the top of searches. This advice is as dated as Warren Beatty.

All You Need is One

The basic rule of thumb is to never have more than one domain name pointing to a single site. This is because Google and others are looking for you to have unique content on your website. If your content is showing up under a handful of names when they are trying to figure out ranking, Google is going to be confused about which is the authority an all of your sites are going to suffer. And so, your domain likely will not rank highest for the words you want it to.

There are Exceptions to Every Rule

There are a few instanced when you would want these redirects. (These are targeted at mistypes in the browser bar and are not targeted in any way at search ranking.) Here are some instances:

• Your domain name is easy to misspell.
• You want to own your brand online, you might want to pick up the .com, .net, etc. versions of your domain name.
• You need country specific domain names for domains outside of the US.

If you do set these up, be sure that they are 301 redirects so that they have no negative repercussions for your website’s rank.

It’s that time again. Well, yeah. Time for slaughtering Fight Club quotes to make goofy headlines. But it’s also time for another Pitch Club, this Thursday.

That’s right. Every startup’s favorite way to practice their pitch in front of their peers—and to get the feedback they need to hone their stories.

Want to practice your startup pitch in front of people who’ve done it before? Crave the harsh criticism of your peers? Need the validation of seeing what works and what doesn’t in other pitches?

Bring your 3 minute pitch. Put your name in a hat and if it gets picked, you’re on. Leave your Powerpoint at home—just pitch. Then, answer questions and listen to painfully honest feedback from a panel of so-called experts.

You up for it? Head on over to PIE, Thursday night at 6. For more information, see Calagator.

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Winter weddings are fabulous in their own right, and seeing as we are now in the thick of these winter months, you brides are some of the luckiest there are. Sure you don't get sunshine and hot days, but you get the chance of snow and creating a darn right cozy spot.

Sparkles, snow, candles and blankets adorn these weddings to create a romantic space during these cold months. Oh and the color palettes, I can't get enough of these color palettes.

Source: Bridge, Pears

For ceremony spaces, a cozy fireplace is the perfect backdrop to tie the knot. Details such as cotton and candles are perfect details to add to this space. Sparkly accessories are a fun way to add a little festive decor to any spot. And you can't go wrong with a little bit of sparkle every now and again.

Source: Ceremony Spot, Cotton

Even after the holidays are over, this is still a great guest book idea. Have guests write their favorite piece of advice, story of the two of you, or a nice note on an ornament. You can hang these on your tree the coming year.

Source: Ornaments

Source: Hot Cocoa, Flower, Invite, Snowball

There are a variety of details to add including hanging snowballs, white flower boutonnieres or sweet drinks. Kraft paper and a light blue compliment white details quite well, creating an overall fabulous palette to work from.

Source: Tassle, Hot Cocoa

A hot cocoa bar is definitely the highlight of winter weddings. This is something unique to winter months that make a cozy treat for guests. Adding a small tassel stir stick and a great sign to the drink bar is one detail I think should be incorporated in all these festive winter affairs.

Source: Cupcake Bar

Similarly, your dessert bar options can create such a romantic and warm feeling. Be it the use of sparkles, candles, ornaments as well as your selection of cookies and other treats you add. Guests will definitely remember this adorable dessert station.

Source: Cotton + Wood

Wood and cotton details kind of come with the woodsie category, no matter the month. For events in log cabins or barns, these additions are a great way to tie the whole event together and bring the outside, in. Other natural elements make the perfect addition for bud vases, cake tables and a variety of other spots.

Source: Bride

For the bride, it is important to stay warm, but after spending all that money on a dress, you are going to want to show it off as well. Find the perfect cover-up to compliment your attire and it will be a great addition to your closet, well after your wedding day.

Source: Burlap

There are a variety of winter elements that can make the perfect winter wedding. Creating a romantic and warm place for guests to feel comfortable in will make your wedding one they will never forget. Wood, burlap and other organic details are a great addition to candle lit nights and a variety of white details. But this doesn't mean you feel like you can't add any bright colors into the mix. This palette is pretty simple, so anything else you add is just as great of an addition to make the night your very own.

Continuing our discussions with Portland mayoral candidates, we sit down today with Jefferson Smith. Folks know Jefferson as a born and bred Portlander, a member of the Oregon legislature, and a the founder of the Bus Project.

But there are a few things you might not know about Jefferson, including his view on the Portland startup community.

For more information on Jefferson and the campaign, visit Jefferson’s site, follow @jeffersondsmith on Twitter, or like Forward with Jefferson Smith on Facebook.

For more interviews, subscribe to Meet the Startup on YouTube, follow @MeettheStartup or like Meet the Startup on Facebook.

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The garden is not just a garden. The garden is a metaphor for having a place to develop an ethical way to understand life, and to make a life that is ethical. —Alan Kapuler

If there were an intergalactic spacecraft capable of carrying but one life safely in search of contact with other sentient beings, my vote would be for Alan Kapuler to be humanity’s ambassador to the cosmos. Leading a lifetime of work devoted to organic gardening and open pollinated plant breeding in the public interest, Kapuler, a molecular biologist by training, poetically expresses his reverence for all living things as embodied in his concept of a garden, and his daily work planting, breeding, and cataloguing his organic seeds.

This is the fourth of an ongoing series with Dr. Alan Kapuler, founder of Peace Seeds, and former co-founder and research director for Seeds of Change. He currently resides in Corvallis, Oregon where he continues his research projects, and maintains his remarkable organic seed catalog.

We’ve just launched a new website for Vignette Brand Communications.

We knew we were in for a treat the first time we stopped in to meet the Vignette team; we’ve never been to a studio with such genuine warmth and as many smiles (the adorable baby was a bonus). This group is top notch. Brands need communication — these are the people you want telling your story.

Working with such a confident and tight-knit group made our project a breeze; when we shared our initial vision (in typical Needmore “we are so excited, please, please, please let us make this” way), they quickly set us free to create. When we put our work-in-progress up for them to take a look at, the whole office dove in and helped us with testing. It’s this atmosphere of collaboration and assurance that makes fertile ground for great work.

The technical trapezery was a blast here: we implemented Typekit fonts to help them keep their brand message solid, used cutting-edge JavaScript to produce a unique layout for their portfolio and staff pictures, and then used forward-thinking style rules to provide smooth and subtle animation.cialis All hand-crafted, of course.

Sometimes, we spend so much emotional energy brining a project into the world, that at the end, it is hard to let go. We’ve become attached to our lovely creation. We don’t want to let go. And yet, they say that if you truly love something, you must set it free. Our website for Vignette Brand Communications is just exactly this sort of labour of love for us. We hope you enjoy.

The Ignite format is a popular one with the tech types. And why wouldn’t it be? Presenting twenty slides in five minutes, conveying a topic about which you are exceptionally passionate? That’s awesome for both the presenter and the audience.

And that’s why SAO has adopted that format for SAO TechIgnite. And they’d like you to present.

Ignite is a high-energy evening of 5-minute talks by local people who have an burning idea and the guts to get onstage and share their personal and professional passions. Quick, fun, thought-provoking, social, local, and global – Ignite is all of these and more.

Why present at Ignite SAO? As a speaker, you’ll land a platform that challenges not only the way you present your ideas, but grants you access to an audience eager to listen. Submit your talk by February 15!

Submit your topic before the deadline!

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It’s a well-known fact that Portland has a ton of open source activity, from projects to user groups to events. And one of the best events is our own homegrown conference, Open Source Bridge.

What makes the OS Bridge so good? Well, the talks for one thing. And now, you have a chance to be a speaker at this year’s gathering.

Open Source Bridge is accepting proposals for our June 2012 event in Portland, Oregon. Open Source Bridge is a volunteer-run conference for those working with open source technologies. It will take place June 26–29, 2012 in downtown Portland with five tracks connecting people across projects, languages, and experience to explore how we do our work and why we participate in open source. We will be accepting proposals through March 16, 2012. Speaking at Open Source Bridge is a great opportunity to share your knowledge and enthusiasm.

For more information, visit Open Source Bridge Call for Proposals. To submit your talk idea(s), complete the proposal application.

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If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: Given Portland’s aggressive humility, we often fail to do an adequate job of celebrating our startup successes. But that—happily—is beginning to change.

Now, mayoral candidate Eileen Brady would like to help the Portland startup scene celebrate. And you’re invited.

It’s no secret that Portland is a hot bed of emerging talent and we’re organizing a party (with start-up friendly hours) to showcase it. Come see why we’re so stoked about Portland’s future with New Seasons Market co-founder Eileen Brady’s campaign for Mayor and killer local bands like Priory.

Join PDX start-up leaders Merrick, Nitin Khanna, Scott Kveton, Josh Friedman, Nitin Rai, Sheetal Dube, Kristin Hammond, Kevin Steger, Alex Payne, Diane Fraiman and Chris Logan for a party!

The event will be held Tuesday, January 24, at the Doug Fir. It begins around 6:30 PM.

For more information or to RSVP, visit Eileen’s campaign site. Or to donate, visit Eileen Brady’s “Portland Startup Community Rocks!” And if you’re not familiar with Priory, then take a listen.

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• Big reveal: See the Alpha release from Startup Weekend Portland alum Tell It In 10 tonight (and grab a free beer or two) (12)

I talk a lot about post-mortems, started thinking about this a long time ago, and I’ve run quite a few.

I tend to think about meetings in general as post-mortems, as typical meetings tend to be for talking about what’s been done, and what we might do, rather than *actually doing work*. But we can change our meetings to be better.

In the slides from my keynote on Sunday, I posted some specific information about how to operate post-mortems.

The key points for conducting the meeting were:

• Set expectation for 100% participation
• Designate a note keeper & time keeper
• Everyone shares a success, failure, something to do better
• Vote anonymously on what to do next
• Communicate meeting notes out

There’s great research into each one of these items. Some of it comes from “Effective meetings” curriculum, taught by Intel University. Fast Company had a great “meeting myths” article back in 1996 that still holds true (and references Intel’s meeting culture). The bit about anonymous voting comes from research into group dynamics and how people say different things depending on who is listening and what the social pressure is to lie or tell the truth.

How do you run your post-mortems? Anything you’d add?

Erin Loechner is a writer, stylist and designer. She is a quirky girl with lots of style and a great swagger about her. Everything she publishes on her site, Design For Mankind, pushes the envelope just enough to keep you interested and excited about trends and styles. She has graced the pages of many magazines all the while keeping up with trends and colors on her HGTV.com segment.

First up, why don't you tell the community a bit about who you are, what you do, how long you have been doing it, and your background. 

I'm Erin Loechner, a 28-year-old freelance design writer and blogger (DesignForMankind.com). I dabble into styling, consulting and rearranging the furniture of any willing party! I'm also an online personality for HGTV.com.

Slides (as of this moment) are here: Mistakes were made. I changed quite a bit of the beginning and end, given how big the audience is. Previous talks, we’ve usually ended with a fun “omg, here’s the craziest story I know” session. I imagine we’ll get a little bit of that today.

Postgres folks will note a relevant picture on slide 13.

This is my first keynote! Thanks so much to SCALE for inviting me. There were at least 1500 registered attendees as of Friday, so looking forward to a big crowd.

After two years of service my outdoor air temperature sensor blinked out last week. Moisture was the culprit as shown here:

Various readouts in my SensorServer system lead me straight to the problem through a half-dozen layers of software. How cool is that?

Honestly, I'm more interested in how we know and trust complex measurements than knowing the temperature outside.

My SensorServer software worked so well that I prepared a Keynote presentation explaining each diagnostic step along the way. I meant to post it here, but damn, low battery led Keynote to throw away my presentation. That makes Apple the weak link, no?

I see a lot of broken systems in our future. A robust world will depend more on diagnosis and recovery than on the out-of-the-box usability that has made Apple famous.

I had a wonderful time at the first AdaCamp, held in Melbourne, Australia on January 14, 2012.

I didn’t take notes during most of the sessions, and spent a lot of time listening and thinking.

The two important things I took away from the first AdaCamp were about context – my context, and the camp itself.

My context

I’ve been part of free and open source community since 1994, when I started reading the linux kernel mailing list and compiling my own kernels to support experimental features and drivers. I was welcomed into my mostly male offline community of developers, sysadmins and hackers. I had a male psuedonym when I was online in technical forums. I used a female psuedonym on mailing lists and collaborative writing projects I was invited to back in the early days of alt.* threads that spilled over into specialty LISTSERV mailing lists.

I’d grown up in a very small town, where your reputation is everything. It was incredible, strange and liberating to be able to represent all the parts of me, separately and freely, online.

So, when I got to AdaCamp I felt apprehensive. I’ve had the option of separating out the parts of me online and in free and open source community for so long, and I was struggling with what part of me exactly should be at the forefront here. Being a woman is a pretty important aspect of myself. Addressing it in parts felt wrong, but integrating it all seemed like an oversimplification.

So, I tried to make myself useful by making coffee and sorting out our wireless situation. Then we all got together in a room. I made a few jokes with the people at my table and then fell silent.

Mary and Val opened the day with a short introduction and an explanation of why they thought it was important to have conversations about open tech and culture in a feminist context. And then we started going through the introductions.

I was so terrified to introduce myself that I ran out to work on the wireless network and missed out on most of the introductions. At least we had wireless working after that.

It seems so silly to me now that I chose to walk out of the intros. Val didn’t let me off the hook when I got back, and I had to briefly introduce myself to everyone. And the reason why I’m spilling so many words on this point is that I want to let you all know how difficult it is to change your context.

I have identified as a feminist for as long as I can remember. But I’ve nearly always been a feminist in the company of men. If I were to introduce myself again, I would say:

I am a feminist hacker. Right now, my hacking is mostly on people and systems. I believe women and men should be treated equally, but I know they are not. And I want to help solve problems of inequality faced by women, primarily through my work in free and open source software, but also in the workplaces where many of our fellow hackers end up.

Context of the camp

There were too many fantastic conversations to count. I met so many new friends, and came away with new respect for the work Mary and Val are tackling.

Two big sessions for me were a frank conversation about hiring, and an expansive brainstorm about the things women have in common between free and open source, open culture, open hardware, creative commons, remix culture and other “open stuff”. I’m looking forward to future conversations about both things!

During the closing session, many thoughts were shared about what made a day spent talking about so many difficult problems still feel inspiring.

One comment stuck with me – we all shared a context of feminism. With that point settled, it made getting into the depths of many other conversations much easier and interesting. We got to skip over many feminism 101 topics, and have spirited debates and exchanges of ideas in a feminist context.

I hope I can attend the next event!

And you can support the Ada Initiative by donating here.

Recently, we spent some time reflecting over some beautiful home decor images in order to curate these ten beautiful palettes from the Martha Stewart paint line in a collaborative project titled, "Paint Palettes We Love."

Peruse these lovely combinations and fancy what your space might become, reinvented with fantastically bold or mellow combinations that might pull your imagination strings. One thing I adore about Martha's paint line is that her and Kevin Sharkey dig in to their memories and whims when building a collection of color around them. You can literally see these things in the names of the paints themselves.

Inspiration: A Sunny & Sweet Flower Arrangement

source

This sunny flower arrangement was procured from the sweet tooth of Kevin Sharkey. A few of his favorite sweets happen to be lemon drops and raspberry rock candy.

"Consider things that never fail to make you happy -- a box of pastel crayons, macaroons from Paris, a beloved artist's paintings -- and make note of their colors. Then bring the palette to life by plucking it from nature: Arrange flowers, leaves, branches, fruits, or vegetables in the shades of your passions." - how kevin creates

We took this arrangement and furthered its use by adding a wonderful palette drawing from the strongest points, which could be a great base for an entire room.

Kevin Sharkey's Bedroom

source

A very strong and masculine space, Kevin's room is quite impressive, very minimal yet not feeling empty. Obviously the massive graphic painting is a striking visual element that helps keep the furniture grounded in such a large space. Kevin said,"I wanted the bed to look like a bento box."

These heavy colors definitely work in such a large space using the Sharkey Gray as a base, not to light and not too dark of a hue to wrap it all up nicely.

Skylands Guesthouse: A Bedroom Built Around A Lamp

source

Martha had this entire room designed around the Italian alabaster reading lamp pulling from ruffled edges, fluted top and ivory lamp base. A very serene feeling pulls from the room to create a very innocent palette.

Functionality: American Colonial Kitchen

source

Clean, white and steel-accented kitchen is brought down to earth with its mahogany countertops. Painted wood paneling and earthy sentiments keep this space from becoming too chilly.

Staying Grounded: Colonial Bedroom

source

A very earthy palette describes this Colonial bedroom. The centerpiece being the heavy baroque Swedish desk comfortably pulling the colors together.

Colonial: Synchronizing A Pink Room

source

Pink rooms are becoming more and more popular, but to pull it off right, without it screaming "girly" or "princess" - the right palette should share the same space. Here the grays and browns within similar hues really bring the "pinkness" down a few notches to simply create a beautiful, classical space.

Turquoise Trend: Cool & Collected Office Space

source

Who doesn't want some energy thriving in their office? But use too much and your brain won't be able to function. Balancing out your visual energy colors with grays and other muted contrasts can definitely bring a room like your office in to a focused, enjoyable space.

Balancing Act: Soft & Striking Living Room

source

Who doesn't love some sunshine and rain at once? The trick is getting the right balance to get a beautiful, non-amature space. You wouldn't want your finished living space to look like a kids room. Toning it down and bringing the colors together with some neutrals can help these two striking contrasts coexist nicely.

Manhattan Loft

source

Collaborative wood accents definitely help ground this high-patterned space and light, warm neutrals give the darker hues balance.

Green Living Room

source

Green can be a very serene and focus intensive hue. The right green combined with earthy darker hues give off quite a bit of richness. Adding balancing neutrals and you've brought it all together in a meditative, relaxing space to spend time in.

Have you put together a space-palette for your own spaces? Are you dreaming of of a palette for your spaces? I know I am! Maybe some of these COLOURlovers curations will jumpstart your ideas.

If you want to locate the paint colors from each project, each curated palette in this post includes the colors made through the Martha Stewart paint line. 

Palettes used in this post:

Lighting a space can make a significant impact on the emotional palette. From the design of a lighting fixture to how it radiates in a space can make or break the entire theme.

This article is presented by LBC Lighting offering you the easiest and most convenient way to purchase contemporary lighting including Juno Lighting for your home or business.

There are a myriad concepts being done with lighting, from astonishing buys and extraordinary DIYs, everyone’s got a bug to be the most unique.

Beaded Chandeliers

Beaded chandeliers are becoming quite a popular trend. This style can encompass beads or discs made from many different types of materials such as glass, shell or metal and of course plastic or ceramic.

turquoise beaded | black metal discs | bone-colored beaded |  green DIY beaded

It seems that while manufacturers came out with these gorgeous pieces more prominently in early 2011, the DIY crowd is just starting to pick up on producing them in a variety of fashion. If you'll notice, the bottom row in the image above are similar lighting fixtures. On the left is the Malibu Chandelier by manufacturer Serena & Lily while on the right, the DIY blog, SimplySalvage.com decided to make their own version of it. I think they pulled it off pretty well.

Industrial & Farmhouse Lighting

The look of rugged, raw metal and thick glass I think sums this trend up nicely. From wire caging to mason jars, it's hot hot hot right now.

wench hook | 3 tier upside down mason jar

Definitely a category more akin to the DIY crowd because of the non-complexity it entails. Not to say that some of these haven't had some hard work put toward them. But you'll definitely find this styele in both formal and informal circles.

hanging glass bottle | mason jar hanging light | green & gold glass hanging lights | multi-color mason jar chandelier | jars in canning wire chandelier | blue mason jar wall light | mason jar desk lamp 

As mentioned, all types of repurposed jars and bottles are currently the bee's knees. In the DIY crowd, I find that this category is pretty intriguing because you're bound to come across the men who create, which can lead to finding other treasures in their handmade troves you may have been missing out on.

turquoise ceiling lamp & interior

I really enjoyed this entire white room where touches of turquoise bring the eye full circle with the centerpiece being this rustic ceiling lamp.

wire chandelier |  hanging wooden slat lights (green room) | stir-stick lampshade DIY | wooden box light

 The Lamp

I wish I had more areas in my house for this type of beautiful light feature. If  you are re-doing an old lamp or buying something new, the possibilities are literally endless.

white and burlap rosette lamp DIY | green and bone lamp | aqua and white lamp base makeover | honeycomb table lamp | caged desk lamp DIY | metal circles hanging lamp 

Being a DIYer myself, I am partial to some of these that take a quite out of date, trifted brass lamp and give it a new pop. Both lamp shades and lamp bases, there is so much you can do with each to seriously reinvent the original piece. Ceiling lamps in the drum shape are also a must and an endless list of styles and mediums.

Impressive Design

O-Space Suspension lamp  | deep magenta Supernova XL Suspension lamp |  magenta & white swirl pendant | rocketship mini pendant |  umbrella suspension lights | globe light | pumpkin-globe suspension light | chromatic room & sparkly ceiling lighting

Lighting fixtures are great ways to add a final glowing touch to a room. Keep in mind that the type of lighting you choose can enhance or completely change a spaces color scheme, so don't wait last minute to decide on the fixture and lighting type when building or re-doing an interior space. As a centerpiece, accent piece or just plain usefulness there are so many brilliant designs and ideas to dress up our spaces.

Do you own or have made any type of unique lighting? Do you have anything you've been eyeballing on Pinterest for a someday piece? How about colorful lighting? Let's see it!

...and if anyone is interested, here is the rest of my lighting roundup on my personal Pinterest.

There’s a great article at the New York Times today called A Sharper Mind, Middle Age and Beyond which details a massive study on cognitive function and aging, called Midus.

One of the largest take-aways from the study, is how much better the mind continues to function with mental exercise. Specifically, a college degree, but also with continuing mental exercises. What else isn’t surprising? Physical exercise has a positive impact on our cognitive abilities.

I loved this quote:

Senior citizens who performed as well as younger adults in fluid intelligence tended to share four characteristics in addition to having a college degree and regularly engaging in mental workouts: they exercised frequently; they were socially active, frequently seeing friends and family, volunteering or attending meetings; they were better at remaining calm in the face of stress; and they felt more in control of their lives.

I’m happy to report that we can help with at least three of those four: Walking has been proven to relieve stress, our social tools can make you feel involved and connected to those around you, and, of course, we are at heart a tool to help promote and track exercise.

It’s been a busy week for Portland’s PIE startups what with PIE Demo Day and a trip down to Google. But it seemed the perfect time to catch up with Alexis Peterka of Stayhound, one of the startups that just graduated from PIE.

What’s Stayhound? Well, why don’t we let Alexis give you the story?

For more information, visit Stayhound, follow @stayhound on Twitter, or like Stayhound on Facebook.

For more interviews, subscribe to Meet the Startup on YouTube, follow @MeettheStartup or like Meet the Startup on Facebook.

Related posts

• Meet the Startup: Comparing notes with Revisu (15)
• Meet the Startup: Chatting with Portland mayoral candidate Jefferson Smith (6)
• Meet the Startup: Getting the balance on Silicon Valley Bank (6)
• Meet the Startup: Finding the story on spotsi (6)
• Meet the Startup: Cloudability makes all of your Cloud spending clear (7)

Our call for presentation proposals is now open and we will be accepting proposals through March 16, 2012. Speaking at Open Source Bridge is a great opportunity to share your knowledge and enthusiasm. Now is the time to submit a proposal to speak at the conference!

What kind of proposals, you ask? Open Source Bridge strives to be a different kind of open source conference: one that welcomes all open source languages, platforms, and pursuits while embracing responsible and engaged open source citizenship.

The conference’s tracks are:
Business: How do you build a successful open source business?
Chemistry: What makes this work? Take the technology apart and teach us about its components.
Cooking: How do you write the script, configure the utility, debug the code, make it work? What are your best recipes?
Culture: What makes open source work? What else does the open source ethic lead us to do?
Hacks: How did you pull that off?

For a little additional inspiration, we encourage you to look through previous years’ archives of sessions presented at Open Source Bridge, but don’t let that limit you, either! We know that certain topic areas have been underrepresented in previous years, and we would very much love a diverse and broad set of proposals for this year’s bridge. We would very much love to see more talks about hardware, security, user experience design and just about everything else related to open source. No idea is too out there. We’d love to see it all.

If you speak at Open Source Bridge, we’ll happily waive the fee for your attendance. Not sure if you should register now, or hold off to see if your talk is accepted? If you wait and your talk is not accepted, we’ll give you a special discount code that will get you a ticket at $200 (that’s $25 off the early-bird rate).

So what are you waiting for? We’d love to hear what you have to say. Begin creating your proposal today.

Attend the conference

Register to attend Open Source Bridge 2012. We offer the following kinds of tickets:
Early bird tickets at $225 until April 30th.
Full price tickets at $300, great for corporate attendees.
As always, we offer a student rate of $99, available anytime.

Please register soon so you can help give the event some early support.

Interested in volunteering?

We encourage those of you interested in being more involved with Open Source Bridge to sign up for our volunteer list.

Interested in sponsoring?

Let us know by contacting sponsorship@opensourcebridge.org and we’ll send you a prospectus.

We hope that you are as excited as we are about Open Source Bridge 2012. Don’t hesitate to contact us at info@opensourcebridge.org if you have any questions. We thank you very much for your support and hope to see you in Portland in June!

–The Open Source Bridge Team

Speaking of notes, there has always been a subset of my notes that I’ve wanted to share with the public — those little techie one-liners that take hours to figure out or find on the web. The ones where I’ve had to look up the same thing over and over so many times, I finally said to myself, “I should really write this down somewhere.”

I couldn’t find a tool that I liked that would let me store all my notes in one place, but also indicate, hey, some of these are public, and please turn them into searchable web pages that look like the rest of my site and put them here at this URL.

So I abandoned that idea and forked my notes into public and private sections. Then I hacked together a script to display the public ones here on the site.

It’s not perfect, but it’s better than nothing until a more elegant solution arrives.

You can find them here: stevenf notes

More to come, as always.

One of the biggest stories to come out of PIE Demo Day, yesterday, was VendScreen securing $12 million in Series A financing.

That’s a huge amount of money for a startup coming out of an incubator. And if you watch VendScreen’s pitch, you’ll understand why. Using the Android operating system to revolutionize a massive—yet technologically stagnant—market is a very big deal.

Erik Siemers at Portland Business Journal did an excellent job of capturing in the VendScreen story. So I’ll let him tell it.

Remarkable for a startup of any kind, Patel said he was looking to raise $400,000, only to find he had attracted $1 million. Then the company found itself oversubscribed at $1.5 million with investors saying they’d rather put in $500,000 than $50,000.

“It was just a funding train,” said Glenn Butler, VendScreen’s co-founder and chief technology officer.

For more on the story, read about VendScreen in the Portland Business Journal. For more on the company, visit VendScreen, follow @vendscreen on Twitter, or like VendScreen on Facebook.

[Editor's note: Full disclosure: I work for PIE, the startup incubator in which VendScreen participated.]

Related posts

• Meet the Startup: Sitting down with Stayhound (5)
• PIE Demo Day livestream, Tuesday at 2:30 PM PT: Meet Athletepath, Cloudability, DailyPath, MoPix, Revisu, spotsi, Stayhound, and VendScreen (4)
• Want to see what’s been cooking at PIE? Come to PIE Demo Day, January 17 (6)
• Could have foretold this one: Portland Seed Fund alum 4-Tell snags $1 million round (3)
• Working to dispel the “You can’t get funded in Portland” myth (7)

Today, you're going to hear a million solid reasons why SOPA and PIPA -- the two proposed bills sponsored by the entertainment industry to censor the web -- have to die. Wikipedia, Google, Reddit, craigslist, Metafilter, and many, many more have made their cases. Here's mine.

Virtually every project I've ever worked on is threatened by this legislation:

Upcoming.org faced copyright complaints for event posters and listings that users added to the site.

Kickstarter gets DMCA takedowns from artists who find their work used in pitch videos, and from project founders quarreling with each other.

Supercut.org indexes hundreds of video remixes that reuse copyrighted content.

Kind of Bloop faced a lawsuit over the cover art.

And here on Waxy.org, I've had a number of battles over copyright. Among them, I received a cease-and-desist from EMI for being the first person to host DJ Danger Mouse's Grey Album on the web, from Disney for hosting the Kleptones' Night at the Hip-Hopera, and from Bill Cosby for hosting House of Cosbys, which was clearly fair use as a parody.

Every cease-and-desist and DMCA request I've received wasn't fun to get in my inbox, but it allowed me to deal with the issues directly with the copyright holder or using the due process of the court system.

Imagine, instead, a world where a bill like SOPA or PIPA passes. A copyright holder could bypass due process entirely, demanding that search engines stop linking to my sites, ad providers drop me, and force DNS providers not to resolve my domain name. All in the name of stopping piracy.

The chilling effect would be huge.

Every online community that allows for community-contributed content -- discussion forums, imageboards, Usenet newsgroups, photo sharing communities, video sites, and many more -- would be forced to pre-emptively self-censor, shut down, or risk getting blown off the net entirely.

That fucking sucks.

Everything I love about the web requires the unfettered freedom to build new ways to let people express themselves, and with that, comes the risk of copyright infringement.

Breaking the web isn't a solution.

Please take 10 minutes today to call your representatives -- or show up in person! --and let them know you won't stand for this. SOPA and PIPA must die.

September 1, 2011, doesn’t seem terribly long ago. But a whole crop of PIE (Portland Incubator Experiment) startups has come into being since then. And now, they’re ready to share their stories with you out there in TV land or livestream land or whatever.

Tune in at 2:30 PM Pacific Time right here to catch the livestream of PIE Demo Day, direct from the sold out Bagdad Theater in Hawthorne.

For more information, visit PIE, follow @PIEpdx on Twitter, or like PIE on Facebook.

Related posts

• Meet the Startup: Sitting down with Stayhound (5)
• VendScreen reinvents the vending machine using Android — and lands $12 million in funding (4)
• Want to see what’s been cooking at PIE? Come to PIE Demo Day, January 17 (6)
• Meet the Startup: Comparing notes with Revisu (15)
• Portland Seed Fund stages inaugural Demo Day and… [insert horticultural pun here] (11)

At the beginning of every year I often wonder that the next big things are going to be in the wedding industry. It always excites me what crafty people can put together and bring to life. And every year I am more and more excited with where trends have taken us and where we are now.

I wanted to share a look back at some of the biggest trends of 2011 as well as some of the up-and-comers for 2012.

2011: Ombre

Source: Cake, Dress, Flowers, Napkin, Escort Card

Ombre hit big in 2011! It seemed like all of the sudden these monochromatic details were just the thing needed to create a romantic and elegant look. Of course, this trend will continue to hit weddings for years to come, but the gorgeousness that is ombre will definitely be remembered as the up-and-comer detail to have of 2011.

2012: Color Blocking

Source: Dress, Invite, Table, Wedding Shot

Color blocking became popular right before the close of 2011. Every designer, especially Kate Spade, was embracing pairing one bold color to another until you created a well-executed look that made you pop. This trend is something that hasn't hit the wedding industry too hard just yet, but come 2012, we will see it in both subtle and obvious ways.

2011: Vintage + Shabby Chic

Source: Brandon Kidd, Hotess Blog

This trend can't necessarily be confined to just one year. We saw the evolution of rustic weddings turn into it's lighter partner, shabby chic, while still remaining within the vintage category. And I don't think any trend is as large or has lasted as long as this one has.

2012: Vintage/Modern

Source: Kissing, Table, Dessert Station, Flowers, Chandelier, Invites

I don't see vintage going anywhere in 2012, but brides are starting to curb it into an entirely new trend. What was a totally shabby chic inspired affair, will now have some oppositely modern details paired with it. Adding soda crates to tablescapes with bright colors and modern geometric patterns. I think the marriage of vintage and modern is going to make it big in 2012.

2011: Book details

Source: Books

2012: Textures + Patterns

Source: Cake, Invite, Table, Dresses

2011: Statement Necklaces

Source: Necklace, Wedding, Wedding, Necklace

Oh boy were statement necklaces big in 2011. One thing you could pretty much count on was that every bride you saw was going to have her own version of an over-the-top statement necklace.

2012: Statement Bracelets

Source: Bracelet, Bracelet, Bracelet, Bracelets

In fashion we have already seen the attention turn from statement necklaces to stacking bracelets. Though it isn't much cheaper, it is a more practical trend for people on a daily basis. Similarly, in weddings, statement bracelet pieces will pick up momentum in 2012.

Of course, 2011 trends will spill into 2012. So, if you haven't tied the knot just yet, you won't be considered "last season" for doing something that feels personal and unique to you. Trends become highly unimportant when you find those things that you feel really fit your style and look as a couple. That is the most important part of any big day!

These are just a few of the many past and upcoming trends, what are some you have been seeing? Which are you most excited to see in 2012? 

In part 2, Kathy Hessler, Director of the Animal Law Clinic at Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland (Oregon), discusses some of the important work that is being done to try and address the problems associated with factory farms. According to Hessler, this effort involves a large coalition of folks from different states, as well as internationally.

From the video, these are some of the important areas of concern where the laws need strengthening:

1. Environmental concerns: Massive manure lagoons pose threats not only to surface waters (rivers, tributaries, etc.) but also to groundwater supplies that are often ignored under current laws. For example, federal laws (largely) allow for the unregulated discharge of farm wastes.
2. Address federal “Right To Farm Laws” that impede the ability of local communities, and even small farmers to restrict the operations of nearby factory farms when their actions cause harm to them, and their community.
3. Property Tax reforms: Allow for the reduction of local property tax whose value declines due to their proximity to large factory farms.
4. Food Labeling Standards: Like the organic label, require strict standards for terms, such as, “cruelty free” and “pasture raised,” so that consumers know what they are really buying.
5. Regulate large amounts of animal waste by treating it in a similar way we treat human sewage.
6. Antibiotics contamination from animal waste, and meat consumption that is cause antibiotic resistance in human diseases.
7. Reexamine the dual role of government to regulate the agriculture industry, and at the same time, being charged with also promoting it.
8. Address one size fits all regulations that treat a small farm operation in the same manner as a large farm.
9. Address systemic problems that are posed by factory farms even if climate damaging methane gas emissions, can be converted into otherwise beneficial energy production.

Filmed at the Friends of Family Farmers event on November 9th, 2010.

We bring you a great interview with Jason Allen, of Haft2.com, an intriguing firm that focuses on, yeah, you guessed it, color! The focal point today is to showcase their 2012 Haft2COLOUR Calendar Project, and absolutely amazing piece of quality!

I was highly impressed with the presentation of the calendar. It was delivered in a nice silver tin with a branded paper wrap and a wonderful opening letter about the project and the Haft2 mission - I felt like I had just received a very nice gift!

Haft2 is giving away three calendars to some lucky winners on a fun challenge (see bottom of post). I would like to add that I just so happened to come across this project originally from the comments on our previous post about 2012 Calendar Print Trends. I just had to know more about it, see the real deal and get to know what Haft2 and Jason were all about. I'm sure glad I did.

Jason manages the COLOURlovers Haft2 account and he had posted their calendar in the comments. I simply couldn't pass it up, so let's get started!

Jason, tell us a bit about Haft2...

Haft2 is a branding and communications firm that specializes in colour strategy as it relates to branding. Our clients come from a variety of categories, with a focus on non-profit organizations.

Our President and Chief Colour Officer is Paul Haft. I've been with the company now for almost five years, and as Director of Brand Colour Intelligence, I oversee our own brand. We have an in-house design studio and are also fortunate to have a network of talented professionals in design, writing, digital, research etc., from whom to draw when needed.

Let's hear about this calendar project and how Haft2 puts up such a big effort to help bring awareness to these not-for-profit organizations...

We appreciate our clients and friends, and throughout the calendar year, send out a number of promotions to them, to celebrate special days and holidays. We customize each printed promotion with the recipient's name and send out anywhere between 80 and 300 pieces, depending on our client list, on the time of year, and on the promotion itself.

We've wanted to produce a colour calendar for years, and I'm so happy to say that this year, we were able to make it happen. We're always looking for ways to raise our non-profit clients' awareness and increase their fundraising.

We decided this year to create our first colour calendar, and make it a new kind of fundraising movement to highlight initiatives from across our past and present client base. We have given the program a name and a word mark which you'll see on the calendar itself. We have called it The Haft2COLOUR Calendar Project.

Each of the initiatives that you see highlighted in the calendar received a donation from us at the beginning of this year.

For the talent, we approached the designers in our studio and network, whom we are so happy to know, and feel privileged to work with. Each designer was asked to do either one or two (and sometimes three) months of the calendar. We only gave them a colour, and then assigned a month (or colours / months) to them, and asked them to come back with their own interpretation of that colour and time of year, however they saw it, through graphics and illustration. Everyone really came through, and did so entirely on a volunteer basis. We love the designs separately, but simply adore them collectively.

We printed an additional number of calendars which we've been selling at $30 CAD, (with shipping and handling extra), and all proceeds are divided among and given directly to the 11 initiatives highlighted in the calendar.

We look forward to continuing The Haft2COLOUR Calendar Project on a yearly basis. We're always looking to work with talented designers and writers, and would be open to speaking with anyone who'd like to volunteer their talent to be part of the 2013 project.

I'd like to add that on the back of each calendar is a portion dedicated to letting the artist explain their design direction as well as an area highlighting the artist, where to find them and their accomplishments, in so many words.

Of course, there is also the information about each non-profit. This year, that list included: UNICEF, Walk of Hope (ovarian cancer), Canadian Breast Cancer Association, iNavigait, CAMH Foundation, Herbie Fund, Plan Because I am a Girl, EHM (Evangel Hall Mission), CIFAR and December 2012 is a Select your own way of giving offering ways to do your own good deed.

I know that Jason (aka Haft2) spends a lot of time on COLOURlovers, so I asked him how they might use COLOURlovers and I was pleasantly surprised to see that they actually place a palette on their site.

On our own corporate site, haft2.com, we have what we call a "trend palette", at the far left of our homepage. I update the code every week to pick up our latest COLOURlovers palette. Clicking on the palette takes you to that page on COLOURlovers - Jason 

I was even further intrigued at how their portfolio displays, check it out (it's contains many more palettes on the site):

Calendar Giveaway & Contest Details

Haft2 would love to know what color you visualize the months of the year in. All you have to do:

• Submit at least one color and assign it to at least one month of the year.
• Describe why you visualize this color for this month.

If you need putting a color badge in the comments, see: How to share a creation.

Contest runs until Tuesday, this Friday, January 20th, 2012 (11:00 pm PST). Judging will be done by Haft2 and myself. There will be THREE winners. Winners will be announced in the comments and contacted via Love Notes to claim your Calendar prize.

I have really enjoyed getting to know Jason and learning more about Haft2.

Calendars are $30 CAD (plus shipping and handling) and can be ordered by emailing us at hello@haft2.com.

Connect with Haft2: Facebook | Twitter | Haft2 (on COLOURlovers)

Also an awesome blog, HAFT2KNOW is the official colour, brand and trend blog of Haft2. There is an English and French version of the blog. Good to know!

Dorkbot PDX would like to welcome you to the latest installment of our semi-regular presentation series:

DorkbotPDX 0x08

• When: Monday, January 30th, 2012 - 8pm
• Where: Backspace ( map)
• Who: All ages -- open to the public
• Cost: Free!

What's happening? Two great and inspiring talks <snip>

Sailing the I2Cs with the Bus Pirate

Jared Boone

Jared will be discussing I2C as a bus and protocol, and will demonstrate talking with a few I2C devices. Demos may include interfacing with an off-the-shelf accelerometer, magnetometer, gyroscope, and/or audio codec.

Jared runs a fledgling open hardware business, ShareBrained Technology, where he experiments with devices for audio, time-keeping, aeronautics/astronautics/astronomy, motor sports, and radio.

Remote Reality via Orbduino

Travis Smith

From what started as some pretty colors and cat amusement has grown to take over a walk-in closet and has had visits from all over the world. Have you always wanted to play with a robotic arm in the exotic land of Vernowhere, from the comfort of your couch? Here's your chance!

Tech junkie, traveler, and avid Phish-head. Travis conformed to the corporate mold for 17 years before breaking free to travel and completely geek out. Viva La Dork!

OpenDork

You!

An open-mic session for those looking to show off a project, ask a question, solicit help, or incite collaboration.

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In the time it takes you to watch another sitcom re-run, surf the Internet, or play Angry Birds on your phone you could get your daily dose of exercise in.  Instead of plugging in or tuning out, take a 30-minute walk!  You’ll feel great and improve your health.

Based on a study published in The Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, Americans only took 5,117 steps a day!  Compared to Australia (9,695 steps), Switzerland (9,650 steps) and Japan (7,168 steps) we have some work to do.  This difference in steps is only 30 to 40 minutes of walking each day.  Something so simple as a 30-minute walk each day could make all the difference in our health.  Countries that reported having higher daily step averages have much lower obesity rates (from 3% to 16%).  A sedentary lifestyle has led America to an unhealthy 35% obesity rate.

Read more about this study here: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/the-pedometer-test-americans-take-fewer-steps/

Now, disconnect from your TV, laptop or smart phone and get moving!

After years of resistance, I have decided to take the time to create a Facebook Page. It’s here. If you are interested in all things about the future of the Internet, and you use Facebook, I hope you’ll join me for conversation there.

I’ve had a lot of issues with Facebook over the years, I wrote a big critique of the company’s data sharing partnerships last week, but I also have a lot of admiration for Facebook. I can’t go into great detail about that now because I’ve got a lot of work to do, but I hope you’ll join me there if that’s what you’re into.

On Saturday, Rudy Maxa recently had me on his radio show to talk about the best products and services for travelers.

First of all, this was the biggest CES ever, with new records being broken: 153.000 people attended more than 1.86 million net square feet of exhibitor space being taken up…amazing!
The coolest products I saw: the AR Drone 2.0

• It’s a helicopter with 4 blades. comes in an outdoor model and an indoor model – indor model is about the size of a small pizza box.
• can hover and is controlled by your iPhone, iPad or Android device
• New model has a High def 720p camera which plays back on your phone or can be recording.

The new model also has a pressure sensor to improve altitude control, and new electronic assistance for better navigational control than what was available in the original model.

Costs $299

Jawbone Jambox

In short, it’s an amazing speaker to pack in your overnight bag.

• is 2.25 inches high, 6 inches wide, and 1.5 inches deep.  - if you were to cut a brick in the half long-ways, it’s about that big.
• bluetooth enabled and has a cord to connect with your computer, phone or iPod while on the go
• has AMAZING bass
• Is quite loud
• can also be used as a noise-cancelling bluetooth speakerphone.
• Amazon for about $180

In short, it’s a backpack that has a built-in battery pack for all your gadgets to charge, simultaneously!

Post from: Techcraver.com | Craving Tech, Craving Life!

CES Radio Show: Top Traveler Gadgets

"http://www.dorkbotpdx.org/workshop/arduino/cult_induction_rev8"

RSVP at http://suspectdevices.com/workshops.html

News came this week that Portland’s Urban Airship was simplifying its service offering by incorporating SimpleGeo functionality into its high performance push offerings and shuttering the separate SimpleGeo service. In the interim, they were helping customers transition to new services using Factual as a stop gap.

Well now, another Portland company has stepped up to help in the interim. Geoloqi has released a service to allow folks to import SimpleGeo data into Geoloqi.

The offering allows developers to transfer data out of SimpleGeo into Geoloqi with one command.

This tool will allow you to transfer your SimpleGeo Storage data over to Geoloqi. It makes Geoloqi Layers for each SimpleGeo Layer, and converts Records to Geoloqi Places for each of the layers.

All you need to run the command is a Geoloqi Access Token, and the SimpleGEO OAuth Key and Secret. You can sign up for a Geoloqi account at The Geoloqi Web Site and retrieve your access token from the Geoloqi Developers site.

This script is provided as an executable via Rubygems, which means it runs on any Mac OSX computer out-of-the-box (and on any Windows/Linux machines with ruby available).

That said, it’s not the perfect solution. But that’s on its way.

This is a quick-fix solution. However we are planning on making a more stable, complete tool for importing data to Geoloqi from other sources (and for exporting your data out of Geoloqi). We feel it’s in your best interest to have total control of your data at all times, and we want to help you solve problems, including the problem of transferring data between your machine and cloud services.

For more information, visit the Geoloqi SimpleGeo import on Github.

(Hat tip @bradhe)

Related posts

• Urban Airship acquires SimpleGeo combining push notifications and geolocation on a nonstop flight (10)
• Forrester pushes push notifications as Urban Airship pushes their 10 billionth notification (4)
• Urban Airship snags former Skype exec as Chief Revenue Officer (4)
• Urban Airship snags Second Porch cofounder to captain marketing (5)
• Feel like hacking some Portland municipal data, this weekend? Well boy howdy are you in luck (7)

Last night I finished assembling and uploading a sketch over USB to Demiduino. At half the dimensions of an Arduino, Demiduino is a small, portable, and affordable Arduino compatible with the Leonardo bootloader.

Digital pins 0-7, Analog 2-5, and a RST, V+, and GND pin are broken out to two rows of pins, maintaining about half the pins in a familiar shape and organization. A JST connector for LiPo batteries like the ones available through SparkFun and Adafruit and an MCP73811/2 charger circuit makes the Demiduino well suited for portable applications. On the back, I've also included CR1225 clips for ~3v3 power from easy to find coin cell batteries, and a power switch to save battery life.

I can make an individual Demiduino with about $12 in parts. With a 32u4 for USB support and more SRAM than a stanard 328, and a means of charging lithium batteries, that makes it a pretty good price for me. I understand AVRdude isn't real happy with 32u2s, but I hope to make an even cheaper and prettier board using that chip soon. Without easily breaking out I2C or SPI, I don't consider this board nearly as functional as the inspiration I drew from to make it. (Paul's Teensy, or Adafruit's 32u4) Rather, this might make a nice alternative to SparkFun's Lilypad Simple if you don't need wearable features, and it's what a few of my friends would like too. Also it has a pretty UV purple LED. My schematic and board files don't match, but I've uploaded a screenshot of the schematic anyways. Enjoy!

I'll be at Townshends (NE) probably all this evening working on C homework. I'd be happy to show you my board if you're around! I have a hoodie on that matches Laen's boards. I like this hoodie, for that specific reason.

Reblogged from http://www.suspectdevices.com/blahg/arm/my-33-linux-box/

The dorkbotPDX mailing list recently posted a link to a 25 dollar arm linux based nas called the PogoPlug. It was pink and ugly but it was $33 with shipping, so I bought one. It was stashed conspicuously under the rug by the nice people at UPS yesterday after I signed a slip saying they could leave it.

Using the thing was scary. I plugged it in but it didn't show up anywhere. When I went to the pogo plug site they told me to download their software and when I did I was able to enable any disk that I plugged into it and then i could let it sync and share my personal files with some cloud thing in the wild blue yonder. This wasn't done in any transparent and secure-able way but through a software wedge that made the thing show up as a drive locally. The scariest thing was that when I logged into the web site it was able to figure out where my device was (I assume because it was on the same lan as the computer I logged in from) reset the password and enable ssh on the weird looking box. Yeah it cut a hole into my lan.

There was only one thing to do with the scary pink beast. Name it Bradley and put another operating system on it.

So, after figuring out which particular pogo plug I had, I dug up a flash drive and followed the bouncing prompt from http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv6/pogoplug-provideov3 and less than an hour later I had a relatively usable linux box.

Now to figure out what to do with it.