BendTech

Hopefully I don’t need to convince you that the digital-book tidal wave is headed our way.  But in case I do, have a read of this lengthy-but-fascinating interview (more of a discussion, really) by authors Barry Eisler and Joe Konrath about Eisler’s recent decision to turn down a $500,000 book contract in favor of self-publishing his next novel, and the reasoning behind it.  The entire article is quote worthy; they go into juicy detail  about royalty figures, trends in digital content, pricing strategies… you name it.

‘Still not convinced?  Check out USA Today’s article about Amanda Hocking, a 26-year old author who has sold over 500,000 copies of her self-published books. Her words: “More than 99% were e-books”.  And then there are the 8 million people bought a Kindle last year and the 7 million who bought iPads.  All told, according to this IDC report, over 22 million e-readers were sold last year.  The forecast for 2011 is 59 million units, and for 2012?  87 million units. Readers are demanding digital content in ever increasing numbers.

The implications for the traditional book publishing industry are as obvious as they are ominous.  But what about those other shrine’s to books, the ones every community in America has built …

When the printed word is no longer “printed”, what happens to our libraries?

Read the rest of this entry »

Quick reminder that the Ruby on Ales conference is taking place next Thursday and Friday (24th & 25th)!

The speaker lineup looks pretty interesting, even for non-rubyists.  For example, I’m pretty curious about the test-driven-design for JavaScript talk.  And real-time systems talk will be an interesting contrast with the node.js work I’ve been doing lately.

So check it out.  I suspect there’s something in there for everyone.  And speaking from a purely Central-Oregon-selfish perspective, this is the kind of thing we need more of around here, so your support will be appreciated, I’m sure.

Nevermind that Ruby On Ales is possibly the coolest name and concept for a conference I’ve seen in a long time, (I mean, “Rails Conf”??? *pfft*!) the best part is that it’s right here in our backyard! From the site:

Ruby on Ales is a two-day, single track conference inspired by Ruby, microbrews, and shredding. Listen to engaging speakers, compete in a one-day rumble, and slake your thirst on local microbrews. Reserve a seat and plan to ski, board, or tube when you attend the first annual Ruby on Ales Conference in Bend, Oregon

So if you’re into Ruby/Rails development, this’ll be a great conference to come to.  The gang putting it on are smart and passionate about software and, hey, if the talks suck (they won’t, I’m sure!) Mt. Bachelor is only 30 minutes away and they’ve got 100″ of base at mid-mountain last I checked.  ;-)

Exhibit A, top right, is the Amazon’s Kindle e-reader, as it ships today.  My wife recently purchased two of these for our anniversary.   She bought the 3G version, including the nice leather cover w/ built-in book light, and a handful of e-books to get us started.  Total cost for both, ~$500.

Exhibit B, bottom right, is what I wish she could have bought.  Having used the Kindle for a few months, I thought I’d take a stab at mocking up what I’m really looking for in an e-book reader, and this is the result.  Let me elaborate … Read the rest of this entry »

Jay Harlow, a friend and colleague of mine, recently created the “Bang For Your Buck” App as part of the “Design For America” contest put on by Sunlight Labs.

That’s a bit of a mouthful to start off a post with.  You can follow those links for more info, but let me sum it up quickly here:

• Sunlight Labs – A community of open source developers and designers dedicated to opening up our government to make it more transparent, accountable and responsible
• Design For America – A contest to make government data more accessible and comprehensible to the American public
• Bang For Your Buck – A simple visualization app which shows which congressional districts are getting the most out of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)

Jay’s app is a visualization of the dollars-in .vs. dollars-out data for each congresssional district, presented as a 3-D map of the U.S..  Blue districts voted for the ARRA, while purple districts voted against.  The ‘height’ of a district represents the ratio of dollars-received as part of the ARRA .vs. income tax revenue generated by that district.

I can’t say that it led me to any blinding flashes of insight as far as how the ARRA funds have been divied up (Oregon seems to be in the middle of the pack in this regard, btw) but it’s a good example of what happens when government datasets are readily accessible to creative, talented developers.

Not exactly the kinds of “tech” this blog normally talks about, but any self-respecting nerd will surely be interested in knowing about Beacham’s Clock Co. in Sisters.  I found out about them via Kristian Foden-Vencil’s OPB piece this morning.  Apparently Ed Beacham, the owner, is unique among master clockmaker’s in the country.  From the article:

He’s what’s known as an horologist and Clocks Magazine calls him the only master clockmaker in the country who can construct not just the gears and springs of a timepiece, but the face, the hands and the entire wooden case.

They go on to say that his presence in Sister’s is beginning to attract other aspiring clockmakers to the area.  While I don’t think we can expect a stampede of wanna-be John Harrisons to come barreling down highway 20 any time soon, it will be interesting to see if this creates a new micro-industry here. The Pacific Northwest seems to have a knack for this sort of thing (I’m thinking specifically of how the fine woodworking and glass blowing/sculpture industries have evolved in recent decades.)

Anyhow, just thought I’d get this on your radar in case you missed the OPB story.  If you’re passing through Sister’s, I’m betting Beacham’s clock shop will make a nice change from the usual tourist trap shops that litter main street there.

Bend continues to make Top 10 lists as journalists misinterpret various reports from data collecting agencies.  This time Philip Elmer-DeWitt over at Fortune magazine raises his eyebrows at seeing Bend ranked #5 on Net Application’s report about market penetration of the iPad.

Philip makes a couple missteps here.  First, he ignores the ±0.9% margin of error on Bend’s reported 0.19% market share, which pretty clearly shows we’re only there by the grace of sampling error. He also blunders in his assumptions about how backwoods Bend (and I suppose other non-”large metropolitan” markets) really are:

it’s hard to imagine large numbers of Bendites making the three-hour drive to Portland to queue up for Apple’s latest invention

That little goof raised the hackles on several commenters.  My favorite retort comes from “Paul”:

One came down on an ox cart from the Cascades with the Indian traders. i defrosted it by the campfire. i use it to kill rock chucks so there is food for dinner.

Bloomburg Businessweek just posted their list of top 10 cities for startups and guess what? Bend comes in at #4.  The list was compiled using data from ZoomProspector.com, which has some pretty interesting stats for Bend.

Personally, my gut is telling me this is a bit optimistic on BW’s part.  Certainly there’s a lot we could be doing to be a better spawning ground for startups.  But Bend does have a lot going for it.  (I obviously voted with my feet when I moved here a few years ago so I can’t be all that pessimistic, right?)  ’Would love to see comments on how people feel we compare to other cities on that list.

BTW, Mike Berkley is attributing our ranking to Dick Luebke, but I don’t know the details behind that:

All because of @rluebke RT @tomturnbull: Bend, OR makes Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s top ten cities for startups http://bit.ly/aAP2XY

Anyone out there care to elaborate on this?

[UPDATE: Dick says, "nope, not me" (see his comment below)]

I’m typing this from my Macbook while sitting in a barge on the Nile. Yup, *that* Nile.  The one in Egypt.  I’m on vacation with my family and having a great time enjoying everything this country has to offer.  It is a land of contrasts – for example I have a megabit ethernet connection running while directly outside the window people people live in 3rd-world squalor. Mud-brick houses, subsistence living, the whole shebang.

One of the big differences between America and “all d’em fuhreners over there” is in how far behind the curve we are when it comes to the use of our mobile networks.  The first time I saw someone use a cell phone as a data modem was in Turkey while sailing on the Mediterranean.  We were sailing along a barren stretch of coastline where it never occurred to me there might be cell phone coverage, when I noticed the boat crew happily surfing the Internet.  At first I thought they must be using some sort of satellite phone.  But no, they had  simply tethered the captain’s phone to a laptop.  It was frickin’ cool!

So for our Egypt trip, which we’re doing with a small group of friends and family, I was a little more prepared.  The website for the barge company said there would be Internet access, but I’ve learned to be very skeptical about these sorts of claims when traveling abroad.  Too often I’ve found myself having to fiddle with network settings while sitting on the steps of some coffee shop that’s closed for the evening, trying to pirate myself a bit o’ WiFi love.  It turns out I was right to be a little skeptical.

When I asked the crew of the barge about Internet access, they handed me a little white USB dongle – a 3G mobile modem for laptops.  Had I been just one person with a Windows laptop, this wouldn’t have been an issue (in theory) – the crew said I could just plug it in and it would auto-install all the software I needed.  But I had a MacBook, and 15 other people that I knew were wanting to surf the web on various devices (iphones, kindles, blackberries, netbooks, etc.)  Trying to get each and every person’s computer working with this egyptian 3G modem… well… not the way I wanted to spend my vacay.  The solution turned out to be pretty straight-forward.

First, after using the crew’s computer to locate and download the software I needed to get the mobile modem running on my Mac, we had to figure out how to x-fer it to my MacBook.  In the U.S., the solution is simple: “Just use a memory stick”. But over here?  ”Just use Bluetooth”.  ’Turns out both our laptops had bluetooth support and it was a simple matter to pair them and transfer the install package.  And so I soon had my Mac connected to the net.  But what about everyone else?

Fortunately Macs have a nifty little feature called “Internet sharing”.  Instead of using the built-in wireless to connect to a wifi access point, your Mac can actually become a wifi access point.  After enabling this feature, it wasn’t long before we had a lounge full of people surfing the web on their mobiles and laptops using my little ol’ MacBook as the access point.  Problem solved.

Meanwhile outside our barge window a man and his son in a rowboat are slapping the water with oars and sticks, driving fish into their nets, exactly the way it’s been done around here for thousands of years.