BendTech

As mentioned, KOHD has discontinued their local news program.  Here’s the official announcement, with various other sources weighing in here, here, and here.

True, to say “nobody cares” is being a bit harsh.  Strictly speaking, those posts have a combined 16 comments from people who do, in fact, care (including Drew Bledsoe, btw).  But that poor showing would seem to validate KOHD’s claim that, “viewer’s habits are not reflected positively in Nielson ratings”.  Not that that was ever in doubt.  After all, viewers have been fleeing TV news in droves for years now.  What caught my eye about these comments is the concern that this gives KTVZ a virtual monopoly on the local TV news market, as though these people were losing all choice in where their news comes from.

To which I respond with a very blunt, “Dude, seriously???” (more…)

I think it’s pretty cool to check-in with Foursquare when I hang out at the Deschutes Brewery pub. After all, if I spend enough time there and become mayor, maybe I’ll get a free beer. But GPS-based services that track your location can have serious privacy issues, since they also identify where you are NOT.

To highlight this potential risk, a new site called Pleaserobme.com will monitor Twitter for updates coming from Foursquare. This happens when people allow Foursquare to update their Twitter status, which a lot of people do.

Something to keep in mind before you decide to broadcast your vacation plans using social media. These sites are usually just created to highlight a security concern, but make no mistake, there are people out there who are taking advantage of criminal opportunities appearing through the use of these new services.

Is there a simple way to protect our privacy while still gaining the benefits of location-based services? Tell us your thoughts.

Google Buzz is a new service that lets people share thoughts, pictures, videos, and other content using their Google email address. It’s had an incredible start with over 9 million posts in the first 3 days of launch.

Why is it so popular? It’s integrated directly into Gmail, which means tens of millions of users now have access to features that mimic Twitter and Facebook, even if they have never joined a social network before.

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A big thanks to everyone who turned out for the HTML5 presentation.  I really enjoyed seeing the great turnout, and I hope everyone was able to take something away from the presentation.  Speaking of which …

The slides (PDF format) can be found in the Files area of meetup.com:

In a fit of inability-to-plan-ahead, and lured by the prospects of free beer at the new venue we’ll be trying out (G5’s new offices at Franklin Crossing), I’ve decided to step off the BendTech talk sidelines and actually present at this month’s tech talk.

The topic-du-month is “HTML 5″ which, if you haven’t heard about it yet, is set to shake up the web in some pretty interesting ways.  Why?  Well, the current version of HTML (v4.01) was standardized almost 15 years ago, well before people were building applications in browsers.  Thus, HTML is pretty good if all you want to do is pen an “old school” web page.  But if you want to make an application, something like Google Maps or GMail… well, those apps were made possible not so much because of what HTML can do, but in spite of it.  HTML 5 is a bumper-to-bumper overhaul of the HTML specification, and it introduces a slew of new technologies, many of which are targeted squarely at application developers.

I’ll be talking about leading a discussion about what these technologies are, doing some demos, and just generally prognosticating on what will happen when developers can stop worrying about how to implement a color picker widget, or draw a circle, or store some information on the user’s computer, and instead focus on solving the real problems.

So join us for a pint o’ geekiness this Tuesday at 5:30.  Meetup details can be found here.  As usual, there’s no charge, and while RSVPs are requested they’re not required.

Privacy is a hot-button issue on the internet.  ‘Always has been.  How it gets trampled by companies like the RIAA, or countries like China, makes headlines with depressing regularity. And today we have a local headline in the Bulletin, “TV station gives info on ‘anonymous’ comments to Sawyer” [bendbulletin.com paywall FAIL, sorry].  The article is about how KTVZ released personal information (IP addresses) of people who posted allegedly libelous anonymous comments about Tami and Kevin Sawyer on ktvz.com.  KTVZ gave these addresses to the Sawyers as part of a $5M libel lawsuit they have brought against the commenters in question.

I’m not going to get into the Sawyer’s saga here, which is all a bit distasteful.  Instead, I thought I’d offer a bit of analysis on the backstory of privacy issues and how they seem to be getting a bit of a rough treatment locally.  My little way of making sure we stay rigorous in protecting our freedoms around here, I guess.  So off we go … (more…)

Last year’s talk series was so much fun we’re gonna take another whack at it this year.  We’ve already had a great start with our recent PodCasting talk by Elise Michaels, but that leaves another 11 months worth of talks to go.  And guess what, that means we need volunteers!

Soooo… if there’s a hot new technology you’d like to tell people about, or a new trend in your industry you think is interesting, or you know some people that would make for an interesting roundtable discussion, or you’re just too frickin’ big for your britches for people not to be captivated by you, we’d love to have you help with one of these talks.  (And by “help with”, we mean “lead”.)

Not to worry, though.  Leading a BendTech talk is a low-stress affair.  We take care of setting up the venue, and announcing the talk.  All you gotta do is keep 10-20 people entertained for 60 minutes (give or take); how you do it is up to you.  Attendees at these events are bright and friendly, and enjoy lively discussions.  In fact, we encourage people to “dive deep” into whatever topic is at hand.  These are great opportunities to network and engage the local tech community.

If that sounds like something you’d be up for then fill out the Talk Survey Form to get on our list.  It’s not a commitment – just a “willingness to be involved at some point”.  We’ll contact you and work out the details as our calendar firms up.

Thanks to everyone who showed up for the podcasting talk last night, and especially to our presenter, Elise Michaels.  Her slide deck is available below for those of you who didn’t make it.

For those who did, perhaps you could help me out – I know several people mentioned interesting podcasting resources, but I failed to write them down.  So perhaps you could add a comment listing any that you mentioned, or heard mentioned?  (e.g. I suggested Jamendo as a resource for free music, licensed under Creative Commons.)