Utah Open Source Planet

Tomorrow is the CTO breakfast. It starts at 8am and goes to 9:30am. The location is, as usual, the Novell cafeteria. Sorry for the late notice; for some reason my calendar wasn't showing the Google calendar event. Luckily an email prodded me from my stoopor.

The CTO breakfast isn't just for CTOs, but also for those who aspire to be CTOs or are interested in building high-texh products. The discussion is open-format. We decide what to talk about when we get there. You're welcome to bring your topic and bring it up.

Here are the scheduled dates for upcoming meetings:

• No breakfast in July
• August 28, 2009 (Friday)
• September 24, 2009 (Thursday)

I've created a Utah CTO Breakfast group at LinkedIn. You're invited to join.

I hope to see you there!

Tags: breakfast cto utah events

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This Friday at 11:30, Kynetx will host an open house and demo lunch. If you'd like to see what we're up to, stop by, eat some pizza, see some demos, and chat. We're especially interested in getting more people developing on our platform, so if you'd like to try it out, we'll have sign up cards for anyone who wants them.

We'll be at Kynetx World Headquarters in Thanksgiving Point. This map will give you directions; we're in Suite 275 (metal door). Please RSVP so we know how much pizza to buy.

Tags: kynetx events utah

Image via Wikipedia

This Friday at 11:30, Kynetx will host an open house and demo lunch. If you'd like to see what we're up to, stop by, eat some pizza, see some demos, and chat. We're especially interested in getting more people developing on our platform, so if you'd like to try it out, we'll have sign up cards for anyone who wants them.

We'll be at Kynetx World Headquarters in Thanksgiving Point. This map will give you directions; we're in Suite 275 (metal door). Please RSVP so we know how much pizza to buy.

Tags: kynetx events utah

At this morning's CTO Breakfast Kay Johansan announced her upcoming Agile Roots conference in Salt Lake City on June 15-16. This looks like a high quality confernce and it's nice to see it local.

Tyler Whitaker also demonstrated the new graphing capabilities in ErrorStack. As someone building a distributed system, I love the idea of ErrorStack--a cloud-based error system that just does errors and does them well. I'll probably start using it to track errors for Kynetx.

We got a look at the phone that Google gave out at IO yesterday. Someone who was there and got one showed up and passed it around. Nice updated from the G1, although without the slide-out physical keyboard.

Scott brought up Atmosphir, a game foundry where users can create their own games. Interesting that the game in this game could be creating games to share with your friends.

Tags: cto breakfast utah events agile errors phones telephony

We'll be holding the CTO Breakfast this Thursday (May 28th) at 8am in the usual place (Novell Cafeteria). Despite it's name, you don't have to be a CTO to attend--just interested in technology, where it's headed, and the problems of starting and building a high-tech business in Utah. All are welcome.

Here's a list of future breakfasts.

• May 28, 2009 (Thursday)
• June 26, 2009
• No breakfast in July
• August 28, 2009 (Friday)
• September 24, 2009 (Thursday)

Be sure to put them on your calendar. I have also created a Google Calendar with dates for the CTO breakfast that you can subscribe to.

I hope to see you there even though @fulling won't come.

Tags: cto breakfast utah events

I’ll be taking part in my second-ever protest today. My first was a recent “End the Fed” rally at the SLC branch of the Federal Reserve Bank. Today I’m attending a couple of the Utah Tea Parties.

Frankly, I’m outraged by the tax and spend policies that BOTH major parties have been adhering to lately. Actually, most Republicans prefer the “borrow and spend” method, which is even more insidious: passing our debt to future generations and incentivizing inflation as a “cheap” means of paying that debt.

I think Jefferson said it best:

We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds… [we will] have no time to think, no means of calling our miss-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers… And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for [another ]… till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery… And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.

Although Daniel Webster was more succinct:

The power to tax is the power to destroy.

If you agree with either of those statements, you should join us!

Here’s the most complete set of Utah locations I have found so far:

City: Salt Lake City ~ 1st Event
When: April 15, 12:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Where: Federal Building Plaza, 125 South State Street
Program
Activist and Author Candace Salima
Attorney General Mark Shurtleff
Congressman Jason Chaffetz (3rd District)
Congressman Rob Bishop (1st District)
For more information, contact Adam Gardiner at agardiner14@gmail.com (801-814-8963).

City: Logan
When: April 15, 4:00pm - 6:00 pm
Where: 241 North Main Street (south of Logan Library/City Hall)
For more information, contact Susan Southwick at susanksouthwick@gmail.com.

City: Salt Lake City ~ 2nd Event
When: April 15, 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Where: US Post Office Salt Lake City, 1795 W 2100 S
For more information, contact David at saltlaketeaparty@gmail.com (801-377-8224).

City: Provo
When: April 15, 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Where: Old Utah County Courthouse at the corner of University and Center
For more information, contact David at saltlaketeaparty@gmail.com (801-377-8224).

City: St. George
When: April 15, 5:00pm - 7:00pm
Where: Vernon Worthen Park, 300 S 400 E
For more information, contact Rinda Hunter at rinda.hunter@washco.utah.gov.

City: Vernal
When: April 15, 5:00 pm
Where: 150 East Main Street
For more information, contact Susan Southwick at susanksouthwick@gmail.com.

City: Richfield
When: April 15, 5:30pm - 7:30pm
Where: City Park, near 300 North and Main Street

I hope to see you there!

By the way, I’ll be spending most of my time protesting inflation: the hidden tax.  I’ll do a post illuminating the disasterous effects of inflation later.

The State of Utah has released two iPhone applications. The first is a general Utah.gov application. The second is for reviewing professional licenses in the State.

The Utah.gov app allows agency and service lookup. I preformed what was the most obvious search for me: look up the DMV. I was disappointed that searching services didn't let me see the RenewalExpress application and search on agencies just took me to the Tax Commission contact info. If I've got my phone in my hand and I search on DMV, I'm probably looking for the nearest office.

Nice to see that Utah's still experimenting will all this and trying new things, but to make this a killer iPhone app, it needs to be designed within the unique context of being on a phone.

Tags: utah state iphone

This month's CTO Breakfast will be held on Friday, April 24. Our usual venue (Novell's cafeteria) is unavailable that day. Barry Bryson of UEN has generously made their conference room available to us and has offered to supply a continental breakfast.

As an additional incentive to make the trek to the eastern foothills and visit the Eccles Broadcast Center, Infinera will have a demo truck at the U that day and Barry has invited CTO Breakfast attendees to visit the truck and even attend the UEN presentation if you wish.

Infinera is a fairly new fiber optic equipment manufacturer that has been winning some notable networks these days (competitors to Cisco, Ciena, Fujitsu, Nortel etc.) . Level-3 and Internet2 amongst others are customers of theirs.

You can visit the truck after the breakfast. If you'd like to stay for the presentation and lunch, Barry would like to know ahead of time so he can make sure there are enough slots. Contact Barry directly or contact me and I'll forward along the information.

We'll be meeting at the Eccles Broadcast Center (directions, address, and maps here) at 8am. As always, you don't have to be a CTO to attend--just interested in technology. I hope to see you there.

Be sure to check the calendar for future events.

Tags: cto breakfast utah events

The Utah Open Source Foundation, in its goal to promote Open Source throughout Utah and beyond, is proud to promote the following events.  These events are generally related to Open Source and Technology in Utah.  If your event is not listed below, please contact clint@utos.org to get it added.  In addition, each of the events below was pulled from the Utah Tech Events calendar, feel free to subscribe by clicking the link below (or adding the following feed to your calendaring program)

• Utah Tech Events Calendar - Google Calendar: http://tinyurl.com/ute-calendar
• Utah Tech Events Calendar - iCal Feed: http://tinyurl.com/ute-calendar-ics

——————————————————————————————————-
Utah Technology Community Announcements

• Utah Open Source announces 2009 conference theme - http://tinyurl.com/utosc2009-theme
• Utah Open Source announces 2009 conference venue - http://tinyurl.com/utosc2009-venue
• Utah Open Source announces 2009 conference dates - http://tinyurl.com/utosc2009-dates
——————————————————————————————————-

Upcoming Activities for April 2009

Sat, April 4th, 1pm
Utah CodeAway
Link: http://codeaway.org/
Where: Rocky Mountain Pizza Company, 3977 Wasatch Boulevard, Holladay, Utah 84124

Wed, April 8th, 11:30pm – 1:00pm
SLLUG: Daytime SIG Meeting
Link: http://sexysexypenguins.com/2009/03/24/sllug-daytime-sig-cooking-with-pam-april/
Topic: Cooking with PAM by Thad van Ry
Where: Salt Lake Public Library - Conference Room A Lower Level

Wed, April 8, 7:30pm – 9:00pm
Provo Linux Users Group
Link: http://plug.org
Topic: Home Automation by Ryan Erickson
Where: Omniture

Thu, April 9, 6pm – 9pm
Utah Mobile Developers Group
Where: STG Dev Center, 555 South 300 East, Salt Lake City, Utah

Thu, April 9, 7:00pm – 8:30pm
UtahPython User Group Meeting
Link: http://utahpython.org
Topic: Pygame by Jeff Shipley
Where: University of Utah, Emma Eccles Jones Medical Research Building, Room 1200. (map)

Fri, April 10, 12:30pm
UTOS/UPHPU Geek Lunch
Link: http://utos.org/geek-lunch
Where: Teriyaki Express, 1898 W 5400 S Taylorsville, UT

Sat, April 11, 6pm – 8pm
Ubuntu-Utah Meeting
Link: http://utah.ubuntu-us.org
Topic: Conky by Mike Basinger
Where: University of Utah - Merrill Engineering Building (MEB) Comp-Sci Labs Rm 2555 - http://tinyurl.com/2k8px2

Wed, April 15, 7:10pm – 8:10pm
Salt Lake Linux User Group (SLLUG)
Link: http://sllug.org
Where: University of Utah, Warnock Engineering Building (WEB) room 101 (Previously known as EMCB)

Thu, April 16, 6pm – 9pm
Utah Java User’s Group (ujug.org)
Link: http://ujug.org
Where: SelectHealth (IHC), 4646 West Lake Park Blvd., West Valley City, UT (map)

Thu April 16, 7:00pm – 8:30pm
Utah PHP User Group (UPHPU)
Link: http://uphpu.org
Topic: SSL + Apache presented by Lonnie Olson
Where: Bill Good Marketing, Draper, Utah

Fri, April 24, 8:00am – 9:30am
CTO Breakfast
Link: http://www.windley.com/cto_forum
Where: Novell Cafeteria

Thu, April 23, 6pm – 8pm
Logan Dev Group
Where: Room 208 (Faculty Seminar Lounge), Merrill-Cazier Library, Utah State University, Logan, UT (map)

April 24-25
LinuxFest Northwest
Link: http://linuxfestnorthwest.org
Where: Bellingham, Washington

Tue, April 28, 7:30pm-8:45pm
Ogden Area Linux User Group
Link: http://oalug.com
Where: Weber County Main Library, Board Room

Image via Wikipedia

The CTO Breakfast will occur this Friday, Mar 27 at 8am. The venue has changed for this breakfast: we'll be holding it in conjunction with PodCamp SLC. The venue is Neumont University in South Jordan. There's no food at Neumont , so Kynetx will provide bagels, etc. If you want something else, you probably ought to stop and get it before you come.

The CTO Breakfast is open to anyone who wants to come and is free. You'll need to register for PodCamp SLC separately if you want to attend that. We'll be ending before the 9:30 keynote starts.

Here is a list of future CTO Breakfasts:

• Apr 24, 2009 (Friday)
• May 28, 2009 (Thursday)

Please put them on your calendar. You can also subscribe to the Google calendar for the CTO Breakfast if you like.

I look forward to seeing you there.

Tags: cto breakfast utah events

A friend of mine at HP is looking for small business owners (1-20 employees) to participate in some usability testing of online tools for marketing their business. Participants will receive a $50 gift card to Amazon.com or Best Buy, or a discount on design services like brochure creation, for an hour of their time at the HP office in American Fork, Utah. If you're interested, just send a note to Esther at HP.

Tags: usability testing utah

Izeni will be at BYU’s Web Startup Group tonight to give a short demo of our first product, CallClock.

CallClock is a mobile (hosted) timekeeping system to help employers and contract workers record work time for payroll, invoicing, job costing, and project management. CallClock is still in private beta, but Izeni joins other local companies in using it in-house while we’re finding bugs and adding features.

If you’d be interested in being a part of our private beta, let me know. If you’re in the Provo area tonight and want to see it work, swing on by.

Image by Thomas Hawk via Flickr

Guy Kawasaki is speaking at the Infopia ecommerce conference in Salt Lake City today. (You might also enjoy reading my notes from the last time Guy was in Utah.) His topic is how to drive the competition crazy. In standard Guy style, he gives his talk as a list of ten things:

1. Find a mighty opposite - find a great enemy who is trying to do something in direct opposition to what you're doing. Portray them in ways that emphasize how you're different. It doesn't have to be a company. It could be something like "ignorance." Finding an opposite allows you to make meaning instead of just making money.
2. Know thyself - you can't fight the competition unless you know what you're about and where you stand. Guy recommends creating a mantra (not a mission statement) as the first step. Here's Kynetx' mantra: automate context.
3. Know thy customer - everyone says this, but the key is the degree to which you do it. Don't farm it out; do it yourself. Making sense of who your customers are and what they want will drive you crazy--not just your competition.
4. Know thy enemy - the best way is to become your competition's customer. What's the shipping policy, their credit policy, etc.? How do they do it? Get first hand knowledge. Go to their conferences.
5. Focus on the customer/create good shitake - too many companies focus on their competition. People don't care about your battle with the competition; they only care about whether or not you serve their interests. The most important aspect of focusing on your customer, you have to build a good product that your customers want to buy. He takes a swipe at SEO: Google is in the business of finding good stuff. If you build good stuff, Google will find it because their interests are aligned with yours. Great products aren't a little better; they're 10 times better. Your product ought to be emotive and be polarizing. He references his DICEE advice.
6. Turn customers into evangelists - if customers are emotional about your product they will talk about it--for free. Guy uses Nike as an example: they're not selling cotton and leather stiched together as shoes. They're selling ideas and emotion.
7. Create your own day - Levi Strauss commissioned a study on the effect of casual dress on workplace morale and productivity. They made this available to the press and created a "casual dress implementation kit." Lots of papers picked it up. They created their own opportunity.
8. Make good by doing good - align yourself with good causes.
9. Turn your competition into allies - find ways to work with, rather than against your competition. Where can you be collborative to engage new markets? He gives the example of J.B. Hunt trucking teaming with railroads to put semi trailers on flatbeds.
10. Play with the minds - Once you've done everything else, play games with the competition. He tells of a pizza company that offers 2 for 1 pizzas if you tear out and bring in the yellow pages ad of their competition. He talks of a small business person sitting next to a Home Depot who renamed his business "Main Entrance" to get people coming to Home Depot to come into his store.
11. Use Twitter - A bonus 11th tip. What good is a cell phone that allows you to listen to random snippets of conversation? Use search to find out what people are saying anything about you or your company? When you see people talking about things your sell they are potential customers. Guy gives a demo of Twitter to a room of people who aren't Tweeple (for the most part). He demos Tweetdeck (FTW). He recommends using TwitterHawk but staying away from the autopost features.

Good marketing pisses people off. If people aren't getting mad at you, then you're boring and bland. You can't let a vocal minority tell you what to do.

I enjoyed this talk a lot. First of all Guy is an entertaining speaker. Second, and more important, even though he's using some material from older talks I've heard, he's constantly refreshing and rearranging his content. There's new stuff here and it adds new interest.

Tags: utah events business kynetx

Image by windley via Flickr

We'll be holding February's CTO breakfast this Thursday (Feb 26) at 8am in the Novell Cafeteria (Building G, Provo campus - map). Whether you're a CTO or not, you're welcome to come. The discussion is about building high-tech products, building companies, and what's hot right now. We'd love to have you join us.

Here are future dates to mark on your calendar:

• Feb 26, 2009 (Thursday)
• Mar 27, 2009 (Friday)
• Apr 24, 2009 (Friday)
• May 28, 2009 (Thursday)

I have created a Google Calendar with dates for the CTO breakfast that you can subscribe to.

Or if you'd rather subscribe from iCal or Outlook, here's the iCalendar link.

I hope to see you there.

Tags: cto breakfast utah events novell

I've had a handful of people ask if they could stop by Kynetx and see what we do. Steve has had similar requests. In an effort to not miss anyone who would like to visit Kynetx and get a demo of our fledgling product, we're hosting a Kynetx Demo Lunch on Friday, Feb 6th at 11:30 at Kynetx World Headquarters in Thanksgiving Point. This map will give you directions and we're in Suite 275 (metal doors). We'll supply the pizza, you bring your curiosity. Please RSVP so we know how much pizza to buy.

Tags: kynetx utah events

Image by windley via Flickr

We'll be holding January's CTO Breakfast this Friday in the Novell cafeteria in Provo (Building G). Come prepared for an awesome discussion of technology and companies--especially startups. Feel free to bring topics for discussion. Anyone interested in building high-tech products and services is welcome to attend--not just CTOs.

Please put future CTO breakfasts on your calendar so you can be sure and be there. Here are the scheduled dates so far:

• Jan 30, 2009 (Friday)
• Feb 26, 2009 (Thursday)
• Mar 27, 2009 (Friday)
• Apr 24, 2009 (Friday)

I have created a Google Calendar with dates for the CTO breakfast that you can subscribe to.

Or if you'd rather subscribe from iCal or Outlook, here's the iCalendar link.

Tags: utah events cto breakfast

Back in 2003, I lamented the fact that there was no interactive map to finding your legislator in Utah. Indeed, the process involved a lot of steps that introduced considerable friction.

Now, thanks to the power of mash-ups and open data, Scott Riding has created an interactive map of Utah legislative districts and the legislators representing them. I typed in my address and was presented with pictures and contact information of my legislators along with a pin in the map showing my house so I could verify everything was right. Thanks Scott!

Tags: utah politics egovernment geoweb

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Word going around is that the State of Utah is looking at possibly consolidating some data centers. In government, over the years, state agencies built data centers and ran them independently. A lot of these were really just machine rooms with not much in the way of power and air conditioning. Some were full-on Class A data centers.

As State CIOs have looked for ways to save money, data center consolidation was a favorite example of how more interagency cooperation could result in tax payer saving. After all, the DNS server for Tax doesn't really care if it's running next to the Web server from Commerce. It's all bits. Oregon, Michigan, Texas, Wisconsin and Georgia are all among states that have taken on consolidation projects--with varying degrees of success.

Over the last ten years there have been a lot of changes in data centers--many driven by changes in the density of the machines that run in them. No longer is space an issue. Rather the issue becomes one of how much power you can get in and how much heat you can get out. Another trend changing data centers is virtualization.

Consolidation can save money if it's done correctly and with a clear understanding of costs, benefits, potential pitfalls, and likely future needs. Costs come from a number of factors:

• Air handling - old data centers may have inefficient air handling units and poor design leading to excessive costs.
• Power conditioning and distribution - older data centers may be inefficient at providing power or may not do a good job of conditioning and providing backup power.
• Facilities management - managing a building costs money. Reusing space for other purposes saves the money needed to buy or rent new space.
• Personnel - older data centers and the applications running in them may not be instrumented for remote monitoring and operation and thus require personnel onsite.
• Security - data centers need physical security to protect the machines inside of them.
• Ping - running multiple lines to multiple data centers may cost more than running a few larger lines to bigger data centers. The need for redundancy multiplies this.

There are also plenty of potential pitfalls. Here are some areas where people run into trouble:

• Undersizing is common - Many data center plans don't make provision for enough space, power, and cooling.
• Relocation is hard - moving servers can mean downed services. More problematic is that services that have grown acretively over the years have lots of interdependencies.
• Baselines are ignored - If the reason for consolidating is to save money, you'd better know how much you're spending before and after so you can understand what happened.
• Too many changes happening at once - consolidations look like a good time to drive other changes, like virtualization, as well. Consolidation is complex enough without adding more moving parts to the mix.
• Experienced hands are unavailable - Not very many people have experience in consolidating data centers and yet it's vital to success.

Here's a few things--by no means exhaustive--that you can do to mitigate some of these problems.

• Consolidate in phases - consolidate servers using virtualization and blade technology before you consolidate data centers so that you have a better idea of size requirement and interdependencies.
• Don't upgrade and move simultaneously - Don't try to upgrade or change systems as part of the consolidation. Freeze systems to be moved in the months beforehand and move the systems as they are.
• Pick low hanging fruit first - concentrate initial efforts on machine rooms and racks in closets. Consider leaving good data centers that can be remotely managed until the end.
• Understand security and privacy requirements of all players - Many agency programs have particular, legally mandate, requirements. Health and education are two that come to mind.
• Don't promise that you'll eliminate servers--at least not at first. That will increase pressure to change systems at the same time you're consolidating.
• Don't underestimate the emotion attached to servers--people like to be able to see their servers. I used to be this way, so I understand it. They're cool. Blinking lights give the impression that important, cool things are happening. Get them over this by moving some things to the cloud or another data center before you take it all away.
• Don't try to get down to one massive data center--multiple, smaller data centers may be cheaper to operate than one large one as long as they can be remotely managed. The model is a small number of smaller, high watt per square foot data centers and one NOC.

One question that seems to come up is what should be outsourced and what should be kept in house. I don't think there's one answer to this question. But there are some ground rules that can help make the decision:

• You should definitely get outside help to plan the consolidation. Experience can make a world of difference.
• Backup data centers and redundancy is a great thing to outsource and often can be placed somewhere that yields additional benefits (like being in a different earthquake zone or where power is cheaper).
• While some system might need to reside on State premises for security or legal reasons, many do not and could be somewhere else--even in the cloud.
• Using consolidation as an excuse to build a new shiny data center can add additional scrutiny. Outsourcing takes away much of the spotlight of a new construction project.
• Make sure that you understand the true costs of running things yourself so that you can make reasoned decisions instead of emotional ones.

Surely, I've forgotten some things that ought to be said. Add your comments below if you have other ideas about how to go about data center consolidation.

Tags: utah government data+centers

I got this email from Parents for Choice in Education last night.

Transparency in Education Forum, Jan. 14th

On Wednesday January 14th, the Sutherland Institute is hosting a forum called Transparency in Education, featuring John Fund of the Wall Street Journal.  The forum will include a sneak peak at Utah’s new transparency website.

We encourage you to attend the forum, both because of the importance of transparency and because John Fund is a great speaker (He’s spoken at PCE events in the past).

From our perspective, financial transparency in education is crucial to empowering citizens and increasing accountability, especially in an education system with limited choice. Increasing transparency is one of the main reasons we created the website www.UtahEducationFacts.com.

As we mentioned in our latest email bulletin, transparency will be a key issue in the 2009 legislative session.  Last year, the Legislature passed a law requiring government agencies at the state level to post financial data online for public scrutiny.  Senator Niederhauser of Sandy is sponsoring a bill for 2009 that will extend the transparency requirements to local government, including school districts and charter schools.

The event costs $25 per person and is on Wednesday, January 14th from 2 to 4 pm in downtown Salt Lake City.  To reserve a seat, call (801) 355-1272 or visit www.sutherlandinstitute.org.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *
For more info about the event, see this flyer.

To learn more about financial transparency in education, go here.

Please consider becoming a member of Parents for Choice in Education if you haven’t yet. It’s free, and it’s a darn good way to stay abreast of movements in education reform (which I think we need now more than ever).

By the way, I’m putting events like this on a colaborative Utah Liberty Events Calendar. You should subscribe if you’re into that kind of stuff (and let me know if you’d like to contribute).

Gabe and I want to be sure that our start up company, Izeni, has a cash runway that’s long enough to ensure that we can have a proper lift off. To that end we’ve been doing some consulting and contract work (mostly low-hanging fruit) to slow our burn rate, and it’s worked fairly well because we’re in bootstrapping mode and our expenses are relativity low. So, although we’ve never really sought contract work, we do like it; and I thought I’d do a quick post officially soliciting it.

So without further ado, Izeni will be accepting all kinds of technical consulting and contract work. Our specialities are Python coding; website development (particularly using the Django framework); Linux systems administration (Apache, *SQL, Postfix, Mailman, IPtables, Samba, Bash, etc.); and VoIP-based telephony (Asterisk and Freeswitch).

We can also do general computer and network support, online marketing, and a myriad of other technical and business odds and ends.  :)

Izeni is based out of Utah, but we can also telecommute.

Please let me know if you have any contracting and consulting opportunities or know of any companies looking for web guys, programmers, or other technical contractors. Otherwise, feel free to repost this (pass the word along), or just keep us in mind.

A few months ago, I wrote that Governor Huntsman’s “monitoring” of gas prices was just political BS, and that purposely encouraging a misunderstanding of basic economics for political gain was a bad idea.

Well, it turns out I was wrong: just the threat of State oversight made Utah gas vendors stop being greedy, and now Utah enjoys some of the cheapest gas in the nation!

(OK, you’re onto me: that was BS too. But Utah really does have some remarkable gas prices right now.)

Anyway, my friend and former neighbor Kerk (who is also an Econonmics professor at BYU) has an excellent post that could serve very well as a follow up to my aforementioned rant:

Current Gas Prices (December 2008)

Look at the above map from GasBuddy.com. The price of gasoline in northern Utah these days is about as low as any place in the US. If you live in Utah you know the press here goes into fits of apoplexy whenever gas prices in Utah are higher than the rest of the country. Last Spring all we heard about was how the greedy gas station owners were profiteering and charging unfair prices to Utah drivers. In 2006, KSL radio host, Doug Wright, tried to organize a one-day boycott of gas stations because Utah gas prices were the 4th most expensive in the nation. Now that prices are down no one is talking about who is being unfair to who. Using the same arguments, one could argue that motorists are now colluding to drive down the price of gas and harming gas station owners. Of course this is silly, but it makes as much sense and is just as logical. Inevitably, in the future some time the price of gas in Utah will rise above the national average and our local press will go nuts again. Remember this picture when that happens.

Brilliant!

I think we’d all be better served with an understanding of basic economics. That way we can let our news media go back to talking about family-pet hit-and-runs, celebrity lookalikes, local American Idol runners up, and the like. That’s right, Doug Wright: we should be boycotting you.

Seriously though. Whenever you hear some news anchor or some politician spouting out things that are blatantly stupid, you should ask yourself: “Are they stupid, or do they just think I’m stupid.” Then ask yourself which is better. Do you want news by dumb people, or news for dumb people?

Interestingly, I heard it reported that because of relatively lower wholesale gasoline prices, station owners are actually making more money right now with low retail prices than they were making with high retail prices. Go figure.

Yes, we are being (relatively) gouged on super cheap fuel.

Outrage, anyone?

The CTO Breakfast for November and December will be on Friday December 5, at 8am in the Novell Cafeteria (Building H, Provo Campus). If you are interested in technology and especially it's use in building high-tech products, then you're invited--you don't have to be a CTO, just have aspirations!

Here are the scheduled dates for future breakfasts:

• Jan 30, 2009 (Friday)
• Feb 26, 2009 (Thursday)
• Mar 27, 2009 (Friday)

There's a Google Calendar with dates for the CTO breakfast that you can subscribe to if you like.

If you'd like to be reminded by email, just sign up for the (low volume) mailing list here:

I'll see you on Friday!

Tags: cto breakfast utah events

This Christmas our family gift is a years’ supply of food storage –and I’m thrilled to have it.

I decided I’ll also be giving the gift of food storage to my family and friends. No I’m not buying it (although I think a box or a bucket of wheat makes a tremendous gift idea), but I do offer my time as a resource in food planning and food packing. (For anyone who has canned their own food, you know this has potential to be a major time commitment.) The offer is good until next Christmas, but please give me a call right away so we can get you started today.

For those of you who are not my family and friends, I’d still like to help you with your food storage planning; basically determining what food items you’ll need and where you can buy them. I’ll point to a few resources in case you want to do it yourself, but please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or just need help getting started. I was relieved to have a great friend who talked me through it, and I’d like to pass the favor along.

For anyone who wants to get started on there own emergency food storage, you should check out he following resources:

StockUpFood.com is a free food storage calculator that helps you determine your emergency food planning needs based on family size and how much food storage you would like, whether you want enough for just 1-month or 2 years. StockUpFood.com also helps you track what food storage items you buy (and use) so you can keep a running total of what you need to purchase –plus it gives you a “percentage completed” to help you track progress toward your goal. Very cool –especially for people that want to ease their way into emergency food storage.

The LDS church also has some great resources their provident living website. By far the most useful resource there (for me) was an order form for the dry-packed food products, which are purchasable in bulk sized bags or by the can. It’s easy to fill out out (using the food storage calculator I linked to above), and you can just bring it along to at any Family Home Food Storage location. There you can buy the vast majority of your food storage in large bags, and you can get them at a pretty great price. And if you want your emergency food canned (for longer storage and easy rotation) you can dry-pack can it right on location and just take home the items you need. This is a lot of work, but if you’re doing canned food (instead of bags or buckets) it’s by far the most convenient way to go. You can also buy it pre-canned, (which is even more convenient) but you’ll end up paying more.

The Lindon LDS Family Home Food Storage is only open on Tuesdays and Thursday, but you’ll want to call to check availability in your location. They also lend dry-pack canning equipment out, in case you’ve already purchased food in bags but want it canned.

I should mention that many grocery stores (at least in Utah) have foods like dry wheat and beans by the bucket and the bag. Selection is fairly sparse, and buying a full years’ worth of food would take up several grocery carts; but it can be done. I bought a lot of bulk food stuff at Macey’s, a local grocery chain which has pretty good prices. I wish I’d held off on some of the bagged food I got there since I still want to dry-pack can most of it anyway, but the buckets are a great way to get a little at a time if you need to stretch out your food storage purchases over several paychecks. You can also get large water basins, wheat grinders, empty buckets, and other equipment there as well.

Lastly, if you live in Utah and are (or would like to become) an emergency preparedness junkie, check out UtahPreppers. It’s new, but judging by the people who run it, I think it will probably be a pretty great resource.

I’m pleased with how much opportunity for personal development and professional networking there is in Utah. Yes, I do want to see it grow even more, but it’s nice have more good options than I could possibly attend.

Tonight for example, the Utah Tech Events and Utah Business Events calendars show four events in which I have genuine interested, all occurring at the same time.  At 7:30 tonight I would be perfectly content to be at any of these four events:

1. Twelve Horses: Brand Evolution
2. Ignite Salt Lake
3. BYU Web Startup Group
4. Utah Python Users Group

Incidentally, I’d also enjoy being at home with my family, but this abundance of events centered around professional networking and personal development shows that Utah really does have a great (albeit budding) tech and business ecosystem. These mostly non-profit knowledge-sharing groups constitute, I believe, some crucial intangibles that are important underpinnings to a vibrant economy. I’m glad to see them, and I’d love to see them grow.

Anyway, there’s no excuse to not be developing your personal and professional skills at some of these events. Just don’t try to substitute them for hard and diligent work. :)

If you’d like to be a contributor to out local tech and business calendars, please ping me or any of the other calendar admins. Especially if you’ve got a utah-based business or tech group and would like a channel to attract more people, we’d love to hear from you.

I just added the BYU Web Startup Group to my comprehensive list of Utah Tech Groups.

From their website:

The Web Startup group was founded to bring together people interested in creating new sites and services online. Group members include web developers (programmers and designers), marketing and business-minded individuals, creative idea people, and others with technology related skills. The group meets regularly to discuss and make Web Startups come to life. If you are interested in making a difference online then join us!

Their next meeting will be this Thursday and will cover Android and “Jump Starting your Website”.

I also added one of the founders, Adam Chavez, to Utah’s Business Blog Aggregator and invited him to contribute his events to the Utah Tech Events Calendar. If you or anyone you know should be added to these Utah business community sites, please contact me.

BTW, there’s also a Utah Business Events Calendar which hasn’t caught on nearly as much. Let me know if you’d like to contribute. Maybe I’ll merge the two calendars in the future; we’ll see.

Anyway, checkout the Web Startup Group. I think they could end up being a really valuable resource to the Utah business and technology communities.

I dislike both major-party presidential candidates so profoundly that I would feel extremely uncomfortable giving my vote to either of them. Sure, I like Obama even less than McCain, but luckily I live in a “landslide” state where I don’t have to make the difficult decision of whether I’ll vote for the proverbial “lessor of two evils”. In Utah, I can vote my conscience with a pretty solid confidence that the direct outcome will be exactly the same; Utah will see a landslide win for McCain either way, so why marshal support for someone I don’t even like?

Instead, I’m voting for Chuck Baldwin.

“Why haven’t I heard of Chuck Baldwin”, you ask. Well, it’s either because the main stream media thinks you’re stupid, or because it wants you stupid. I’ll let you decide which.

Chuck Baldwin is the Constitution Party’s candidate for president. If he won (which he won’t) I would be comfortable that our nation would be in good hands.

“But why vote for someone who can’t even win?” Well, technically he could win, but he won’t. Either way voting for someone you like makes a heck of a lot more sense than voting for someone you don’t like –especially if you live in a state (like Utah) where your vote is mostly symbolic.

My vote is a protest: I’m sick of big government Republicans that are nothing more than socialists in sheep’s clothing. They’ve done our country harm, they’ve done my party harm, they’ve done my family harm, and I want them out.

I’ve got a lot to say about how the Republican party has lost its way, but I’ll forbear for now. Suffice it to say that I think it may very well cost us this election –and we deserve to lose. Not that the Democrats are any better (in fact, they’re much worse).

I’ve also got a lot to say about our current voting system, but I’ll forbear for now. (Watch for my upcoming rant.) Until then if you live in a relatively uncontested state, you really should look at your real options: Check out Chuck Baldwin!

In the recent bailout fiasco, while both major-party candidates were using scare tactics to push pork legislation through –chiding each other all the while for not being socialist enough– Chuck’s stance against the banking bailouts was constitutional and exemplary. No wonder they didn’t want to invite him to the debates.

Now that’s leadership.

Happy voting!

Don’t forget about the inaugural meeting of Utah Mobile Developers Group tonight.  They’ll be discussing both iPhone and Android development and handing out some O’Reilly iPhone books.

I have a feeling that this group is going to be awesome. At least it will be for me; it’s right up the alley of what my new business will be doing. Here’s UMDG’s mission statement:

The mission of the UMDG is provide development-level education and networking around mobile applications. This includes device-specific apps, client-server apps and web-only apps formatted for use on mobile devices. We will cover all mobile devices for which there is interest, including iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, J2ME and more.

By the way, they’re looking for sponsors. I pledge to be one once we’re actually profitable.

I've mentioned a few times on Twitter that I'm on the board of directors for the Open High School of Utah and some people have asked to know more.

The Open High School of Utah is an online public charter high school based on open source course content. Not "open source" in the software sense, but "open source" in the sense that all the course content is openly licensed. We're taking applications for 9th grade in Fall 2009 right now. Utah students attend for free.

The open courseware model is one that's been working for some time at MIT, but as far as I know this is the first high school committed to a complete, accredited, 9-12 grade education on open source course content. It's not as easy as I assumed when the idea was first put to me. There are some gaps to close.

A key aspect of the model is that with open course content, the content can be modified based on data about what works and what doesn't. With licensed content (and there are several sources for that), you can't modify it because of copyright issues. And you certainly can't redistribute the updates.

This idea of iteratively improving the course through data is one of the research interests of Professor David Wiley, a fellow board member and the founder of the high school. He's a big proponent of open content and writes an open content blog.

This is a fun project. I'm learning a lot and there are very many people who are anxious to find ways to reinvent education. Openness and education go together. We need to get back to that model. Current, entrenched, incumbent business interests (text book publishers, school districts, and others) won't go there. But others can and I'm excited to be part of those explorations.

Tags: utah education open+source ohsu

The CTO Breakfast for October will be on Thursday Oct 30, at 8am in the Novell Cafeteria (Building H, Provo Campus). If you are interested in technology and especially it's use in building high-tech products, then you're invited--you don't have to be a CTO, just have aspirations!

Here are the scheduled dates for future breakfasts:

• Oct 30 (Thursday)
• Dec 5 (Friday) - Combined Nov and Dec breakfast
• Jan 30, 2009 (Friday)

There's a Google Calendar with dates for the CTO breakfast that you can subscribe to if you like.

If you'd like to be reminded by email, just sign up for the (low volume) mailing list here:

I look forward to seeing you on Thursday!

Tags: cto breakfast event utah

If you're interested in avoiding the lines at your polling place, consider early voting. Most states have provisions for early voting. Utah has information about early voting online, although sadly the actual list of locations is a PDF document. Early voting in Utah happens between October 21st and 31st. Most of the locations have limited hours, so be sure to check that. You'll need to bring a picture ID (whereas you don't for voting at your normal polling place).

I was a little disappointed in Utah's online voting information. When you go to the "Leave Your Print" site, there's no indication it's information from Utah. In a related idea, they are using the domain name leaveyourprint.com rather than vote.utah.gov, which would clearly indicate that this is an official site of the State of Utah. Nothing wrong with that kind of branding. It's catchy. But the site ought to be clear that it's an official site of the State.

Also, I love the "find your polling place" application. A few nits: The privacy policy is about voter registration records rather than the information I'm putting in the site (that's covered informally in the introductory text). Also, the polling place screen gives and address. Why not link out to a map?

Tags: utah egovernment voting

I’m way excited about the Utah Mobile Developers user group that is forming. Their first activity is on the schedule for Wednesday, October 29 and will discuss both iPhone and Android development. Here’s the agenda and RVSP:

6:00pm Doors open, pizza, networking
6:30 Opening, recognize sponsors, review agenda, review door prizes
6:40 Presentation 1 - iPhone Development
7:40 Presentation 2 - Android (Google Phone) Development
8:40 Door prizes
9:00 Meeting over
Afterward - trip to someplace local for pie, drinks, fries, whatever

Please rsvp by sending an email to glen@glenlewis.com.

I’ve already added it to the Utah Tech Events Calendar. If you’re a nerdy Utahn who loves mobile phones you should come. This is going to be an area of explosive growth and opportunity.

For those who didn’t know, I’m working on a tech business that’s very mobile-phone related, so I’m very excited to see this group forming in Utah.

We will be holding the CTO breakfast this Friday at 8am in the Novell Cafeteria (Building G). You don't have to be a CTO to come, just interested in technology and building high-tech products. The format is open discussion, so bring your ideas for topics to discuss and throw them out.

Please mark the following dates for future CTO breakfasts.

• Sept 26 (Friday)
• Oct 30 (Thursday)
• Dec 5 (Friday) - Combined Nov and Dec breakfast
• Jan 30, 2009 (Friday)

I've created a Google Calendar with dates for the CTO breakfast that you can subscribe to if you'd rather do that.

Tags: cto breakfast event utah

Calling anyone and everyone interested in WordPress, we’re getting together for WordCamp Utah in Provo, Utah!  They’ve got a great line up of speakers, including WordPress founding developer Matt Mullenweg and long time WordPress developer Alex King.

The cost is only $20 and includes lunch, t-shirt, stickers, etc. Signing up only takes a minute.  Help spread the word! Blog about it and tell your friends!

When: Saturday September 27, 2008 from 9:30am - 5:00pm
Where: Novell, Open Source Technology Center (Building A) 1800 Novell Place Provo, Utah 84606 Map
Website: http://utah.wordcamp.org/
Price: $20 - Buy Tickets

The trouble with pizza girls (and everyone else these days) is that they blog.

I love the internet and its bountious opportunities for citizen journalism.  Ten years ago you would never have heard this story.

A Quick Photoblog Update! Time for real specifics later, but other news includes 2 awesome upcoming events!

• Utah Open Source Conference (if your in the Utah area, see you there!)
• Desktop Search Hackfest in Berlin! (I’ll be posing more on my goals for the Hackfest later!)

New Posters From NPS!Our Tickets to Dave Matthews Band!

View From our new Place!

Sloshball!

Massive Utah Mountain Fire!

My brother Gabe wrote an interesting post highlighting how Google Trends searches show that Utah is a hotbed of Open Source. It reminded me that I haven’t plugged the Utah Open Source Conference that’s happening this week. This conference is something you don’t want to miss.  I think you can still get tickets.

If your business is still not leveraging open source, you need to stop by to meet some of the people that can help you make it happen.

Now, on a separate nerdy note, I wanted to echo Gabe’s post by pointing out some business terms in which Utahans have peculiar interest according to search data in Google Trends.  When it comes to industry related searches, we rank #1 for Multi Level Marketing, #2 in Outdoor Recreation, and #3 in Telemarketing.

Utah also does a disproportionate amount of searches for online business terms: we rank #1 for SEO, #2 for Internet Marketing, #1 for Web Analytics, and #2 for Internet Business.

Can you think of any other obvious top Utah searches?  I’m looking specifically for business terms; although searches for jello, meth, and vouchers are interesting in their own right.

I blogged that this was happening, and now it’s happened.  I liked David’s Garber’s summary of the Utah GOP’s delegate bait and switch so much that I got permission to post it its entirety:

———————————————-

It’s official! This morning, by a vote of 70 supporters to 12 opponents, Utah’s state Republican Party’s Central Committee voted to adopt a proposed new “standing rule” that would apply a new twisted interpretation to our party’s by-laws–an interpretation that will now bind our state’s set of Republican national delegates to vote for McCain rather than Romney on their first national convention ballot.

Here is the precise text of this new standing rule:

Standing Rule

This Standing Rule has been adopted by the State Central Committee of the Utah Republican Party and shall be a binding rule of the Utah Republican Party unless and until superseded by a change in the Constitution or Bylaws of the Utah Republican Party, or by a subsequent standing rule adopted by the State Central Committee expressly revoking or modifying this Standing Rule:

It is hereby ruled by the State Central Committee of the Utah Republican Party that:

1. An ambiguity exists in the meaning of “the candidate” as it is used in Bylaw 7.0 (B) that is sufficient to have generated public controversy among Party members over the meaning and effect of Bylaw 7.0(B); and that

2. Each reference to “the candidate” in Bylaw 7.0(B) is hereby interpreted to mean a person who is a candidate for nomination on the first ballot at the National Convention at the time of that ballot, according to the rules of the Republican National Committee and any rules adopted by the National Convention; and that

3. Bylaw 7.0(B) does not require that the Utah National Convention delegates and alternates be allocated to or bound to vote on the first ballot for a person who does not meet the definition of candidacy defined in part 2 of this Rule; and that

4. Bylaw 7.0(B) does require that the Utah National Convention delegates and alternates shall be allocated to and bound to vote on the first ballot for “the candidate” as defined in part 2 of this Rule, who has received the most votes of the statewide vote in the Utah Republican Presidential Primary.

RULED this 23rd day of August, 2008, by the State Central Committee of the Utah Republican Party, meeting in South Jordan, Utah, in the presence of a quorum.

Funny that they never noticed this “ambiguity” before–they seemed pretty clear about what it meant during our state convention when they tried to have this rule suspended.

I wrote this story for some friends on MySpace to try to explain what happened:

Utah’s GOP Leaders Defeat Utah’s GOP Rules

This morning marked the end of a long war between Utah’s GOP leaders and Utah’s GOP voters/delegates/rules over whom our national delegation will support at our national convention next week.

Utah’s GOP Primary: “Okay, it’s time to vote, Utahn Republicans! Which of these candidates do you prefer to become your next President?”

Utah’s GOP Voters: “Well, 89% of us reckon that we prefer that conservative-talkin’ LDS guy with the nice hair!”

Utah’s GOP Rules: “According to us, based on these primary election results, Utah’s Republican national delegation will be bound to cast 100% of their votes for Romney on their first national convention ballot in September.”

Mitt Romney: “Meh, my Presidential campaign is hopeless, with McCain’s friend Huckabee drawing votes away from me. So, I’m suspending it and becoming McCain’s biggest cheerleader, instead. *buttsmooch* I now want all of my national delegates to vote for McCain to the extent that the law/rules will allow. Now, what is thy bidding, my master?”

John McCain: “Muhahahahahahaha!!! Now, more than 51% of all national delegates will be voting for me! Next, I want to assimilate the other 49%, as well, so that I can enjoy a big everyone-loves-McCain-fest in September. Hey, Utah, gimme yours!!!”

Utah’s GOP Rules: “Sorry, McCain, but we don’t allow that–they’re bound to Romney, as the voters decided, and that’s final.”

Utah’s GOP Leaders: “Whoa, not so fast, you darn rules! No worries, John, we won’t let those pesky rules stop us from getting you whatever it is you want. Hey, state delegates, we need 2/3 of you to vote to suspend these annoying party rules so that our national delegates can be free to vote for McCain, instead.”

Utah’s GOP State Delegates: “Wait, you want us to throw out our rulebook and nullify our primary? Just to please that awful McCain?! HECK, NO!!!”

Utah’s GOP Leaders: “Dang, this won’t be as easy as we’d hoped. Darn those state delegates! Why must they be so devoted to those silly party rules rather than us? Hmmm, we need a different strategy to deliver those votes to McCain…”

Utah’s GOP Rules: “Forget about it, guys. As long as it’s up to us, Utah’s national delegates MUST cast their first set of ballots for whichever candidate received the most votes in Utah’s primary election. And that was Romney by a landslide. Sorry.”

Utah’s GOP Leaders: “Hey, that’s it!!! We’ll just redefine what the meaning of the word ‘IS’ is! Er, ‘candidate.’ Let’s see, hmmm… Let’s say that ‘the candidate who received the most votes in our primary election’ does not apply to candidates who suspend their campaigns once the primary election is over! So, although Romney was initially ‘the candidate who received the most votes’ with 89%, since he suspended his campaign, he no longer counts–and, so, McCain has now became ‘the candidate who received the most votes’ with only 5%. Once we pervert these rules, those darn rule-respecting Utahns can follow them AND still give us what we want! Why didn’t we think of this devious scheme sooner?!”

Utah’s GOP Rules: “Hey, that’s not what those who wrote us meant to…”

Utah’s GOP Leaders: “SHUT UP!!! You’ll mean what we say you mean! Now, central committee, we need you to vote to approve our new screwy interpretation that we’ve invented so that it will serve as a new standing rule for our party.”

Utah’s GOP Central Committee: “Okay, 85% of us say, hey, whatever you want, boss.”

Utah’s GOP Leaders: “Hurrah, we won!!! Eat that, voters and delegates! As you can see, your votes only count when we like the outcome. We, not your silly rules, are the supreme power in this party! Bwahahaha!!!”

So, in less than two weeks, despite the fact that 89% of Utah’s Republican voters wanted Mitt Romney (not Juan McCainnedy) to be their next President, and despite our party rules that we all assumed would bind our national delegation to support our primary election winner, our national delegation will presumably vote for McCain, instead, thanks to these underhanded machinations of our party leaders.

I’m tempted to produce some sort of flier about this subject, mass-produce it, and then deliver a copy of it to every likely voter in my area. Unfortunately, I’m too broke at the moment to spend much at any copy centers. But I hope that some of y’all will consider doing something like this, though. Our Republican neighbors need to know what schmucks are running their party and, unless they hear it from us, they may never hear it at all.

———————————————-

I also liked these comments from Lowell Nelson:

The new “standing rule” passed 70 to 12. It binds the Utah delegation to the convention-election candidate who received the most votes in the primary election. But it was introduced as a clarification (not a change to a bylaw), and passed with a simple majority instead of the two-thirds required to amend a bylaw. Dishonest. Lacking integrity. Sad day for the GOP and the Utah electorate…

Thus, in my view, party leadership was able to CHANGE Bylaw 7B WITHOUT proper notice and WITHOUT requiring a 2/3 majority vote. In doing so, they arbitrarily determined that the second-place finisher in the primary was also the second choice of the electorate (which is illogical to me). Effectively, this change repudiates the will of 265,000 Utah Republican voters and a majority of the state delegates, and replaces it with the will of a relatively few party leaders.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if delegates had been released to vote for whomever they liked, but this political chacanery to force Utah GOP delegates to vote for John McCain (who got less than 5% of the vote) is nothing short of political BS. Worse still is that the results of this “standing rule” created as result of political expedience will have long-reaching effects perhaps not considered by the State Central Committee.

Looking for work has actually been kinda fun. I get the feeling it has something to do with looking at the right time, being in the right place and having the right skill sets.

I’ve known that Utah was a hot-spot for tech and I assumed it was a great place for Open Source hackers. This post over at Pingdom seems to confirm my suspicions. The point is that no matter what Linux or Open Source topic you pick, Utah tends to be at the top of that search trend. Try it: Linux #1, Kernel #2, BSD #2, GNU #2, GPL #1, Apache #1, Postfix #1, Bash #1, Python Scripting #3, Asterisk #1, IPTables #1, Cron #1, MySQL #1, PostgreSQL #1… As you see, I could go on and on. I don’t know what can really be learned from those rankings, but one thing is sure – there is a lot of local interest in Open Source.

Just for fun, let’s see how Utah does for 5 random words. Thinking… taco (not in top 10), printing (not in top 10), ear plugs (not in top 10), drills #9 and microwave (not in top 10). Well, I’m glad I’m not selling drills door-to-door.

Also, I find it interesting that while I’ve been looking for different types of work (in this order: consulting, contracting, business opportunities and full-time work), nearly everyone I’ve interviewed with wants full-time employees. They say that although business is down a little (economy, or whatever), they’re all mostly cookin’. I say, good for them, good for Utah and good for me. ;)

We'll be holding the CTO Breakfast next week on Thursday at 8am in conjunction with the 2008 Utah Open Source Conference. You don't have to be going to the conference to attend the breakfast, but I do have discount codes available for CTO Breakfast attendees. Contact me if you're like one.

The Utah Open Source Conference 2008 will be held at the Salt Lake Community College, Redwood Road campus from August 28 - 30, 2008. We'll be meeting in rooms 221/223 of the Student Center (SC) at the Salt Lake Community College (Redwood Road campus). Here's a map that shows where to park. There is food on campus near where we'll be meeting so you can pick up breakfast.

Even though the venue is different, we'll be doing the same thing: talking about cool technology, building high-tech companies, and what's hot. Come join us.

Here's the schedule for the next several meetings:

• August 28 at UTOSC
• Sept 26 (Friday)
• Oct 30 (Thursday)
• Dec 5 (Friday) - Combined Nov and Dec breakfast

Please mark your calendars.

Remember that you don't have to be a CTO to come. Anyone interested in product development in high tech is welcome.

Tags: utah cto breakfast open+source UTOSC

The Deseret News is reporting that Governor Huntsman has ordered the Utah State Department of Commerce to monitor gas prices.

That’s just politics as usual, but I’m alarmed by how many people here in “conservative” Utah are commenting that they want the government to step in and “do something” rather than just “monitor”. It’s like we’re all living in some fantasy land where socialism works…

Attention people: price controls only ruin your quality of life. Prices that are artificially low cause shortages, and shortages mean hoarding, rationing, and long lines at the pump. Some days you just won’t get any. Do you seriously want that?

We should be thankful that the State is only “monitoring” for now. Ideally it wouldn’t be monitoring at all, because that’s a slippery slope –especially because political motives are involved. Plus, “monitoring” could be easily be done by an activist group or a not-for-profit –and they could do it without spending your tax money. That said, I will be interested to read the DoC report; I just wish it were generated by someone else and on someone else’s dime.

By the way, where were the government monitors a couple months ago when Utah enjoyed the lowest prices in the nation?

Prices fluctuate. If they’re unfair to either party, the market will insure that they become fair. That’s how free markets work. No intervention is necessary; in fact, intervention is almost always counterproductive.

Utah, the nation, and the world need a healthy dose of Econ 101. We shape our governments by our will, and if the voting public is ignorant of basic economics, our stupid will may well lead to our own demise.

I highly recommend Sowell’s Basic Economics: A Citizen’s Guide to the Economy to anyone who wants an excellent treatise on economics, especially as it pertains to government.

As an effort to help other community conferences in Utah and to help our overall technology Mecca, I’d like to invite anyone/everyone attending the Utah Open Source Conference 2008 to consider also attending the newly formed WordCamp Utah.

This one day event, held Saturday, September 27, 2008, is the latest project from our very own Joseph Scott, who will be presenting on WordPress Performance and Scalability at UTOSC 2008, has been hard at work planning and prepping for what will become the Inaugural WordCamp Utah.

If you are a Wordpress user as I am, it would be in your best interest to come down to the Open Source Technology Center at Novell and listen to such presenters as: Matt Mullenweg, Founder of Wordpress/Automattic, Alex King, wordpress developer and theme creator extraordinaire and many others.

We at the Utah Open Source Foundation have been working to help other local conferences succeed as well.  In the true nature of open source, competition makes everything better.  We look forward to your attendance at UTOSC 2008 and hope you will consider attending WordCamp Utah as well.

I thought these emails were insightful as to the way the insider politics work in the Utah GOP:

—–Original Message—–
From: Ivan DuBois [mailto:idubois@utgop.org]
Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2008 8:15 PM
To: Utah Republican Party
Subject: State Central Committee Issue
Importance: High

Dear State Central Committee Member:

Today we received a written request from State Central Committee member Mark Shurtleff to give our National Delegates some flexibility at the National Convention regarding the Utah vote.  (His modified State Convention Resolution is below for your reference).  He is asking that the State Central Committee allow the delegation to consider and fulfill the wishes of Mitt Romney, the winner of the Utah Republican Presidential Primary with over 90% of the vote.

I have had many discussions with the Romney campaign on this issue.  They are firm in their desire for their delegates to be released.  (See the attached Letter from Mitt Romney).

The Utah Republican Party Constitution does not address the issue of rebinding delegates once a candidate has withdrawn and asked to have their delegates released.  To research this issue, I have spoken with the RNC to find out how other States are handling similar situations.  I have also studied the Utah Republican Party governing documents, RNC Rules, Utah State law, and our Parliamentary Authority - Roberts Rules of Order, Newly Revised.

I have concluded that our National Delegates can be released, in part because no harm will be done to the affected party (Mitt Romney). In fact, this action is in response to his request. This procedure will be consistent with how other State Parties have handled this issue, according to the RNC.

I am asking for your support of my finding to allow Utah’s National Delegates to be released from voting for Mitt Romney at the Republican National Convention.

The State Central Committee is the governing body of the Party so your advice and consent is very important on this issue.  I would like to request that each State Central Committee member review this information closely and then respond to this e-mail.  Please provide your feedback on my decision by tomorrow, Friday, August 8 at 5 p.m.

Respectfully,

Stan Lockhart

P.S. If we are unable to come to an agreement electronically, we will need to address the issue at a State Central Committee meeting on Saturday, August 23, 2008.
_____________________________________________________________

RESOLUTION REGARDING RELEASE OF UTAH’S NATIONAL

CONVENTION DELEGATES

WHEREAS, Governor Mitt Romney was the candidate receiving the most votes of the statewide vote in Utah’s February 5, 2008 Republican Presidential Primary;

WHEREAS, Senator John S. McCain was the candidate receiving the second most votes of the statewide vote in Utah’s February 5, 2008 Republican Presidential Primary;

WHEREAS, Governor Romney has since withdrawn from the 2008 Presidential Election;

WHEREAS, Governor Romney has endorsed Senator McCain;

WHEREAS, Governor Romney supports Senator McCain’s candidacy for President of the United States of America;

WHEREAS, Governor Romney has respectfully requested that Utah’s National Convention Delegates attending the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota cast their votes for Senator McCain. In particular, in his February 29, 2008 letter to Utah Republican Party Chairman Stan Lockhart, Governor Romney wrote:

“Because I am no longer a formal candidate for the presidency of the United States, please consider this an official release, to the extent allowed by party rules and state law, of all delegates bound, committed, or otherwise pledged to vote for me at the 2008 Republican National Convention. I strongly encourage all released and uncommitted delegates to cast their votes for Senator John McCain at the Convention.”;

WHEREAS, the Utah Republican Party desires to respect Governor Romney’s request;

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that Utah’s National Convention Delegates attending the 2008 Republican National Convention are released from voting for Mitt Romney.

LET IT ALSO BE RESOLVED that we give the delegation the decision making ability to vote for John McCain.

Respectfully submitted,

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff

Here are some excellent responses.  This one is from Don Guyman:

Stan,

With all due respect this request is completely out of order.

1) Where in the rules does it allow our delegates to be unbound? Utah voters went to the polls and voted by over 90% for Mitt Romney. These same voters gave John McCain 5% of the vote. According to our rules our national delegates are bound to Romney on the first vote. It is not fair to the Utah voters who went to the polls to vote for Romney to suddenly change the rules after the vote has been taken.

2) This same proposal was presented to the state convention delegates who voted to table the matter.

3) There is no provision in the C&B for electronic voting. This process is out of order.

4) Through the email process there is no room for debate of delegates. Only one side is being presented.

We can spend all of the money we want on ad campaigns, but if we are not viewed as a party that can be trusted we will eventually lose political power in the state.

With all due respect, I ask you to reconsider your motion.

This one is from Rob Alexander:

Dear Utah Republican Party Executive Committee,

The proposal by Chairman Lockhart and Attorney General Shurtleff to release Utah’s national Republican delegates from voting for Governor Romney on the first ballot is an egregious violation of the rules, especially the way it is proposed to do so. The Utah Republican Party Constitution does not address the issues of binding or releasing national delegates. The Utah Republican Party Bylaws clearly state the following:

7.0 CONVENTIONS AND ELECTIONS

B. Allocation and Binding of National Delegation. All National Convention delegates and alternates shall be allocated to the candidate receiving the most votes of the statewide vote in the Republican Presidential Primary. On the first ballot, the national delegation shall be bound to vote for the candidate who has received the most votes in the Republican Presidential Primary, but the delegation shall not be bound on any subsequent ballots.

Also, we delegates at the state convention resoundly booed Chairman Lockhart when he requested extra time to speak in favor of releasing the delegates from Governor Romney. I believe we delegates voted to table the matter not because we wanted it brought up by the State Central Committee at a later time, but because we wanted to end discussion on the issue.

Further, as National Delegate Guymon mentioned below, there is no provision in the Utah Republican Party Constituion or Bylaws for electronic voting, thus making the proposed process out of order.

As such, I respectfully encourage each of you to request that Chairman Lockhart and Attorney General Shurtleff withdraw their motion.

Thank you,
Rob Alexander
REPUBLican State Delegate, Salt Lake County
REPUBLican Candidate for State Representative
Utah Legislative District 35
http://voterob.alexanderfamily.org

This one is from Lowell Nelsen:

Thank you for asking, Stan.

Here are three quick reasons (not exhaustive) why Mark Shurtleff’s request should be denied:

1. As you said, our party constitution does “not address the issue of rebinding delegates once a candidate has withdrawn and asked to have their delegates released.” It does, however, clearly indicate that the votes of our delegates in the first round be given to the candidate who received the most votes in the Presidential Preference Primary (regardless of the status of that candidate). Therefore, our delegates must remain bound to Mitt until after the first round of balloting is concluded. This is a “rules” issue; we must follow the rules.

2. This question essentially was answered at the state convention when, by a super majority, state delegates voted to table the motion to unbind our national delegates from Mitt Romney. For the State Central Committee to reverse the decision of the convention would be a breech of the trust placed in the committee by county parties and Republican delegates throughout the state. This is a “trust” issue. First, the electorate of Utah said that Mitt Romney should receive 36 votes in the first round. Second, the state convention (composed of roughly 3500 state delegates) said that Mitt Romney should receive 36 votes in the first round. Is the State Central Committee (SCC) so brazen as to repudiate those two referenda and just do what it darn well pleases?

3. In our party constitution, Article IV, Section D, we read the following: “Quorum. In order to conduct binding business, the State Central Committee must have a quorum in attendance, defined as 40 voting members.” (This clause is echoed in the bylaws, Article II, Section B.) These two words, “in attendance,” clearly implies that a meeting (something that can be attended) be held in order to conduct binding (or unbinding, in this case :–) business. Therefore, putting forth this resolution is out of order. No provision is made for the SCC to meet, establish a quorum, debate, and vote (conduct binding business) electronically.

Please withdraw the motion/resolution.

Thank you. Lowell.

I couldn’t agree more with these last three.  This back-door motion should be offensive to Utah State Republican Delegates who already voted on the matter in convention.

Why are Utah GOP insiders so anxious to show support for John McCain that they would disregard their own bylaws and trample the will of their own state delegates?  Politics are supposed to be from the bottom up, not the top down.

By way of reminder, the Serenity Foundation's first quarterly National Bloggers' Blood Drive is tomorrow. The Utah drive will be at the Twelve Horses office, 13961 South Minuteman Drive, Suite 125 in Draper, between 3 and 8 PM.

A few days ago I said that we wouldn't be holding a CTO breakfast in August. I was wrong. In fact, we'll be holding the breakfast on August 28 in conjunction with the Utah Open Source Conference at Salt Lake Community College. Please mark your calendars.

If you're a regular breakfast attendee, I have discount codes for UTOSC that I can give you. Just send me a note.

Tags: utah events open+source cto breakfast

We're doing the July CTO breakfast a little early this month because of Pioneer day. For those of you not familiar with Utah, Pioneer day is a state holiday on the 24th of July and it's a pretty big deal. Celebrates the day the first pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley in 18481847.

We'll do the usual thing on Friday. Anyone with an interest in technology products and companies it welcome to come. Hopefully Phil Burns will come and we can get into heated discussions about the iPhone. :-) If you've got other things you'd like to discuss, bring them up.

There's no breakfast in August. After that, here's the schedule:

• Sept 26 (Friday)
• Oct 30 (Thursday)
• Dec 5 (Friday) - Combined Nov and Dec breakfast

Here's a Google calendar for the breakfast.

We'll meet in the Novell Cafeteria (Building G) at 8am and go until 10am. I hope to see you there.

Tags: utah events cto breakfast

I'm spending the first part of this week at Velocity so I'm sure I'll want to talk a little about that. If you've seen something fun or cool in the last month, come and talk about it.

Here are the times for future meetings. Put them on your calendar now!

• July 18 (Friday)
• No breakfast in August
• Sept 26 (Friday)
• Oct 30 (Thursday)

Or, just subscribe to the Google Calendar.

Tags: cto breakfast utah event

I had the opportunity to see the Cannon, Leavitt, and Chaffetz campaign speeches at both the Utah County and Utah State Republican Conventions.  When it became clear through successive rounds of voting at the state convention that David Leavitt wasn’t going to win and that even Cannon would probably lose outright to Chaffetz at convention, all sorts of funny business started happening. It was like watching a large wounded animal give its last throws of life before submitting to defeat.

So what did Cannon do?  He colluded with Leavitt to get the votes of Leavitt delegates, which by itself is fine; but in order to get the message to Leavitt supporters, Cannon and Leavitt broke party rules against signage in the conference center twice: the first time by having Leavitt volunteers march right through the convention holding giant Cannon signs, and second by hanging a large handwritten sign that said “Leavitt supports Cannon” at the top of the stadium.  Both acts received tremendous booing from the audience and calls from the Chairman to maintain order and cease the disruptive behavior.

It struck me to see how unprincipled and disparate the two losing major republican candidates really were.  But in the end they got their message across.  The final vote after Leavitt was eliminated was 59% for Chaffetz and 41% for Cannon, with Chaffetz lacking only 9 votes from the 60% required to win the republican nomination outright.

And so, the vote went to primaries, where money and name recognition generally give a major boost to incumbents.  Those primaries are today, and polling suggests that the nomination could go either way.  I’m going to vote for Chaffetz, and if you’re a registered Republican in Utah Congressional District 3, I hope you do too.

Although I didn’t agree with the whole thing, here are some gems from the Chaffetz speech (video):

I believe the best hope for our people, for our families, is to return to those core conservative principles of fiscal discipline, limited government, accountability, and a strong national defense.  We’ve abandoned those principles…  Republicans had the house, the senate, and the presidency, and quite frankly, we blew it.  We did not do the heavy lifting on the issues that matter most.

When Mr. Cannon took office, the budget was $1.5 trillion.  Today it’s $2.9 trillion.  That’s unacceptable, and we cannot sustain that.  We have a $9.3 trillion debt.  Last year alone we paid $429 billion of interest on that debt.  That cannot stand.

Mr. Cannon voted in favor of No Child Left Behind.  I want to repeal No Child Left Behind; there should be no Department of Education.

Here’s my favorite misleading statement from the Cannon campaign video:

[Chris Cannon]  has told the Federal Government to stay out of our schools.

Well, Cannon may have told the Federal Government to stay out of our schools, but that’s certainly not how he voted.  No Child Left Behind meddles with our schools in unprecedented ways.

If you want to do a last minute check on the issues, here is the Chaffetz platform.

Incidentally, you are also allowed to vote between Mark Walker and Richard Ellis for as the Republican nomination for State Treasurer.  See their campaign speeches here and here.

Get out and vote!

The city council voted tonight to sell iProvo to Broadweave. The vote was 4-3 in favor, with members Stewart, Richards, Dayton and Johnson in favor, and members Turley, Clark and Hall-Everett opposed.

The final sale doesn't close until the 30th, but at this point it looks like pretty much a done deal.

The Utah Open Source Conference is calling for presentations. If you've got something you've always wanted to tell the world about open source, this may be your chance! Sign up on the Web site and submit your presentation idea now. The deadline is June 1st.

Tags: utah events open+source

It looks like the iProvo resolutions are on the agenda for next Tuesday's City Council meeting. There's a special note at the top of the agenda indicating that the meeting begins at 5:30 PM, rather than the more common 7:00. That's not surprising — it's a very full agenda, and the last meeting with only the iProvo resolutions ran for some 5 1/2 hours.

Larry H. Miller, owner of the Utah Jazz, numerous car dealerships, and a member of the v|100 spoke at today's lunch. Here's a few note son what he said.

He starts with two words of advice: don't stampede. Moving too fast causes you to dilute yourself. It's good to branch out, but doing it too fast will cause you to be ineffective. You have to learn how to run one unit that you manage yourself and can control before you branch out. That will cause you to manage differently. You then have to sell them the vision. Develop the base, then grow.

There's a difference between management and leadership. Either can be both, but by no means are they. In any organization, you have managers who occasionally need to manifest leadership and they fail. Management is making decisions by the numbers. Leadership requires understanding the numbers, but entails selling the vision to others. Businesses with more than one person require that others catch the vision. People need leadership.

When you start a business, you should recognize what it is that you're a part of. We function in a system that provides us opportunity and support. The system has flaws, but the free enterprise system is a special and marvelous thing. The only way it can continue is to use it effectively and correctly, teach others how to use it, and finally give back. We can't ever assume that free enterprise is genetic. The next generation needs to understand that the system requires the rule of law & integrity.

You can tell he has a passion for starting businesses. He says that he frequently startles his wife of nearly 50 years by blurting out "business is really cook!" He quotes from a Ronald Reagan speech: We do all this "so that we will never be faced with a situation where we have to face our children and our grandchildren someday when they ask 'where were you and what were you doing on the day that freedom was lost?'" Business people have a responsibility to protect freedom.

Referencing the current economic situation Miller says "Opportunity comes along at times like this and while the system we live in isn't perfect, it beats the heck out of whatever comes in second."

Tags: utah events venture+capital

Do all Provo City Council meetings go past midnight, or is it just that I always pick the ones that are going to run long?

The Council isn't ready to vote on the iProvo sale proposal yet. Some of the documentation isn't finished, and they want to see that first. (If they receive the remaining documents by tomorrow noon, then the discussion will continue at next Tuesday's regular Council meeting; otherwise, it will be postponed.) It appears that some of the council members are also skeptical about the proposal, as well as the process that led up to it, and from where I sit that skepticism can only be a Good Thing.

Broadweave knows how to put together a good looking Powerpoint presentation. I'm still unconvinced that they can handle the kind of growth they're trying to take on, though, and I'm skeptical about their ability to run a network the size of iProvo. More than that, though, I don't like the idea that they would close the network and act as the sole provider. We've all seen single provider networks before; some are financially viable (Comcast, for instance), and some are not (HomeNet, anyone?). The natural tendency for any single provider system, though, is to provide customer service that is mediocre at best, and truly bad at worst. Remember Lily Tomlin's "Ernestine the operator" character from early Saturday Night Live? "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company." That's the attitude that single provider systems naturally gravitate toward (although, admittedly, some take longer to get there than others).

Finally, as several people (including a representative from Mstar) pointed out at the hearing, the language of the original RFP really doesn't suggest that Provo City might sell the network. The RFP asks for "Proposals for Partnership Opportunities with Telecommunication Service Providers on the iProvo Network", and purports to "provide the citizens of Provo a full range of competitive choices for telecommunications services and applications." This deal doesn't do that at all.

I'm aware of other providers that were in negotiation with the city to join the iProvo network, and I know they're not pleased with this proposal either. Some of them have said as much publicly, and others commented at the hearing last night. I hope those concerns are also weighed as the Council considers this proposal.

There's an agenda up on the Provo City Council web site for a public hearing tonight about the proposed sale of iProvo to Broadweave. The hearing is in the council chambers at 7 PM.

A number of people — particularly Jesse Harris of FreeUTOPIA.org — have opined that this sale looks a lot like HomeNet part 2. I think they're being overly optimistic (which, if you remember the original HomeNet debacle, is really saying something.)

The May CTO Breakfast will be held on Friday (May 30) at 8am in the Novell Cafeteria (Building G, Provo Campus).

Anyone interested in how information technology is used to build products or run companies. Despite it's name, you don't have to be a CTO to attend--just interested in technology, where it's headed, and the problems of starting and building a high-tech business in Utah.

If you've seen something cool or just want to discuss a current topic, come prepared to bring it up.

Put these future meetings on your calendar:

• June 27 (Friday)
• July 18 (Friday)
• No breakfast in August
• Sept 26 (Friday)

Tags: utah cto breakfast events

Greg Curtis and John Valentine, House Speaker and Senate President (click to enlarge)

I'm at the Utah State Party Convention this morning. There are literally thousands of people here. Traffic was backed up off the exit ramp near UVU (where the convention is being held). The convention just opened at 10am, but even at 8am, the parking lots were full. People come early to pick up their credentials and wander the candidate booths.

I enjoyed wandering around and talking to a bunch of folks who I normally don't get to see. Lots of old friends and acquaintances here.

Chris Cannon running for Congress in the Third District (click to enlarge)

We start with prayer, the flag ceremony, the pledge of allegiance, and the national anthem. Carmen Rasmusen Herbert sang the national anthem and it was very nice. She's married to Gary Herbert's (Lt Gov) son Bradley, for what it's worth.

The Utah Republican party has a set of banners up and buttons playing on the "i can" in "republican." "I can provide students an excellent education," "I can give my family a great life," and so on. Very clever and emphasizes the Republican ideal of self sufficiency.

Opening ceremony at the convention (click to enlarge)

After the opening, we had a credentials report and adopted the rules and agenda for the convention. As usual, there was drama around Mike Ridgeway. Apparently Salt Lake county refused to seat him has a delegate and there was a motion to allow him to be seated at the State convention. It failed. I'm sure there will be more.

We've now moved to the district breakouts. District 3 stayed in the main hall, so I just sat still. The candidates I consider serious contenders in District 3 are Chris Cannon, the incumbent, David Leavitt, and Jason Chaffetz. There's also Joe Fergeson and Stone Fonua who haven't raised much money and haven't been heard from by delegates. They'll get their seven minutes of fame this morning. Fergeson is campaigning against the North American Union and Fonua is campaigning for something called "the Peacemaker."

Jason Chaffetz has raised around $70,000. David Leavitt raised twice that many and Chris Cannon has doubled Leavitt. Not surprising since Chris is the incumbent.

I'm torn between these three. I believe them all to be good men with Utah's best interest at heart. They aren't that far apart politically. I know Chris and Jason well. I've spoken to them several times over the course of the campaign. I don't know David Leavitt, but have tremendous respect for his brother Mike (current Secretary of HHS).

When I ran in my caucus meeting, I told the people there I'd base my vote for congressman on the basis of their support for Larry Lessig's Change Congress. I've had the opportunity to speak to both Chris and Jason about this and they were both supportive of two of the four pledges. Chris didn't think eliminating PAC money was practical, but was in favor of limiting all contributions to less than $300.

Why didn't I speak to David Leavitt about Change Congress? It's partly my fault: I went to only one event where he spoke. But it's partly his fault as well. He's been largely unavailable. Several attempts to get a message to him about Change Congress through his staff failed to elicit any response.

In fact, one of the things that's turned me off about Leavitt's campaign is that it's been much more impersonal than campaigns I'm used to. Lots of events to hear him speak and lots of literature, but not much personal contact. This morning for example, Chris and Jason were both at their booths (and I've got photos to prove it). Where was Leavitt? I don't know. I wandered around the entire center and didn't see him once.

I wasn't overly impressed with David Leavitt's speech. Some shouting at inopportune times. Jason gave a great speech, but his calling global warming a farce turned me off. Of course, I'm not sure Cannon or Leavitt feel much different. Both Cannon and Leavitt started their speeches with videos. Cannons was probably the best, but I liked that Chaffetz didn't have one. Cannon's speech was good: he talked about his background and how he got where he is.

Cannon is a supporter of eVerify, which I think is a big mistake. Of course, you can't find anyone who you agree with on everything--unless you're the candidate. That might not work either. I've known some candidates who I'm sure argued with themselves.

Time to vote!

I voted for Chris Cannon. I know some people will disagree with that vote so let me say why:

• Chris was willing to support important aspects of the Change Congress pledges, including big support for transparency. He even took the time to meet personally with me on the pledge and talk about it.
• Chris has been a good friend to technology. Many technologists in the state who I know and trust are firm supporters of Chris Cannon. I've talked to Chris several times about technology issues and he's well informed and thinks carefully about them.

Now we're listening to speeches for statewide office. The only interesting race is for Treasurer. Go figure.

Ballot boxes (click to enlarge)

Gov. Huntsman spoke about his accomplishments. He made it clear he only intends to serve one more term (if he's elected, of course). Chuck Smith, running against Huntsman, gave a good speech and seems to have some good ideas, but he's not going to win. There's been no campaign to speak of.

Mark Walker is a former legislator with little experience in financial management. Richard Ellis is currently the Deputy Treasurer and a former directory of the Governors Office for Planning and Budget. But Ellis has been roundly criticized by the legislature and has little support there. I think it's more than Walker being "one of our own" with the legislature. I think Ellis has seriously made many of them mad with things he's said and done. Of course, I know how that feels. :-)

The Utah County Treasurer nominated Richard Ellis and said Ed Alter (current Treasurer had planned to do it, but was unavailable.) The nomination focused on Ellis' experience. Gordon Snow (Majority Whip) seconded the nomination. Ellis spoke about what he's done in the Treasurer's office: financial and technical innovation. Ellis gave a good speech.

Balloons waiting to fall above my head (click to enlarge)

David Clark, Majority Leader, nominated Walker. He noted Walker's integrity. John Valentine (Senate President) seconded. Mark Shurtleff and Ron Bishop (1st District Congressman) also spoke for Walker. He emphasized more investment of public funds for larger returns. It's interesting that our conservative legislature supports a less conservative financial manager for treasurer. He emphasizes his private sector experience--although he doesn't get specific since he has no financial experience that I've heard about. He seems to be running largely on his Republican credentials.

Results: Merrill Cook, Bill Dew, and Brian Jenkins advanced to the run off ballot for District 2. In District three, David Leavitt received 220 votes, Jason Chaffetz received 469 votes, and Chris Cannon received 338 votes. They'll all go to the second ballot. The other two received almost no support, so unless people change their vote, I'd expect to see Jason and Chris go to a third ballot. We could be here all day...

The conventional wisdom is that a vote for Leavitt or Chaffetz is a vote against Cannon. But that's not the case. In fact, I saw Leavitt and Cannon talking in the hall and the word going around the floor is that Leavitt is asking his delegates to vote for Cannon. Of course, that won't keep the final outcome from going to a primary vote in June. In fact, it would take a huge swing either way to avoid that. Greg Curtis, Speaker of the House, predicted 55% Chaffetz, 45% Cannon. I think it might be closer than that.

I snagged a seat at the press table: power and a table to put my computer on. Sweet!

While we were waiting for the second ballot to be counted, Senators Hatch and Bennett spoke. Basically cheerleading for Republicans. That's OK--this is the right crowd for it to be sure. Hatch says: "I was a Mitt Romney supporter, but that's over. If you can't get behind McCain, you might as well turn the election over to Barack Obama. That would be a catastrophe for the judiciary." Hatch says McCain will appoint the right kind of judges and that alone is a good enough reason to support John McCain. Hatch gets a standing ovation. No doubt that the man is popular with this crowd.

Along with all of these are the usual controversies surrounding voting and credentialing procedures. Some older and disabled delegates had a tough time getting to the ballot boxes apparently.

A row of Macs at the press table (click to enlarge)

Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and State Auditor Auston Johnson were elected by acclamation since they're running unopposed. We watched a McCain video. Mark Shurtleff spoke after showing us a video. I presume it's been prepared for the general election. Shurtleff gave a god talk and got a standing ovation. Balloons dropped. Basically anything to fill the time while they count votes.

The bags filled with balloons were hung above the press table, so they all fell on the floor around the press and not on the delegates.

Argh. Now we're doing party constitution changes. What fun. In the middle of the second amendment, someone went down and there was a call for a medic. There was a division called on the second amendment to replace winner take all with proportional representation in future presidential primaries. The amendment failed.

There will be a third ballot for the 2nd and 3rd Districts. In the 3rd District, Leavitt got 161 votes, Chaffetz got 529 votes, and Cannon got 356 votes in the second round. That gives Chaffetz over 50%, but he needs 60% to avoid a runoff. That's 630 votes it everyone stuck around and will vote on the third ballot. He needs 100 of Leavitt's votes to win outright.

People in Leavitt shirts are walking through the hall carrying Cannon signs. They're getting boo'd and the Rules Chairman is asking them to leave since campaigns are not allowed to campaign in the convention hall itself.

I'm going to go get ready to vote. They're not going to open the ballot boxes until we've heard the Bylaw changes because they're afraid people might leave. Ya think!?!

Jason Chaffetz running for Congress in the Third District (click to enlarge)

The first bylaw amendment is to allow the delegates that are bound to Mitt Romney to vote for McCain. People cheered wildly after the speech against the change. People here still love Romney. Someone made a motion to postpone he amendment indefinitely. Everyone really just wants to vote and go home, I think.

In the end, for the 3rd District, Jason Chaffetz came within 9 votes of being the nominee and not having have a primary with Chris Cannon on June 24th. The final tally was Chaffetz 59%, Cannon 41%. What a finish. I'll bet there's some Chaffetz supporters who went home early and are kicking themselves right now.

Tags: utah politics republican

Props to Rachel Strate, an Analyst from Epic Ventures (formerly Wasatch Ventures) who has offered to represent her Firm in providing food and drinks for the Social Media Developers Garage event on Tuesday. Rumor has it that they will be providing Pizza and drinks so come if anything for a free meal! The topic for the event will be a demonstration by Bungee on creating a Facebook App using their Google App Engine Killer, Bungee Connect. We’ll try to play some Wii afterwards as well.

Again, a big thanks to Epic Ventures for the food and Bungee Labs for hosting the event! If you would like to host or provide food for a future event (or even speak!) please let me know and we’ll make sure your company gets credit. This is a great opportunity for your company to get in front of a group of developers, bloggers and Social Media Evangelists for more exposure and future recruiting events.

If your in the greater Salt Lake area and love python swing by the meeting this evening! We’re doing a python editor head-to-head, should be fun!

Here are the details (there is also a calendar):

Utah OpenSUSE user group wiki page