Jordy Blog

Hoping to see some of my nerdy friends at the Python Birthday Bash we’re throwing!

What: Python’s 20th Birthday (well, public release birthday) Extravaganza Lunch Party!

When: Monday at 12:15

Where: Izeni. We’re located at the Novell TCN, also known as the building formerly known as OSTC, also known as (but not really numbered as) building A. (Campus Map: http://bit.ly/Pythons_BDay_Party)

Who: Python Users worldwide*, plus a special invitation to Guido van Rossum: We’ll pick up the plane tickets and hotel if you want to join us :)

Queridos Pythonistas,

As any faithful subject of Guido (the Benevolent Dictator for Life) must already know, this Sunday marks the 20th anniversary of Python’s first *public* release[1]. (I know, such a tender age…) Since we all know that attending a birthday party for the awesomest computer programming language of all time is on the top on everybody’s bucket list, Izeni would like facilitate the fulfillment of your wildest geek dreams by throwing perhaps the best programming-language-themed birthday celebration ever known to mankind.

We’ll be gathering Monday to have pizza, giant subs, spam with eggs**, and a specially commissioned Python-themed cake by Joseph Hall of 3D TuxCake fame[2]. We’re working on getting a snake charmer too! (Know anybody?)
Come join us, mingle with other Python users, and enjoy some great food! And spread the word!

Please try to RSVP by either by tweeting me @izeni or emailing me offlist so we can get a (rough) food estimate.

Thanks, Gabe

* While everyone is welcome to join us for cake, there are certain restrictions for free pizza/subs/spam-and-eggs. Specifically, you must meet at *least* one of the following qualifications:

0) You have commit privileges for Python.
1) You have read and given *serious* thought and consideration to ‘The Zen of Python’.
2) Your license plate says PEP-0008.
3) You use Python professionally or as a hobby.
4) You have an untrimmed beard that’s longer than 1 inch (or are at least trying).
5) You have a Monty Python tatoo.
6) And lastly, you enjoy playing the game “snake” or just like the name Guido.

Due to what we expect to be an overwhelming response, we *will* be checking for non-pythonista freeloaders by verifying *basic* knowledge of the Python language. We also reserve the right to inspect your keyboard for disproportional wear on your “{” and “}” keys and may additionally do random spot-checks on your webservers for the ‘X-Powered-By’ headers for any traces of PHP.

** We really will be serving spam and eggs.

[1] http://python-history.blogspot.com/2009/01/brief-timeline-of-python.html

[2] http://blog.josephhall.com/tutorials/tuxcake/

BTW, if you’re looking for a gig writing clean code in Python, we’re always looking for sharp Utah Python hackers. Let us know!

The Utah Django User Group is having its first monthly meeting tonight at 7:00 at Novell’s OSTC (Building A) [MAP].

Gregory Doermann will be presenting on “Migrating Django Databases with South“. Pizza will be provided by my company (Izeni), so please try to RSVP to me directly for a basic head count.

Also, if you want to stay informed about future Utah Django meetings, please sign up for the Google group and the Utah Tech Event Calendar.

I hope to see you there!

UPDATE: My brother and business partner Gabe volunteered to do a mini-presentation on some of the non-standard ways we’ve used Django for some of our clients (like to output config files for VoIP applications). It’s titled “Unconventional Uses of Django” or “When All You Have is a Hammer, Everything Looks Like a Nail”.

My brother and business partner Gabe will be helping to lead a discussion on FreeSWITCH and Asterisk at the the Utah Open Source Conference tomorrow.

Gabe is the CTO of our small startup company (Izeni), and our team has built, and continues to build, some pretty cool projects based on these (and other) open source telephony technologies.

Some of the recent FreeSWITCH customization projects we’ve built for our clients include a custom call center that can handle up to 100 concurrent agents on commodity hardware, and a distributed SIP load tester that’s capable of pushing thousands of concurrent SIP calls (suitable for stress testing extremely large telephony infrastructures).

But those are just 2 examples of the many ways a company can customize a free software phone switch to enhance their current products or services with open source telephony. Whether you need a hosted IVR (Interactive Voice Response) solution, or just some method to bridge phone calls, record calls, make outbound calls, etc; FreeSWITCH and Asterisk are up to the task.

Anyway, if you’re in Utah and are interested in learning more about Open Source telephony, you should come by tomorrow to check out the discussion. You can also can review the (expansive) FreeSWITCH and Asterisk feature sets. And if you need some phone-related development done for your company, that kind of work is highly specialized, easy to outsource, and right up our alley. We’d love to help!

Along those same lines is something that’s been on my mind lately: I’d be interested in starting a Utah FreeSWITCH Users Group, originally meeting in only in Utah Valley, but hopefully spreading as the FreeSWITCH project comes into more common usage. If you’re local and would be interesting in participating (or leading), please let me know.

And if you think of some way you’d like to have your product interact with phones, text messages, even IM –that’s just what we do. We’d love to help you work through it –even if it’s just to help you see what’s possible.

I’m looking to replace GoDaddy as my primary registrar. I originally used them because they were cheap and well known; but I’ve always hated their interface, and I really dislike the offensive turn their marketing has taken. Let’s face it, GoDaddy sucks, and they don’t deserve my money.

Anyway, what recommendations do you have for a domain registrar that is affordable, no-nonsense, and easy to work with?

Thanks,
Jordy

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.

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.

My brother Luke sent me a link to a cool online favicon maker he used to make a favicon for my new company, Izeni. It’s pretty easy to use, so I made one for my blog as well. (Yes, it’s that same ugly pic, just smaller). Anyway, it’s kind of fun. If I’d known it would be that easy to do, I would have made a favicon forever ago. :)

Many of my readers will already know that Gabe and I have been busy launching a business for the last few months.

Well, we’ve finally got Izeni officially incorporated, and since we hope to launch our first product soon, we decided we’d better get something of a corporate website thrown together.

It’s really not much content-wise, but it is live; and it’s just in time for us to start pumping the engines of hype and hearsay. Check it out.

Our other (product) website, which is where the majority of our development has been, will be launched shortly.

So, how do you know you’re a developer in a bootstrapping high-tech startup? You have neither business cards nor a corporate website until your product is nearly ready to hit the market. This is pretty much opposite the spend-all-your-money-making-yourself-look-cool approach that many companies take. I hope our product-first approach is vindicated, but we’ll see. :)

Anyway, sign up for Izeni news updates, and we’ll let you know how it goes.

Until then, anyone know where we can get some great business cards?

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.