Are you an adept and experienced Java-savvy programmer/engineer seeking a working gig in beautiful Vancouver, BC? Do you enjoy your Java career and seek a bigger challenge? Well, Elastic Path may be a fit for you as this fast-growing, innovative company seeks:

• Team Lead for J2EE web application teams
• Intermediate Java Developer
• J2EE Product Support Engineer
• Intermediate QA Engineer

Non-techie openings include a diligent and motivated Inside Salesperson to seek and qualify leads plus a Marketing Coordinator who should be a multi-faceted document creator and uber-organizer.

For all the details, go to http://www.elasticpath.com/company/jobs/index.jsp. Be sure to mention DaveO in the cover letter and, if you get the job, I’ll buy you a tasty beverage ;-).

In breaking news, Elastic Path joins an all-star roster of Vancouver-based social/web/tech stalwarts including Bryght, nitobi, Capulet Communications, Workspace (I am sure I missed some here) as sponsors of Bar Camp Vancouver. Bar Camps are “un”conferences held all over the world to geek out on technology-related topics.

Before you start thinking that this is a simply a drinking junket, I’ll tell ya that it’s all about the collaboration and peer-learning as this (borrowed) description says,

“BarCamp is an ad-hoc un-conference born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees.

All attendees must give a demo, a session, or help with one. All presentations are scheduled the day they happen. Prepare in advance, but come early to get a slot on the wall.

Presenters are responsible for making sure that notes/slides/audio/video of their presentations are published on the web for the benefit of all and those who can’t be present.

Anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn is welcome and invited to join.”

Well “anyone” who registers on the wiki fast enough that is. The event will be held at Bryght’s new Van-groovy style office space in the funkiest building around but attendance is limited to the first 90 folks (though there are rumours of expanding to 110).

The roster is an eclectic list of savvy veterans and eager newbies from many industries including many folks whose pods/blogs I enjoy so should be a neat (all night) pow wow.

I’ve been to Mindcamp and Gnomedex but this is my first Bar Camp and I’ll be heading over along with VP Marketing Jason Billingsley who is a first-time attendee as well.  In the spirit of participation, I’ll likely do my “start your own podcast in an hour or less” spiel and let you know how it turns out.

Another Elastic Path powered ecommerce site launched today, this time the retailer is Cotswold Collections, a UK-based seller of “Unique Classic Clothing.” Certainly, you want to tailor both the aesthetics and processes of the store to suit your users’ tastes and indeed the site’s design reflects a refined elegance with understated elements and a calming color scheme.

The site, built by Marketing Integrator Agency Leftfield Digital, makes excellent use of cross-selling by prompting the shopper to purchase coordinated items to complete an outfit, i.e.: select a blouse and be presented with the skirt and scarf worn by the model to complete the “look.”

Also notable is the use of size/color swatches as the “add to cart” action button making for a more casual, boutique-style shopping experience for the discerning shopper. Plus, I noticed a special offer for first time shoppers.

The search engine optimized title tags and URLs are an Elastic Path calling card and should reap tremendous rewards for Cotswold who will likely discover significantly higher conversion rates due to more specific searches.

For example, a URL ending with “knitwear/34-sleeved-top-with-whipstitch-trim” will not only reap customers who know what they seek and are ready to purchase, but will also appear higher in search results organically than a URL ending with a string of indiscernible characters.

And you should also try the dynamic zoom-in photo viewer. Want to see the detail on that button? Drag the wee viewer window to see close-up view without a big download wait. Slick!

Overall, they’ve created a compelling and well-crafted site.

Cheers and best wishes to Cotswold and Leftfield Digital!

Dave breaks down a simple example of starting a new Wordpress blog including deleting original posts, adding/importing posts, organizing with categories, adding links, and integrating with Feedburner and Flickr.

MP3 File

[Photo of this very Mac by DaveO]

Megan Cole posted some poignant notes from Matt Mullenweg’s bit at the WebVisions pow wow in Portland last week.

I often talk (gush) about how much I enjoy Wordpress and much of WP’s success comes from the efforts of the wise young Mr. Mullenweg. Megan captured a list of tips from his spiel on “Scaling for your First 100,000 Users” which really applies to a broader scope than just software development - this is a community development and team building guidebook in one short list!

[Photo of Matt Mullenweg
at Gnomedex 2006 by Dave Olson]

Matt’s tips after the break … Continue Reading »

As you may recall from Get Elastic podcast #4 with Frank Chin, Elastic Path and Aeroplan recently brewed up a project to help Aeroplan’s Members redeem their Miles (think “points” earned from flights and purchases from partners) through a (very nicely styled IMO) self-service on-line shop.

Read the release after the break

Continue Reading »

Elastic Path CEO Harry Chemko visits with UK-based gift and gadget retailer, “I Want One of Those.” After racing mini-cars and tiny motorcycles, IWOOT’s Angus and Simon offer insight into why they like Elastic Path, the benefits of using open source software, the importance of scalability and growing a successful retail storefront before getting back to “product testing” the shelves of unique toys.

[video editing by DaveO for Get Elastic blog/podcast]

DaveO gets a lesson on using AJAX (not just for cleaning) for advanced web interface usability from the brilliant and humourous lads of E-Business Applications, Andre Charland and Alexei White.

Note: This is an ‘enhanced’ podcast filled with relevant photos and links (use your viewer window in the bottom left corner of iTunes).

While playing with Elastic Path “thinking putty,” they discuss ways to optimize the user experience, pros and cons of various technologies, the EBA Grid and Combo Box products and recap a few Gnomedex conference highlights - plus have some laughs about ski culture (gapers), community building, fantasy sports and the fleece-filled recreational equipment district of Vancouver.

Bonus Link Stash:
Ethan Kaplan (Warner Brothers Records’ Director of Technology and editor of REM fan site Murmurs )
Marc Canter - People Aggregator
Gnomedex - Chris Pirillo - Tag Jag - Blaugh (Friendster )
Flickr pics - Gnomedex, DogLotion, Gapers

Yup, I said it, “fun.” PRWeb have totally got me on their bandwagon by showing they are an innovative company bringing the venerable press release communique into the “new media” age by fortifying the plain ole vanilla PR with maximum RSS-goodness and they even blog about it.

We submitted the release yesterday and, not only do they post to web and put it over their “wire,” they include a .pdf version and tag it with all the tag-erators out there (many) - you can Digg this, Technorati track it and add to mmmm del.icio.us plus several more (see below).

Not only that, I had an enjoyable conversation with Aaron Apple, their in-house podcaster - a former intern from Western WA University in Bellingham and also pods-up Pacific Standard Time show on video games, music, tech etc.

So, this morning 20-something Aaron conducted an interview via conference call which was a change of format for me (though i am a veteran of over 150 podcasts appearances and several radio interviews) and they posted the show up within a few hours and added a direct link into iTunes for maximum podular convenience.

We basically talked about the topics in the press release (record sales, trade show with contortionists, international customers) and plugged this very blog and related podcasts - and I remembered to give props to our “small but ambitious sales department.

PRWeb’s pod-programme is iTunes listed with has a unique topical podcast-feed. I just listened and it sounds pretty cool - I identify ourselves as an “enterprise-class ecommerce software platform designed to fit the middle space between free or cheap shopping carts and the 800-pound gorillas at the other end.” We’ll see what my colleagues think ;-).

PRWeb also hosts {argh} 2dotOh related meetups in Northwestern WA and he rolls with the Seattle Podcast Network folks as well. Seems he has a rather new and unique job description of “corporate” blogger/podcaster/newmedia generalist which will become more common very soon. So right on PRWeb and Aaron - Cheers to ya!

Host DaveO chats with Elastic Path Software Engineer Justin Tilson about innovative and useful web tools to help Justin give away 10,000 adopted western red cedar trees.

Topics include RSS technology in general (your content wants to be found) and myriad free web apps including semantic web publishing (blogging) tool WordPress and WP’s mighty founding developer Matt Mullenweg, Vancouver superstar company Flickr (now Yahoo!), the very useful Feedburner from Chicago, video-sharing site Blip.tv, and a new browser built on Firefox called Flock - along with discussion of Google map mash-ups, the power of community collaboration and new web business models.