I love my NewsGator and Technorati key word search feeds – they help me find the most interesting things. A NewsGator key word search on “Ryan McIntyre” picked up this post by Chan Chaiyochlarb titled If you are going to launch a startup, how many friends would you need? It’s a neat table of the number of founders for Microsoft, Google Youtube, Yahoo!, Overture, eBay, PayPal, Skype, Kazaa, Hotmail, Ask.com, Excite (where Ryan’s name showed up), Napster, Lycos, Amazon, Apple, MySpace, Facebook, Netscape, AOL, Mirabilis, and Digg. The average number of founders – 2.09.

Nick Harris – the author of NewsGator’s Inbox product – has a detailed post up explaining the boundary condition he just ran into that forced him to do a quick release (2.6.7) of NewsGator Inbox. If you didn’t guess already, it has something to do with 2^31.

I just spent the last four hours lying on the couch reading Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software. I’ve been dragging this book around for a couple of weeks and finally tackled it. It was simultaneously depressing, anxiety producing, and inspiring. I’ve been involved in thousands of software projects over the past 20 years – my first company wrote hundreds of custom applications – ranging from short projects that took weeks to long projects that stretched out over years. I’ve been involved in numerous different approaches to building software, have worked with amazing teams that struggled to produce anything and average teams that shipped on time and on budget (and all permutations therein.) While my experiences have been all over the map and my level of deep engagement in the design and development process has lessened dramatically over the years, I never forget the joy of shipping a release.

Our regional event – Venture Capital in the Rockies – was excellent this year. I’m usually good for a half a day at something like this – I managed to last almost 30 hours. I started off by participating in a press roundtable, had a few meetings, enjoyed a packed cocktail party, and then had an outstanding dinner at Anderson’s Cabin with the folks from Square 1 Bank. I woke up early the next day and sat through most of the presentations in one of the software / IT / Internet tracks. David Cohen has an excellent summary of many of them – so I’ll be lazy and just link to him. Dan Primack also put up a post of the cliffnotes of who is raising what along with his explanation that VCIR isn’t a skiing boondoggle – really – it isn’t – really!

Ah – growth is good. A number of my portfolio companies have recently increased the pace at which they are hiring, especially on the technical side. StillSecure is working on an exciting new “convergence product” and also expanding its Safe Access team. Mitchell Ashley – who is running the convergence product – has a brief note up on his blog about the type of folks StillSecure is looking for. If you fit the bill and are interested, send an email to careers@stillsecure.com.

Hema Oza at TheStreet.com wrote an article after an email interview with me titled Tech Tips for Small Business. She captured the interview well – my current favorites are my T-Mobile Dash, Lenovo X60 Laptop with Vista and EVDO, FeedDemon, Trillian/Skype, and Firefox. Of course, I have a much longer list of things use all the time – including some non-business ones (e.g. my Slingbox and Guitar Hero), but these seemed like the current “if I am running a small business and I wanted to get some new toys (hardware and software please), which ones would I get.”

My partner Jason just told me about a Google Local search experience he and Ryan McIntyre just had. They were out last weekend guitar shopping. Jason is looking for a custom shop Gibson ES-335 and can’t find one anywhere. (If you know where to find one, please email me.) They had planned a day of hitting every guitar store in Denver. On Google local, they found a listing for Cadillac Guitars. It was near the Denver Guitar Center, so they decided to visit it.

Coming out of the Venture Capital in the Rockies conference, I was pleasantly surprised with how solid most of the presentations were. There was plenty of pre-conference preparation, practice, and iteration from the companies presenting – and it showed. A few weeks ago, one of my portfolio companies met with a prospective investor. The company isn’t raising money – they are doing very well – but will be in the market at some point. The VC they met with has expressed interest in the company several times in the past, is a long time friend of mine, and is a smart, thoughtful guy.

Email addicts now have a 12 step process to help them.