Looking to work for a tech startup this year? If so, you should consider moving to Seattle. It should surprise no one that Seattle is one of the fastest growing markets for tech companies in the United States. Since the days of Microsoft and Amazon, Seattle (aka Silicon Alley) has become a hot pot of tech successes. And as a freelance writer for Landover Associates—which offers one of the most complete tech startup recruiting services in the industry—I’ve seen a lot of startup successes in Seattle. But none of these successes have come as quick as the following:

1. CheezBurger
With a network of comedy websites, including the infamous “I Can Haz Cheezburger” and “Fail Blog,” Cheezburger has taken Seattle by storm. Spouting funny puns and improper English—they’re slogan is “All Your Funny in One Place”—Eric Nakagawa, the company founder, laughed his way to a 2 million dollar acquisition in 2007. But despite the buyout, the websites are still thriving, with some of its most popular sites receiving over 8000 submissions a day. That’s a lot of comedy for years to come.

Founders: Eric Nakagawa and Carson Cherry in 2007
Founding: $32 Million

2. PayScale
Although PayScale isn’t the newest startup on the block—it was founded in 2002—it has just started to gain notoriety in the startup world. Founded by a former Drugstore.com and Microsoft manager, this company makes its revenue by providing small and large businesses affordable HR solutions. If you need help setting your company’s pay rate, finding affordable benefits packages, or hiring the right people, give them a call.

Founders: John Gaffney and Joe Giordano in 2002
Founding: $31 Million

3. Zulily
Founding in 2009, Zulily is perhaps the fastest growing startup in Silicon Alley. Like competitors Groupon and Living Social, Zulily offers daily deals: both national and local. Unlike Living Social and Groupon, however, Zulily caters to “moms, babies and kids,” as their slogan says.

Founders: Darrell Cavens and Mark Vadon in 2009
Founding: 96.6 million, with 43 million in Series C founding in August of 2011

4. Swype
With android as its customer, Swype is already a large player in the cell technologies industry. Swype is a virtual keyboard or cell phone software that works with touchscreen smart phones, allowing users to “swipe” across the keyboard to type out a message, as opposed to tapping each letter out one by one. In 2011, this software was integrated into just under 30 million smart phones. And with nearly 14 million in founding, this could be a great opportunity for those looking for startup jobs in Seattle.

Founders:  Randy Marsden and Cliff Kushler in 2002
Funding: 13.9 million

5. Redfin
Similar to popular site Zillow.com, Redfin is a online real-estate site, that matches up realitors with potential customers. Unlike Zillow, however, Redfin real estate agents get commissions based on customer statisfaction rather than based on the selling price of each unit. With a slogan that reads “Customers not Commisions,” it’s no wonder why customers love this site and why it makes our top 7 startups list.

Founders: David Selinger and Glenn Kelman in 2004
Funding: 46.8 million

6. Apptio
Working with big name clients such as Microsoft and Facebook, Apptio offers one of the industry’s best cloud based solutions. Apptio can help any business manage their IT costs in the cloud, and with nearly 200 employees it is a popular destination for those looking for work in Silicon Alley.

Founders: Sunny Gupta in 2007
Funding: 41 million

7. Decide.com
Co-founded by a Oren Etzioni, the founder of FareCast.com, a site that predicts fluctuations in air fare pricing, Decide.com helps users predict whether the price of a particular tech item is likely to rise or fall. Although this startup only has around 8 million in funding, the fact that Microsoft just bought out Oren’s FareCast search engine for around $100 million, every expects that this startup will rise quickly in the next couple of months. Decide.com is a great opportunity for anyone looking for startup jobs in Seattle.

Founders: Mike Fridgen and Oren Etzioni in 2010
Funding: $8.5 million

That’s our list. Are then any startups that you think should be on the listed in the top 7? State your case in the comments section below.

Author Bio: Mike Stewart is a technology enthusiast and freelance writer for Landover Associates, a technology job placement company based in New York, NY. Follow him on twitter @StewyMike or Google+.

Inflation has always made price increases inevitable across the board for almost all products. From food, to clothing, to building materials, everything that was worth something to people in the past is worth more to people today, and prices reflect that. But with the advent of modern technologies, many products that were only available to the few and the rich are now easily afforded by anyone with even a minimum wage paycheck. Remember 20 years ago, how expensive it was to purchase a Discman or cellular phone? Here is a list of four technologies that, in spite of their initially high prices, are predicted to become more affordable in the near future.

The Ultrabook
A new crossbreed between the PC an tablet came out in 2011, called the “Ultrabook.” The Ultrabook has no DVD or hard disk drive and offers the option of using either the touch screen or a detachable keyboard. The Ultrabook has everything you could want, all wrapped into one convenient package, but the initial sales of Ultrabooks were disappointing for producers and merchants. According to NPD analyst, Stephen Baker, prices of Ultrabooks are expected to continue going down in the near future, in order to increase sales.

Hybrid Cars
Due to the endlessly rising prices of fuel and the detrimental effects to the environment, fuel efficient hybrid models of cars are making considerable inroads to the automobile market. But despite the economic benefits of hybrid cars, many people still cannot afford the initial cost of purchasing one. Additionally, even if everyone could afford to purchase a hybrid, not enough hybrids are able to be produced. However, car companies are currently investing massive amounts of funding in developing cheaper and better ways to produce hybrid cars. It is difficult to predict how long it will take before cheaper hybrid technology is developed, but it can be expected that within the next few years we will continue to see the price of hybrids becoming considerably cheaper.

Tablet Computers
Most people consider the best brand of Tablets to be the Apple iPad. Therefore, whenever Apple decides to release the iPad 3 and/or iPad Mini, prices of the earlier iPad models will inevitably decrease. Likewise the prices of tablets by other companies will also be forced down in order to compete with the iPad. And as other tablet products enter into market competition, they will have no choice but to compete on price.

Solar Technologies
The cost of solar technologies has been regularly decreasing over the past couple of decades. Recently, due to rebates provided by governments and utility providers, along with the regularly decreasing costs of production, many consumers are finding themselves able to afford solar technologies. As a result, there has been a boom in the purchases of solar technologies in recent years, and that boom has sent solar technology providers scuttling to offer the best prices.

The question in the minds of all savvy consumers is “When should I buy?” On one hand it’s cool to get great tech stuff at cheaper prices, on the other hand you miss out if you wait too long. One thing seems to be for sure, technologies are just going to keep getting better.

Author BIO:
Susie Brown is a FastUpFront Blog contributor and business consultant. Fastupfront offers business cash advance financing to established businesses based on future sales.

Created in 1996, the Universal Serial Bus or USB quickly became the preferred technology for computer peripherals. With the introduction of USB 2.0 in April 2000, computer users rejoiced that their go totechnology had become even faster and easier to use. And now with USB 3.0 products becoming more prevalent, consumers are excited to see what enhancements have been made to the tried and true technology. Here’s what you need to know about how USB 3.0 is different from USB 2.0, and why it matters.

USB 3.0 is 10 Times Faster than its 2.0 Predecessor
The main benefit to USB 3.0 technology is that it is approximately 10 times faster than USB 2.0 technology. And while this increase in speed may be virtually unnoticeable in some products, like your USB 3.0 keyboard, there are certain types of peripherals that will showcase the speed upgrade, namely portable and external hard drives.

Consider this: If you’re backing up a large music or image collection, or you’re creating a copy of your video files, transferring these files via USB 3.0 will take much less time than performing the transfer via USB 2.0. USB 3.0 is able to transmit nearly 5 Gbps, whereas USB 2.0 is capable of transmitting 480mbps of data.  Because of its much faster speed, a backup that may have taken a USB 2.0 drive more than 15 minutes in the past can now be completed in just over 1 minute on a USB 3.0 drive.

USB 3.0 Ads Additional Functionality but Stays Backward Compatible
Though the wiring that goes into the USB 3.0 cables is different than USB 2.0 wiring, the plug that connects to the USB outlet remains standard, providing full physical and functional backward capability. This means that your newly purchased portable USB 3.0 hard drive will work just fine with your older laptop that only has USB 2.0 ports. However, in situations like this, the USB 3.0 product will perform at the same level as a USB 2.0 product, so speed and power benefits will not be fully realized.

In the computer world, it’s common knowledge that your system is only as fast as its slowest component, and this certainly holds true when talking about USB 3.0. In order to reap the greatest benefits in speed, your receiving device will need to be able to function as quickly as the USB 3.0 device sending the data. For example, if you’re using a USB 3.0 external desktop hard drive to back up data to a machine with a magnetic hard drive that writes data at 7200 RPM, the process will be slowed considerably. However, if you’re backing up that same data to a solid state device like a flash drive, you’ll likely be pleased and impressed with the speed of the transfer.

USB 3.0 Allows for Bi-Directional Data Transfers
Another difference between USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 comes in the form of its signaling method—USB 2.0 uses a polling mechanism where USB 3.0 uses an asynchronous mechanism. In layman’s language, this means that USB 3.0 is capable of simultaneously sending and receiving data, while USB 2.0 can only handle only one direction of data at any time. This particular difference is likely to be the most noticeable in cases involving transferring data between USB hard drives, as bi-direction data support isn’t an issue in less complex USB devices like the standard computer mouse.

USB 3.0 Includes Power Management Improvements
Enhanced power management is also available in USB 3.0, making these devices more efficient and less costly to operate than similar USB 2.0 devices. Using about 1/3 of the power necessary for a USB 2.0 device, USB 3.0 devices are built to shift into a lower power state when not being actively used by the device. Additionally, USB 3.0 technology has a higher energy capacity, allowing the technology to power more devices from one hub and to effectively handle hardware with more robust power needs.

— About the Author —

Dan Coppen is a business technology writer. Follow him at @dancoppen for more tech insights.

Tablet PCs have changed the way we view computers. Instead of having to tote around a bulky laptop, it’s now possible to enjoy all of the laptop’s functionality in a wafer-thin computer that fits easily in a purse or the side pocket of a briefcase. Yet despite all of the benefits that come along with having a smaller computer, some may question how functional such a machine really is when it comes to providing easy access to online education.

According to a paper presented at the 25th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching & Learning, Penn State University set out to study the affect that tablet computing technology had on online mathematics courses. The results were mixed, with tablets, and their PC counterparts, presenting problems related to the rendering of mathematical symbols. This is because most are geared specifically towards the written word, meaning that students of online courses related to mathematics should be particular careful when selecting a tablet PC.

Although tablets may pose problems for math and science students, they can be a great alternative for many other students and even faculty members. An study published in the Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology points out the ease of use that is inherent in tablet PCs has the ability to make faculty interaction with students much more fluid. When the faculties the of science and engineering departments at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology tested using tablets in an educational capacity they found their computer usage skyrocketed and e-mails were answered more promptly. Similarly, the teachers speculated that tablet PC usage by students would lead to enhance instructor-student interaction and would improve students’ note taking ability, as the would be able to handwrite notes rather than rely on the sometimes faulty input of typing.

Ultimately, it seems that tablet PCs will become an essential element of class design, be it a traditional or online class. While more research is needed to further understand the importance of tablet PCs and their impact on online classroom learning, it is possible to speculate that their portability, ease of use and versatility will lead to enhanced student-faculty interactions and increased understanding of subject matter.

==== About the Author ====

Lindsey Wright is fascinated with the potential of emerging educational technologies, particularly the online school, to transform the landscape of learning. She writes about web-based learning, electronic and mobile learning, and the possible future of education.