Hawaiʻi's Technology Community

August 2009 Blog Posts (19)

Synergy Between New & Traditional Media

With all the hype over Facebook, Twitter and other flashy social media channels the cries of, "Traditional Media is Dead!" are everywhere. Its clear that the traditional 30 second TV ad spot doesn't have the efficacy it once did, and papers that can't make the transition to well designed interactive web properties are in trouble. That being said, the declaration of the death of traditional media is premature.

When TechHui is mentioned on a local news channel or covered in a local… Continue

Added by Daniel Leuck on August 30, 2009 at 11:00am — 4 Comments

ETCon : Communities and the Power of Crowdsourcing

ETCon : Communities and the Power of Crowdsourcing by E-Teachers Academy

Get your own…

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Added by Mark Cruthers on August 28, 2009 at 5:51pm — No Comments

A New Model for Venture Capital Investment in Tech Companies in Hawaii

It is time that we put on our thinking caps and create a new model for venture capital investment more suited to our real circumstances in Hawaii. I advocate three major changes to the Hawaii venture capital model for tech companies:

1. Allow Act 221 to sunset, and implement the Act 215 State Private Investment Fund (SPIF) to be funded with up to $38 million in state tax credits that can be used to guarantee secured interest-bearing notes issued to lenders.

2. Have the… Continue

Added by Leighton K. Chong on August 27, 2009 at 5:00pm — 49 Comments

Aloha on Rails Announces Hawaii High School Student Grant

Aloha!

We're proud to partner with Hawaii Information Consortium, the company behind eHawaii.gov, to offer the Hawaii High School Student Grant to attend Aloha on Rails. The grant covers the registration fees to attend Aloha on Rails, the Hawaii Ruby on Rails Conference.

This grant is intended to ensure that we continue to… Continue

Added by Seth Ladd on August 25, 2009 at 12:11am — No Comments

An Overview of Google App Engine (GAE)

These days, web developers are faced with a lot of difficult choices. One of them is which technology to pick for the next app, another is which hosting to use. It takes time and experience to make winning choices, especially when dealing with time sensitive deliverables. Back in the days developers had to do it all: configure a server, set up database access, get a static ip, etc... Configuring and supporting such a system could probably be a full time job in itself. Hence another… Continue

Added by Konstantin A Lukin on August 24, 2009 at 8:30pm — 3 Comments

Maui Supercomputer Upgraded, Renamed and Blessed

On Friday, August 21, 2009, the 50th anniversary of Hawaii becoming a state, the Maui High Performance Computing Center, which is 15 years old, received an upgrade and was renamed from "Jaws" to "Mana". Operated by the University of Hawaii and the U.S. Air Force Research Labs, it has regained the distinction, for at least a short while, of being the most powerful computer facility in the U.S. Present for the blessing were U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye, the original and current champion of having a… Continue

Added by David B. Fisher on August 23, 2009 at 10:32pm — 1 Comment

Maui Super Computer center in the news

In todayʻs (8/22/09) Honolulu Advertiser, there is an article on the substantial increase in power for the Maui High Performance Computing Center and that about $350,000 in electricity a month is being used to power the Center.

To read the entire article CLICK HERE. The article shares what the center is used for. Among the users is… Continue

Added by Derek on August 22, 2009 at 11:25am — 1 Comment

Watch Video Teasers of Aloha on Rails Presentations and Talks

Aloha!

We're proud to present teaser videos for talks and presentations at Aloha on Rails, the Hawaii Ruby on Rails Conference. Aloha on Rails is a three day tutorial and conference, teaching you how to build interactive web applications with the most productive and fun web framework out there: Ruby on Rails! After the tutorial, attend the two day conference and learn more about your craft, your career, and the technologies… Continue

Added by Seth Ladd on August 18, 2009 at 11:25am — No Comments

Seawater cooled, solar powered data centers in Hawaii?

I was just readting this article "In the New Data Center, It’s Roofs Off and Taxes Down" and this phrase really caught my eye:

"Both Google and Microsoft continue to scour the globe for locations with cheap power, lots of bandwidth and friendly tax policies for their new data centers."

And I started thinking about the… Continue

Added by Peter Kay on August 17, 2009 at 7:56am — 3 Comments

Cash for Clunkers -- Except Not Really

So a good friend of mine has been desperately trying to trade in his 1994 Nissan Pathfinder (which is clunkers eligible) for a Toyota Prius. Trouble is, Servco (the only sellers of Prius' in Hawaii) only gets several in per month. I am wondering -- are others in Hawaii who *want* to buy clunkers having trouble getting the cars that they want in stock? Also, where are the Hawaii clunkers going to go? Into local landfills?

Added by Alex Salkever on August 14, 2009 at 1:54pm — No Comments

NanoMechs - New Versions!

New version submitted to the App Store and have been in review for many days now. That means that it's coming soon!

Version 1.1 fixes the bug that would not allow NanoMechs run on iDevices earlier than 3.0!

Version 1.2 is about ready to be submitted. It includes online leader boards (thanks to AGON) and it also includes a flakcannon style of weapon!

http://www.linktoapp.com/NanoMechs

Added by Arin Cranley on August 11, 2009 at 2:43pm — No Comments

A Visit to the Computer History Museum

Entrance to The Computer History Museum Mountain View, CA Nestled between the Google campus, LinkedIn and downtown Mountain View, is the Computer History Museum. Housed in the original headquarters of Silicon Graphics, the museum is the largest repository of computer equipment artifacts in the world. I never knew of its existence until I stumbled upon it a year ago while visiting a cousin in Mountain View. We use computers everyday yet we often take… Continue

Added by Francis L. Camacho on August 9, 2009 at 11:16pm — No Comments

I want health care reform

Added by J. David Beutel on August 8, 2009 at 11:43am — 1 Comment

Featured Techie: Astrodynamicist Moriba Jah

We had the pleasure of e-meeting Dr. Jah on TechHui a few months ago. We were excited to hear about the type of work he is doing on Maui at ASTRIA and AFRL in the areas of …

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Added by Daniel Leuck on August 6, 2009 at 10:30am — 3 Comments

Envision Hawaii is taking applications for Board members

Check out envisionhawaii.org and let us know if you are interested in participating as a board member.

Thanks

Tyler

Added by Tyler Mongan on August 5, 2009 at 10:00pm — No Comments

So what do you think of Apple shutting out the Google Voice App on the iPhone?

Very curious to get people's impressions. I wrote about it here.

"With Google (GOOG) CEO Erick Schmidt stepping down from the Apple (AAPL) Board of Directors, the battle has now clearly begun. Google is all about open standards, open technology, and an open… Continue

Added by Alex Salkever on August 5, 2009 at 3:05pm — 3 Comments

NanoMechs - The New Multiplayer iPhone Game, is now available on the Appstore ($.99)

NanoMechs is a high speed, multiplayer shooter for the iPhone. NanoMechs features awesome real-time multiplayer action over WI-FI. Gameplay can be compared to popular 1st person shooters, except in 2D with gorgeous graphics!!

Go check it out (and buy it)! If you happen to buy it ($.99) please give it a decent rating, the ratings are huge when it comes to the success of the… Continue

Added by Arin Cranley on August 5, 2009 at 4:30am — No Comments

The Death of XHTML by HTML5 Has Been Greatly Exaggerated... Or, "There Is No 'ham' in 'hamster'"

Added by Brooke Fujita on August 4, 2009 at 6:00pm — No Comments

How to use GMail as a handy personal database

GMail has been my email of choice for some time, but only recently that I've learned about some of its 'lesser known features', and especially their potential applicability. In this blog I'd like to describe how some of such features can be used to turn GMail into a handy personal database. For example, quite often I need to store information, such as scriptlets of code, notes, blog ideas, etc.. Before this recent discovery,… Continue

Added by Konstantin A Lukin on August 3, 2009 at 10:00am — 5 Comments