Hawaiʻi's Technology Community

Featured Blog Posts (410)

Silverlight 3.0 - The First Real Threat to Flex

I just finished reviewing the API docs for Silverlight 3. I'm really impressed with the 3.0 framework. Silverlight has always had good underpinnings including an elegant and clean API, a declarative UI, a solid VM and an excellent programming language (C#). The problem has been a lack of polish in the UI, missing high level components and missing key features already found in… Continue

Added by Daniel Leuck on June 28, 2009 at 8:00pm — 7 Comments

User Experience - Interrupted

Apple recently announced the much anticipated

iPhone3G S, along with the new 3.0 platform. As usual, Apple has done a stellar job of hyping the release, providing the 3.0 SDK (Software Development Kit) to their huge following of app developers in advance, encouraging them to take advantage of the new capabilities such as copy/paste, voice dialing, compass positioning, video support with editing, and, of course,… Continue

Added by Mimi Knowles on June 23, 2009 at 6:05am — 1 Comment

The U.S. Government contacted Twitter about Iranian usage of the service during political protests

One of my interests, as stated on my profile page, is "the intersection of technology/new media with social and political activism."

Reuters India has an article titled, "U.S. State Department speaks to Twitter over Iran.

It is no surprise that Iranians are Tweeting. I think what was a surprise was the reported interaction between the State… Continue

Added by Derek on June 16, 2009 at 11:00am — 2 Comments

HOWTO: Consume a Groovy Web Service with Flex

Recently, I've been faced with the fact that Flex is quite popular as a web presentation layer. Given my Java background, at first I was quite reluctant to recognize this, until new projects paved the way to learn more about this RIA technology. Since I already have a considerable amount of server-side code in Java, I was wondering if it is possible to connect Java and Flex to get the best of both worlds. Hence this article gives a walk through on how to consume a Groovy Web Service… Continue

Added by Konstantin A Lukin on June 15, 2009 at 9:30pm — No Comments

Reminder: Two Weeks to Go for Invention Contest

The closing date for submissions to my INVENTION CONTEST on Renewable Energy is July 4th. The winner in each category of challenge idea will receive my coveted “GOLDEN BAGEL AWARD” for best Hawaii intellectual property achievement of the year. For the 3 winners chosen in the Invention Contest, I will also perform a FREE patent search on each invention and provide my written opinion on its patentability (a $1500 value). Please check my blog: http://hawaiitechnology.blogspot.com.

Added by Leighton K. Chong on June 13, 2009 at 3:30pm — No Comments

Urgent! Help Stop HB1405 - The Bill That Will Devastate Hawaii's Online Media Industry

I hate to be dramatic but the future of Hawaii's online media industry is in jeopardy and your immediate action is needed. Bill HB1405 is a bill that could cause a huge blow to Hawaii's Online Media Industry. It will handicap Hawaii's Online Media by not allowing them to fully monetize their websites giving an advantage to international and mainland companies and professionals.

Frankly, I am very surprised that there has not been more support against this bill from Hawaii's tech… Continue

Added by Dean Takamine on June 12, 2009 at 5:00pm — 72 Comments

Star Trek Tech Today: 3D Printing

I recently had the chance to spend some time at RAPID Technology's offices in the Executive Center. Prior to my visit I knew very little about the world of 3D printing. I'd heard of it, but assumed 3D printers were still in laboratories at MIT. I was amazed to learn 3D printing is being used today by businesses for everything from product prototypes and prosthetics to costume armor for movies. It can even be used to print working mechanical devices with moving parts. The… Continue

Added by Daniel Leuck on June 5, 2009 at 2:00pm — 13 Comments

Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority exploring new media & measuring the success of online marketing.

Two weeks after it printed a rather lengthy article on Twitter, Pacific Business News today has an article on bloggers, social media, and the Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority. CLICK HERE or go to http://tr.im/PBNHTANewMedia for todayʻs article. The article also mentions Lezley P. "Neenz" Faleafine of… Continue

Added by Derek on June 5, 2009 at 7:00am — 8 Comments

Featured Techie: Pipeline CTO Dr. Seri Lee

What do Game Boxes, Graphics Cards, Blade Servers, Lasers, Concentrated Photovoltaics and High Power LEDs all have in common? They all get WAY too hot. Thus, these technologies have significant potential to benefit from Pipeline Micro's patented micro-scale liquid cooling systems. How does Pipeline compete in this space with mainland and Japanese firms? They hire their best engineers. In a year… Continue

Added by Daniel Leuck on June 2, 2009 at 4:30pm — No Comments

Act 221 -- Uncertainty Not Good For Anyone

The buzz I've been hearing from everyone in the VC and startup community is that the uncertainty over the fate of Act 221 has frozen all investments in tech companies in Hawaii. That's because no one can responsibly estimate a proper investment amount or strategy without a clear sense of the tax implications. Eliminating Act 221 entirely would actually be better than leaving the matter in limbo any longer. I am not saying that saving or killing Act 221 is good one way or the other -- both sides… Continue

Added by Alex Salkever on June 1, 2009 at 7:47pm — 5 Comments

Rails Training Added to Aloha on Rails

I'm really excited to announce that the Aloha on Rails Conference has added Rails Training to the program. This professional training is brought to you by RailsBridge, the outreach and advocacy group chartered to create an inclusive and friendly Ruby on Rails community.

This Rails Training in Paradise is designed specifically for… Continue

Added by Seth Ladd on May 27, 2009 at 10:06am — No Comments

The Three Horse Advanced Web UI Race

During this trip I had the opportunity to chat with a customer about bringing a complex financial desktop application to the web. For this type of application the options we look at are Flex, GWT and Silverlight. All three technologies are capable of producing rich, desktop-like UIs. All are backed by software giants (Adobe, Google and Microsoft respectively.) A good team of… Continue

Added by Daniel Leuck on May 25, 2009 at 1:30pm — 5 Comments

Finally a lengthy news article on Twitter in Hawaiʻi

Pacific Business News has a surprisingly long article on the use of Twitter by businesses in Hawaiʻi.

The article also provides a list of Hawaiʻi businesses that have Twitter accounts. An attempt to get us to follow them? Maybe.

I appreciate Roxanne Darlingʻs advice, "that doesn’t mean letting the chattiest employees tweet about their lunch choices." Often… Continue

Added by Derek on May 22, 2009 at 4:44pm — No Comments

HOWTO: Get started with LDAP

I've heard many times about LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol), yet never had the time to experiment with this technology. Somehow I always thought it was for those 'cool' developers, who actually had the opportunity to spend extra hours researching this topic. Well, the time has also come for me to enter the 'cool' club :)

Wikipedia was a good place to start, though it only gave me… Continue

Added by Konstantin A Lukin on May 21, 2009 at 4:30pm — No Comments

Blogging in Japan

With 37% of the world's blog posts being in Japanese, its surprising that few people outside the country know it has the

largest and

most active blogging culture in the world. Blogging has also become a crucial social media tool in Japan, as in the US, for individuals and businesses to promote their services and products. Blogs in Japan take on different shapes and… Continue

Added by Scott Murphy on May 20, 2009 at 12:30pm — 3 Comments

Web Companies Can Still Have Successful IPOs

Online restaurant reservation system provider OpenTable is up 40% from its $20 initial offering price on its first day of trading. This puts the company's market cap at a healthy $605 million. This is good news for tech entrepreneurs and VCs swimming in news of doom and gloom. OpenTable recieved $48M in venture backing over three rounds.

More on… Continue

Added by Daniel Leuck on May 21, 2009 at 9:00am — 3 Comments

Tech Community Tithe

Recent 221 debates have highlighted an issue that has been simmering for many years in our community. There is a perception that the tech crowd is a a group of elitist "haves" who care nothing for those who are not part of our clique. This type of dynamic is very dangerous, and can quickly degrade into an emotional place where intelligent discourse is impossible. Some of this is our fault. I know many of you… Continue

Added by Daniel Leuck on May 16, 2009 at 2:00pm — 5 Comments

Hello, World!

My name is Sebastian Bozlee, and I'm a student at Castle High School.This is my first blog here at Tech Hui. I've been programming by myself for a while, and I hope to find others interested in it. My latest and greatest program is a buzzword compliant, XML-configurable, ray-tracing, 3D renderer written in C++ with support for .bmp textures, spheres, and planes. I've been developing it with Cygwin. Hopefully I can get it compiling for Windows and Linux soon. Here's a picture: …

Continue

Added by Sebastian Bozlee on May 16, 2009 at 8:31am — 7 Comments

INVENTION CONTEST FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY IN HAWAII

I’ve wondered why, with our HCEI goal to convert from 90% foreign oil dependency to 70% renewable energy use by 2030, there have not been more Hawaii companies working on innovations in renewable energy. As my own innovation stimulus, I am offering this INVENTION CONTEST for anyone to come up with new, useful and nonobvious solutions to the following 3 invention starter ideas. The winner in each category will be announced on my blog site and receive my coveted “GOLDEN BAGEL AWARD” for best… Continue

Added by Leighton K. Chong on May 5, 2009 at 7:30am — 6 Comments

Code Moding (Bugger Off)

I've noticed that certain activities such as designing systems, writing code and writing music put me in a very particular mental state. As this is a tech blog, I'll call it "code mode". Code mode is characterized by a hyper-focused state, a diminished sense of the passing of time and annoyance at any interruption. Its great for productivity, but isn't very practical in a typical office environment… Continue

Added by Daniel Leuck on May 10, 2009 at 7:00pm — 30 Comments