Hawaiʻi's Technology Community

All Blog Posts (799)

The Simple Declarative Language

Aloha TechHuians. Last month I blogged about the

SDL/Swing UI framework, which makes heavy use of the

Simple Declarative Language (SDL.) I came up with the idea for SDL about six years ago when I was buried in a mess of XML J2EE config files. It struck me that XML is great for things like marking up… Continue

Added by Daniel Leuck on February 16, 2009 at 7:00pm — No Comments

And now for something completely different...

I am in the midst of creating and managing a website www.koniacollection.com which is in partnership with Martin and MacArthur (I will be redesigning their website afterwards and turning it ecommerce). However, I wanted to mention the fact that when I get bored and need an "escape" from it all, I turn to reading. I am currently reading Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier. I was wondering what everyone else does in their "off" times. I also frequent a wonderful blog that points me in the… Continue

Added by Brian Park-Siart on February 16, 2009 at 8:30am — No Comments

"Advocacy-Made-Easy" Tool

Aloha TechHuians,

Now that we are in the midst of another legislative session, I thought it appropriate to let you all know of a new "advocacy-made-easy" tool that helps politically-motivated individuals and advocacy groups get their friends, members or constituents to very easily submit testimony via a pre-populated web form. Once set-up it takes folks 30 seconds or less to get their voices heard.

The tool is called the Hawaii Policy Portal and can be found at… Continue

Added by Kevin Vaccarello on February 11, 2009 at 10:01am — 21 Comments

Why doesn't Microsoft learn?

In this morning's headlines I came across the following pair of articles:

Apple to Integrate 'QuickTime Pro' Features into Snow Leopard?

Average User Only Runs 2 Apps, So Microsoft Will Charge for More

The first is about how Apple, as part of the upcoming release of… Continue

Added by Pat Niemeyer on February 9, 2009 at 5:41am — 5 Comments

The Psychological Barrier to SaaS

Two months ago we moved our last customer still running their own email server to Google applications. As we have seen with our other customers, there was a short stressful period as they adjusted, followed by great satisfaction as they moved from using Outlook to Gmail's web UI. It starts with one or two employees discovering the power of live collaboration on spreadsheets or simple document sharing. They become internal evangelists, and pretty soon the whole organization is realizing… Continue

Added by Daniel Leuck on February 8, 2009 at 7:30pm — 14 Comments

I'm going to the Holy City of Geekdom!

Next week I head to Skywalker Ranch for my pre-mix meeting with Gary Rizzo (who just was nominated for an Academy Award for his fine fine sound work on Dark Knight). I'll try to take a lot of pictures.

Added by GB Hajim on February 4, 2009 at 10:11pm — 2 Comments

Simpler and Speedier GWT with Server Side RPC Serialization

In this post I will describe how we are using server side GWT RPC serialization at Ikayzo to both improve performance and simplify client code logic.

First, let's have a quick recap of the normal startup sequence of a GWT application. As depicted below, it begins with the client requesting an HTML page containing a GWT script reference and static application text. All that is required in this initial page is a one line script that includes the GWT application's "nocache" file.… Continue

Added by Pat Niemeyer on February 4, 2009 at 5:30am — 9 Comments

More On Freedom (the cud-chewing continues)

Hm... On my previous post on Freedom, Cameron Souza left a comment the end that got me thinking more on this topic, and about why it is on my mind lately.

About 3 weeks ago, I was browsing a post on security guru Bruce Schneier's blog on the topic of… Continue

Added by Brooke Fujita on February 2, 2009 at 3:00am — 1 Comment

Featured Techie: Social Media Guru Roxanne Darling

Local social media celebrity

Roxanne Darling introduced many of us to the world of

podcasting. The first podcast I watched was an early episode of

Beach Walks with Rox, now a popular show with over 700 episodes. Roxanne's energetic,… Continue

Added by Daniel Leuck on January 30, 2009 at 6:30pm — 1 Comment

Freedom

Brand new year, and the end of an error... er, "era".

I was thinking of something to write about that would be slightly interesting, and after some rumination, I thought of this: freedom. The Dilbert comic from the other day sums it up quite well.

Freedom from the daily office drudgery is a topic that crosses my mind quite frequently. Like many others, I wish there… Continue

Added by Brooke Fujita on January 26, 2009 at 4:17am — 6 Comments

Web dev needed for Kaneohe B&B site

Again, I get these all the time, but I am too busy to do them all myself.

A Kaneohe Bed and Breakfast, right on Kaneohe Bay, has an existing site designed back in the 90s. She would like a site redesign to bring it up to contemporary standards. She has plenty of content already, but it needs updating, and a new "skin" design for the site. She has provided me with another travel/inn site which she likes the look of, and she has provided me with a "punch list" of things she wants done on… Continue

Added by Blaine Fergerstrom on January 25, 2009 at 9:38am — No Comments

Web developer needed for product commerce web site

Hi gang,

I get these all the time, but I am just too busy to do them myself, and often, they are above my capabilities.

I'll quote my friend:

Hi Blaine,

I want to make a simple web site for the [product], and try to market it nationally. I might even have the opportunity to sell it to Amazon.com – therefore needing a selling web site (probably going to use the postal service and therefore needing to make the postage and mailing labels… Continue

Added by Blaine Fergerstrom on January 25, 2009 at 9:25am — No Comments

Send Your Message to Legislature

Hawaii Legislative Reference Bureau Your best resource about the Hawaii State Legislature is the Hawaii Legislative Reference Bureau. It’s the go to place for senators and representatives when they have questions. The LRB website is an excellent place to track bills and resolutions. The Bureau is a nonpartisan legislative service agency that provides a wide variety of services to legislators, legislative committees, and members of the public.

Hawaii… Continue

Added by Dave Takaki on January 21, 2009 at 9:39pm — No Comments

SDL/Swing

Over the weekend I dusted off an old project that has always interested me and did a little recreational programming. Yes, I know I'm a geek. The project is called SDL/UI. Its a declarative framework for creating platform independent UIs using the

Simple Declarative Language. By cross platform I mean the screen definitions are portable and the controllers are portable if you are using a cross platform language for the logic. SDL/UI's design goals are…

Continue

Added by Daniel Leuck on January 20, 2009 at 1:30pm — 2 Comments

Time to Let Your Voices Be Heard

Posted on behalf of HVCA President Bill Spencer

On January 21, 2009, at 7:00AM, the Hawaii State Legislature will begin its 2009 term. If you care about keeping Act 221 intact and extending it into the future, you must be present and show your support.

The EXTEND221.ORG group will assemble at the capital at 7:00AM on the morning of January… Continue

Added by Mika Leuck on January 9, 2009 at 11:30am — 3 Comments

Featured Techie: Kaz Hashimoto, President of Avatar Reality

Kazuyuki "Kaz" Hashimoto has the most exciting job on the island: Overseeing the genesis of Blue Mars, a massively multiplayer virtual world (MMVW) set on a futuristic terraformed Mars. Blue Mars sports graphics that make Linden Lab's Second Life look like 1980's Ultima. Kaz has all the… Continue

Added by Daniel Leuck on December 29, 2008 at 1:00pm — 13 Comments

Are Hawaii's Tech Tax Credit Worth the Cost?

Today, the Honolulu Advertiser ran an article on 221/215. The article is primarily a strong attack on the prudence and viability of the tax credits. The article cites a new 25 page report by the Department of Taxation that is well worth reading.

The numbers look bad and the public reaction (both in quotes and… Continue

Added by John on December 29, 2008 at 9:45am — 226 Comments

Finding & Retaining Talent in Hawaii

In Dave Takaki's forum post Action Committee for Threatened Hi Tech Tax Credits John raised an excellent point, "But maybe the issue is: Hawaii has insufficient tech talent so we are simply throwing money at the wrong problem." This is definitely a serious issue for a number of reasons.

1)… Continue

Added by Daniel Leuck on December 24, 2008 at 9:30am — 57 Comments

Lobbying to protect Acts 221, 215 HI Tech Tax Credits

This year’s legislative session will prove to be critical for those of us who find the current tax credit laws integral to our development plans.

Georgia Skinner over at DBEDT had confirmed a number of weeks ago that the Lingle Administration was going to look at these Hi Tech industry tax credits in attempting to balance the state budget. Rumblings have also been heard from a number of Senators and Reps.

The Honolulu Advertiser ran an article on the upcoming budget and it contained… Continue

Added by Dave Takaki on December 23, 2008 at 10:50am — No Comments

Anyone in Hawaii doing development on top of Twitter's APIs?

Just curious. I wanted to talk to someone about what's involved in building something out that piggybacks on microblogging networks. For reference, see www.stocktwits.com. Happy holidays!

Added by Alex Salkever on December 20, 2008 at 11:34am — 11 Comments