Daniel Leuck's Blog (146)

On behalf of Ikayzo, inc., formerly a Manoa Innovation Center tenant, I respectfully submit testimony in STRONG SUPPORT of SB 627, the ten year extension of HTDC's land lease agreement with the University of Hawaii that facilitates uninterrupted operation of the Manoa Innovation Center.

The center played a critical role in the formation and scaling of both Ikayzo and Contix. In…

I've tried to stay out of this fray, but having received a number of inquiries, and having seen some friends affected by the collateral damage, I'm going to briefly comment on the situation.

I want mbloom to succeed. They have substantial capital to deploy in Hawaii, and I want that capital to empower local entreprenuers.

I believe the people at HSDC are true believers and want to do right by our community. They may have made mistakes, but I've spent time with them, and I've…

(borrowed from a Facebook post and associated thread Mika Leuck shared)

10 Reasons Why Handheld Devices Should Be Banned for Children Under the Age of 12

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Canadian Society of Pediatrics…

Last week while strolling down the Ala Wai with my 2yo son we stopped to look at the crabs that collect around the stairs that decend into the canal. I was glancing down at my iPhone when my son suddenly yelled "BIRD FISH!" and started pointing. I looked over and saw this:

In the thousands of hours I've spent walking up…

Note: I write this as a fan and frequent user of Facebook. In addition to helping my family stay connected with friends around the world, the site has helped our company find new customers and team members. I wish them well. That being said, there are many areas where FB really needs to get its act together.

Our company does a fair amount of advertising…

My friend Ken Berkun recently sent me a link to a NYT article that was more amusing than anything I've seen in The Onion. Mr. Glanz inquires, "…

Our Night Out with Heroku Japan & Friends

During our trip to Japan last month we got to enjoy an evening out with the Heroku team. We've enjoyed using their platform for years across many projects, so it was good…

Aloha TechHuians,

I'm sending the March newsletter a few days early to make you aware of a number of interesting upcoming events as well as imminent committee votes on key bills that affect the Hawaii tech community.



Events



Unconferenz

March 2 from 8am-4pm at Windward Community…

We enter the new year with over 3,000 members, a full event schedule, a newly reinvigorated blog, active job boards and plenty of great discussion about everything from…

Should US and EU regulators step in to curb the search giant's influence? 

In one of the worst editorials on CNN this year Andrew Keen, a man who once compared the social web to a "communist…

Henk Rogers has launched a new Hawaii-based venture accelerator called Blue Startups focusing on capital-efficient and scalable-technology companies, including Internet, software, mobile, gaming and e-commerce. They are also interested in tech companies selling into Asian markets.

I'm excited to see Henk and friends making this sort of investment in our…

When Mika and I started Ikayzo seven years ago I got everything wrong. Because I enjoyed a good relationship with my previous two employers I was confident they would become my first customers. Surely I could easily sell to local companies as well. Although we were a new company, I had a solid software development resume and some experience with business development. I thought recruiting would be easy because we could offer the ability to do interesting work in paradise. I…

It was with a heavy heart that we gave notice to our friends at the Manoa Innovation Center yesterday. Its time for Ikayzo to graduate to a larger commercial space. We are excited about having a new office, but we will miss the MIC community and our corporate home tucked away in beautiful Manoa valley.

Ikayzo has been at the …

Aloha TechHuians,

Apologies for being a bit late this month. I just returned from New York and I'm prepping to leave for Tokyo in a couple days. I'm getting too old for this :-)

This month we had some excellent blog posts including:

• Security Wargaming: Capture the Flag by Dan Nishimura…

For the past week I've been experimenting with writing a Flex/WPF/Swing-like widget framework on top of HTML5 using Dart. Dart is what I've always wanted for client-side web programming. Its a class-based optionally typed programming language that is, in the words of Dart team member Lars Bak, "high performance, structured yet flexible, familiar and natural." Anyone who knows…

As I write this HB 2288, which requires anyone providing internet connectivity to keep detailed records of users' browsing history, is being heard in front of the Committee on…

Normally when we discuss user experience design on TechHui we are talking about web or mobile apps, but UX design is a much broader field. Wikipedia defines UXD as, "Creation of the architecture and interaction models that affect user experience of a device or system."

During my time in Japan over the past two weeks I've been struck by how much attention is paid to UX for everyday things ranging from…

Aloha TechHuians,

Hau'oli Makahiki Hou! I hope the holidays treated you well.

Many thanks to all the participants in last month's TechHui conference including the speakers, panelists, sponsors and organizers. It was a tough time of year to do a conference (my fault for being in NY and Tokyo on business during the usual time), but we pulled it off. This year I was overwhelmed with work and being a new dad so I…

Aloha TechHuians,



There are only a few more days to register for the TechHui conference happening on Dec. 10 at UH Manoa. The conference features everything from Garrett Lisi presenting his Geometric Theory of Everything to an …

It's TechHui Conference time! The goal of the conference is to highlight interesting Hawaiʻi-based people, projects and organizations working in technology and interactive design. We seek to facilitate education and networking within the Hawaiʻi tech and design communities as well as educate people about the latest developments and…