Hawaiʻi's Technology Community

All Blog Posts (799)

the internets won't answer my question

I thought Google and Yahoo knew everything. Where are the lyrics to the Copper Nickel song Come Run With Me? This Internet thing is useless, just a passing fad.

Added by Wayne Hirata on December 15, 2008 at 9:22pm — 2 Comments

Launching a Niche Social Network

Aloha TechHuians. Fresh off the plane from Tokyo, we are going through the familiar ritual of adjusting to our home time zone. We had some interesting conversations during our trip with companies thinking about launching niche networks. Over the past few months we have had similar conversations with companies and academic institutions in Hawaii interested in launching new social networks or adding social… Continue

Added by Daniel Leuck on December 13, 2008 at 2:00pm — 1 Comment

Renowned T-Shirt shop needs web site upgrade

A renowned local t-shirt shop would like to get their web site upgraded. They currently sell shirts by having customers fill in an online form with the product name, quantity, size, etc., then submitting. They also have customers manually fill in the form, print and mail, or they ask you to call their shop.

They would like to upgrade to some kind of shopping cart system with cost/shipping/tax logic.

And the rest of the site could do with some ono local-kine Web 2.0… Continue

Added by Blaine Fergerstrom on December 13, 2008 at 1:36pm — No Comments

iPhone App Competition for Hawaii? Quick Way to Get UH Undegrads Build Experience in Software Dev for Commercial Products

Dan Leuck and I were talking a while back about this. I wonder if some angels here in Hawaii could underwrite summer programs that would select two or three teams from UH or other local university students to develop a commercial iPhone app over the course of a summer. This could be a paid internship. The iPhone market has really blown open the commercial software market because it completely solves the distribution platform problem and it lays bare how cheaply and quickly quality apps can be… Continue

Added by Alex Salkever on December 7, 2008 at 3:02pm — 9 Comments

Hawaii Science, Tech, Engineering and Math Workforce Development Survey On Facebook

The STEM Workforce Development Program at UH-Manoa needs your help. We are currently trying to find out how well science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) school programs and activities have prepared Hawaii's students for careers in these fields, and discover what happens to former participants after they enter the workforce.

If you attended any school in Hawaii--any grade between kindergarten and graduate school--we would greatly appreciate it if you would take our survey,… Continue

Added by Kate Dohe on December 4, 2008 at 9:04pm — 5 Comments

Great Video on Software Startups from Hubspot Founder Dharmesh Shah

The key take-aways from this excellent video:

*VC money is really expensive because you spend so much energy getting it. Build a product instead.
*Write a blog not a biz plan
*Your ideas suck. So get started anyway.

Added by Alex Salkever on December 1, 2008 at 7:37pm — 1 Comment

Featured Techie: Wayne Karo, Pipeline Micro CEO

I can't say enough good things about Wayne and his world class team at Pipeline Micro. Simply put, they are some of the sharpest and most motivated people we've met. Pipeline is working on an amazingly small and quiet liquid cooling system with the potential to improve the efficiency of everything from microprocessors to lighting systems. We have had the pleasure of seeing the product evolve since… Continue

Added by Daniel Leuck on November 30, 2008 at 10:30pm — 1 Comment

Hawaii Broadband Task Force Report Nearing Completion

The Hawaii Broadband Task Force was created by the 2007 Legislature to recommend how to improve broadband access in Hawaii. It has been a long road and there's always more to do. But our final report is due next month and deadlines work wonders.

A few quick summary comments:

* Broadband is fundamental to advances in education, health care, public services and economic development;

* Broadband needs to be viewed as 21st century infrastructure rather than left to… Continue

Added by David Lassner on November 30, 2008 at 8:43pm — 2 Comments

Analytics that tells you Gender-Age Demographics

I came across a pretty interesting stats program called user insight in Japan that was recently released by UserLocal who are also the creators of Japan's cell phone analytics program ugokuhito and nakanohito.

At first glance, user insight looked pretty normal. Heat maps, page views, gender analysis...wait gender analysis? Yeah, apparently this product… Continue

Added by Scott Murphy on November 24, 2008 at 10:30pm — 6 Comments

Twitter Gets Serious

Twitter traffic is reaching such huge volume it is becoming statistically accurate and contains so much real-time data that it is becoming relevant. Like a survey, the larger the sample the more accurate the conclusions, so if 500 Twitterer's are giving real time information about a large-scale event the cumulative data can prove very precise.

This new source of data and it's accurary have not gone unnoticed by California authorities who used it to track the recent brush fires in… Continue

Added by Keith Rollman on November 20, 2008 at 4:41pm — 7 Comments

Yahoo! Japan Worth More Than Yahoo!

Shareholders are looking back at Microsoft's original $44.6 billion offer and crying. I thought they were crazy to turn down this deal and the subsequent offer in June. Today Yahoo! is worth $14.33 billion, $31 billion down from its value when Microsoft made its initial offer. As I predicted, their market capitalization is now… Continue

Added by Daniel Leuck on November 13, 2008 at 12:00am — 3 Comments

Better late than never

I'd be happy to answer any questions anyone has on this subject. It is being handled by HPD and the city prosecutor. It falls under one of the new cyber-laws, harrasement by impersonation.

Added by Keith Rollman on November 9, 2008 at 8:29am — 3 Comments

Nov 4: A Historic Day for Tech

Today will be remembered as a historic day for technology as well as politics. CNN became the first station to introduce a pseudo-hologram technology to make it appear as if two correspondents separated by thousands of miles are standing in the same room. The technology works by having an animated avatar superimposed on the video stream by correlating the angle of the camera being viewed by the audience with an array of cameras positioned around the subject being "beamed". I thought it was a… Continue

Added by Daniel Leuck on November 4, 2008 at 4:00pm — 10 Comments

PodCamp Follow-Up: Advanced SEM Tactics?

Is anyone looking for a training program that's more than just a beginner's guide? Would anyone be interested in attending a workshop/seminar on various advanced Search Engine Marketing strategies?

Is there enough of an advanced audience to warrant a seminar? I mean, I have all the love for Twitter (first tweet in Hawaii with username @rob) but lets not stop there, does anyone want to explore the wide range of practical knowledge which can bring a return on time/investment such… Continue

Added by Rob Bertholf on November 2, 2008 at 9:00pm — 1 Comment

November Newsletter

After a peculiar lull early in the month we finished strong with membership blowing past 500 and the heaviest monthly traffic to date. New interest groups include Film and Television, Freehacker's Union, Second Life, Healthcare IT and… Continue

Added by Daniel Leuck on October 31, 2008 at 3:00pm — No Comments

Featured Techie: Professor Philip Johnson

We had the pleasure of working with Professor Johnson and his Hackystat team several years ago on an open source community project. In addition to being impressed by the CSDL's Hackystat and Jupiter projects, I found the program's focus on producing well rounded software developers refreshing. In stark contrast to many of… Continue

Added by Daniel Leuck on October 31, 2008 at 11:00am — 4 Comments

ad4u by Drecom

Lately I've been reading a lot on Drecom's ad4u targeted ad technology in Japan. Ad4u has been somewhat on the Japanese web radar for its controversy over invading user privacy.

So what is ad4u? Drecom is currently keeping the exact details of this technology a secret (awaiting patent in Japan) but the concept is very simple. Ad4u uses javascript to analyze user's browsing history and then displays relevant ads based on this information. For… Continue

Added by Scott Murphy on October 29, 2008 at 10:00am — 3 Comments

lacy veach day of discovery 2008

(cross posted from http://kagawaa.blogspot.com/)

if you think this is cool we are always looking for help with tech talks and presentations for different events. here is one that we are trying to plan right now for an event at Jarrett Middle School

this past weekend we participated in… Continue

Added by aaron kagawa on October 29, 2008 at 9:00am — No Comments

PodCamp Hawaii 2008: Blogatwitteropalooza

Today just before lunch I popped over to the

PodCamp Hawaii 2008 unconference to check out the scene and say hello to friends. As usual

Rox,

Shane,

Shawn,

Ryan and friends did a great job of… Continue

Added by Daniel Leuck on October 25, 2008 at 7:00pm — 4 Comments

Facebook and LinkedIn UIs Still Smell Funny

Is it just me, or are the major social network UIs still counterintuitive and in some cases getting worse? I find myself going on scavenger hunts for common functions in LinkedIn. Ryan and I recently discovered dozens of users waiting to join our LinkedIn groups because we were unaware they had applied. There are no email notifications and it takes four clicks just to discover new members waiting to join your group. LinkedIn's UX… Continue

Added by Daniel Leuck on October 17, 2008 at 1:30am — 7 Comments