Your Computer Minute with Peter Kay

I just got back from seeing the movie and I think it’s the best of them all if you don’t compare it to Episode IV: A New Hope. Episode IV doesn’t count because since it was the very first it and will always have a special place in my heart.

SWE3 (Star Wars Episode 3) was awesome, primarily because it told the story that all of us really wanted to know. How did the empire form? How did Anakin get turned? How did everything go so evil? How did Darth Vader get his suit?

The action sequences were intense, the lightsaber fights rocked, and you could see how Anakin’s inability to “let go” became his fatal flaw.

I loved it. At certain times it was so painful to see things going Dark Side that I almost couldn’t bear to watch. That’s how I knew it was good, for me.

Go see it. It’s a good movie. George Lucas redeemed himself with this one.

You heard it here first. YourComputerMinute.Com broke the story!

I just love reviewing Hawaii success stories. Ryan Ozawa’s Hawaii Up podcast is being broadcast over San Francisco’s KYOU podcast-only format radio station. Way to go Ryan!

Now if you’re wondering what’s going on over here, KYOU is taking select podcast programming and broadcasting it over their airwaves. They have way more podcast content to deal with than they do airtime, so it’s pretty safe to say that whatever they are broadcasting is what they think is really good stuff.

This is one of those “only with the magic of the Internet” kind of things. Imagine, our local boy Ryan records a podcast in his home, uploads it to a server, and then a radio station in San Francisco downloads it, and broadcasts it across the city. Here’s the link to the specific show audio file if you want to hear it yourself. Amazing!

Way to go Ryan! If the Hawaii Geek Patrol keeps this up I’m going to need more space on the server to keep up with all the posts!

Want to see how to use this feature the cool way?
Checkout the video for a step-by-step demonstration!
(And let me know if you experienced any difficulties)

What do the Pope and Paris Hilton have in common? They both have a Podcast.

Next Big Things don’t come along too often and those of you that know me may recall that my other company CyberCom created the first commercial Web site in Hawaii and I was very active in getting Hawaii to make the most out of that Big Thing called the Internet.

Well, I’m here to tell you about the Next Big Thing and while this one won’t be quite as earth-shattering as the Internet, it will completely change the way you listen to audio content and I’m not just talking about music.  Drumroll please…

The Next Big Thing is "Podcasting" and it’s a new way to surf the Internet for audio content. A podcast is typically an mp3 recording of a radio-like show that’s available for you to download to your mp3 player.  There are over 5000 different podcasts going on right now on just about any given topic you can think of.  What makes podcasting different from just downloading mp3 files is the use of a free "podcatcher"application which lets you subscribe to your favorite podcasts. The podcatcher then checks those Web sites on a regular basis and automatically downloads any newly published audio content.

When you combine the podcatcher’s automated download feature with your existing mp3 player’s ability to synchronize files on your computer, the end result is that your mp3 player is automatically updated with the latest shows you asked for. You simply get up in the morning, disconnect your player, and off you go with your favorite audio in your ear.  And if you consider yourself an uberGeek you can add on an FM transmitter to your mp3 player so that you can listen to your favorite Podcasts through your car stereo.

I’ve put together an introductory video that will get you started on subscribing and downloading to podcasts. If you have an mp3 player or if you play mp3s on your computer at work, you gotta see why I’m all excited.  This truly really is the Next Big Thing.  When you get everything hooked up, make sure you visit my new sites VoteHawaii.com and a completely redesigned YourComputerMinute.Com and download the podcasts I have waiting for you over there.

Let me know what you think!

Subscribe to the Podcast and automatically download new video and audio tips as they come!

Show notes (things I mention in the video):

• Download the free podcatcher
• My other podcast site
• Buy Todd Cochrane’s book on podcasting
• TechPodcasts.com Directory founded by Hawaii Resident Todd Cochrane
• HawaiiUp local podcast by Ryan Ozawa
• RoughTake local podcast by Burt Lum
• More information at the Hawaii Podcasters Association

Want to see how to use this feature the cool way?
Checkout the video for a step-by-step demonstration!
(And let me know if you experienced any difficulties)

How do you get your electronic news today? I’ll bet you do it by subscribing to newsletters and also by visiting news sites, right? I used to do that until I got the hang of a new technology that everyone’s using called “News Feeds” or “RSS Feeds”. RSS feeds change the paradigm because instead of news being sent to you, your “Newsreader” software goes out, plucks the news you asked for, and puts it on your desktop for whenever you’re ready.

It’s important to stay current/ahead of what’s new, especially professionally. Using Newsreaders lets you get news from hundreds of sources, scan them quickly, and just pull out what you’re interested in. You just can’t do that with email newsletters.

This month’s demonstration shows you how this all works using a great piece of free software called “Pluck” (www.pluck.com) which installs as part of your Explorer Browser. Pluck lets you read news from any number of sources. But Pluck also adds some other killer features that I love, especially the one that lets you keep your work and home browser favorites synchronized. If you keep one set of favorites at home, another at work, and would like to have both of them synchronized, Pluck is the answer.

If you like reading news but are tired getting lots of newsletters in your inbox, you definitely want to get into this new way of retrieving your news and you DEFINITELY should check out Pluck.

Subscribe to the Podcast and automatically download new video and audio tips as they come!

From the Advertiser:

An association of local business interests yesterday received some federal government assistance to help develop a 300,000-square-foot life-sciences research center in Kaka’ako.

Honolulu-based Biotech Research Center LLC was awarded $11 million worth of tax credits to help attract financing for the estimated $150 million project.

It’s very cool to see a continued momentum in Hawaii Biotech and it looks like Kaka’ako is shaping up to be the epicenter. First you had Tissue Genesis locating in the Gold Bond Building (and in fact they moved into the killer office space that my other company CyberCom, Inc, had leased) and then the Medical School and now this.

I would be very interested in knowing more about what unique advantages Hawaii can bring to the Biotech industry. Why does it make business sense for a BioTech company to do business here? The better we can answer this question, the tighter a point we can focus our resources on.