Congratulations Hawaii Reporter!

Malia Zimmerman's Hawaii Reporter celebrated its 7th Anniversary today.

Putting the news online in 2002 was a prescient move -- and the new look of the site makes it a really up-to-date, easy-to-access local and national news source.

Malia and her talented staff are sought out by national television shows (20/20) and newspapers (The Wall Street Journal) for their help in reporting local issues of national interest.

The 7th Anniversary luncheon today honored 7 Hawaii Super heroes -- including Sam Slom

Rick Hamada, Dick Rowland, Jack Schneider, Dale Evans and Bobbie and Cliff Slater --- all representative of the independent thinking and intelligent, alternative community voices that Hawaii Reporter supports.

Malia and her partners, Jay McWilliams and Laura Brown also launched a newly revamped Public Records that is called Hawaii's Inside Track and will function as an independent site.

Way to go!

Pretty impressive!

Money Talks

BUT I GUARANTEE YOU IT IS NOT OVER ...


Facebook Reverts to Previous Terms of Service
February 17, 2009 - 11:58 pm PDT - by Adam Ostrow 23 Comments
That was quick. A day after trying to defend changes to its Terms of Use, Facebook has pulled a 180 and decided to revert to its previous terms.
Earlier today, the company began polling its users about the controversial changes, with only 6 percent supporting them and 56 percent opposing (the other 38 percent simply responded “don’t know”). We posted the same poll on Mashable and the results were far more decisive – 88 percent voting to revert, 7 percent to keep, and 5 percent indifferent (as of 11pm PT).
Once again, CEO Mark Zuckerberg is the one breaking the news. In a blog post, he writes, “Going forward, we’ve decided to take a new approach towards developing our terms. We concluded that returning to our previous terms was the right thing for now. As I said yesterday, we think that a lot of the language in our terms is overly formal and protective so we don’t plan to leave it there for long.”
In a smart response to what I’ve previously characterized as a breakdown in communication more than anything else, the company has also established a Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities group, where members are encouraged to “give input and suggestions on Facebook’s Terms of Use.”
Smart move, Facebook. Unlike the breakdown over Beacon, which lasted for weeks, Facebook has diffused this crisis in a matter of days. Of course, it could’ve been prevented in the first place by clearly explaining the changes before posting them, but it appears Facebook has taken steps to ensure that this issue doesn’t plague the social network in the future.

SHould Be Called WeLiedToYouBook

So much for social networking --innocents of the internet underworld beware:

Facebook now owns old content
February 16th 2009
Author
by Edward Barrera
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ADOTAS — Facebook has changed its terms of service, and apparently now, if you close your account, it can do anything it wants with your old content.
The terms of service used to say that when you closed an account on its network, any rights it claimed to the original content would expire. But things might have changed.
“we reserve the right to change any aspect or feature of the Facebook Service at any time without notice. The following sections will survive any termination of your use of the Facebook Service: Prohibited Conduct, User Content, Your Privacy Practices, Gift Credits, Ownership; Proprietary Rights, Licenses, Submissions, User Disputes; Complaints, Indemnity, General Disclaimers, Limitation on Liability, Termination and Changes to the Facebook Service, Arbitration, Governing Law; Venue and Jurisdiction and Other.”
Facebook can even sublicense content:
“You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.”
Apparently the line that covered you if you did close your account is missing.
“You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.”
I’m not sure exactly how much this matters to me, but I’m sure others have a better understanding of this. I’m also unclear about say, photographers who post their stuff. Would that be Facebook property?

Arab hand dryers found in Chicago restroom

Kidding. they were Dyson Airblade hand dryers. New to visitors from Hawaii, North Carolina, and Connecticut. Like little girls bending over and sitting up so the seeing eye toilets will flush,

we all had to go to the ladies room to dry our hands after being alerted to the new device by the

astute North Carolinian.

They definitely dry your hands faster than the old fashioned push and blow kind, but did Dyson

really mean to use the word "blade"? Seems a little harsh, especially because you don't expect to have your hand cut off in a public WC.

P.S. they apparently operate at 400 mph or the equivalent thereof, cost just under $2000 and dry your hands in 12 seconds.

From One Digital Immigrant to Another

This just in from our good friend and content expert, Mary Goodbody -- James Beard Award winning cookbook author, and content creator for the new website cookstr.com -- Take that, you digital natives.

What I Have Learned

I learned how to type on a big, black manual typewriter in typing class one summer with the keys covered with tiny squares of masking tape to hide the letters and numbers. This is how I learned to touch type. I also learned to make carbon copies, to use Wite-Out when necessary. Then I learned to use an electric typewriter, followed by an IBM Selectric — super fast — with self-correcting tape. Then came computers. I learned first on an Apple II E and then switched gears and learned WordStar on an IBM computer. WordStar was a crazy word processing program that covered all the bases. Once you got it, you loved it. But then WordPerfect came out and I learned that, because while not as effective as WordStar, it was easier and knocked WordStar off the shelves. Soon, the programs were already installed in the computer when you bought it — no longer did we have to program our own computers or have to decide what program to use. I learned to use a fax machine, with the perforated paper — the same paper we had to feed into our old printers. Next, I bought a fax that used regular paper: a godsend. Ditto for my printer. And then I learned about email and the fax seemed old fashioned. I learned about modems, how to attach documents, to download photographs and pdf files. Concurrent to all this I learned how to buy a stereo, to test drive the huge speakers at stereo stores so that my 33s sounded amazing. Then I learned to operate a Walkman and all sorts of cassette-driven machines. But wait, say goodbye to cassettes. I then learned about CDs and CD players. But what about downloading music onto iPods? And first there were Beta tapes, soon replaced by VCR tapes and VCRs we had to hook up to our televisions. I learned about DVD players, DVRs and TiVo. And watching televison on my laptop. I also remember using rotary dial phones, then pushbuttons, and then cordless. Who needs more? Oh yes, answering machines you had to hook up yourself but allowed you to screen calls, replaced by voicemail operated by the phone company and caller ID so you could screen calls. I went through car phones, cell phones with huge antenae, and then tiny cell phones that flipped open. And Skype.
I think I can create a Facebook page...