I’ll probably create a page for these things I come across, but am still trying to figure out the best way to approach organizing this website. I’m frequently find myself lamenting that I don’t have a system for easily determining what default fonts on Mac OS support Hawaiian. I know a few off the top of my head – Lucida Grande, Helvetica, Times New Roman, Palatino, Courier, Didot – but not all. This is complicated by the fact that some fonts have most of the vowel kahakō combinations but not the ‘okina. A few have the ‘okina but not the vowel kahakō…
Apple Fonts With ‘Okina and Kahakō
I got tired of trying to remember every font that does and does not have the ‘okina and/or kahakō in it, so using the Apple Font Tools I came up with a spreadsheet that shows which fonts have which characters. It’s available for download at scribd.com. As always, there is no guarantee or tech support offered. Please don’t email asking why you don’t have a particular font on your system. Perhaps it’s just bad luck. Hopefully someday Apple will add all of these characters to all of the fonts that ship with OS X. Or OS XI, or… Apple Fonts…
How To Give Good ‘Okina
How To Give Good ‘Okina I’ve been asked this question so many times I decided it was time to write an article about it. The question (and its many variations) boil down to this: “What is the ‘okina, why do I need to use it in my web pages, what is the right character to use, what fonts should I use, what should I do if the font I want to use doesn’t have that character, and what other issues are involved in using it?” Read on for the answers to these questions…
The College of Hawaiian Language Urgently Needs Your Support
Aloha kākou. This legislative session the state legislature is considering a bill which will provide funding for the construction of a new building on the UH-Hilo campus to house Ka Haka ‘Ula O Ke‘elikōlani College of Hawaiian Language. Currently staff and faculty of the college are spread out over three locations on the UHH campus, making it difficult sometimes for students to even locate their teachers. And we have only a single classroom dedicated for our exclusive use; every semester we must compete with other programs for adequate classrooms in which to teach our classes. Well all know the importance…
Technology In The Hawaiian Language Revitalization Movement
I was honored to be asked to speak to the Big Island Internet Society’s meeting yesterday, and was asked to put together a list of links to pages and articles that provided more information on these topics. So here are a few: Wired Magazine artice on our early efforts to establish Leokī Kualono – website of Ka Haka ‘Ula College of Hawaiian Language Ulukau– the Hawaiian Digital Library ‘Aha Pūnana Leo’s Niuolahiki online class website Unicode and Hawaiian Language ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i – A Rich Oral History, A Bright Digital Future – Article from Cultural Survival Quarterly Leokī: A Powerful Voice…
Hawai‘i Has No Beer?
The folks at the Aloha IBU blog have an interesting post with links to videos of people in Germany during Octoberfest, and they are lamenting the lack of beer in Hawai‘i. Not only ignorant but insulting. They asked for a Hawai‘i version to respond to it, so I offer a verse: Updated: Verse: He Guiness ko ka ‘Ailiki The Irish have Guiness No Holani ka Heineken And Heineken is from Holland He pua Tahiti ka Hinano Hinano is a Tahitian flower He aha ko Hawai’i nei? What does Hawai’i have to offer? Chorus He mau pia no ko Hawai‘i …
Google, Hawaiian and “Native American” Languages
I’ve received a lot of great feedback and compliments from people regarding the development of the Hawaiian language interface for Google. Mahalo to everyone who sent notes of congratulations for the accomplishment and recognition from the Governor’s office. I would like to address one element that came out in several stories, including the announcement by the Governer’s office, on this development. In these stories, it was stated that “Hawaiian has become the first native American language available through the “Google in Your Language” program”, or something similar. Hawaiian is not a native American language, and in the press release that…
Connectivity Issues, Part Deux
About two years ago I blogged about the connectivity problems we had at our home in Kurtistown, and how we came across a wireless provider that solved our issues, Advanced Wireless Systems Hawai‘i, and showed what lengths it took to get wireless to our home (see picture below). All was well for the first 18 months of use, and about 6 months ago we began to experience slower connectivity, which eventually devolved into sporadic connectivity with periods of nothing but message os “cannot reach server”. After putting up with this for a few months I finally called AWS, and after…
Getting Online Locally
This past Saturday I met for the first time in person with a group that calls itself the Big Island Internet Society. I came across a few of the folks on Twitter, and you can follow some of the planning and conversations using Twitter hash tags #bialoha. Many of their blogs can be found linked at Damon Tucker”s excellent FBI (From Big Island) blogs website. I found this interesting as I first got involved with Twitter after learning about it from some of my Ireland friends. I later found some O‘ahu-based friends using it, and only recently came across this…
Kaua‘i Music Festival Was Outstanding
I had the privilege of being one of the instructors at the Kaua‘i Music Festival last week. The five day event brought together instructors from Hawai‘i and the mainland to talk about songwriting, the business of the music industry and related topics. Some big-name composers included Jason Blume, David Pack (at left with me), Kevin Griffin, Marti Frederiksen, Jeff Dayton, Shelly Peiken; Hawai‘i representatives included yours truly, Kenneth Makuak?ne, Keale, Charles Michael Brotman, Jake Shimabukuro and Paula Fuga. Mahalo to BMI and the KMF staff for pulling off such an outstanding event. I can’t begin to tell you how valuable…