i L i n d . n e t

Chuck Freedman, local Obama campaigner and staffer for House Majority Leader Kirk Caldwell, has an interesting column that appeared in his hometown newspaper, Greenwich Time (CT) linking his high school experience as caddie for Jackie Robinson to his current support for Barack Obama. I haven’t found it online yet, but luckily Chuck sent along a copy.

It seems like an unusual amount of down time on the state’s various public computer systems. The Judiciary file system was down in May, an outage blamed on “an old, faulty server which crashed.”

PBN reported on Friday that the Bureau of Conveyances has also had a meltdown.

Hawaii businesses and homeowners needing to look up real property titles have been frustrated since a power outage June 4 shut down four public-access computers at the state Bureau of Conveyances.

Power was soon restored, but for unexplained reasons images of scanned documents can no longer be viewed.

Deputy registrar Nicki Thompson said the data is safe and can be printed, but she was unsure when the viewing capability would be restored.

The bureau, housed in the Department of Land and Natural Resources at the Kalanimoku Building on Punchbowl Street, stores more than 344,000 records.

Then there’s our own Hawaiian Telcom. Jeff Garland reports that he lost the ability to send email for 52 hours, possibly extended because he was initially deterred by wait times of about an hour or more to reach the company’s customer service and report the outage.

Let’s see. Looking ahead to the Democratic National Convention. There is still floating unhappiness over potential lack of diversity among bloggers chosen for the State Blogger Corps, remedied somewhat by an additional group added to a general blogger pool who will be getting media credentials. Here’s a relatively representative blog entry about the situation. Meanwhile, the Obama campaign has launched “Road to Denver“, an official web site devoted to national convention delegates.

But while bloggers are wrestling over convention credentials, Denver has announced an approved parade route for groups planning to march towards the convention at downtown Denver’s Pepsi Center. At the same time, Denver police are stocking up on pepper spray and other nonlethal weapons, according to the Rocky Mountain News. Aloha, Democrats, fair warning!

A Wall Street Journal blog previews Ted Stevens re-election battle in Alaska, where Hawaii’s Sen. Dan Inouye has jumped party lines to support his longtime friend.

Meanwhile, news seems to go from bad to worse for the newspaper industry. McClatchy is the latest to announce big layoffs while advertising revenues continue to tank tank.

Gannet reported a continuing drop in ads, down 14.3 percent in May, driving its stock price down to a level last seen in 1994, and financial analysts say the price still hasn’t falling into what could be considered bargain territory. I shudder to think what this is doing to the pensions of long-time Gannett employees whose retirement plans were heavily invested in the company’s stock.

Today Gannett announced a major investment in Cozi, “a free Web service that helps busy families manage schedules, share information and stay in communication.”

Cozi launched in the fall of 2006 and now has more than 600,000 family members. The innovative web service provides modern solutions to help families organize and simplify their busy lives with a central family calendar, customized shopping and to-do lists, an easy-to-use family blog and simple messaging tools to stay in communication – all in one place. Families can access Cozi from home, work or on-the-go with any computer or mobile phone so they are always connected to the information they need.

Introducing a new dog on the beach,

This is Ms. Cassie, who has been joining her people on the beach in the morning for a couple of weeks now. Cassie and her family used to live on the other end of Kaaawa, now have moved down closer to the beach.

She’s a pretty dog and will stand up and dance for a doggie treat.

Hopefully we’ll be seeing more of her.