The Left Lane
A radio program for the tech-challenged

Ed Nishioka and Dave Oshiro are hosts of the "Hawaiian Hard Drive" show.---miyano: His garden will star on TV program

That's the rationale behind "tech radio," such as the just-launched Hawaiian Hard Drive show, a new radio program airing at 9 a.m. Tuesdays on KCCN (1420 AM). It's the broadcast version of a 3-year-old computer magazine distributed free in public schools, dentists' offices and at selected retailers.

Questions are taken via e-mail (info@hawaiianharddrive.com) during the show. The first program last week dealt with Web-page development and high-speed Internet access options. It was pre-empted by news events on Tuesday, but next week will be back with a look at office networking and software. That affects just about all of us.

"There's a little geek in everyone," said co-host Ed Nishioka. "But we don't want to be super technical."

MIYANO: His garden will star on TV program

These have got to be some of the worst-kept secrets of all time.

Nevertheless, Home & Garden TV says it will pierce the shroud around four of Honolulu's "secret gardens" in a show this weekend. At least three of the gardens are very public places: Foster Botanical Garden in Honolulu; The Contemporary Museum's garden in Makiki and Sen. Hiram Fong's Garden in Kahalu'u.

The only garden in the show that may be new to island folks is the private one of landscape architect Leland Miyano, a one-acre tropical showcase against the cliffs in Kahalu'u. Miyano says he got the inspiration for his tropical garden from years of studying in Brazilian jungles. "The rain forest is an example of the biodiversity and layers and layers of life, and that's the sort of thing I would like to translate in this garden," he said.

The show airs at 3:30 p.m. Sunday on Oceanic Cable's channel 38.

Looking for a few good inventions

We have a winner! We just don't know who it is yet.

The Made in America contest, sponsored by the National Mail Order Association, recognizes the best products dreamed up by inventors in every state. Winners — inventors or manufacturers — get national recognition and exposure in the Mail Order Digest and on the NMOA Web site, both of which are seen by mail-order outfits, infomercial makers and direct marketers.

Hawaii's 1999-2000 winner was Rick Serafine, who markets Floodchek, a washing-machine inlet hose that won't blow out, invented by Serafine's business associate, Steven Vargo, an overworked property manager frustrated by frequent washing-machine floods.

Find entry forms online (nmoa.com/contest), or by send a self-addressed, stamped envelop to NMOA, 2807 Polk Street NE, Minneapolis, MN, 55418. Entries must be received by Dec. 31, 2001.