Archive for: June, 2007

Do you still Yahoo?

Jun 19 2007 Published by Ben Chong under Business, Marketing, Product, The Daily Geek

Or do you google?

It seemed like only recently that Yahoo was the king of the Internet search. It survived when all the other search engine of the dotcom era went bust: Lycos, Excite, AltaVista…

But Google seems to have Yahoo on the run. The CEO, Terry Semel, resigned yesterday and was replaced by Jerry Yang.

Let’s face it: if you want to search for something on the Internet, do you Google? Or do you Yahoo?

The last time I used Yahoo’s search engine was something like 5 years ago.

It is not that I don’t use Yahoo. I use Yahoo Groups, Instant Messenger, Maps and I even go on www.yahoo.com everyday; in fact, several times a day.

The trouble is, I don’t go to www.yahoo.com to search. I go there for the news headlines.

So perhaps Yahoo should just jettison its search engine.

Yahoo needs to understand its current users: what value does Yahoo bring to them today? Why are these people using Yahoo’s services and tools?

With this understanding (customer intimacy, anyone?), Yahoo can then figure out how to enhance those offerings.

If Yahoo’s search engine is no longer valued, then throw it away. Focus resources on enhancing the things that are valuable. This will allow Yahoo to hang on to the existing user base as a start, in the face of competition from Google.

So Jerry, congratulations on the new job.

Now all you need is some customer intimacy…

Comments are off for this post

Apple is the GREATEST!

Jun 17 2007 Published by Ben Chong under Business, Marketing, Product, The Daily Geek

The UC Berkeley Haas School of Business recently moved all the email accounts to an Exchange server.

The good thing is that now, our lifetime email accounts and school accounts are routed to the same mail box.

The bad news is that many folks are having trouble consolidating their Microsoft Outlook to access both company email and Berkeley/Haas email.

Not so for your truly.

I spent all of 4 minutes adding an email account to Mail on my PowerBook. One option when you create an email account is the kind of email server. All I needed to do was to select Exchange as the email server and enter the URL of the email web server. I did not have to bother with whether to use IMAP or POP.

All cool and easy. I wish everything else in the computing world worked the same way.

For example, Thunderbird has zero support for smart connection to an Exchange server. I had to go down to the nitty gritty of IMAP vs POP, the choice of encryption, ports. None of which worked.

Thunderbird may be free, non-Microsoft and open source, but it does not have the smarts to make it the next generation email client.

Comments are off for this post

Got GAS?

Jun 10 2007 Published by Ben Chong under The Daily Geek

Every summer, there is spike in gasoline prices in the SF Bay Area/Silicon Valley.

But I’m not talking about gasoline today.

Getting G.A.S. is something of a guitar-enthusiast inside joke.

It means “Guitar Acquisition Syndrome”.

If budget allows, a GAS-sufferer will go on a guitar acquisition spree. If budget does not allow, the GAS-sufferer day dreams about the next great guitar purchase or he will hang out at Guitar Center everyday to try out the guitars and drool.

I switched over to an electric guitar in January. And now, I have 3 electrics.

My first electric is a Traveler Speedster. This is an ultra-light guitar made for easy traveling but features a full 25.5” scale, 22 frets and a Les Paul-like neck setup.

My second guitar is an Ibanez RG321MH. Very nice and inexpensive. Twin humbuckers with a string-thru mahogony body. I play the rhythm guitar parts of several GreenDay songs with it and it rocks! I love the flat fret board and thin neck. This makes the guitar much easier to play than the Speedster.

My latest acquisition is a Squier ’51 in 2-tone sunburst color. Squier discontinued the model this year, but the guitar is still available for less than $150 from several places including Ebay. I got mine from Guitar Center for $99.

The guitar is nowhere near the Ibanez or the Speedster in terms of quality (construction or sound). In fact, the quality sucks.

The advantage of the ’51 is that it is highly hotroddable: you can get all kinds of upgrades for it (thanks to parts interchangeability with Telecasters/Stratocasters): pickguards, bridges, necks, electronics etc.

Yep. I gave up fixing up cheap cars to fix up cheap guitars. No more Silicon Valley Gearhead. Welcome Silicon Valley Gas-Head!

The first thing I did was to change the strings to D’Addario EXL110. The original strings were a little discolored: probably kept in storage for too long.

The next thing I am going to do is to upgrade the bridge and the pickups. Possibly to pickups from GFS. The ’51 does not have the sustain nor the rich tone of the Ibanez. Power chords tend to sound a little flat.

Ah yes, GAS.

Life is interesting. I can see lots of tweaking ahead.

 

Comments are off for this post

Patter of Little Feet

Jun 10 2007 Published by Ben Chong under The Daily Geek

No. Not that kind of feet.

We have been dog-sitting for a few weeks.

It has been fun. Mostly.

Babe is a Chihuahua/Daschund mix. She is smart, loves to cuddle on your lap and lick your hands.

There is nothing quite like waking up to the patter of her feet early in the morning. It reminds me of early fatherhood.

Now I know why couples with no children keep dogs.

House dogs are like young kids. You have to constantly think about taking them out for walks so that they can do their toilet. Then you have to pick up after them. And you have to make sure that you feed them properly and on time. No junk food!

And, like very young kids, dogs can’t talk to you, so you have to guess what they want.

Interestingly, dogs (again, like young kids) can sense emotions. So they know if you are unhappy, angry or in the midst of a quarrel. They also know if you are going off on a business trip and will show that they are sad about it.

My best memory of Babe will be that of her dozing on my stomach, while I sleep on the living room couch.

 

Comments are off for this post