Since I moved my blog over to WordPress from MovableType, I’ve been using the social bookmarking service del.icio.us to tag and organize my posts. Blogging software typically has a built-in form of tagging commonly know as categories, but categories pre-date true, modern tagging (aka, “folksonomy”:2). In addition, categories are very limited, not social and time consuming to create and manage. Hence my use of del.icio.us.

The account that I have created to manage my post tags on del.icio.us is called “_ZoingerPosts_”:3. When del.icio.us was first launched, it was total “flat” — that is, it listed all tags together in alphabetical order or by frequency. However, as del.icio.us’ service matured, they have added ways for users to create a form of hierarchy through a feature called _tagged bundles_. I wrote a “post”:4 on tagged bundles a while back which explained how to create them — which with everything on del.icio.us is not exactly obvious (this is part of del.icio.us’ charm!).

When you browse to my “ZoingerPosts”:3 account, the page displays on the left hand side a chronological list of my posts. This is useful, but not nearly as useful as the right hand side. On the right side, a list of all the tags I have created is grouped first by the tagged bundles (and their associated tags) and then by a list of the remaining tags (that is, those tags not included in a tagged bundle). Here’s a partial screen shot of the right hand side.

!/img/zoingerposts_righthandside.png!

Overall, I’m finding this to be a really handy tool to sort through my list of archived posts. For example, to find the post that I had written on _tagged bundles_, all I had to do was do a find on the ZoingerPosts page for the word _tagged_ (i.e., _cntrl + F_ followed by _tagged_ in Firefox). This changed the focus of my browser to the tag _tagged.bundles_ in the list of tags. Clicking on the tagged.bundles tag opened up “this”:5 page listing my post on del.icio.us’ tagged bundles feature.

[5(ZoingerPosts tagged.bundle tag page)]http://del.icio.us/ZoingerPosts/tagged.bundle

[4(Zoinger post on tagged bundles)]http://www.zoinger.com/words/archives/2005/04/26/delicious-hierarchy-a-new-feature/

[3(ZoingerPosts del.icio.us account - home of Zoinger post tags)]http://del.icio.us/zoingerposts

[2(Wikipedia on folksonomy)]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy

[1(Delicious home page)]http://del.icio.us

I had about a hour to kill the other day, so I stopped into a local Best Buy to see what was new and cool.

Just about the first thing that I saw in the store was a display featuring the “Sonos”:1 digital music system. Although the display had great location (it was in the middle of the path you would walk through to enter the store), the display itself was kind of lame. They only had the “receiver” part of the system on display with only a picture of the remote. That’s too bad since the remote is the coolest part of the system featuring a color display and iPod-like good looks.

!/img/best_buy_Sonos.jpg!
Where’s the Remote?

Up next was the computer center. In it I found Logitech’s latest high-end gaming mouse the the
“MX518″:2. The MX518 features user-adjustable resolution from 400 to 800 dpi — something only a gamer would appreciate. Gamers are also sure to appreciate the “just-fragged” look of the MX518… intentionally looking like it was hit by a wayward Halo missile. Although the surface looks 3D, it’s actually smooth like a normal mouse. I have the somewhat older Logitech “MX510″:3 which is also aimed at gamers and love it. Gotta upgrade sometime.

!/img/best_buy_logitech_mouse.jpg!
Logitech’s Fragtastic MX518 Gamer Mouse

Across the isle from the computer mice, I spotted Samsung’s “SC-X105L”:4 digital sports camcorder which features a removable, remote lens system. My picture of it sucks, so I’ve included one from Samsung’s web site.

!/img/best_buy_samsung_video_camera.jpg
!
Samsung’s SC-X105L Display Minus Remote Lens (camera operator error)

!/img/samsung_scx105_camcorder.jpg!
Samsung’s SC-X105L — The Real Deal Picture

This is kind of a cool idea. Epson has created a kit called “_StoryTeller_”:5 that lets you create photo books using an Epson photo printer. You can also create similar books online at “Shutterfly”:6 or through Apple’s iPhoto service. Note to Shutterfly: Please have a page that folks can link to showing your Photo Book offering (currently, you have to login to see it — lame).

!/img/best_buy_epson_printer.jpg!
Epson StoryTeller Display

Today in the WSJ there is an “article”:7 discussing Asian “white goods”:8 manufacturers like LG and Samsung, and how they are making inroads into the US market. LG is apparently the new “cool” brand in white goods thanks to things like a TV built into a refrigerator. As it so happens, Best Buy had just such a frig.

!/img/best_buy_LG_refrigerator.jpg!
Get Your Snack On Without Missing a CSI Moment

In the future, I’m planning on making a “Fry’s”:9 run with camera in hand (cleverly disguised as an Audiovox SMT5600 cellphone). Lots and lots of esoteric geek goods there. Yeah baby!

[1(Sonos home page)]http://www.sonos.com/

[2(Logitech MX518 page)]http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/US/EN,CRID=2142,CONTENTID=10121

[3(Logitech MX510 page)]http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/US/EN,CRID=2142,CONTENTID=8070

[4(Samsung SC-X105L page)]http://product.samsung.com/cgi-bin/nabc/product/b2c_product_detail.jsp?eUser=&prod_id=SC-X105L%2fXAA

[5(Espon StoryTeller page)]http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/Landing/StoryTeller.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&ref=hfj

[6(Shutterfly home page)]http://www.shutterfly.com

[7(WSJ on Asian white goods)]http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111939826263865954,00.html?mod=todays_us_personal_journal

[8(Wikipedia on white goods)]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_goods

[9(You too can work at Frys)]http://braith.best.vwh.net/frys.htm

Yahoo! continues on its acquisition spree with its latest purchase of “Dialpad”:1 a PC-to-phone VoIP service provider. Dialpad of Milpitas, California, was launched in 1999, and received tech-bubble notoriety by offering free PC-to-Phone calling for a time. The “free” part has gone the way of the bubble, but infrastructure needed to place phone calls from a PC remains. This is what Yahoo! purchased — the technology to place and bill calls from your PC. They also got 14 million Dialpad _users_ — whatever a “user” is — as a bonus.

In acquiring Dialpad, Yahoo! followings its usual acquisition strategy of purchasing technology vs. brand — the brand in this case is “Skype”:3. Previous examples of acquiring technology vs. brand include: 411 for free email (the leader was Hotmail), Inktomi for search (the leader was Google) and Musicmatch for a music player (the leader a few years earlier was Winamp which AOL purchased… although Musicmatch had a pretty large user base when Yahoo! picked them up).

So, I predict that the Dialpad brand is dead as dead, soon to be replaced with the Yahoo! brand. Had Yahoo! purchased Skype which has a very powerful brand — so powerful that it’s a verb similar to Google.. _Skype_ someone, I _Skyped_ someone, I’ll be _Skyping_ someone — the Skype brand would have remained along the lines of Flickr. That is, Flickr’s brand remains the primary brand (at least for now), and is sub-branded as a “Yahoo! Company.”

Below I’ve put together some notes on the VoIP market and some thoughts on the acquisition.

*Dialpad vs. Skype Pricing*

Here’s a summary of the two providers pre-paid calling plans. Dialpad also offers several “bucket of minutes” plans, something that Skype has yet to introduce. In addition, Yahoo! will probably modify pricing, perhaps offering some “loss leader” pricing similar to their subscription music service Yahoo! Unlimited (Yahoo! Unlimited is offered at $60/year, but the price will be more in the future).

|*– Provider –*|*– Intra-US –*|*– US-to-China –*|*– US-to-India –*|
|

Dialpad|$0.029|$0.029|$0.15|
|Skype*|$0.021|$0.027|$0.18|

*Skype’s Euro-based pricing was converted to dollars using a 0.8249 exchange rate

Just as a note, what is up with calling India? I guess India has some large tariffs on telecommunications? You can view Skype’s pricing plans “here”:4 and Dialpad’s “here”:5.

p. *The Current VoIP Market*

* Skype claims to have 41 million “_users_”:9 — again, whatever a “user” is.
* U.S. residential subscriber totals have jumped from 150,000 at the end of 2003 to well over 2 million as of March 2005.
* Vonage has about 700,000 subs
* By the end of 2005, TeleGeography predicts that Cablevision, Comcast, and Time Warner together will have 2 million subscribers and nearly one-half of the total residential VoIP market.
The last three stats are from Om’s “post”:10 on the VoIP market

*Thoughts On the Acquisition*

“Om Malik on Broadband”:6

bq. Yahoo confirmed the deal, declined to talk numbers and assured me that Yahoo’s broadband partners (read Bells) are well aware of its voice plans.

“Charles Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research”:7:

bq. “This is more about the future,” Golvin said. “This is another requisite building block in the range of services they need to deliver to their customers.”

“VoIP Watch Blog”:8:

bq.. …the key reason for making the acquisition for Yahoo was for the complimentary Dialpad technology that quickly provides Yahoo with the ability to introduce PC to phone and Phone to PC services (i.e. compete with Skype) as well as the ability to scale and roll out other services that will initially be introduced on Yahoo Messenger the same way as it was done with British Telecom with the BT Communicator. Long term this is being positioned as an acquisition to enhance all of Yahoo’s platform functionality across the Yahoo network, with the likely target areas to include gaming, groups, mail, shopping etc.

…This still looks like a win for Yahoo and makes me wonder where it leaves MSN Messenger and how it one ups AOL, who plans to build a softphone into AIM at some point, but has yet to really pull that trigger.

p. *Summary*

It’s great to see Yahoo! committed to VoIP and to improving its instant messaging product. Will the Yahoo! brand translate to VoIP? It’s way to soon to tell, and Yahoo! will face _serious_ competition from Skype, the cable companies, the phone companies and probably Microsoft and Google in the near future. What I can say is that this will be good for consumers through lower pricing (if not free someday) and, more importantly, an increased offering of IP-based communications applications (think video conferencing, Webex-type information sharing, podcasting support, etc.).

[1(Dialpad home page)]http://www.dialpad.com/
[2(Wikipedia on PSTN)]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSTN
[3(Skype home page)]http://www.skype.com/
[4(Skype per-minute pricing)]http://www.skype.com/products/skypeout/rates/all_rates.html
[5(Dialpad per-minute pricing)]https://www.dialpad.com/dialpad/prepaid.php
[6(Oms comments)]http://gigaom.com/2005/06/14/breaking-yahoo-buys-dial-pad/
[7(Charles Golvins comments)]http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/11900187.htm
[8(VoIP Watch blog)]http://andyabramson.blogs.com/voipwatch/2005/06/its_official_ya.html
[9(Om on Skype numbers)]http://gigaom.com/2005/06/13/skype-all-hype/
[10(Om on VoIP)]http://gigaom.com/2005/05/31/the-us-voip-race-is-on/

The Comcast folks showed up on Tuesday, and installed the cable modem. However, on Wednesday I was having trouble getting an IP address from their server. One quick call to Comcast got everything straightened out. The Comcast service seems pretty good so far. It’s fast (4 Mb download), and pretty low latency.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my main computer blew up right before I had to move. I ordered a power supply from Directron hoping that would solve the problem. Trouble is Directron’s systems didn’t register my change of address from Visa, so they held up my order.

I didn’t find out about this until Wednesday morning when I was finally able to check email again. Ugh! I had Directron cancel the order, since they ship from Texas. Instead, I ordered a power supply from Newegg — they are in LA, so stuff gets to me in two days.

Today the Fedex guy showed up with my new power supply. The power supply I got from Newegg is a “Thermaltake W0014RU”:1 that was on sale for $54.00. I didn’t do a lot of research on power supplys when ordering it, but it looked like it would do the trick.

Installing it took about 15 minutes. I simply removed the old unit and replaced it with the new one. After plugging it in, I crossed my fingers, and hit the power button. Yippee! All is well with my computer again. Here’s some boring shots of the box and the install.

[1(Newegg W0014RU page)]http://www.newegg.com/OldVersion/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=17-153-007&DEPA=0

More OEMs are finally supporting Microsoft’s “Tablet PC”:1 software… by this I mean that IBM is _finally_ releasing a Tablet PC called the “X41″:2. IBM makes absolutely bomber notebooks, so hopefully the X41 will continue in this tradition. Some details on the X41 include:

bq.. The ThinkPad X41 offers a 1.14-inch writable slate and full-size keyboard weighing in at only 3.5 pounds.

“ThinkPad X41 Tablet is nearly 20 percent lighter than its closest competitor and delivers the longest standard battery life of any 12-inch convertible tablet,” promises the company.

Users can either use the tablet with a digital pen, or as a traditional notebook PC.

“Equipped with the ThinkPad signature full-size keyboard, the ThinkPad X41 Tablet provides 170-degree viewing, an optional integrated fingerprint reader for unsurpassed security, the latest ThinkVantage Technologies for reliability and convenient wireless connectivity, and flexible one-step expandability through the optional new ThinkPad X4 Dock,” states Lenovo.

ThinkPad X41 Tablet PCs will start at $1,900.

p. You can read more about the X41 at “TabletPCBuzz”:3 or “TabletPCTalk”:4, and “here’s”:5 a video podcast from TechEd that demonstrates the IBM as well as a couple of other Tablet PCs.

Hum… my old Compaq laptop is getting a bit slow lately. Perhaps it is getting time to upgrade?

[5(Video demo of some new Tablet PCs form TechEd)]http://casting.dlservice.microsoft.com/download/2/9/A/29A568B5-C6B0-464A-B54B-0610E4371AB5/Expo_Floor_TabletPC.wmv

[4(Tablet)]http://www.tabletpctalk.com/

[3(TabletPCbuzz.com)]http://www.tabletpcbuzz.com/

[2(IBMs new Tablet PC)]http://www.pc.ibm.com/ww/thinkpad/tablet/

[1(Microsofts Tablet PC home page)]http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/tabletpc/default.mspx