Real Estate and Technology

I publish my blogs using wordpress. Often times photos are one of my favorite aspects of the blogs I write. The wordpress interface for uploading photos has never worked right for me, but I have gotton used to it.

A few weeks ago wordpress function for uploading photos to my blog simply stopped working. I would click on “Browse” for photos to upload and nothing would happened. First thing I did was turn off my firewall, but that didn’t help. Googled “wordpress photo upload problem” without any luck.

Then I discovered the upload function worked when I used my firefox browser instead of internet explorer. I went on with life for awhile until firefox suddenly had the same problem.

Sparing all of the details, IÂ ?will say I discovered that if I disable the flash plugin in either browser the upload works again. Do this by going to tools, then manage add-ons, etc., etc.

I finally purchased my Kyocera router and shut off satalite service. I couldn’t be happier. The alltell service using evdo is fast and dependable as advertised. Once again I can log into my office computer using a vpn and work as if I’m at my desk.
There are a couple of warnings for you if you are thinking of doing the same thing however. Even though I had tried the service and brought home a trial model there was confusion with the setup which took a couple of days to iron out. The reason it took that much time was that when I called alltel support they insisted my router model didn’t exist. I assured them it did and they referred me directly to kyocera who makes the router. The folks at Kyocera also insisted the router didn’t exist until I directed them to their own web page. They told me to call back during the day.
There is only one problem that remains to be ironed out which is that the router occasionally loses its connection to the cell tower and has to be rebooted, about once a day.
Other than this the service is great.
If you know anyone who needs a dish and a satalite modem for Wild Blue they can have mine, cheap!

Think of the technology items that you pay for on a monthly basis. When I started in this business it was about $20 per month for a telephone and when I got busier I added another $10 a month for a pager.
At first the cell phone was considered a luxury but eventually I gave in and spent the $40 or so per month for the phone. Now it’s not business, but at some point I got a cable tv connection because I could bundle it with a highspeed internet connection for $69 per month.
Cable is great but we moved to the country so we got satalite tv for $79 per month which did not include internet. We needed another satalite connection for internet from wild blue for $79 per month.
My kids needed cell phones so I upgraded to a phone plan that cost about $100 per month. Then the kids started texting and I had to kick in another $20 per month for unlimmited texts.
Oh I forgot to mention our mls went to electronic lock boxes that we pay a monthly access fee to use and you can’t forget the $xx per month for MLS access.
Well, smart phones like a blackberry are pretty nice and as I’ve found, much needed. My cell phone bill including the smart phone is flirting with the $200 per month mark. My entire monthly technology bill tops $400 per month.
Just when I thought it was safe to drive by a cell phone store, the friendly folks there have informed me there is a new “have to have” item. It is the Kyocera KR2 mobile evdo router. For $229 up front and $59 per month it lets me use my cell phone signal to connect to the internet.
I have just decided I can’t pay what I pay for technology, but I think I may still buy this little gadget and the monthly service that goes with.
Here’s why:
I’m going to drop my Wild Blue internet connection at $79 per month. There’s $20 per month savings right there.
The connection I get using the Kyocera is faster and has no latency. If you don’t know what that is just figure it makes a broadband connection seem as slow as dial up. And all satalite services have it.
I can take my internet connection with me, The Kyocera is works like a cell phone, it’s mobile.
I’m going to drop my satalite TV as well and save $79 per month. I get the four broadcast networks, with netflix I can watch movies without ads and I can find many tv shows on the internet.
I don’t want to watch tv on my computer screen, but I think I can get a VGA cable from radio shack and plug my wide screen Sony tv into my computer.
The next thing I’m watching for is a way to port my home phone number into my cell phones and use a bluetooth connection to make it ring my land line. I could drop my qwest service and save another $20 per month.
There will be a lot of equipment left behind, it puts me in mind of the 8 track tape player. There will be more equipment to purchase and I’m sure there will be more services to buy.
In the end the only thing that is safe to say is everything is changing.
This subject reminds me a little bit of my advertising. Right now I pay way too much for it. You see I have a foot in both worlds. I pay several hundred dollars per month for internet ads, but I still pay for newspaper and yellow page ads. I have to because everyone has not gone electronic yet. I am hoping I can drop my yellow pages and newspaper ads soon. They are very expensive for what they produce.

When cell phones first came out I clung to my old ways. I reasoned that there was no reason to have a cell phone if you just planned ahead and made sure you had a quarter for a pay phone in case of emergency.
Now I could not be seperated from my Blackberry Pearl. At one point I even thought of abandoning my camera and using my cell phone for real estate photos. The temptation still crosses my mind from time to time.
Well, using a cell phone for photos is like carrying around a pocket full of quarters. Yes, you can get the job done, kind of, but a real camera is so much better.
I have had many sony cameras and they have by far been the best for me, but I don’t think the brand matters as long as you have modern equipment.
My most recent Sony was purchased a year or so ago at target for less than $400. It has a 15 times optical zoom and slightly more than eight mega pixels. So whats the big deal about mega pixels?
The more mega pixels the greater your possible resolution. For real estate, my older four mega pixel mavica with a wide angle lens will definitley get the job done. After all, I use a standard photo size of 640×480 pixels for MLS photos and even the photos printed on color brochures. You can produce a photo or that resolution even with a one megapixel camera.
Still, carrying a one megapixel camera around is like carrying a pocket full of quarters instead of a cell phone. “Getting the job done”, assumes you frame the perfect shot just the way you want it the first time. Thats not too hard to imagine if you just take shots of the front of homes.
Yesterday I was in a 1920’s home with lots of personality. I took shots of rooms, decorating, woodwork. When I got back to the office I realized the house had exceptional, original hardware on the doors. I was able, CSI style, to zoom in on the door hardware and produce photos of individual door knobs.
I got by with my older cameras for a long time because I used them just for real estate. Recently I’ve started doing some blogs which has caused me to take other photos. This is where the newer camera really pays off.
Here’s a photo of a blossom on a plant that I snapped just in passing, clipped the flower out of the photo and enlarged it. The ability to enlarge has come in handy with shots of wildlife and people as well. I can pull nice photos out of something I would have previously discarded.

Microsoft does have some good stuff. Seems like it used to be when I bought a computer Microsoft Publisher came with it, or maybe it was bundled with that hog called Microsoft Office. The fact is Microsoft Publisher does it’s job pretty darned well. We use it for property brochures. It handles photos and text well, you can move things around and they stay where you put them. Within the last couple of years I’ve gone as far as actually purchasing a copy for the front desk.

You can use Microsoft Word for lots of things, but the truth is you are better off ?using Word for documents with pretty simple formatting demands. Things like letters.

If I’m doing any kind of document with a photo, graphics, a table, collums or any thing even just a little bit different I use publisher. You can go round and round with Word trying to make it do these things. It is even tempting to use Publisher for simple stuff like letters because it is so much more stable than Word.

The other day I was checking my email using web mail. Somehow I managed to slide the top of the window off the top of my computer Screen. Gone with the top bar of the window were the controlls for resizing and closing the window.

Faced with this sort of thing in the past I’ve resorted to shutting down the entire program to get the misplaced window to go away. Here is another option: Hold down the (ctrl )key along with the (-) key. The contents of the screen will get progressively get smaller and eventually the top of your window with its controls will come into view. Now you can slide the window back to where it belongs or close it.

When you’re done just click (ctrl +) to bring the contents of your screen back to normal size.

These shortcuts also work in pohotoshop to adjust the ?viewing size of photos. ?

I try not to make life more complicated than it needs to be. For this reason I used Internet Explorer for a long time without trying any other browser. At some point I downloaded The Firefox browser and found that I like the way it works a lot better than Internet Explorer.

For a while I’ve had both browsers installed on a couple of my computers. I’ve been sticking with Explorer for one reason. Text just did not look as good in Firefox. There are lots of “less than perfect” things in my life that I get along with, but font rendering, the visual quality of the text you see in the browser, was terrible in FireFox. If you read the news or blogs this is a fatal flaw.

I discovered something today. You can improve the quality of the text in Firefox so it looks as good as Explorer. Funny thing is that it is a Windows setting, not a Firefox setting. I wonder how Microsoft could make such a mistake, causing a competing browser to look crummy with default settings in Windows?

The windows option to turn on is called “ClearType” and here is how you do it(in Windows XP at least). Go to control Panel and choose “Apearance and Themes” then click “Display”. In Display Properties choose the “appearance” tab, then click the button in the lower right called “effects”.

Check the box in front of “use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts” and then in the selector choose “ClearType”. Here’s a screen shot. Click on it to make it bigger.

You might ask what I like about Firefox. ? I just discovered ? a good thing just now. ? For the last few weeks I’ve been dealing with an annoyance with Wordpress 2.33. ? When you insert a photo you can supposedly set padding ? and other attributes by clicking the ? little tree icon ? in the top of the editing window.

Only problem is ? that if you do that ? with internet explorer the image disappears replaced by two dots. ? If you dig around in the code you find out Word Press has made two copies of your photo and reduced them to a size of ? 1 pixel by 1 pixel.

I had wondered how Wordpress could release something that was so buggy. ? It turns out if you use firefox the photo formatting options work just fine. ? I suppose the people who design Wordpress use Firefox.

I think its best to have a couple of browsers loaded on your computer. If something doesn’t work in one, try the the other. That way you’re covered

I remember a book from a long time ago. ? It was called “Future Shock”. The story was about the response of people to the ever increasing amount of change in the technology world. There was so much new stuff being thrown at people that they went into shock and shut down. Now I’ve already said more than I really remember. I suppose, I might be wrong, there’s so much to remember.

As a kid I remember watching Lassie on our black and white TV on Sunday night. I seem to remember they played Greensleeves at the end with credits rolling by. In the background there was a kid running around in the outdoors with his collie Dog doing the kind of things kids did before video games. At one point you can hear the kid calling “Lassie—Lassie” and you see the dog far off responding by coming on the run. Along with the kid’s happy outdoor voice you hear the dog barking.

After Lassie, the wonderfull world of Disney would come on. There would be a flourish of music and the announcer would say something about Disney being in “Living Color” and a peacock would fill the screen with its tail feathers spreading. My mother would say “I bet that would be beautiful in color.

There was no such thing as a remote, you had to stand up and walk over to the tv and turn one of the channel dials. There were two, “UHF” and “VHF”. One of them didn’t seem to do anything, the other made a satisfying chunk, chunk sound as you turned channels. You could fine tune the sharpness of the channel with a ring behind the dial that was like a radio tuner.

I used to like the ciggaret ads. A cowboy riding through the fields with “Virginian” type music playing in the background. The cowboy wheels around on his horse and pulls up in front of the screen. Zoom in, He cups his hands in front of his face and lights a Marobarro and takes a long satisfying drag. Pan back again, nothing but sky and beautiful scenery with the cowboy, his horse and his pack of smokes in the middle of it.

The announcer says “Come to where the Flavor is, come to Marobarro Country”.

There were cigarets for women as well. The Jingle: “You’ve come along way baby to get were you’ve got to today, you’ve got your own cigarette now baby, you’ve come a long long way.”

There was Clancy the cop and Carmen the nurse and there was Casey Jones. Casey Jones started with a shot of a window with a shade and a finger pull ring hanging from the shade. The slow beginning to the William Tell Overture would play and a little worm looking thing would appear over the edge of the window sill, It was obviously someone’s finger with makeup on. The little worm thing would weave around with the calming music working its way to the pull ring on the shade. At the end of the calm part of the William tell overture the worm thing would yank the shade and it would go flinging up as the Lone Ranger part of the William tell overture kicked in and the show would start. That’s what the first generation of blue screen was like.

Today kids sit on the couch and play video games instead of running through the woods and the dogs get fat as their only chance to go out is to poop and pee in the morning and at night. We talk about Nature Deficit Disorder and anyone over thirty has a vague feeling of being left behind. If they don’t, they probably have been left behind.

I’ve kept up pretty well myself, well kind of. We have color tv now. Fact is I’m a bit afraid of it. I’ve made a point of not watching it much. There’s always one of my kids or my wife around who will run the thing. My dogs probably know more about it than I do. Our TV, yes we just have one, is probably 17 years old. We’ve plugged all kinds of things into it. We still have a vcr, we have playstation(my kid won it in an easter egg hunt) and we have a dvd player . We are also plugged into statalite service. Since the tv has only one, maybe two plugs in the back of it, I ran down to radio shack and bought a switch.

I recently discovered I am unable to watch tv without help. I turned it on the other night and there was only fuzz. I went through three different modes on the remote. Still just fuzz. I clicked all of the switches on the radio schack thing and gave up. I went to my computer, which has a bigger screen than our tv, and watched an old science fiction movie on Netflix. Not a single advertisement.

Nobody knows everything about technology. You have to just keep moving and take what you find useful and use it.

A while back our local MLS decreed that we would start using electronic lockboxes. It seemed like a really dumb idea to me. Don’t get me wrong, the Supra lockbox we use is pretty cool. I will even admit I kind of like using the system when its cold.

Here’s what’s weird. No one seems to complain. This is a system that requires every Realtor rent an electronic key that has to be updated every day by communicating with a server. The agent has to pay to use the key and must purchase an expensive lockbox that will die in a few years when the battery in it goes dead and/or the MLS replaces it with the next innovation. The Realtor has to update the key each day and remember a pin code for the key and a shackle code for the box. Just what I need two more passwords and another quarterly bill.

For me it is my income trickling out, for someone else(General Electric?) it is money streaming in. Its also exclusionary. If you don’t belong you don’t have a key.

Seems over-hyped, over priced and way over engineered for what is basically a high tech hide-a-key. The weird part is that Realtors don’t complain about it and they actually kind of like them. I like mine, but I would get rid of it if I didn’t need it to show homes. It’s just added complication and expense.

No.

I wrote before about the Multiple Listing Service and how protective they are about ?listing data. I alluded to the fact they won’t let one byte out into the public until someone else ?starts to do it. I often find myself thinking of the MLS as the property of Realtors. I think of the data as belonging to me. I am a Realtor, I list houses and I enter the data into MLS. I share My data, I get everyone Else’s data in exchange.

I am not an owner of MLS. The fact is that the MLS owns all of the listing data and you can’t do a thing without paying money and getting approval. If you ?don’t follow the rules they’ll fine you or shut you off. ?The MLS ?is a company that makes money off of Realtors. Each Real Estate office is a profit center for local boards of Realtors and the MLS.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. ? It’s an exclusive club ?which you have to pay for to belong. Having strict rules mean we have good data. It means as long as we pay a middle man, we have access to something others want.

The MLSÂ ?discussion is not about good or bad, its more of an observation. There is a huge shift going on and its changing the way we Realtors do business. The shift, of course, is the internet. MLS came before the internet and it’s business model with Realtors as a captive audience was as solid as a rock.

The internet allows the free trade of information. Technically speaking, I don’t need the MLS any more to share my listings with other Realtors or the whole world. ?Now its become ?almost like the MLS is a system of not sharing information. ?I’m still a little bit afraid that my ?value may be diminished if everyone has the same information I have. ?

There is an order in the MLS system which still has value to Realtors, but does it match the cost? The one piece of the puzzle MLS still holds is the sharing of commission information and agreements between each other. When I think about it my value isn’t in the information that MLS holds. Its more in my knowledge of an area, my familiarity with the process, my knowledge about homes and negotiating skills. My availability. It is very interesting to watch this unfold.

The folks who run the MLS have a blog and they talk about this all of the time. Here is a related post on their blog.