Real Estate Blog Pro

Viewr Adds a Lot of Updates

Remember way back (last July) when Viewr was coming on the scene?  Well, Pro just received word that there's been yet another hefty update over at Viewr and this one is HUGE!  The site now can now do Rentals, Vacation Rentals, Holiday Apartment Complexes (European term) and Multi Family.  The site is geared towards a global view of real estate- or as they put it, "People, Places and Property."  Viewr is becoming more and more customizable, allowing an agent to express as much or as little of their personality as they see fit.

There's very little limitation to what this site can do- and where it can cover!   For example, there are Cave Houses in France, Spain, Turkey, Greece and others. Many of them are associated with a kind of peoples called Troglodytes.
Check these out:
  http://www.viewr.com/search.property.html?vlsn=1000731
  http://www.viewr.com/search.property.html?vlsn=1000725
  http://www.viewr.com/search.property.html?vlsn=1000729

  As with all Web 2.0, the user determines. Everyone gets a My Viewr account management interface that allows the user to customize many aspects of how their listings are presented.  Agents can upload a picture of themselves (if they wish) and a branded logo of the company which they represent.  Give it a whirl, Pros!  Lemme know what you think!

Coming soon:  Pro will let you in on a secret regarding a certain Viewr contest that you're sure to digg!


Technorati Tags: Viewr, real estate, tool

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Google Notebook Adds Search and Real Estate agents Catch On

Today Lifehacker  tipped us off to a helpful new feature on Google Notebooks- you can now search the content of public notebooks.  Check out the content that comes up when you search for "Real Estate."  Google Notebooks are the perfect tool for compiling researched content or publishing content for the public.  Real Estate agents are becoming quite saavy in the podcasting arena and tools such as this have become a powerful way to broadcast. 

If you are using Firefox, the Google Notebooks extension makes adding content to your personal notebook a breeze!  Your notebook can be accessed through your gmail account and you have a choice of keeping your content private or sharing it with the world.  Go gettem Pros!

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Viewr Goes Live! Get your Video Egg On, Real Estate Pros

Could it be true? Viewr is live! The next highly anticipated real estate tool is finally available for your blogging and listing pleasure, dear real estate blog pros. We heard about Viewr back in July, with an update a month or so back and let's just say that the suspense has killed at least one of us.   With Viewr, agents will have a place to blog about their properties (or whatever else) and upload video content via  Video Egg software.  So far, the Pro likes it!

Viewr has a "global view on real estate" and the maps to prove it.  The (oh so very Web 2.0)interface is smooth and easy to use (so far). You can save your searched and your favorite listings.  It could be a good friend to a lot of you aspiring Pros out there.  Give it a whirl- set up a blog...see whats out there.  For god's sake, have fun for once!  Maybe real estate isn't such a drag afterall...just maybe.

Viewr


Technorati Tags: Viewr, Web 2.0, tool, real estate, New

Outside.in Is a Great Tool for Collecting and Sharing Local Info

The Pro has spent the last hour or so playing around with this cool new tool called Outside.in, which collects information pertaining to local community news, blogs and goings on....uh, and there's a lot of real estate stuff too.  You can use it (and contribute as well) to stay up to date on changes in the hood or inform your neighbors of your next open house. 

Good ole Curbed mentioned it today and got us going.  Its pretty decent so far!  Outside.in is putting the "i" in realty, if you ask me.  If you ask them...

outside.in is designed as a bridge between information space and real-world space -- a place to see in a single glance all the interesting things that are happening around you.

I know, I know...sites with forums and bookmarking and maps and such are all over the place these days.  So what's one more gonna hurt- right?  Well, so far it looks like there could be something a little different that may prove to be useful to some of you real estate blog Pros out there.  Give it a whirl and let this Pro know what you think.
I took the liberty of trying out a new polling tool from Polldaddy (which is pretty cool and terrifically easy to use).  Try it yourself on your blog if you like.  It's easy as 1..2..3



Outside.in
Polldaddy

Technorati Tags: Outside.in, local, tool, real estate, community

Use this Gmail hack to Convert PDFs to HTML

Tired of watching your poor computer practically putter out when trying to open a PDF file?  Real estate people get a LOT of PDFs!
 Try this: Use your gmail account to instantly convert that PDF into an HTML document!   You can do this in at least 2 ways.

The first way (as described by Labnol) is to upload the document as an attachment in a Gmail message, then email it to yourself at the same account.  Check your inbox.  You have mail (from your former frustrated self)!  Open the message and click on "view as HTML."  Now congratulate yourself for being so smart.
The second way is something that i came up with tonight.  remember a while back when i told you about GDrive  (don't forget the Firefox extension that lets you use your Gmail account as a file server-GSpace)?  Get the extension. Log into your account through the FTP and then search your computer for PDFs.  Once you've uploaded what you like to your account, go to your inbox and send yourself the emails containing the files that you want to convert.  Now, sit back and congratulate yourself for reading this post.

Oh yeah...you can use this technique for many types of documents other than PDFs. Labnol points out a few for you:

(MS Word .doc, Excel .xls, Powerpoint .ppt, Rich Text Format .rtf),
OpenOffice.org Document Formats (Writer, Calc, Impress, Presentation)
and WML Files (Wireless markup language) to HTML.

Good Luck Pros!


Technorati Tags: gmail, hack, FTP, PDF, documant

If your Client uses Gmail, Call Them on It

Apparently, if you are one of the trillion zillion people out there using Gmail, there's a feature that has been discovered that will allow you to call other Gmail users.  Google Blogoscoped told us of this along with another handy tip about a GTD  ("getting things done") Firefox extension that adds handy tasks list, advanced labels and the ability to save specialized searches.   Whoa....real estate agents should have no problem putting these tips to use. 
Keep at it Pros!


Technorati Tags: gmail, google, calling, call, getting things done, GTD

Print from Anywhere with um, PrintAnywhere and Geographically Ground your Instant Messenger

Alright Pros....here are a couple of Realtor friendly tools for you to check out.  The first is PrinterAnywhere, from DownloadSquad Blog.  It does exactly what the name suggests!  Download it for free and stop putting yourself through the pain in the arse process of installing printers and trying to get them to work throughout your network.  Now you can share between network components.


The next tool is geographically oriented instant message program similar to Meebo and Meetro, called RadiusIM .  Its an AJAXy IM solution that will allow you to talk across several instant message programs such as Google Talk, AIM, and Yahoo! Messenger.  Pretty cool if you are a realtor who uses IM for client relations and leads.  RadiusIM will help you to connect to IMers in your proximity.  [link via Lifehacker]


Good Luck Pros!  Lemme know what types of problems that I might be able to help you with.


Technorati Tags: printers, downloads, tools, tips, network, instant messenger

Instant Messenger to RSS to Email Hack

If you've ever wanted to send yourself to-do items from your cell phone, here's a mashup hack for you to try out:  IM to RSS to Email. [via Library Clips]  You can start by looking at the possibility of using Gmail as a to-do service from Devin Reams.   Its basically just sending yourself tasks to your email and doing them as you read them.  Then look at John Tropea's  Gmail RSS Reader hack but replace the step of emailing yourself with a subscription to an RSS feed (try using Sabifoo), so that you are automatically updated.  Set up your RSS feed through one of those RSS to email services (I prefer Rmail as well).  Now, you can send to-do items to your Gmail account from out in the field.  
What a great field hack for real estate Pros!


Technorati Tags: hack, instant messenger, GTD, mashup, Rmail

Two new helpful tools: Joe's goals and Rendr, the HTML tool

Rendr is a live HTML and CSS testing web tool.  This can become quite handy if you are one who likes to create your blog a piece at a time.  Make sure your HTML is valid with this little tool. As Lifehacker points out, Firefox has an extension that works in a  similar way for web developers with an option called "Edit CSS." Remember:  The cleaner your code is, the better chance you'll have at hitting those high ranks in search engines.
 
Rendr  [via Lifehacker via Mefi Projects]


Joe's Goals is yet another to-do-list, but this one is in grid format.  It looks as though it could be useful to the real estate agent who needs their day laid out in front of them in a more visual format. Its super simple to use and the Pro is gonna test drive it for a while.

[via Download Squad]

Got any tips you'd like to share?  Hand'em over!  We're all tryin

 to become Pros here. 


Technorati Tags: to do, HTML, CSS, productivity, tools

Some helpful sites for you aspiring Pros: Free File host list, Photoshop tutorials and Google Calender Mobile

An amazing blog for gmail and google-type hacks, Ghacks posted a fat list of sites that offer free file hosting and even went so far as to tell us the following for each site:

Reg: Does the site require a registration before you can use their services ? Registration means free registration of course.

Filesize: Is there a maximum size for a single file, in Mb ? No res = no restrictions

Space: How much diskspace is allocated for the user
? If there is no registration the max filesize has been taken as max
space allowed. No res = no restrictions

Bandwidth: Are there bandwidth limitations ? no res = no restrictions, d=max downloads, h=per hour

Filetypes: Are certain filetypes not allowed to be uploaded ?

Hotlinking: Does the site allow hotlinking ?

Expires: Are the files auto-deleted after a time,
if yes the number of days are shown. If the number is unknown yes will
be shown. Sometimes files only get deleted after inactivity for a
certain time, if thats the case a “i” is added to the
number. Sometimes file get deleted after a certain number of downloads,
if thats the case a “d” is added to the number.

Very helpful!

Google Operating System Blog told us of the new features for Google Calender that lets you check your schedule from anywhere via mobile phone.

* if you're in the US, you can access your calendar from your mobile
phone. You just have to send a SMS to 48368 (GVENT) with the text
"next" to see the upcoming events. Send "day" to get all of your
scheduled events for the present day and "nday" to get all of your
events for the following day. You can even create events, just send the
details in a format similar to this: "Go to dinner at Chef Cafe
tomorrow at 9pm".

Total Tutorial -a fantastic resource for those interested in learning everything that there is to know about Photoshop, Flash and PHP.   This may be a tid-bit much for the average real estate agent, but it never hurts to try dive right in!

Technorati Tags: tips, tricks, Photoshop, tools, google calender, hacks, Flash, tutorials