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

powered by performancing firefox

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!

powered by performancing firefox

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

Wikipedia + Google Maps = Wikimapia and one hell of a real estate resource

So.....soon to be Pros, here's a new tool for you to add to your belt:  WikiMapia
Wikipedia (one of the most useful reference pages on the net) mashed up with Google Maps this week. The site is intended to be a Wikipedia-like reference for the planet earth (we all know where that is) .Wikimapia uses a feature similar to the 'notes' feature on Flickr, called "call-outs" which you can add on top of the area of the map you are referencing. You can search for information about an area without even leaving the crib!

LifeHacker WikiMapia - The geographical wikipedia
Digg Wikimapia = Wiki + Google maps

ALSO...Last week, Microsoft (we all know who that is) released a similar map program called Map Cruncher

Have fun with these...and, map something!


Technorati Tags: maps, mapping, wikipedia, wikimapia, google maps, tools, web2.0

Add Reverse phone lookup tool to your Google Home Page

If you are indeed a realtor, Pro doesn't need to elaborate on many uses that one may have for a reverse phone number looker upper.  If you're just waking up, here's a clue: This module searches for the owner of the specified phone number. Follow this link and add it to your Google Homepage. You'll thank me.


Have fun with those "for sale" signs, friends!


Technorati Tags: phone numbers, google, reverse lookup, homepage

Google Trends launches and its more fun than an open house on wheels!

Over at the Inman News, Pro found a post about a new Google trend.  Its called Google Trends (sorry, horrible joke). Now you can see what the rest of the world is searching for.


The new toy time sucker allows you to compare search terms and will show top results by city, region or languages. But thats not all it does! As Jessica Swesey points out, "Google Trends also charts out the trend history of search terms,
allowing you to see the highs and lows of the term usage. This could be
useful for keyword advertising managers in figuring out what terms are
hot or gauging a per-click price – it's also just fun to see the
rise and fall of certain search phrases."   Sooo, maybe its not such a HUGE waste of time anyway.
Give it whirl!  Pro did.  He searched for the keywords "real estate" and got the following chart:


have fun with this one...!


Technorati Tags: google, googletrends, search, tools

Reach out with both hands to your audience with Skype

Another terrific suggestion from the Pro's buddies over at Sellsius RE Blog regarding the use of Skype, in real estate blogging.  Sellsius bloggers suggest looking into Skypecasting, which is a lot like podcasting except your audience has the ability to respond and discuss topics in real time.  Or to put it another way,

It will allow real time online conversations with a community of
interested people. You can set it up to work on your blog or your
website. Want to hold a meeting with a group of clients, or colleagues,
scattered around the world? No problem, host a Skypecast. Just announce
the time of the meeting and everyone can skype (link) in. You have your
group meeting at absolutely no cost. -Sellius Blog

In Pro's opinion, Skypecasting (or something like it) could quite possibly become as popular as "traditional blogging" (whatever that is).  But its industries such as real estate that could make it popular.  Neighborhood experts and property gurus could become a whole other level of celebrity once the general public start to catch on to this technology.


Technorati Tags: skype, blogging, skypecasting

Create an RSS feed for feedless sites and real estate hack tip

Sometimes there are those sites that just don't have an RSS feed to subscribe to. I know, crazy right!?!  Well, in a land far far away, many years ago there were these things called websites and they just sat there.  This was before there was such a thing as a blog and life wasn't very exciting, to say the least.  Well, those days have passed (thanks G_d), but there still are those dinosaurs out there that contain the info that we need.  As Pro bloggers, versed in the ways of RSS, this can be frustrating as we must always go through the motions and type in the URL, visit the actual site, sift through pages of babble to get what we want, blah blah blah.  What am getting at?  Precisely this:  There are tools out there that will allow you to create an RSS feed out of a site's data (as long as it changes from time to time), even if the site doesn't already have an RSS feed ready made for you to subscribe to.  Pro is going to tip you off to a tool that will allow you to do just that, first.  Then, he'll give you an example for how to use it that you won't find anywhere else- a hack, if you will- exclusively for all you bloggin real estate agents out there.

1) Take a look at Ponyfish
[
link via LifeHacker]
Ponyfish is a terrific solution for creating an RSS feed from a site that either A) is fairly old and just doesn't have RSS format B) is a company website that you might like to keep track of or C) (Pro's favorite) happens to be a site with content that changes dynamically (such as property search websites and databases), with a webmaster that would rather not make the content as easily accessed as say, one with an RSS feed.  They want you to visit their site!  Sometimes its because they want the adsense money that rolls in with every page view, sometimes its the nature of the content. In either case, a tool like Ponyfish can help you out.

2) The Hack:  Pro chooses not to point any linky fingers at particular real estate websites that can be hacked in this nature- partly because he would rather not single out certain sites that belong and are maintained by his friends.  But lets just say that you are a real estate agent and you'd like to be notified everytime a new property hits a particular database.  Go to Ponyfish and follow the instructions for creating a new feed.  Find the page on the web (within the site) that you usually go to when you want to see if anything has been added.  Enter that URL.  Create a feed and add it to your feed reader or RSS notification service and you're set.  Don't bother begging the webmaster to integrate RSS into his/her site.  They won't! Chances are, if they don't already have the service, they would rather not make it that easy on you.

I know...you must now use your brain.  Have fun!  It won't hurt. Pro promises...




Technorati Tags: RSS, hack, realestate, tools, tips

Get more info from your readers and make that sale with this easy form builder

Would you like to put a form on your site for your readers to fill out and submit?  Its a terrific way to find out who your readers are and put you in contact with them directly.  Well, let me introduce you to Sidewalk.  [link via DownloadSquad] Its an AJAX enabled form builder that's easy to create and simple to integrate onto your blog.  For a real estate agent, this is a powerful tool, as there is a good chance that the info that you gather from your readers will tell you a lot about the types of clients that your content appeals to. You'll have information to work with in minutes!

 Sidewalk forms can be embedded in any web page
just by copying and pasting a bit of JavaScript, which I think is one of its greatest selling points. When someone
fills out your form their answers are e-mailed to you as well as added to a web-based database where you can search the
responses and export them to CSV.

[link via DownloadSquad]

Some say this is the Most Powerful Windows Application available

Its the Total Commander PowerPack and its BAD!!! [that means good] The best part about it-its free! 

* file-manager inspired by Norton Commander, but with a modern Windows interface
* has two panes for easy file management
* every pane can have as many tabs as you want
* advanced file search with regular expressions
* rename multiple files
* split files (useful if you want to send a large file by email)
* pack/unpack files in ZIP format
* compare directories
* synchronize directories
* FTP client with support for SFTP
*
document viewer that supports: text files, source code files
(Assembler, C++, CSS, Delphi, FoxPro, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, SQL, XML),
HTML, RTF, Word documents, Excel sheets, OpenOffice documents,
executable files, DLL, INI files, registry files, image files (PNG,
JPG, GIF, Paint Shop Pro, BMP, PSD, ICO, CUR, ANI, MAC, WMF, EMF, PIC),
Flash, media files (MP3, WMA, OGG, AVI), database files (FoxPro, dBase,
Paradox, Access, MySQL, CSV), archives (RAR, ZIP, TAR, GZ, 7zip,
bzip2), disk image files (ISO, BIN, IMG, NRG)
* AES encryptor (encrypt/decrypt files with 128bit key using password or keyfile)
* decompilation of 32-bit PE executables (EXE SCR) and libraries (DLL OCX CPL BPL), resource files (RES DCR)
* create a list file with all selected files and directories
* count the size of all files in a directory
* shows informations about solar and moon dates, celebrations and calendars
* synchronize your local computer with atomic time via Internet
* browse NT events and services faster
* view/edit/kill processes that are running currently on the system
* RSS Reader
* CD/DVD burning
* view and edit files on ext2 partitions (useful to manage files on Linux partitions from Windows)
* mount disk images as additional virtual drives in system
* much more...

Pro found this helpful tip (and many others) from the Google System blog.


Technorati Tags: windows, tools, applications

Add dates quick to Google Calender with new Firefox extension

On the run like me? Add your dates and reminders to Google Calender in a flash with this new Firefox extension for Windows/Mac/Linux [via Lifehacker]  The Google Calendar Quick Add Firefox extension enables a keyboard shortcut in Firefox that adds events to Google Calendar without having to visit the calendar. Also, as of 2006-04-23 Now it also monitors Google homepage searches for terms that could become appointments.[link for updates]

To add an appointment, all you do (after installing of course) is press Ctrl + ;(semicolon) and you will be prompted on screen.  This is a definate time saver!

Hope this helps guys.  Don't be late!


Technorati Tags: timesaver google calender firefox extensions realestate

Do you keep your listings on Excel spreadsheets? Now you can work with them online

If so, you can now view them and share them with other agents online with ajaxXLS. A little while back, Pro began explaining the powers of AJAX with homepages.  Imagine the same capabilities that you have with movable, interactive homepages spread to Excel sheets.  If you are a real estate agent or broker who likes to keep listings logged on excel sheets, you will quickly understand why this tool is so incredibly useful.   Pro just began playing around with it tonight, but it seems to do all that it promises. You can expect to open spreadsheet files with all of your common cell formatting
categories such as text style, decimals, currencies, date, and time.
ajaxXLS will preserve your formulas, backgrounds and borders from the
files created in Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice. ajaxXLS is platform
independent and can be used with any operating system.

These are a few of the benefits of this tool:

• Global access, all you need is an internet connection
• Platform independent, you can use it with any operating system
• Automatic updates and upgrades, no more computer restarts or missed patches/updates
• Server side management — all the busywork is done for you

[link via LifeHacker]

technorati tags: excel, spreadsheets, share, realestate, online, AJAX

The best browsers to use when blogging

The Pro probably should have probably mentioned this earlier, but if you're still puttering along out there using Internet Explorer, its a really good idea to switch to Mozilla Firefox.  Its fully customizable and open source, meaning software that is created by a development community rather than a single vendor. Firefox is typically programmed by volunteers from many organizations, the source code of open source software is free and available to anyone who would like to use it or modify it for their own purposes. This allows an individual or organization to add a feature itself rather than hope that the vendor of a proprietary product will implement its suggestion in a subsequent release. But for the time being:

You can import all of your bookmarks from other browsers and create a portable profile that will allow you to access your settings from other computers.  This allows you to surf the web (or better yet, blog it) just the way you do at home from other places like the office, internet cafe, etc. Be sure to check for plug-ins and customize your firefox browser to play online media the way you want it.

A terrific extension and tool that I found recently is Performancing.  It puts a little toggle switch at the bottom of your browser so that you can access your blog's dashboard in a snap. In the next post, I'll include a few of the terrific extensions that I find useful in real estate.

technorati tags: browsers, realestate, firefox, performancing, plugins, extensions, opensource, tools

Real Estate Blog Pro ZOOM Cloud

technorati tags: zoomcloud, realestate, blog, reblogpro, cloud, tags

Set up a survey and create email icons in seconds

Looking to take a poll from your readers on how well you are doing with your blog or service?  Try FreePolls to generate a survey that can easily be added (via cut and paste HTML) to your blog or website. Nexodyne offers several interesting tools for blogs- and perfect for real estate agents. You might also like to try generating a free email icon.  This will save your readers time by giving them the option of one click to contact you, rather than having to remember your email address.