When It Is Time to Call in a Professional

By Chad A. Johnson · March 17, 2008 · 2 Comments 

In my article, “Do You Treat Your Car Better Than Your Computer?”, I provided 8 ways that real estate agents can keep their computer performing at its best. There are times when simple maintenance isn’t enough. This is when you need to call in a professional.

Remember that you are a real estate agent and not a computer technician. Top agents know the value of an hour of their time and realize that spending 4 hours trying to fix their own computer costs more than having the system repaired by a technician.

From experience, trust me when I say that while your brother-in-law, cousin or neighbor may have good intensions, don’t turn to them unless repairing computers is what they do for a living. I have seen countless instances where matters were made worse by someone offering free assistance.

Where do you turn when you need a professional computer repair technician? Luckily, there are several options from local computer shops to big box store in-house repair to online support companies.

Here are just a few of the options available to real estate agents:

• Local Computer Shops and Technicians – There is something satisfying about supporting a local business person (especially if they will be buying or selling a home in the future). Many times, you can find a technician with much more experience than those working for the big box stores. There is more risk, though, since you don’t have a large corporation backing the work. Check out Chris Pirillo’s article and video, “Find Local Computer Repair” tips on finding a reputable local technician. One example of local support would be Loren Nason of Future of Real Estate Technology.
• Geek Squad – Probably the best know of the big box store services, the Geek Squad is Best Buy’s in-house computer repair team. You can have a “geek” fix your computer in 1 of 3 ways, you can bring your computer to a Best Buy, a “geek” can come to your house, or they can take over control of your computer remotely and repair many problems using your Internet connection.
• Firedog – Not to be outdone by Best Buy, Circuit City has created it’s own version of the Geek Squad, called Firedog. Their services and pricing are very similar to what the Geek Squad offers.
• Staples – Staples is now also offering its “EasyTech” computer support service. They can assist with repairs, maintenance and upgrades by phone, mail, in-store or at your home or office.
• Plum Choice – The grandfather of online computer support services, Plum Choice repairs your computer by taking control of your system remotely. Plum Choice is such a dominant player in this field that they provide online services for other companies, such as Firedog.

Just as having an attorney and CPA that you can rely on and trust is essential to the success of your real estate business, so is having a computer repair technician. As the saying goes, “time is money”, and time without email or the MLS is costly.

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Windows Vista for Real Estate Agents

By Chad A. Johnson · January 19, 2008 · 6 Comments 

Part II: The Windows Experience Index

What is the Windows Experience Index?

“My computer is a 5.5. Yours is a 4.8. My computer is way better than yours!”
This just might be the future of technology bragging on the elementary school playground.

The Windows Experience Index is a technology, native to Windows Vista machines, that assigns a numeric value to the performance of a computer. The higher the number, the faster that computer can perform common tasks.

Windows Vista runs 5 different tests to determine the performance of the processor, memory, graphics, gaming graphics and primary hard disk. At the conclusion of each test, a number (from 1 to 5.9) is assigned to that component.

The most important of those numbers is whichever is the lowest. That number becomes the Windows Experience Index Base Score. For example, my monster of a desktop ranks 5.9 for 4 components and 5.5 for the fifth. That makes the system’s base score a 5.5.

When you discuss a Windows Experience Index score, it is the base score that you concentrate on since it is the limiting factor for performance.

The Windows Vista Team Blog offers a comprehensive look at the Windows Experience Index.

How can a real estate agent use the Windows Experience Index for making technology purchases?

Besides bragging rights (notice how I shamelessly included my base score), what good is the Windows Experience Index to a real estate agent? The Windows Experience Index will simplify every real estate technology purchase you make.

New Computer Purchases:

Purchasing a new computer is a confusing task. How do you know what processor to buy? Is the upgraded video card necessary or a waste of money? The list of questions that will flood your mind when you are buying a new computer is virtually endless.

The Windows Experience Index allows you to ignore clock speeds, dedicated memory and all of that technical mumbo-jumbo. Just look at the Windows Experience Index scores to tell you how that system performs.

Microsoft claims that a computer with a base score of 3 or higher will be able to handle any standard business applications. I see this as a bare minimum.

The real estate industry has become so multimedia driven that a base score of 4.5 or better is advised. The future of real estate technology lies in video presentations and audio files (podcasting). These technologies need a higher base score.

The good news: the price difference between a 4.5 and a 3.0 computer can be only a couple of hundred dollars.

Upgrading a Computer:

As I mentioned in my last article, I don’t recommend upgrading a computer to Windows Vista, it should be purchased with it already on the system. You may be in a situation, though, where you purchased a Windows Vista that just isn’t meeting your performance needs.

The Windows Experience Index identifies what components are holding your system back. I worked on a system with a base score of 2.1. Every other index score was at least a 4.1. By replacing the video card with a more powerful model, that awful 2.1 base score was increased to a 4.1.

Purchasing Software:

Ever look at the minimum hardware requirements for a piece of software? Those requirements will usually list minimum processor speeds, video card processors, amounts of RAM, etc.

Software manufacturers are changing this practice by using the Windows Experience Index number instead. In the future, the software you buy will clearly state that any Vista machine with a base score of 4 will meet the minimum requirements.

A little known tip for increasing your Windows Experience Index number.

According to Microsoft, once your computer is assigned a Windows Experience Index number, that number won’t change unless you upgrade your hardware components. I have seen to be not true.

When Windows Vista was first released, most hardware manufacturers had a difficult time writing Vista-compatible drivers for their products. The delivery of my own system was delayed by a month due to a delay in the release of a sound card driver. Even after I got the machine, my video card drivers were considered a “beta” version.

Over the course of the past year, hardware manufacturers have greatly improved the performance of their components on Vista through the release of updated drivers. This means that by updating the BIOS and drivers for your chipset, video card, sound card and other components on your system, you might see your computer’s base score increase (along with the performance of the machine). This is especially true of Vista machines bought in the first half of 2007.

To see if you can increase your Windows Experience Index base score, visit your computer manufacturer’s downloads page and install any updates that apply to your system. To assist you, here is a list of download page links for the most common computer manufacturers:

Dell Drivers and Downloads

Gateway Drivers and Downloads

HP / Compaq Drivers and Downloads

Toshiba Drivers and Downloads

Sony Drivers and Downloads

Acer Drivers and Downloads

Lenovo / IBM Drivers and Downloads

Fujitsu Drivers and Downloads

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RSS and Pipes are the Future of Real Estate Content

By Reggie · October 21, 2007 · 5 Comments 

Lately I have been hearing a lot of talk about a technology called Yahoo Pipes, and what it can do to streamline RSS feeds. So today we are going to demystify RSS and Pipes for your benefit!

Let’s Talk RSS
To start, you must be noticing it gets harder and harder each day to keep up on all the great content accross the web. You likely know that Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is an easy way to keep up with this ever changing content. Rather than going out to each of your favorite sites one by one to see if they have new and appealing content for you, RSS is designed to bring the content of the sites you subscribe to right to your desktop via a Feed Reader. So rather than individually visiting 25 blogs in a row…simply open your reader and browse all content from one location. Your content comes to you!

Yahoo Pipes Technology Explained
Ok, now that you understand RSS let’s talk about Pipes. The term originally comes from UNIX and means roughly the output from each process is chained together creating a new output. Think of aggregation. You can say that pipes are the natural evolution of the RSS feed. Think about the current state of the blogosphere. Today you write a post on ActiveRain, tomorrow on Zolve, then Trulia and of course there is that guest post you recently did on another blog favorite. Plus this whole time you have been posting on your own blog. So how do you take all this content and mash it up into one feed for your readers? Introducing Yahoo Pipes.

Yahoo Pipes will aggregate and mashup content from around the web using RSS, data sorts, filters and translation. (Did I mention that no programming is required?) So in the example I mentioned above, the pipe you create could be a mashup of all your posts in one place—filtered by your name.

Let’s Build a Pipe
To get started, go to Yahoo Pipes and register for your free account. Once you have logged in, click the “Create a Pipe” button. You’ll notice the canvas appears. Start by simply dragging the module titled “Fetch Feed” from the library pane on the left side onto your working canvas. One by one enter the feeds that you would like to combine. Click the “+” sign to the left of URL to add another feed. Repeat the steps as necessary. Now drag out modules from the library such as “Sort” and “Filter”. Make sure you connect each module by its connecters. Once you have customized your pipe, click the save button and name the feed. Now click properties and give your feed a description and tags. Congratulations! Now save and publish your feed.

See an example of a pipe here. This is a combination of NikNik’s posts here at MyTechOpinion and the HelpMyAgent blog. See tutorials here.

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Winforms meets Microsoft Vista

By Reggie · March 26, 2007 · 3 Comments 

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Be My Blogger Valentine

By NikNik · February 14, 2007 · 6 Comments 

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Does your real estate website provider supply you with prewritten content?

By Reggie · December 19, 2006 · 6 Comments 

Thanks to the Blog Swap RSS Pieces put together, Stephen Jagger of Ubertor is our guest today. Ubertor serves the real estate industry with agent and broker software. I would like to thank Stephen! Here is his post:

Stephen Jagger, Ubertor - Many of real estate website providers supply prewritten canned content on the web sites they sell to real estate agents. This canned content comes in many forms:

• Free Reports
• Top Tips
• Buying Tips
• Selling Tips
• plus much more…

Google says “we try hard to index and show pages with distinct information“.

What does that mean?

Canned content, generic content and content provided to you is not helping you… but actually hurting you.

Write your own Free Reports, Top 10 Tips, Sellers Bonus Material, etc… be courageous, be opinionated, take a risk, tell people what you think and be UNIQUE.

Google, Yahoo and MSN are looking for unique, quality content that they can provide to their users. Someone searching for Vancouver Real Estate is looking to find the best website about that topic. The search engines are looking to find that website (actually the top 10 under than term). To get your website to come up under the keyword term you are trying to target start by reviewing these points:

1. Start Blogging
2. Google likes sites of at least 100 pages and pages of 300-500 words/page
3. Get rid of your canned content and write your own
4. Write about the term you want to be found under
5. Write about the term you want to be found under again
6. Comment on other blogs that compliment your industry
7. Use WordTracker.com or a service like it to view actual searchers searching for that term
8. Engage your visitors, request comments, feedback, questions
9. Keep your solds within your website - never delete or hide them
10. Blog, Blog, Blog and then do it again

Blogging has proven to be the most effective way to gain exposure within the search engines.

The real key: Write for your readers - then review for the search engines! - not the other way around. Google’s mantra is “Be Good Not Evil” Bloggers’ mantra is “Write for your Reader, Good will follow”

Take a look at what the other real estate bloggers had to say that participated?

Transparent Real Estate’s Pat Kitano vs. Zillow’s Drew Meyers

RSS Pieces’ Mary McKnight vs. Future of Real Estate Marketing’s Joel Burslem

St Paul Real Estate Blog’s Teresa Boardman vs. Phoenix Real Estate Guy’s Jay Thompson

3 Ocean Real Estate’s Kevin Boer vs. SLC Real Estate’s Nigel Swaby

Issaquah Undressed’s Larry Cragun vs. Maury Properties’ Andrew Maury

Chicago Home Weblog’s Geno Petroche vs. NY Houses 4 Sales’ Christine Forgione

Jonathan Dalton’s Phoenix Arizona Real Estate Blog Jonathan Dalton vs. Bonnie Erickson’s Real Estate Snippets Bonnie Erickson

The boys of Sellsius vs. Real Estate Tomato’s Jim Cronin

ML Podcast’s Michael Price vs. FamousAgents.com’s Elise Wright

My Tech Opinion’s Reggie Nicolay vs. Ubertor’s Steve Jagger

Redfin’s Glenn Kelman vs Rain City’s Ardell DellaLoggia

CondoDomain’s Anthony Longo vs. miOaklandCounty’s Maureen Francis

The San Diego Home Blog’s Kris Berg vs. Urban Dig’s Noah Rosenblatt

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