Every once in awhile you get bit by the Law of Unintended Consequences. What is this law you ask? To quote wikipedia:
The Law of Unintended Consequences states that any action will produce some unintended consequences…
This maxim is not a scientific law; it is more in line with Murphy’s law as a warning against the belief that we can control the world around us. In other words, each cause has more than one effect, which will invariably include at least one side effect. The side effect can potentially be more significant than any of the intended effects.
Our blog got hit with that big time since late last week when I installed and turned on the WP-SuperCache plugin. I thought I’d been installing a performance improvement, but I ended up breaking the comment system due to a bad interaction with Spam Karma 2 (SK2). Most people who’ve been trying to leave a comment in the past few days have been shunted to the moderation queue or blocked as spam.
After some web searching I found two sets of directions to fix this. The first is a plugin from Priv for SK2 that makes SK2 notify WP-SuperCache when its updates things. The second was some code modifications from quenting I needed to make to both SK2 and WP-SC to make some ‘magic’ anti-spam stuff that SK does work.
The end result is comments work again and should not have the false positives. Of course, I have to wait and watch the next few days to see if it actually is working… So comment away! 
I have installed a package called DD-WRT on by consumer grade Linksys WRT350N router. DD-WRT gives me professional grade options that the manufacturer does not offer and utilizes the hardware to its maximum. This fusion of Professional software and Consumer equipment makes my network setup prosumer.
DD-WRT is a good approach if you have a small office, have staff hooked up via wireless and don’t want to waste money. I just followed installation instructions on their wiki and things went smoothly. There is a step that might make you uneasy though; you have replace the manufacturer’s firmware in order to get DD-WRT functionality. As long as you don’t stop this two minute process in the middle it should work for you too. Although I am using a different model than the one in the instructions, everything went as expected.
This short list does not do DD-WRT justice, but here is what I like most about DD-WRT:
- Linux (but of course)
- Static Addresses
- DHCP Server
- MAC Address cloning
- NAT
- Graphical Bandwidth Reports (eye candy, true, but useful too)
- OpenVPN
- SSH Access (yep, you can log into the router! Can you say NMAP?)
- Access Policy (lock the kids down except for certain times)
But there is so much more.
DD-WRT is available for many routers in addition to Linksys. I was surprised to see DD-WRT installed routers for sale on EBay! If you have an old router laying around, or if you pick up one on the Internet, give DD-WRT a try. It I didn’t have the WRT350N, I would have used the much cheaper WRT54GL. You should read the compatibility list before purchasing to make sure the device is supported though.
Today, a call triggered an idea, triggered a quick project, triggered this post. And where did this trigger all start from — well from one of the great REALTORS I met at this years REALTOR Land Institute Conference. Todd (sorry didn’t get your last name) called me this morning and asked for some recommendations on a quick way to follow up with other REALTORS after a showing.
I’m sure there are some gadgets and sites that are out there, but the first thing that came to mind was linking a web form to a Google spreadsheet. What this would allow, would be a very easy way to create a web form that you can email to the agent, that would then update a spreadsheet for further data slicing and dicing.
This of course is one of those things that probably makes a little more sense through a demo, than explaining over the phone and/or sending some links. So Todd - here is a quick and dirty proff of concept ‘Showing Feedback Form’. It links directly to a Google Apps spreadsheet, which can be downloaded into Excel for pure data fun.
Posting your listings online should be a standard procedure. And from a marketing point of view, the more places a listing appears, the better. The downside is that if you want your listings on half a dozen sites, you have to enter listings manually to each site or invest money in developing an automated system. And if the price changes, you need to update each site individually. So even if you want your listings everywhere online, the amount of time you have to invest in posting and updating often makes widespread listing aggregation more trouble than it’s worth.
Fortunately, some powerhouses in the listing aggregation realm recognized this problem, too. In January 2008, Google, Yahoo, Zillow, and Trulia began working together to create a single, standardized feed that would facilitate the marketing and advertising of properties on multiple Web sites. And with help from the National Association of REALTORS(R) and the newly formed Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO), they’ve achieved their goal in record time.
Continue reading ‘Getting your listings out there’
My primary desktop is Linux, so I’m an OpenOffice user. At home, I run NeoOffice on the Mac. You can just imaging that special feeling I had when I started seeing e-mail attachments with file extensions like .docx, .pptx and .xlsx! These new XML-based file formats are associated with Microsoft Office 2007 and do not (yet) work with OpenOffice or NeoOffice.
I used a free on-line service called Zamzar to convert the Office files to the more familiar .ods (spreadsheet), .odp (presentation) and .odt (word processing) formats. It worked perfectly. Submit you file and you will be notified via e-mail when it is ready to pick up the converted form.
If you are attending the upcoming NAR Midyear Meetings & Expo, stop by the Omni Shoreham’s Empire Room on Thursday, May 15 at 3pm. As we seek to foster & strengthen relationships with the consumer, this session will provide a sneak peek into just how important wide-area, high-speed wireless networks will become in real estate transactions.
Add it to your calendar and Stop by. Mark Lesswing, of NAR will join
J. Lennox Scott of John L. Scott Real Estate and Errol Samuelson of REALTOR.com®, among others to talk about Understanding Real Estate in Real Time.
We don’t normally do trip recaps here on the blog because we would end up writing something almost every day. Okay, we really don’t travel every day, but it sure seems like it sometime. This trip was worthy of a shout-out.
I was invited by Doug Groppenbacher, the President-Elect of the Scottsdale Area Association of REALTORS® (SAAR), to take part in the Technology Symposium that SAAR had last Friday. I had a 25 minute or so intro for the day, and then I moderated a panel on blogging with (pictured below (thanks Dru)) Steve Belt, Dru Bloomfield, and Jay Thompson. (Yes, THAT Jay Thompson. ) All in all, the day went perfectly. The audience had lots of good questions, and they went well with the prepared questions I had. SAAR will have videos up of the panel and I’ll share them here if I can. There are more pictures of the panel in Dru’s photoset, including my awesome He-Man slide. I then had a nice lunch with Dru, Irene Hammond, and John Wake, where we discussed generational as well as gender differences in social technology usage.
The next morning, I took a bunch of Phoenix/Scottsdale bloggers out to breakfast to answer any NAR questions for them and so I could ask some questions of them. I never pass up an opportunity to learn more about the industry from the practitioners hitting the ground every day. Besides the three people on the panel I’ve already mentioned, we were joined by Artur Ciesielski and Joanna Zajusz, Christoph Schweiger, Jonathan Dalton, Patrick Mahony, Craig Frooninckx, Max Chirkov, and Heather Barr. It was a great discussion where I learned a lot and hopefully imparted some knowledge as well. I even got my geek on by talking Perl and Ruby with Craig! (By the way, next time I go to Scottsdale, I’m going stay at the Valley Ho, where we had breakfast.. The retro aspect of that place really got to me.)
The whole trip was filled with a great group of people really passionate about their industry and in using internet technology to reach out to and work with consumers.
Heading out to NAR’s midyear meetings? Want to be able to compose your blog posts in peace? Just want some internet access to check on the business back home? Then you’re in luck as CRT will once again be hosting in the always popular WiFi Hot Spot and the increasingly popular Bloggers’ Lounge.
The following PDF’s have the lowdown on the locations and times. Print them out, pass them around. Tattoo them on your back! (Okay, maybe not the last one.)
WiFi Flyer Bloggers’ Lounge Flyer
Click on the image to take you to the REALTOR® Confidential Website
Join us as we crack the code on one of the best kept secrets in real estate — how REALTORS are using and learning about technology to improve their business — in the new web-based video series REALTOR CONFIDENTIAL. In fact, the first episode is up and ready to go at the website, www.realtorconfidential.org. Along with first episode, the site contains all the information about the series. Take a look, and please don’t keep your thoughts confidential – let us know what you think.
How would you respond to real estate professionals that ask, “What’s social media? What does it have to do with real estate? Why would I or my clients care about creating a social network?”
The Center for REALTOR® Technology is hosting an education session during the REALTORS® Annual Conference & Expo in Orlando, FL. The goal is to cultivate awareness and explore social networking & any related tools that you’ve found useful.
Share your experiences with professionals that may know very little about social networking. Tell ‘em all about being “tweeted.” It’s not as bad as it sounds, is it? If face-to-face networking will never go out of style, what do social on-line networks have to offer? How do you get started on social networks? Are there pitfalls? How do you avoid them? What about social sites that rate REALTORS®? Yep, they are out there!
For those that are already immersed in the world of social networking, how do you take it to the next level? Dare we talk about ROI & business/brand implications? How can social networks foster & grow the REALTOR®-Consumer relationship? Where do sites like LinkedIn, MySpace, etc. come in? How to address difficult situations on social networks? Really, where is social networking going?
How about keeping sane while staying connected. Are there tools that can minimize chaos while allowing you to keep pulse on all your RSS feeds, blogs, etc.? Are they del.icio.us? Others? How do you use them? Are they worth the investment? Do these tools interact with my smartphone, laptop, website, etc? How? Show them how it’s done.
Interested?
Continue reading ‘Social Networking: Call for Presentation’
