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.
The talk of the blogoshpere today is Google Gadget Ads. Google has been quietly rolling out a new advertising platform for the last few months. They are taking their gadgets and adwords and mashing them together. What you get is interactive, data rich ads whose main limitation is the creativity of the campaign creator. These ads can be HTML, Flash, Javascript or a combination, all of which can access real-time data feeds, images, video, and other content. So what could this mean for the Real Estate ad market?
Summer is traditionally a quiet time here at CRT, so we haven’t had a lot to report on via the blog. Yes, this will be the forth or fifth apple related post this week. It just seems to be that sort of summer. I promise I’ll have something non-iPhone related by the end of the week. Anyway…
Bruce Wolf, NAR’s current treasurer, sent me this to post on the blog as a follow up. As Bruce is a real estate practitioner, he has more of an “on the ground” review than mine. This might also be notable as I believe that Bruce is officially our first guest blogger. Bruce’s review after the jump.
Last Friday July 6th at about 1 I picked up my iPhone. I wanted to give it a serious couple of days of use before I posted about it. I also wanted to make sure I did a few things that NAR’s members would do on a day to day basis.
We all heard and read about the activation problems in the first 24 hours or so. I’m happy to report that those issues were non-existent when I went to activate. Almost everything you do with the phone starts with iTunes, and activation is no different. I fired up iTunes, plugged the phone into the USB port and just started answering the questions. The activation went very smooth and I was mostly using my phone within 15 minutes of getting back from the Apple store. The snag I had though was in transferring my number from my old carrier. It took them 24 hours to give up the number to AT&T. During that time I could make calls and do network functions like e-mail and web surfing, but I couldn’t receive calls. Once that was done, it went like a shot.
Synchronization is also done via iTunes. On my OS X based MacBook Pro, this provides for a very tight integration with tools that Apple ships with OS X. The good side is much like an iPod sync, things just go when you cradle your device. The down side is that you’re tied to using iTunes. If you’re on OS X or Windows this isn’t really an issue. For those on other platforms, this could be a limiting issue. I haven’t tried syncing the phone with Windows so I can’t comment on what you can and cannot do via iTunes on the Windows and how well it integrates other than knowing what tools Apple says is supported on the stats page.
The rest of this will really focus on the parts of the phone I really interact with. If I don’t mention an app or don’t really talk about it, I haven’t used it much yet. Continue reading ‘iPhone: 5 days later’
Now that the hype has died down a bit, Chad and I walked over to the Apple store to play with the demo model. That was a mistake, now I have the shakes and some mad desire. I’ll be getting one tomorrow or so and I start to post updates and the like. As we go forward I will post thoughts and amusements and the like.
Pictures from about 4:30 outside the Apple store on Michigan Ave in Chicago on the day of the iPhone release. I’ll clean some of them up later, I just wanted to get them on-line while they were still relevant.
NAR employees Andrew and Chad contimplate a future purchase.
I’m thinking about getting this Ogio backpack as a new laptop backpack. Anyone have any experience with them? I’m having a hard time finding one in a store to check out. http://www.ogio.com/product.php?product=128
Last Saturday, Chad Curry from NAR Government Affairs and his wife, Julia, organized and hosted an art exhibit to raise funds and awareness for the conflict in the Sudan. They enlisted local Chicago neighborhood businesses to help sponsor and support their event. To highlight the participating establishments, Chad stumbled upon a new(ish) feature of Google Maps, My Maps.
Once he plotted all the points of interest, he showed it to the local Chamber of Commerce. Their reaction was one of awe as to how easy and useful something like this could be. I think the real kicker came when he told them that it was free!
So what exactly is My Maps? Well, the embedded map shows a bare bones overview of what Chad made.
A while back, I made a little Gadget to deliver a rotating image from the Google Image Index. It is semi-popular, usually from those that just need a little distraction while couped up in cubicle world.
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.
The talk of the blogoshpere today is 
Last Friday July 6th at about 1 I picked up my 
