Occasionally we here at CRT mess around with tech that catches our eye because it looks fun. This is the result of one of those investigations.
Behold the CRT RSS screensaver!
Download
*Sorry, only for Windows.
Archive for the 'General' Category
Join Zillow’s COO, Spencer Rascoff, in understanding how the Informed Internet Consumer is always changing, and explore best practices to working with them.
Watch Shannon Williams-King discuss tools and tactics to make your mobile office, more mobile and more productive
I like the Twitter List Widget – EOM
That is CRT making sure the leaders of the YPN are well proTechted. In the following days, we will recap the sessions that were streamed live. All the presentation can be found here:
Business Tech: Office in the Cloud
Defining the Social Me – Dustin Luther (4Realz)
Google Voice – Keith garner (NAR)
Smart Phones Port desai (NAR)
Understanding the Internet Consumer Spencer Rascoff (Zillow)
Real Estate Road Warrior Shannon Williams-King (Tribella)
75 Useful Website Tina Merritt (Long and Foster)
hmmm….why wasn’t CRT listed? Tina?
The history of the Internet is a story of inverse proportion; as technology accelerates, the barriers to it—both monetary and technological—shrink. During one of my CRT presentations (Digitally Expose Yourself), I lead off by asking “Who has been using email since 1971?” Only once has someone raised their hand. And while you may be wondering who would be naive enough to think that they could have been emailing since then, the lore of the Internet traces the first use of email back to the summer of 1971. So now, I ask you, ‘Why weren’t you using email back then, or even in 1991?’
I lead off with that example because it clearly demonstrates what I’m discussing: technically, there was nothing to prevent people from sending email back in 1971. If you look at a timeline of the internet[1] you can see that many of the services that we take for granted today and which we often perceive as only a couple of years old have actually been around for quite some time. Many times, a “new” technology merely refers to an old technology with a new label, a sign that it has reached the mainstream. But because technology takes some time to enter the mainstream, most people either aren’t aware of what’s possible or consider the cost too unreasonable.
Continue reading ‘Technology: Inversely Proportionate to Your Wallet’
The 2009 REALTORS® Conference & Expo is upon us. If you’ll be one of the real estate professionals attending, don’t miss the information packed sessions & tech resources CRT is offering.
CRT WiFi Hotspot
In the Hyatt’s Manchester Foyer
Starting Wednesday evening, November 11 thru Monday 2pm, November 16
Bring your laptop & stay connected to your home and the office. While you are at the CRT WiFi Hotspot, don’t forget to check out the MS Surface. Interacting with a multi-touch system has never been so much fun!
Bloggers’ Lounge
In the San Diego Convention Center, Room 7B, Upper Level.
Stop by with your laptop and catch up on all your social media to-do’s.
Re-Charge Stations
Running low on battery and need to quickly recharge your mobile device?
Re-charge stations are available in the CRT WiFi Hotspot (in the Hyatt) and in the Marriott’s West Lobby Lounge, North Tower.
Peer-to-Peer Skillshops
In Bloggers’ Lounge, Convention Center, Room 7B
This is your chance to hear more about the latest tech trends: from smartphones to web tools to WordPress to social media updates. Join us for these interactive sessions on Friday, Nov 13 from 1:30pm-3pm and Saturday, Nov 14 from 10:30am – Noon.
CRT Ed Sessions
All CRT ed sessions are being held in the Convention Center.
If technology is your passion, don’t miss our CRT sessions. You’ll learn more about digital media, road warrior tips & must-haves, RETS, MLS, VoIP, internet security breaches, social media, and ‘the Cloud’.
Chance to Win the Real Estate Road Warrior Challenge Kit!
Interested in winning a kit that includes an iPod Nano (with video recording feature), a netbook, a digital camera, a hand-size projector, and more? To participate in the Real Estate Road Warrior Challenge 2009, pick up your game piece at the Bloggers’ Lounge, CRT WiFi Hotspot, or download it online at: http://www.crt.realtors.org/cms/promotion/annual/2009/gameboard
Get Conference Info on Your Smartphone
After a quick download, you’ll be able to find the session, speaker, and hotel info you need in San Diego.
CRT is excited to announce the partnership with the Regional MLS of Minnesota and LiveValuation in the creation of a free/open source MLS Appraisal Tool. More details in the press release.
OK – I know this is upwards of two months out from Part I — There has just been so much amazing things going on with Conference around the corner. However, I am keeping to my word, and giving you the techie details about creating a Selective Tweet feed directly into your Facebook Profile or Page.
Continue reading ‘Feeding the Social Media Beast – Part II: The Setup’
One of the big buzzwords in technology these days is the idea of “the Cloud”. While this is not really a new idea, some services that are associated with cloud computing have recently become more viable. At CRT we recently had a chance to use a cloud service for our RETS compliance tester, specifically the virtual server service, the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (E2) from Amazon Web Services. Our experience was captured in more technical detail in a white paper, but for those that don’t want to get mired into the technical details I will give a high level overview and discuss when using E2 might be advantageous, as well as the potential drawbacks of using E2 and other similar cloud services.
First off, what is E2. The short answer is that it is a virtual private server service, where customers can rent the use of a virtual machine to run online applications on. These virtual server instances can run any software that you want, and you are given full access to them, configuring and running them very much as if they were physical machines in a data center. As an Operating System, E2 supports Linux, Solaris and Windows 2003.
Since E2 makes heavy use of virtualization, it allows you to easily scale up and down as demand requires. E2 lets you save your configured instances so you can create other instances with the same configuration, in addition to offering a large collection of preconfigured instances designed to give you a start for different types of servers (web server, database, etc.). A host of other services also support E2 to allow users to create robust and scalable applications, including Elastic Block Storage, Elastic IP addresses, Automated Scaling, Elastic Load Balancing and monitoring.
So what does all this cost? That depends, as E2 is mainly based on an hourly cost for each instance running. The hourly cost depends on the type of instance, the more power you want, (CPU power and/or memory) the greater the hourly cost. There are additional costs for the other supporting services as well as for bandwidth used beyond a certain base amount. All this means that it’s not necessarily cheap. Amazon’s page for E2 has the service and pricing details.
What are the disadvantages of E2? The biggest one is that you need to trust that Amazon will be able to keep the service up and running without an extended outage or a failure that destroys your data. In light of this, you would likely want to have backups held elsewhere. Also, there is a learning curve to getting the most out of E2, and you will still need someone to maintain your servers, so E2 does not obviate the need for a competent System Administrator.
So the question then becomes, when would using E2 be advantageous? E2 is flexible in a way that would benefit people who have an unpredictable demand on their online services, demand that requires them to have hardware to make sure the service is responsive, but that is not always being fully utilized. With automatic scaling and the preconfigured instances, E2 can allow you to scale up and down with demand needs, so you are only paying for the resources you need and are using. Also, the preconfigured instances can make service maintenance and set up faster and less prone to error. But if you have modest server requirements and little fluctuation in demand or light demand, E2 is likely to be more complex and expensive then a well-maintained physical box.
But if you are someone who finds they need a flexible server environment, or who just wants to make your server setup and maintenance easier, E2 might be a valuable solution for you
