Random thoughts on art, technology, stuff, and occasionally Real Estate: January 2008

Hey, look at that!

Real Estate Blogger and Active Rain Member Bonnie Erickson is today's TYPEPAD FEATURED SITE

Way to go, Bonnie!  Good job!  Ya thinki if I type "YAY!" enough times, this post will count for points?  :-)

Okay.  I can't control myself:  YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY!

If you spend any time playing with blog or website design, you may have the need to find the color HEX CODE to match a particular color in a design scheme ....

This little tool located here: http://www.2createawebsite.com/build/hex-colors.html  can make the job quick and painless.

Here's how to use it.

First drag the slider under "hue" until it is in the general color range you need. 

Then double click in the large box under "Brightness/Saturation".  Begin dragging the cursor around inside the box.  Upward and towards the left for lighter, downward and towards the right for darker.  As you do this, watch the box labeled "Swatch". 

When the color displayed in "Swatch" is the color you want, stop.  Look down at the box labeled "Hex".  There's your six digit Hex code for the color to copy and paste into the html of your website or blog.  You also have the RGB code. 

Yes, I know, the Photoshop color picker works the same way, but it is handy to have the tool on line as well.

If you want to have a little more fun, copy the Hex code (without the hash mark #) into the "Choose a Color Scheme" tool and click Update.  The tool will generate a few suggested omplimentary colors. 

Let's say you have a domain http://www.mysite.com,  and let's say you started a WordPress blog in a subdirectory http://www.mysite.com/myblog/  and now that your blog is taking off, you are ready for the blog to become the initial starting page of your domain.

Here's how to move things around to make that happen.

Login to the WordPress Dashboard, click the Option tab

 Leave "WordPress address (URL):" alone.

Change "Blog address (URL):" to the root domain name http://www.mysite.com/.

Click Update Options.

Open your FTP utility.  From the Wordpress panel, download the core WordPress file index.php to your computer.

After downloading, open index.php in a text editor (not MS Word!).  You are going to change the line that reads

require('./wp-blog-header.php'); 

Change that  line to read

require('./blog/wp-blog-header.php');

(or whatever subdirectory name matches the "WordPress address (URL):" from the General Options panel.)

Save the index.php file.  Open your FTP utility and upload the revised index.php to the root directory of your domain.

Done!  Now when you type http://www.mysite.com you will land on your blog!

To login to your WordPress Dashboard, you'll continue to use http://www.mysite.com/myblog/wp-admin as before.

As most members know, I have made a hobby out of writing tutorials.  Not long ago I remarked to someone that a well written tutorial should be like a recipe.  Simple and precise.

And I started laughing because it occurred to me I'd never written a recipe.

Well, here goes:  A simple recipe in illustrated tech tutorial style:

You will need two microwave-safe bowls.  My favorites are old-school glass bowls:  1 quart and 1.5 quart size.

Ingredients:  One 3 ounce package ramen (any flavor)

2 cups water 

1/2 cup of frozen mixed vegetables (any flavor)  Note that one typical 16 or 32 ounce bag of frozen veggies will make several ramen hack meals.

Place 1/2 cup frozen vegetables in one of the bowls.  Microwave on high for 3 minutes.  (You may need to vary the time based on your microwave's power)

Remove the veggies from the microwave and set aside.  Place the ramen noodles in the second bowl.  Cover with 2 cups water.  (Do not add the flavor packet at this time.)  Microwave on high for 3 minutes.

Combine the cooked veggies with the cooked ramen noodles.  Add flavor packet.  Stir.  Place back into your microwave oven and microwave on high for 1 minute.

Serves 2 (or 1 depending on how hungry you are.)

:-)

My post yesterday Open Letter To HouseValues (CC. Active Rain) stirred up quite a bit of discussion, and I'm glad it did. 

I think AR members need a chance to express their questions and concerns.  As Rich Jacobson pointed out, members have "vested a considerable amount of time and content", even though we do not have a monetary investment in the community.  In some part, our investment of our time and content is what created AR's monetary value.

However, that said, my tip of the day is found in the lyrics to this song:

Lyrics

The artist is Bobby McFerrin (people sometimes mistakenly attribute this song to Bob Marley)

First of all congratulations to Jon, Matt and the rest of the AR crew.

Now that HouseValues is an investor in Active Rain, maybe some HouseValues people are here on board reading blog posts, and if so, I would like to offer them my suggestions.

Dear House Values,

First of all, make use of Active Rain's blog search. Click Search, type in the word "HouseValues". Take some time to read through the various blog posts, on all pages of the search results.  I suppose it's possible that HouseValues management is not aware of how their company is perceived by agents on the street.

While I'm sure some agents have had great success with HouseValues, many others have lost money and have been highly disappointed.

Part of the problem, of course, is in the very nature of any lead capture system. People do not want to give up their personal details when they are simply researching information. I don't. If I am web surfing and I arrive on a site that requires me to register, usually I will just leave. If I really want to see the information behind the registration wall, I'll fill the registration form with fictitious information just to get in. That's human nature. So in the HV lead capture system, agents were being charged for leads from Wilma Flintstone and George Jetson.

So there's item 1 for the suggestion box: Confirm, verify, and validate leads before you sell them.

Item 2 for the suggestion box: Lay off the heavy handed telemarketing. You are an internet company, develop an internet destination that pulls agents in to you. Busy and successful agents do not appreciate the annoyance and interruption caused by telemarketing calls.

Item 3: Shorten your contract terms. Allow agents to end a contract without a cancellation fee.  Many agents have a poor image of HouseValues because they know of other agents pushed over the financial edge with cancellation fees.

Item 4: Develop a pay-referral-fee-upon-closing model as an alternative to the pay-for-leads model. Read Brian Brady's post on Bloodhound Blog, read the comment thread, and especially read Brian's comment #6. That thought alone is probably worth your entire investment in AR.

Item 5: Brian's idea again here: Develop the Market Leader tools as a stand-alone suite, with a low monthly access fee, positioned as as alternative to Top Producer. 

The new association with Active Rain is a great opportunity for HouseValues to clean up its image. Please don't blow it.

I've mentioned FTP (File Transfer Protocol) before as a tool necessary for installing WordPress themes and plugins.  It is needed for maintaining any web site.

Some folks may be new to handling their own web site or blog, and may be unfamiliar with FTP.  Instead of writing an FTP tutorial, I'm sharing one great link instead.  

FTPplanet's Beginner's Guide covers everything in simple, easy-to-understand language:  http://www.ftpplanet.com/ftpresources/basics.htm

FTPplanet is sponsored by WS_FTP, a easy-to-use FTP program.  I've been using it a lot lately:

So, if you've been following my WordPress posts, and wondering what I'm talking about, take a few minutes to read through FTP Planet's Beginner's Guide.

(Edit:  Oops.  the link was bad, I just fixed it)

Do you ever feel like trying out a new WordPress Theme or hacking your present theme ... but you don't want to make your blog inaccessible - or worse yet, scrambled - while you are in the process of testing new themes.

This plugin is the answer to your prayers:  Theme Test Drive by Vladimir Prelovac

Here's how to install and use it.

Download the plugin.

 Unzip/extract using your favorite UNZIP utility.  My current favorite is CAMUnzip

 Upload the plugin folder to your /wp-content/plugins/ folder.   I'm using WS_FTP.

In the WordPress dashboard, click the Plugins tab, find Theme Test Drive in the list of plugins, and click activate.

Now click the Presentation tab in the WordPress Dashboard.  You will see a new sub-menu tab titled Theme Test Drive.  Click Theme Test Drive, and choose the name of the theme you want to experiment with from the drop down list.  Then click "enable".

Now when you click View site you will see your blog dressed up in the new theme.  But you will be the only person seeing it that way. 

All visitors to your site will still see your blog dressed in your currently active theme

When you are ready to go public with the new theme,  click the Presentation tab, then the Theme Test Drive tab,  and click Disable

Then click the Presentation tab, Themes tab, and set your newly designed theme as Current Theme

One of my favorite title insurance sales reps retired this month.

She stood head and shoulders above the rest because, while she never once tried to sell herself to me, she was always ready to pitch in and lend a hand.  And in my particular market, lending a hand most often means RESEARCH.  Tracking down records of 50 year old building permits, tracking down address for officers of a defunct corporation, tracking down court records of an elder abuse hearing.

Now that she is out of the field, new reps are beginning to circle ....

Which leads me to my classic for today: Jimmy Buffett's Fins

Lyrics

I don't post financial opinions very often, so everybody enjoy this one.

Let me preface this by saying our business is located in a working class neighborhood.  We also have several rental properties, so on a daily basis, we see good, honest people who are basically busting their rears to make a monthly rental payment of $1,500 or $1,600.  So our take on the country's financial state is from this perspective.

I burst out laughing today at a comment on the daytime news.  The newscaster did a financial piece covering the government's concern that people were not spending money because they lacked confidence.

Confidence??!!  Gimme a break!  Those tenants of ours that are struggling with a $1,600 a month rent payment...  The reason they are not spending money is not a lack of confidence.  The reason they are not spending money is a lack of money, for Pete's sake!!