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

Every March, I say this at least once, and I think most people just politely ignore me.   However, I think I shall say it again, just in case.....

The annual college basketball tournament has a couple catchy phrases:  "Sweet Sixteen" and "Final Four". 

The phrase usually used for this week in between Sweet Sixteen and The Final Four is usually called "Elite Eight".  Say Elite Eight out loud.  I think it falls pretty darn flat.  Not only that, it's a bit of a tongue twister.

However, just reverse the two words, and I think it can hold its own with the other two phrases.  Try it:  "Eight Elite".  Say it out loud.  Hear the difference?

I swear, one of these years, I am going to start a letter writing and email campaign to all the TV, radio, and print journalists to please start saying "Eight Elite".

The newest version of Wordpress.org is scheduled for release the end of this month, (March, 2008).  This version is designated 2.5,  (2.4 having fallen through the cracks somewhere).

I spent some time searching around trying to find some info about the upcoming release.

The optiniche blog has quite a bit of information: http://www.optiniche.com/blog/382/wordpress-25-revealed-and-compared-to-version-23x/

Looks like a lot of user interface changes.  I'll withhold judgment until I've used it, but right now I'm thinking I won't upgrade all my WordPress blogs right away.  I'll upgrade a couple practice blogs first, and work with it for a while.

If nothing else, all my tutuorial screen shots will now be outdated.  Sigh.

Regular readers of Bloodhound Blog will know that every now and then Greg Swann talks about creating custom signs for each of his listings.

A unique sign is made for each individual listing.  The sign is printed with  full color images of the particular property, and with ad copy describing the particular property, along with the usual real estate company logo and info.

I love this idea.  Recently, in a comment thread about the signs, Greg remarked about how this could be a business opportunity for a sign vendor. 

The sign vendor could offer a selection of pre-designed semi-custom sign templates.  The customer would place an order via a web input form, inputting the descriptive text for the particular sign, and uploading the photos.  The customer would tweak it around until it looked just right, then submit the order.

Yes, I know the image files would need to be very large for for best quality on the sign panel.  OK.  A downside for the vendor would be small quantities.  I can't see needing more than two or three signs for each property address.  Most times one only would do the job.

Corrugated plastic (coroplast) would be just fine.  After all, each sign panel does not need to last a lifetime, it only needs to last until the property is sold.  And coroplast would certainly be more affordable.

In a comment, I asked for any sign vendor who could offer this to contact me.  I'm a ready, willing, and able customer.

So far, I haven't heard from any sign vendor.  :-)

Anyone here on Active Rain know of a sign vendor who can do this?  Or a print shop?

Anyone remember the outcry from the real estate industry about Jim Cramer's comments on the housing market back in September?

Here's a link to Ricardo Bueno's Active Rain blog with the video, to refresh your memory.

http://activerain.com/blogsview/219755/Jim-Cramer-says-Don

Well, if you found that exciting, you just have to watch this clip from March 11 of Jim discussing Bear  Sterns.  :-)

Jeff Brown's post on BloodHound  about whether or now there is a paradign shift from "old-school" real estate sales techniques to "new-way" real estate sales techniques, got me thinking about a slightly different shift that I am seeing:

Back in the 70s, 80s, 90s, most agents owned their own home, most agents had personal experience in buying and selling property, and could speak to clients from personal experience, on a peer-to-peer level.

The boom times of the early 00s brought in newcomer real estate agents  who had never once signed a real estate contract in their entire lives.

I think somehow that changes the agent-client relationship dynamic from peer-to-peer to (dare I say it??) master-to-server.

On the other hand, I suppose the guy working the parts counter at the Porsche dealership doesn't need to own a Porsche to know which part you need.

And on the third hand, many of those newcomers may vanish with the real estate market downturn.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

Anyone else download and install Firefox 3 Beta 4 yet?

I just did this morning, and so far, it's performing like a champ.  (As long as you don't count access to the Glendale-Foothills I-Tech MLS which is IE only  :-(  )

Now to play around with some of my add-ons.  

Here are the release notes:

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/3.0b1/releasenotes/

Here's a link to the download site in case anyone else wants to get it a try: 

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html

Sometimes you just simply need to resize a whole bunch of photos.  You don't need or want to edit them individually at this particular point .... you just need to reduce the size as quickly as possible so you can get the photos uploaded for some project or another.

Enter Irfanview.  To me, using Irfanview for just this one task - Batch Resizing - is the easiest and fastest way to go.

You can download Irfanview here 

After installing Irfanview, to start a batch resize, click File -> Batch Conversion/Rename

The Batch conversion window will open.  In the "look in" box find the folder containing your images.  You can select multiple images at once by holding down the control key.  When you've selected all the images to resize, click Add.

The list of images will appear in the Input files box.  Now click Advanced.  The "Settings for all images" window will open.  Set the width (I used 640 pixels) or the height.  You don't need to set both, the image will mantain the same ratio. 

Do note that you should resize landscape (horizontal) images and portrait (vertical) images separately.  For a portrait (vertical) image, you would set 640 as the height.

After setting the width (or height) click OK.

Specify an Output directory to receive  the resized images.  (Always pay attention to the output location so you can find the images afterwards.)  Click Start Batch.

 The process only takes a few moments to run.

Now you can open up the Output directory folder to view the newly resized image.  Or you can open each resized image in Photoshop for further editing, or you can upload the images. 

A few days ago I started  a tutorial series on using FTP, specifically using FTP to upload and install a WordPress plugin.  Please note these steps apply for a WordPress.ORG blog, you don't have FTP access if you are using WordPress.COM  (Here's the official WordPress explanation of the difference.)

If you look at the entire process of installing a plugin, then break it up into "phases", it would look like this:

• Download, install and set-up an FTP program
• Download and unzip the plugin
• Upload the plugin to your site, and activate it in Wordpress

The first post covered Phase 1.

Here's Phase 2:  Downloading and uzipping the plugin.

First realize that most WordPress plugins ard themes are distributed as "zip" files.  "Zip" means that the file (or files) has been compressed into a smaller size for faster transmission over the internet.

Here's an article explaining more about zip files in general:  http://www.netsquirrel.com/articles/zip.html

There are several no-cost or low-cost programs for unzipping files.  Currently I'm using CAM UnZip.  It's free and available for download here:  http://www.camunzip.com/

If you don't already have an unzip program installed, and you'd like to look at CAM, go to http://www.camunzip.com/   Click the big yellow download button.  It's going to take another click to get to the final download page. 

At the next screen, clicking "Click here to download" will take you to this page, the actual download page.  Click on one of the Download options.

The dialogue box will ask "Do you want to run or save file?".  Click Save.

If you download alot of stuff, you'll already know that its important to pay attention to just where your download file is going to end up.  Saving to the Desktop is a simple approach.  Some people keep a folder on the Desktop for downloads.  I can also see merits in installing to  an external device, such as a thumb drive.  Whatever works for you, the point is just be aware of where the file is, so you can find it again.

After you've selected the place you want to put the downloaded file, click Save, and the download will begin.

Wait while the program downloads to your computer.

When the download is complete, click Run.

The dialogue box will ask "Do you want to run this software?".  Click Run again.

The installation wizard will start up and walk you through the installation.  Click Next.

Accept the license agreeement.  Click next again.  Read, glance at (or skip) the information page, and click next again. 

Select the destination location -- where the program will be stored on your computer .  The default is probably fine unless you have created some different file system hierachy of your own.

A couple more screens will follow.  You can select a different Start Menu folder, you can add a desktop icon, you can tell your computer to always "associate" CAM Unzip with the zip extension.  (That means whenever you click on a zip file on your computer, CAM would be the program of choice to run the file.)

OK.  Now that you have an UNZIP program installed on your computer, you need a zipped up file to unzip.

Since this series started with a question about installing the  WordPress PlugIn PhotoDropper, I'll use that plugin as an example of the process.

First go to:  http://www.photodropper.com/add-photos-blog/   Scroll down in the text to the sentence "Download PhotoDropper and test it out for yourself.  Click the linked text.

That text link takes you to a second download page.  Click the large Download Plugin button.

The dialogue box will ask "Do you want to open or save this file?"  Click save. 

Remember all that stuff about paying attention to you put a file as you download it?  With a zip file it is important, since you won't be able to run the install immediately after downloading (the file has to be unzipped before it can be installed.)

Downloading to your Desktop is one simple solution, a folder on your desktop is another.  Some people like a particular folder on the hard drive for all downloads. 

Choose your location, and click Save.  (I'm saving to the Desktop here)

After the download of Photo Dropper is complete,  an icon for the zipped file will be on your desktop

Right click on the icon, select "Open With", then CAM UnZip 

Here we go again, glance at the "Extract to" location,  you will need to know where the plugin has been stored on your computer in order to upload it to your WordPress site.

You can change the "Extract to" location by clicking on the button with three dots to the right of the location name.

After you've set and noted the location, click Extract.

When done, CAM Unzip will display the "Zip Message" box.  Click File -> Exit to close.

Now you're ready to upload the unzipped plugin to your WordPress site.  I'll cover that in Phase 3 soon.