Well heck … I just had my first experience with WIN7 and MS Office 2010 – and I’m sick. 

How could they?

XP was the first really reliable OS – as far as I’m concerned – Sure W2K & various versions of NT were almost stable and if coddled,  could be very reliable  …. for real business. 

But XP was simple and essentially bullet proof. 

I have to tell you after a few days trying to cope with “the ribbon”  and the crazy “explorer” include with WIN7 – have about pulled all my hair out.   I tucked my trusty T60 with XP Pro back into the flight case and sent the other one packing!

Good ole Outlook 2000, Mosilla, Ipswitch Pro – and I’m outahere!!

Sometimes I just want to scream:

“If it ain’t BROKE …DONT FIX IT!”

Progress usually comes in small, incremental steps, but once in a while a true paradigm shift occurs.  Well friends and neighbors, if you haven’t upgraded to Fire Fox 4.0 you are really missing a major change!

The web page says its 6 times faster than the previous version.  And it is!!!

And the really good news .., it’s still FREE!!

Give yourself a freebee and surf like there’s no tomorrow!!

Larry

Few of us small business folks really have the time to sit down and write a Blog Post (article) then turn around and write something else for the company newsletter. Fortunately with a little planning and help from AWEBERcom you can “kill these two birds with one stone”.

AWEBER is one of the top Email Service providers on the web. Their products make building and maintaining a email campaign a snap … and they handle all the legal problems that can arrise from antiSpam laws.

Recently AWeber added the ability to compile content from one or more RSS feed’s, say from a Blog, into a periodic email. Most folks at least look at the subject and author of incoming emails. RSS feeds too often are never openned.

If you have any questions about integrating your Blog with Email, give us a call and let us show you how to simplify your life and improve client communications.

Good Selling
DLW

These days every website should include a Blog of some description. Visitors want to see new information on a regular basis or traffic will suffer. Including a blog page along with your static pages is simple and easy to do.  But not all blog sites make it easy to post new materials.  An “off line” blogging client can take the hassle out of the writing/posting chore.

Most blog site servers allow some form of remote posting.  Word Press is one of the more popular blog site structures which supports XML-RPC remote publishing protocols. Windows “Live Writer” is a free blogging client that interfaces smoothly with the XML-RPC protocol.  [protected] Live Writer allows a posting author to prepare a post off line using a Word like editor, upload the final product and schedule the posts publishing date.  Not just a text editor, LW supports the insertion of photos, hyperlinks, videos, and a host of other posting options.  Plugins to Live Writer can expand its capabilities well beyond the basic application.

Two critical functions included are “spell checking” and a simple “word counting” routine.  Its amazing that some platforms don’t support these basic necessities.

With Live Writer, posting to your blog is simple and easy.   Another neat trick is to link your blog to your Facebook or other social media page.  Killing two birds with one stone – is a snap!

Call us today to discuss we can set up your website to include a Blog as well as static content.

423-676-6829[/protected]

Good Selling,
DLW

The very first thing you must consider when photographing any property is lighting.  No camera, software, or computer can make up for poor choices in lighting – natural or otherwise.   I know all Realtors@ are busy people but with just a little planning you can pick the time of day you drop by to shoot the property.  If you don’t know which way the property’s “best side” faces – just go to Google earth and look it up.  In general low sun angles produce bluer skies and fewer shadows from roof overhangs and awnings.  If there is a feature like an entrance way that is still in the shadows, use your flash to reduce the impact of shadows.  Just remember the built in flash will have little or no effect beyond 8 to 10 feet, other than to produce a reflection in the glass!!

Here’s an example:

This store front was the subject – the afternoon sun was almost directly behind the building.

Next morning I ran by again:

Notice the sky detail and fewer reflections in the storefront glass!

Much better! There’s still a problem with sharpness in this photo – will talk about how to fix that down the road!

Kind’a basic, but just look thru the MLS or REALTOR.com.  It’s a shame how many really poorly done photos make it to NATIONAL PUBLICATIONS!!!  Do any of them have your name on them ??

Here are a few taken off the INTERNATIONAL web site of a well known franchise.

Shoot’em straight!!

Good Selling,
DLW

And welcome to the new BLOG site. The old site was just too much work to keep up so I’ve switched most everything to Word Press, using various themes available on the web.  The Blue Ridge Post site uses the DIY Theme, which is really great for a magazine format.

The Our Side of the Mountains site is set up for Gean’s real estate listings and uses “wp-themes.es” ideal for listings – looks a lot like an mls.

Word Press has proven to be a very stable platform for web sites of all kinds. Between themes and plug-ins there almost no need to do any more basic code writing.

The theme for this site is “DIY-Themes-1.7” by Chris Pearson – and so far its been working fine.  We shall see how well it works out for the multimedia business. If you have an interest in a really outstanding WordPress theme with Great SEO options, check out the side bar for the link.

Of course we are still hosting on  Fatcow.com – just cannot beat them for service.

DLW