Tips
Cell service shake-up
Oct 15th
A big thing I heard yesterday is that Wal-Mart is going to be offering a $45 unlimited nationwide cell plan, including unlimited data and text. Yes, you read that right, Wal-Mart and $45 unlimited everything. The article points out one big catch, though, you have a pretty basic choice when it comes to the devices – you’re not going to see a Blackberry, or probably any real smartphone for that matter, in the lineup. You’re also probably not going to see high speed data service, and I wouldn’t bet on the coverage being the greatest – they’re essentially piggybacking on other cell towers through TracFone. But, for $45, it’s really hard to beat for someone who needs very basic cell service.
So where are we headed in the future? It’s going to get cheaper, and easier to use is where I see it going. A couple months ago I got my preview invite for Google Voice, which is Google’s new, well, Voice service. It has a bunch of features that are really tough to summarize, but it’s poised to be a game-changer for voice communication. Some of the features are voicemail transcription/listening straight from your browser, free text messaging, assigning one number to multiple phones (I personally love this feature), and all kinds of things that are hard to summarize in a paragraph. Best of all, you can do most everything straight from a web browser:
I’ve not used it a lot yet, mainly done some testing on my own, but from what I’ve seen it’s good – real good. If they incorporated Skype-like functionality to allow you to actually make calls from the browser/application, well, it would be hard for me to use anything else.
All these things coupled with a new FCC that really seems to want to make an impact on the ridiculousness that cell carriers used to get away with means that the next two years are going to be very interesting for wireless voice communication.
Wednesday Walkthrough – Email Management
Oct 14th
Email management is in the top five of the questions I’ve received lately, so today’s Wednesday Walkthrough is going to attempt to show you how to work with the company-provided Microsoft Outlook on our agent server. If you have any questions, please feel free to let me or the IT staff know and we will be happy to help! Don’t miss the Quick Tip below the video
Quick Tip Of The Day: Remember, if the MLS ever is “broken”, you can access listing info by using our websites, homerealestate.com or woodsbros.com to get listing info for your clients as our site databases will still retain the last data they received from the MLS in the event of an outage. Need a CMA? Don’t forget rDesk! Same rules apply! 
Wednesday Walkthrough – Windows 7
Oct 8th
That’s a lot of W’s! This is the first of a new series I’m trying called – you guessed it – the Wednesday Walkthrough, where I’ll take you on a video walkthrough of new or existing products that I think may be relevant to you. For today, I’ve got a video walkthrough of the next version of Windows – Windows 7 – for you to check out. I’ve been running 7 for several months now and it’s great, now I’m happy to (finally) have the final version that you’ll be able to buy in stores on October 22nd. The video is a little large, so you may have to wait several seconds for it to begin, or pause it to let the video cache before watching it.
The mobile shift
Sep 3rd
Gene Brake and I were talking yesterday before filming the latest episode of Brake Time, and the topic of mobile devices came up. In my 10 years in I.T. it’s been very interesting to watch the shift in the way that we get our information. When I first started, desktops and dialup connections to the Internet were the norm. Five years ago, I started to get questions about mobile devices – we were all getting the Palm Treo at that point – but those were maybe 1 question a month from the 20 of 25 of us who had Treos.
Nearly two years ago when I started at HomeServices, those questions picked up to maybe 1 a week, still not very many considering the amount of devices that our agents have. In the past twelve months, however, that number has jumped dramatically to the point where it’s over 50% of the questions I get. I’m sure you see it to – your consumer has shifted from a computer to something that they can carry in their pocket. While it might still be limited, they’ve discovered that it’s the best way for them to get information. Technology is shifting again, and we all need to remember to shift with it.
If you aren’t already aware, we have two great mobile websites: HOME and Woods mobile. We jumped ahead of the curve to get these sites in place because we know the consumer of the future will demand it. Your agent site is even available in mobile format, just visit it from your mobile phone and you’ll see what I mean. The MLS too has seen the writing on the wall, and they have a great mobile site that’s available for you here.
Don’t stop there, though, embrace mobile messaging and mobile technology. Why? Your consumer already is, and is getting used to instant response. Learn how to text, and let your consumer know you can. Learn how to lookup property info from your mobile device. Most of all, however, get a great mobile device that can make your life easier. I get the question every day about what device to get, and honestly, we’re in a great time. There are a LOT of GREAT devices out there. Here’s my list of the devices, in order, I reccomend and why:
1.Blackberry Tour (Sprint/Verizon) or Bold (AT&T): Blackberries are, by far, the best device available for mobile messaging. They are fast, intuitive, and have great keyboards – as a bonus they work with your MLS keyboxes. We fully support them now, so you’ll get emails to your Blackberry just as fast, or sometimes faster, than you would on your desktop. The above devices are the latest generation Blackberry and are simply fantastic.
2.Apple iPhone: The iPhone is an amazing device, it’s as close to a mobile “computer” as you can get right now. With.. a couple caveats. First, it won’t open lockboxes.. yet. GE supposedly is working on this problem, and will likely have a fix out soon. Second, it’s a touchscreen-only device. The touchscreen is the best on the planet, really – I’m not kidding when I say I’ve tried them all, and this thing knocks them all out of the park.. but it’s still a touchscreen. It’s still hard to get used to typing on it, and you will always type faster on a physical keyboard. Finally, you’re limited to AT&T. I’ve had AT&T for about 5 years now, and while their coverage has improved drastically over the past several years, they still are lacking in areas where Verizon customers will be chatting away. If the iPhone were available on Verizon, and if it could open lockboxes – it would be my #1 choice.
3.Palm Pre: Forget everything you know about Palms, the Pre is in a whole new category – and a great category at that. It suffers from also not having keybox access, but it does everything else very, very well. I almost put it above the iPhone because Sprint’s coverage still trumps AT&T, but the iPhone beats it with a better/larger screen and just works better – in my opinion. Some Pre owners prefer it to the iPhone, so it’s all about personal preference. The only downside of the Pre – and the iPhone 3GS for that matter – is battery life.. or lack thereof. They simply don’t last very long when you are a heavy phone user, the Blackberry still reigns supreme in that category.
Those are the ones out there that I recommend, but I’d really keep an eye out in the next 12-18 months. Google has a phone operating system called Android, and it’s just starting to reach the stage where it’s really, really good. Phone manufacturers are finally starting to embrace it, as well as carriers – Sprint should have their first Android-based phone in the next several months, the HTC Hero, and it’s a really good device with a LOT of promise for the future.
As always, if you have any questions on devices, or plans – give me or the IT staff a call. We’ll be happy to help you pick out the right device on the right provider for your needs! Once you have it, embrace it and the shift that technology will take – remember, the one who has the information the fastest is the one who wins the race. Don’t let someone else beat you to your next client!
Quick Tip Of The Day: I know many of you are like me – on the go constantly, and if my phone isn’t glued to my ear, it’s in my hand being used for email or looking something up on the Internet. I’m sure many of you are also like me in that the phone may or may not have had a chance to be fully charged before I left, so often I’m left trying to get enough of a charge on the car charger to “get me through” while I screen calls, or forward one phone to the other that may or may not have more battery left. Well, when I saw these new Duracell chargers on Gizmodo I was pretty stoked, so I had to spend $20 to try one out. They are.. excellent! As the review said, the little charger got me about 50% on my iPhone, and a hair under 50% on my work phone – both will get me 3-4 hours of talk time. For $20, that’s pretty darn impressive. Check around at Radio Shack, Office Depot, Target or Wal-Mart and you should be able to find it. Throw your USB cable in your car, and a charged one of these – there you go!
While I got some “looks” talking on my phone with the cable dangling to the Duracell in my pocket, I didn’t mind – at least I could make calls!
Reclaim your Inbox!
Jul 1st
One of the most frequent questions I hear regards the hotsheet, and how to manage emails coming to the hotsheet when you already have a large volume of email. I’m with you, without the hotsheet I get over 100 emails a day, add that in.. and it’s a pretty large number to manage. There is, however, a very easy way to use email filters in Outlook or Outlook Web Access to allow you to reclaim your inbox. I’ll show you how to setup a filter to send hotsheet emails into their own folder, where you can manage them a bit more easily than blending them in with everything else.
First, log in to http://webmail.homeservices.com like you normally would with your HOME or Woods email account. Once logged in, first right click on your Inbox in the list of folders to the left, then left click on “Create New Folder”:
You will see a new folder come up, with an empty box next to it, in that box type “Hotsheet”, or whatever you would like to name the folder. Next, you’ll need to click the word “Options” that’s in the upper right hand corner of the screen, next to the Log Off button:
The options window has a menu to the left, locate the word “Rules” about halfway down, and left click “Rules:
On the rules pane, in the middle you’ll see this icon: 
– left click that icon, and a drop down will appear. Select this option: 
, as you can tell there are many different options, this one is basically only used when a message is sent to a distribution list – like the hotsheet or your office list. Other filters can be used in a similar manner for emails from specific senders, or with specific things in the subject – but for now we’ll stick to this one. You should now see this window:
You’ll need to click the words “people or distribution lists” which will bring up your address book. Search for either “WBR” (Woods) or “HRE” (Home). You’ll get a list that looks like this:
Double click the group with “HOTSHEET” after it, and you should see it appear in the “Message recipients” area, much like the example above. Click the “OK” button and the window will close, you will be taken back to the previous window. Now click the word “specified”, which should be underlined in blue. A window to choose a folder will appear:
Left click on the folder you created, and then hit the “OK” button. The New Rule window should now look like this, pay particular attention to the “Rule Description” area (Substitute HRE for HOME):
Now click Save, and you should be done! After the window closes, you should see something similar to this on your options window:
That’s it! Click “Mail” to the bottom left to go back to your Inbox, and now new messages sent to the Hotsheet group will filter into that folder where you can easily view and sort them all at once, instead of being mixed in your inbox. Just don’t forget about them!
Quick Tip Of The Day: Looking for a great solution to personal email? I’ve been a Gmail user since 2004, and it’s what I use to manage my personal accounts. I say accounts as I do have several, but with Gmail I’m able to import them all into my one Gmail mailbox, then I can use filters and Labels to sort them. I’ve tried it all – Hotmail, Yahoo!, ISP email (RR.com, etc), but I keep coming back to my Gmail account because it’s troublefree, fast, and easy to use.
The best part? They have a really neat set of tips to help you with your Gmail account. Try it out and enjoy!
Mid-week roundup
Jun 25th
There’s a lot of stuff going on right now, so I thought I’d make a quick post about some of the topics that have come up lately. It’s definitely our busy season!
First one, there’s an ad being aired on TV right now by a local computer store regarding issues with Windows Vista Service Pack 2, and how “22% of computers” will experience an issue with it. They, of course, are offering a $39.99 special to avoid “up to a $200 in” repair bills. Many of you have noticed this ad, and THANK YOU for calling the IT Department and I with your questions about this – it saved you $39.99.
Simply put – this is absolutely incorrect, fear-based marketing. As you know, we at HomeServices are under the MidAmerican Energy and Berkshire Hathaway “umbrella”, so we merit some pretty outstanding resources in the IT arena. Our Microsoft rep has stated that this is completely incorrect, they have not seen any rise in reported issues with Vista SP2 at Microsoft itself, or from their consumers. They highly recommend installing it, as do I, as it contains some very good updates for your computer – it’s one of the best service packs today. I’ve personally applied it to my wife’s laptop, and the kids’ computer at home – not one problem with either one, in the case of my wife’s laptop it made using the wireless much easier.
Now, could you experience problems with Vista SP2? Sure, you can experience problems with ANY Windows update – but we’re here for you in the event that you do. If you have a problem with your comptuer, feel free to contact the IT staff – we’ll fix it for you. The best part? There’s no charge to you – it’s part of the service we provide to you as being a valued HOME Real Estate or Woods Bros Realty sales associate. That’s right, your computer – the one that you own – we’ll fix for you, and not just for this. Any repair needed to your computer can be done, not just this Vista patch, the only time it will cost you anything is if they need to purchase parts to fix the problem. We’re all also available to help you pick out a new computer, or smartphone, just give us a ring or email!
Second, I’ve got a couple new favorite applications – but TweetDeck is tied for number one. I’ve got two Twitter accounts and a Facebook account to keep up with – I’ll be honest, many days I can’t keep up! TweetDeck has definitely changed that, I can arrange the interface and put all my accounts side by side for quick, easy reading. That’s right – you can now view your Facebook friends’ status updates using TweetDeck. You can even simultaneously post to multiple accounts – easily – using TweetDeck. It’s a great, easy-to-use application that may make your social networking much easier.
A common question I get is regarding music, and where to get it legally online. My OTHER new favorite app is Pandora One, I’ve been a Pandora Internet Radio user for quite some time, and Pandora One made it better. Pandora is Internet Radio that you control by creating your own stations, then you can stream it online via yoru web browser. Pandora.com itself is free, while the Pandora One service adds an application that you can install, better quality, and no ads. Between Pandora One and iTunes, that’s my recommendation for online music.
Finally, BlackBerry support – we’ve got it in full. Seems that many of you have been in the market for a new phone, and honestly – for a smartphone for a Real Estate Professional, you’re hard pressed to beat a Blackberry. I’d go with the Curve, or upcoming Tour, they’re both great devices that we fully support with our email system and now are fully supported with the GE E-Key software. If you purchase one, or already have one, contact me or the IT Staff and we’ll be happy to get your Blackberry setup with our Blackberry Enterprise Server.
Remember, we also get a great discount through Verizon Wireless (around 20%) on both new AND existings plans along with discounts on devices themselves – contact me for a flyer. For existing Alltel customers, this will work for you as well – they’re almost finished with the Alltel/Verizon merger and we’ve had success with Alltel customers having the discount applied. We also have a AT&T discount available, as well as one through Sprint. Again, a bonus for being part of the two top real estate companies in Lincoln.
Quick Tip Of The Day: Did you also know that the iPhone will fully integrate in our email system? When setting up your iPhone, select “Microsoft Exchange” for your email server type, then enter HSOA\yourusername (for me it would be HSOA\bdinger) in the username field, and your password in the password field – it’ll set everything else up itself. Your emails, contacts, and calendar will be synchronized with our email system, which will allow you to manage your calendar/contacts with Outlook or Outlook Web Access. The iPhone is an amazing device, and would be my top recommendation if it supported the GE E-Key, which it currently does not. I’ll keep my eye out for iPhone support with the eKey – if it becomes available, the iPhone 3GS would be my choice!
Managing email size limits
Mar 19th
With our updated email system, we now have a size limit of 200 megabytes in place as well as a 6 month retention policy. Or, in english, there is a limit to how large your mailbox can be and how long you can keep items in it. This was done due to legal requirements, HomeServices of America can reasonably guarantee that items of that age, and mailboxes below that size can be archived and made availble if needed. With that in mind, however, there are ways to save items beyond that limit and to effectively manage your mailbox size.
Sent/Deleted Items: By far, this is the number #1 cause of the warning sent to you about your mailbox size. Even if you delete an item, it’s still stored in the “deleted items” folder until that folder is emptied. Sent is the same case, a copy of all outgoing messages are saved by default, and won’t delete until you do so. Personally, this is the cause of every warning I get about my mailbox size, so I clean both out either daily, or at least once a week. We’ll start with deleted, using webmail all you need to do is right-click on deleted items and select “empty deleted items” like I did below:
With that click, you can empty those items, and likely that alone will put you back under the limit. If you are like me and are prone to forgetting to empty those daily, you can set webmail to empty the deleted items every time you exit. To set this up, first click “Options” in the upper-right of webmail:
Once “Options” open, to the left click “Deleted Items”:
Then check the box next to “Empty the Deleted Items folder on Logoff” and click Save: 
Now every time you log out, your deleted items will empty themselves, you don’t have to manually manage it. NOTE: for this to work properly, you need to actually click the “Logoff” button at the top right of the screen, not just close the window with the “X” on the top. If you use the X, it won’t auto-empty as it doesn’t really see that you logged off – just that your session closed.
With Sent Items, that folder is just like your Inbox – you can select multiples by using shift – click to select a whole page, then delete them. You can find Sent Items by clicking on the folder just below the Inbox off on the left of webmail:
Those two items by themselves should take care of most issues with the size limit for most people.
Archiving Inbox items:Before I begin on this one, if you have an email pertaining to a transaction that you think could have any possibility of being relevant to that transaction in the future, print it out and put it in the transaction file. By doing so, that printout will be retained in our document imaging system, and if you ever need to reference it – you’ll be able to. Many of you are already doing this, in fact some are even putting handwritten notes on the transaction file, this is a great step to take to make positively sure that relevant info is retained if needed in the future. You all are the best judge in this instance, but if you think it might be relevant enough to print out, it probably is.
That being said, email software has, over time, evolved to lend itself to being the perfect “file cabinet” for your emails. I’m as guilty as any, I switched to a Gmail account for my personal mail back in early 2004, and now I have 5948 items in that mailbox. I’m just about positive that of those, I probably will never again look at 5940 of them, but it lends itself so well to just saving “stuff” that I became a virtual email packrat. Here, on the other hand, I try to keep my Inbox items at 5 or below by the time I leave every day. During any given day that number may swell to over 100, but if I don’t need it after replying – I delete it.
That being said, there are still times – espescially here – that I need to keep an email. There are three methods to archive emails, forwarding to an offsite account (such as Gmail, Hotmail, etc), using a PST folder, and saving the whole message to disk. I prefer, by far, the latter choice. PST folders can get corrupt – meaning they’ll fail to work – and they lend themselves to being overused. Offsite accounts can have issues, and if you loose that message generally that free provider will tell you “tough”. Saving to a disk, on the other hand, ensures that you can open that file from any computer that supports messages saved in Outlook format. A great place to do this is by using the agent server, and Outlook located on it. Once you are logged in to Outlook, and are in a message you’d like to archive you can click the Office button and “Save As”:
Once you’ve clicked on “Save As” it will bring up a new window. Make sure to save it in “My Documents” and below file name change “Save as” to “Outlook Message Format”, which will ensure it saves attachments.
Click save, and the email will be saved in your My Documents folder on the agent server for future reference. You can repeat the same process if you have Outlook installed on your own personal computer, I’d recommend ensuring you have a backup plan in place if you do that – I personally use a external hard disk and a external flash drive.
If you have any questions on backups, or anything covered above, don’t hesistate to let me, the IT department, or Connie know. We’re here to help, and happy to help!
Quick Tip Of The Day: This one comes from a agent suggestion, when emailing out properties to the Hotsheets, why not include the address or area of town and the price in the subject? A great example of this would be “Ranch in Southeast Lincoln – $139,900″, if my clients are looking for a ranch in SE Lincoln, I’ll be likely to open that message. If I’m not, it will save me a lot of time deleting messages as I can just quickly see from the subject line that it doesn’t fit a buyer’s need. It’s been proven that subject lines of emails that clearly describe the, well, subject of the email will get much more relevant reads than vague subject lines. Try it out – you might be surprised, and your fellow agents will appreciate it!
Welcome – and Website update
Nov 7th
Welcome to the HomeServices of Nebraska Technology Blog! This blog will be used by various members of the HomeServices team to give updates on our wide range of technology offerings, along with tips on how to use them. You are welcome and encouraged to comment on postings, but in order to avoid “comment spam”, you will need to register before commenting. This blog will be updated at least weekly, so add the RSS feed above, or make sure to visit on a regular basis for more tips, tricks and updates.
Website Updates!
Our team has been working hard on updating www.woodsbros.com and www.homerealestate.com to keep up with the changing market. The updates we have to the sites are numerous, from a updated and faster map search to some tweaks on the property detail pages, but one we are all most exited about is the mobile site. This is a site designed specifically for cell phones and PDA’s, as they have smaller screens and run web browsers that are generally much more limited than one you would find on an actual computer. With this in mind, the new mobile site has been designed to run fast on nearly any mobile phone or PDA out on the market.
Of course I say “Nearly any” mobile phone or PDA because there are on occasion ones that it will not work on. I’ve personally tested it on a Windows Mobile phone, Palm Treo, Motorola Razr, and a Nokia on Sprint, Alltel and AT&T networks. Every phone loaded it very well, and fast, which the site was optimized for as well. To make it load quickly on phones, which many times have very limited processing, memory, and bandwidth compared to a “normal” computer, which in turn makes it look very “bare” compared to our main sites. With that in mind, here are some screenshots from the mobile site. You can visit the site by going to www.woodsbros.com or www.homerealestate.com from your mobile phone, no special address is needed as the site automatically detects that you are visiting from a mobile phone.
This is the mobile homepage. Note that at the bottom is an option to click for the Full site, as some iPhone, Windows Mobile, and Treo users may prefer that to the mobile site.
A single search result from a mobile open house search. We’ve made it basic, but included such things as links to email the agent, and the agent’s phone number along with the main picture of the home.
Mobile property detail. Again, the information presented had to be limited in order to assure it would work correctly on a variety of devices, but we try to keep the most used information by consumers available.
Mobile open house search. Your consumer can now search opens from their phone, while they are out looking!
We are very excited about this new feature, as it gives you – our agents – another competitive advantage over our competition. Your consumer can now search for properties while they are nearly anywhere with nearly any device. Just think, if you drive by a home and find it interesting, right from your mobile phone you can pull up details about it, and the contact info for the agent. With many phones, by clicking the email link you can email the listing agent – again, from your car, sitting in front of a listing!
Many more enhancements are coming soon, and are ready now, but this post can only be so big. We’re working to improve the mobile site, so any comments you may have are greatly appreciated!
UPDATE 11/17/08: It has been brought to my attention that on some versions of the Palm Treo there is a pop-up error that is occuring when certain fields are used on the mobile search. This seems to be occuring on the Treo 755p, 700p, and Sprint or Alltel 650’s due to a specific version of the web browser used in those models. We are working to find what needs to be done to make them compatible.
Recent Comments