Todd Clarke's Technology Corner2008-08-28T02:34:19ZTodd Clarke CCIMtclarke@nmapartment.comCopyright 2008, Todd Clarke CCIMSPHPBLOGIt is almost that time of year - so are the Yellow pages - good or bad? Our family has a running battle over the yellow pages.
I detest the flimsy material, the black ink that rubs off, the overwhelming number of advertisements, how poorly organized it is (is what I am looking for filed under car, auto, automobile, transportation, etc.) , how the one ton obese books lounge on the shelf, and the only thing worse than one of them is the half dozen that seem to come each year. Not for me man, no, if I can't find it on Google, or 411, then it doesn't exist.
On the other hand, my wife, loves them - she has been known to have one in the office, one at home, and one in her car - she finds them an invaluable resource (and she is right).
So imagine my surprise when I discovered this morning that our legislators think they can solve this problem (did you know its a problem?, nor did I!)
Read on if you dare dare. ]]>http://www.nmapartment.com/nma-blog/index.php?entry=entry080815-1028262008-08-15T00:00:00Z2008-08-15T00:00:00Z101 of the best computer advertisements What was your first computer?
Mine was a Commodore Vic 20 - it had 8k of RAM, and I remember saving up all summer to double its memory to 16k for a whopping $300....(today I saw a 128meg USB memory stick at Wal-Mart for $4.99).
The Vic 20 was pretty phenomenal, but using a tape drive to save your data was painfully slow, and moving up to the Commodore 64 was a big step up, but nothing like the quantum shift of the Amiga...
So take a stroll through memory lane and see which of these computers you once owned....
]]>http://www.nmapartment.com/nma-blog/index.php?entry=entry080809-1702332008-08-09T00:00:00Z2008-08-09T00:00:00ZThe problem with SPAM Some reports indicate that fully 90% of the email traffic is email you didn't want.
Today I was reading one of my favorite email newsletters - This is True and was bummed to read the following account of a large problem the newsletter author is having with Yahoo! and its potential downside to the other 85% of his newsletter readers.
(bottom line - if you want to help and you like the stories I would highly recommend subscribing to This is True )
YAHOO ALERT: I've given up trying to work with Yahoo, which represents
the largest domain subscribed to TRUE. There are more than 20,000
addresses within simple Yahoo.com domain on TRUE's distribution (plus a
couple thousand more on variants such as yahoo.co.uk, yahoo.ca, etc.)
But MOST of them are not getting TRUE anymore: Yahoo has blocked us.
Why? Because of idiots (dare I call them "yahoos"?) who ASK to be put
on this distribution, then CONFIRM that request, and ...then click the
"This is Spam" button when they don't recognize the mailing or simply
don't want it anymore. Yes, those yahoos have screwed thousands upon
thousands of others who really DO want this newsletter. Too bad: Yahoo
is listening to the yahoos instead: they're blocking it. To them, we're
"spammers" and no protestations from "spammers" count.
As far as I can tell, there's only one group of people with Yahoo
addresses who are still getting their issues: those who have at one
time found TRUE in the "spam folder" and clicked the "Not Spam" button.
But for the rest it's too late: we're now blocked, and you will NOT
find issues there so you can hit that button.
As of now, about 70 percent of the Yahoo addresses are blocked. That's
more than 15,000 folks. That's MORE than 10 percent of my entire
distribution. And that's catastrophic: it has the potential to kill
this newsletter. Nearly 15 percent of my audience, as of this week,
which means 15 percent of my revenue, including 15 percent of my ad
revenue, has suddenly stopped. It's the biggest crisis in TRUE's more
than 14 years online. And it's (sigh) right in the middle of a
worldwide economic slowdown. What lovely timing.
Yahoo is over-represented in my distribution because TRUE is so old:
We've been publishing since 1994, when Yahoo was a little collection of
links. They didn't get their millionth page view until late 1994
(according to Wikipedia), well after I had over 100,000 online readers
every week, some of whom had to go through a lot of effort to get their
issues (through BBS gateways, UUCP bang addresses, and other now-
archaic means).
Yahoo mail opened to the public in 1997 (when it acquired Rocketmail).
That was AFTER I first editorialized on what a problem spam could
become -- what's now http://www.SpamPrimer.com . I take no solace in
the fact that I was right about spam; it has grown so much that the
world's first for-profit e-mail publication is having massive delivery
problems because its shiny little jewel can't stand out among the
garbage.
Yeah, I'm mad: it's MY OWN READERS who have done this. Addled idiots
can't click "unsubscribe" after they asked to get these issues, lumping
the white hat guy who warned them about spam in with the criminals who
send spam. But they're gone now: they don't see the carnage they
caused, even if they liked, even loved, TRUE. It's like shooting a gun
into a crowd of people, then walking away before seeing what happened.
I've had occasional problems with other big mail sites too, like AOL,
Hotmail/MSN, and more, usually because of those same false "this is
spam" complaints. Currently, I *think* all those other problems are
cleared up, but I'm already seeing a revenue slide. It will likely get
worse over time. Can I reverse it and keep TRUE going? I'm not sure.
It's possible TRUE will become Premium-ONLY (plus the few newspapers
who carry it), which would certify you all as victims of the spam war.
CAN YOU HELP? Yes. Complain to your provider EVERY TIME you miss an
issue. Tell them you ASKED to get TRUE *and* responded to a
verification request, and that no one can get on the distribution
without BOTH of those steps. Spammers don't do that: they add you
whether you want their mail or not. (And when was the last time you
WANTED spam?!) If you complain, maybe they'll get the message that
their customers really want TRUE and other legitimate e-mail
publications. But if they don't listen, give your business to someone
else!
Next, HELP ME replace those tens of thousands of lost readers. I've
asked you again (and again and again!) to help "spread the word". Few
have bothered. If you really can't be bothered, you may lose TRUE
forever. PLEASE tell 50 friends NOW! I need them more than ever. PLEASE
promote TRUE on your web site or blog. REPORTERS: I need articles in
print publications. I can help you with pretty much any angle you want.
And if you have $24 to spare, help prove that TRUE is worthy of your
support: upgrade to a Premium subscription (I just hope you have a non-
Yahoo address for it). Or sign up for two years and get the second year
for just $19. (And yes, sales of "Get Out of Hell Free" cards and
related products help too, not to mention TRUE book collections:
http://www.GOOHF.com and http://www.thisistrue.com/books.html are the
places to go for those). If you've done any of these things, THANK YOU:
you helped.
It IS possible to turn this disaster into a new start, but only with
help. If you care about TRUE, I need YOUR help right now. Hit delete
and TRUE may go away, or DO SOMETHING yourself, rather than hope
someone else does. Really; it's that simple. Do you care?
]]>http://www.nmapartment.com/nma-blog/index.php?entry=entry080801-2240172008-08-02T00:00:00Z2008-08-02T00:00:00ZDo you know where your laptop is? So what are really the chances of you and your laptop (and its precious data) having permanent seperation?
According to this story featured in EnGadget some 120,000 laptops are lost in airport security on an annual basis.
But get this - this is only in the top 36 airports in the country...
Some quick research turned up some 2,200+ airports in the United States, but the top 36 generate 75% of the total enplanements (persons boarding an airplane), so the total number of laptops "lost" in an airport in a year is likely much higher...
That said with some 793,000,000 enplanements and 120,000 laptops lost, means that you have less than 0.02% chance of losing yours...]]>http://www.nmapartment.com/nma-blog/index.php?entry=entry080715-0621472008-07-15T00:00:00Z2008-07-15T00:00:00ZiPhone updates - the software might be better than the hardware? What hasn't received a lot of hype is the upgrad made to the older generation of iPhone (as well as the new).
Version 2.0 of the iPhone OS is a major improvement, and unlike Microsoft who continues to add complexity to every new layer of OS (have you tried to change your screen resolution in Vista? its like 3 extra steps from XP)
Take for example the update to the iPhone's email software - deleting emails used to be a fingerswipe-confirm or edit (then turn the knob, confirm) 2 to 3 step process.
GONE! - now its a check box and a mass delete - much improved -thank you Apple!]]>http://www.nmapartment.com/nma-blog/index.php?entry=entry080714-1643162008-07-14T00:00:00Z2008-07-14T00:00:00ZA tribute to tech in the real world... I am a couple of days late of acknowledging the 100th birthday o an author who I believe inspired the every day use of technology.
Ian Fleming Ian Fleming was born on May 28th, 1908 in Mayfair, England.
Best known as the creator of Secret Agent 007, James Bond, Fleming also served in WW II and according to wikipedia.org he was the mastermind behind several Allied plans to thwart Germany's efforts including GoldenEye
"Fleming also formulated Operation Goldeneye, a plan to maintain communication with Gibraltar as well as a plan of defence in the unlikely event that Spain joined the Axis Powers and, together with Germany, invaded the Mediterranean colony."
As child was an avid Ian Fleming reader and I read all 21 of his James Bond novels and/or short stories.
No doubt James Bond's uses of technology and gadgets influenced my desire to implement technology in as many places as I have.
One of his lesser known books was adopted for a movie also became a child hood favorite...
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
As the allies left WW II behind and entered the cold war, Fleming continued to have an impact on world affairs, most notably and apparently as the inspiration behind President John F. Kennedy's attempts to have Fidel Castro ridiculed.
Today thought, we celebrate the man who single handily made tech cool and inspired a generation of adventure follower's to want to collect and use the latest tech gadgets.
Hats off to Mr. Fleming!
]]>http://www.nmapartment.com/nma-blog/index.php?entry=entry080530-0627082008-05-30T00:00:00Z2008-05-30T00:00:00ZNow that is a fast scanner!
Gizmodo reported earlier this week on my dream scanner - at 3,000 pages now that is fast!
Now if only I had the quarter millon dollars it takes to buy one...]]>http://www.nmapartment.com/nma-blog/index.php?entry=entry080427-1818142008-04-28T00:00:00Z2008-04-28T00:00:00ZAmazing programming - play PacMan in excel? I found this translated webpage via untranslated website that features some ingenious programmers who figured out how to make a macro in Microsoft Excel.... to Play Pac Man.
I downloaded the zip file and confirmed it work.
If you are an 1980s game fan - they also have many other games.
Amazing!
]]>http://www.nmapartment.com/nma-blog/index.php?entry=entry080427-1514342008-04-27T00:00:00Z2008-04-27T00:00:00ZAstronaut, Crab, or Nomad - which technology traveler are you? My favorite magazine, The Economist has a fabulous article this week on the impact of technology and our ability as a society to be more mobile.
Take a look at the article and let me know which catergory of traveler you fall into.]]>http://www.nmapartment.com/nma-blog/index.php?entry=entry080416-0803522008-04-16T00:00:00Z2008-04-16T00:00:00ZHow to earn a 207% IRR by moving towards a paperless officeCIRE Magazine .
Looking for a phenomenal return on investment? Want to increase services while gaining a competitive advantage? Believe it or not, a modest investment in technology coupled with a modified work flow process could be one of the best investments you make in 2008.
The biggest gains in a paperless office can generally be found in six arenas:
- Increased turn around in document management: no more waiting for snail mail, faxes or even overnight delivery – pull together files for your clients on a moments notice
- Improvement in staff efficiency: reducing your staffs or agents time spent in fax queues, preparing snail mail, or filing documents by moving digital documents around at their own convenience
- Severing the chain to the office: a small laptop filled with you all of your documents and an always on internet connection is all your sales force needs to be productive whether they are in the home town or in the field doing business
- Reduction in storage: take a quick inventory of your office and storage units - how much are you paying to store your client’s paper? As a rough rule of thumb, an entire file cabinet will fill one 4.7 gigabyte DVD disc.
- Competitive advantage: being able to move documents at the speed of a mouse is advantage to your client that you should be promoted at every opportunity. Maintaining an always accessible backup of your client’s important documents enhances the chances of return business.
- Backups: You do have one right? I don’t mean of your harddrive – what happened if your office had a fire tomorrow – where is the backup of that file cabinet? Backing up decades of digital documents can be done in less than one half day and then moved offsite or out of state for truly effective backups.
Physical Needs/Tools: Monitor
The most important tool in a paperless office is a monitor or two that support two 8.5”x 11” documents side by side – allowing the user to work on one document while reviewing the other. If you find yourself printing a document to review it, your already one step backwards from the efficiency of a truly paperless office. Most laptops made in the last four years support two screens (laptop + monitor) or any of Samsung’s large screen monitors (21”+ at 1600x1200 or higher resolution) do a great job with supporting multiple documents on one screen. If you are a fan or follower of the Edward Tufte design philosophies, you know the higher the resolution the better.
Laptop
It goes without saying that you need a computer to make the paperless office work – but contemplate a new small laptop – one that weighs less than 3 lbs. (I currently use the Sony TZ). If your laptop is easy to carry then you are much more likely to take it with you to meetings or home, so size does matter. While you are at it, seek out a laptop with an always on Internet, also called WWAN connection – being able to fax or email a document to a client from your remote cabin location 180 miles from your favorite Kinko’s is genuinely convenient. For the ultimate in portability – consider a laptop like the OQO-2, it weighs less than a pound, comes with always on Internet, is powerful enough to run Windows Vista and can be outfitted with a 120 gigabyte harddrive – enough to hold a century of transactions.
A digital fax service
Don’t think of a fax machine as a piece of hardware anchored in your office but rather as a client driven scanner to your digital file cabinet. Whether you use jfax, efax or another service doesn’t really matter – what does matter is dumping your fax machine in the dumpster as soon as possible – moving to an always on fax service that allows you to send and receive faxes in your email box is worth the $9.95 to $14.95 these services charge monthly. An additional fee will gain you a toll-free fax that your clients will truly love.
Scanner
This is one component of your hardware that is important to be brand specific. Our office has tried dozens of all in one devices, photo scanners, and even paper scanners to end with one recommendation – any of the Fujitsu Scansnap scanners – these devices hold 30 pages, scan both sides of a page in seconds, recoge color on the fly and save to a PDF format with the press of one button.
On another note, while fancy expensive office mopiers or multifunction scanners/printers/copiers are very high tech, you’ve just moved the inefficient waiting in line from the fax machine to the new device – far better to have a scanner on each desk as you work towards freeing your documents from their digital analog format.
If you have large format documents – add the phone number for the local architectural supply company to your speed dial as they can scan and convert building plans to a PDF format on a CDROM for a nominal fee.
Software
On the software side of things, only two tools are needed – one to read/edit/manipulate documents and another to search them.
For the creation, reading, and filing of digital documents, the industry standard is Adobe Acrobat - seek out version 7 or higher (the Fujitsu Scansnap comes with a free copy) and be content knowing you will most likely never use 95% of what the software has to offer. Before you consider another piece of software, fast forward twenty years and make your best guess as to what software will be able to read a 20 year old document.
Using an effective search engine tool that can read your documents like the one included in Windows Vista, or the free Google desktop search will assist users who are organizationally impaired.
Legal Considerations This year celebrated the 25th anniversary of the personal computer and the 7th anniversary since President Clinton signed the and yet most businesses still lurch around with a file cabinet on their back with the incorrect impression that they are required to keep documents in a paper format. Check with your local Real Estate Commission and if you are met with resistence, remind them of President Clinton’s bill known as the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act and is known as "E-SIGN”. This Act requires governments to support the move to digital documents.
The Return And where did that fantastic IRR calculation come from?
The Process Facing the overwhelming number of files and documents to scan, many professionals resist the conversion to digital paper hoping for an easier solution, or a new year’s resolution to start afresh.
While technology is a necessary component for the paperless office, equally important is the adoption of a process to integrate digital documents in your workflow. These steps include implementing a policy for when documents are scanned, physically scanning documents, organizing documents for storage, developing a backup system for digital documents and implementing a process to allow you or your clients to retrieve documents easily.
When to Scan While some firms scan documents the moment they physically enter their space, other firms wait until the document is put into “action” or are going to be transmitted to other parties. Before you start scanning documents consider what process works best with your current workflow. At NM Apartment Advisors, our agents scan documents upon receipt, allowing them to carry all of their files in a two pound notebook, 24/7/365.
Who Scans Ownership of files can often be equated with the person who is responsible for scanning files – we have discovered that if it is your file and your client, you are much more likely to spend the time making sure all pages are scanned, and naming the file in a conventional format that allows for an a quick easy scan any file folder to find the correct document. Our naming convention includes everything anyone would need to decipher what is in the file without having to read it – this includes property name, city, client’s name, type of document, status, version and date. So a purchase agreement signed by the seller on a property located at 6101 Sequoia NW might be named something like [ your data directory\listings\6101SequoiaNWABQ\PurchaseAgreement-BuyerAllied-SignedbySeller-12182007.pdf ] .
How to organize storage As the file is named, it must also be stored in a process that matches your office setup – so in our office, all agent’s have a data directory and nested inside of that they have organized their files in the most accessed to least accessed system – so their top directories are active listings and client’s, while their bottom directories are archived deals, closing, and client files.
Let’s assume you have a central DATA or MY DOCUMENTS directory – the folders inside of it might be nested like so:
Directory Name Used for Logic
0-Day2Day\ Email, Outlook, Palm files, Quickbooks These files are being accessed hourly
1-Listings\ Current properties – could be further disaggregated by type (land, multifamily, office, etc.) These files are being accessed daily/weekly
2-Clients\ Use a naming convention that matches your customer relationship manager AND you may have multiple clients in this directory (i.e. USAA_ TX_deal, USAA_NM_deal, etc.) These files are being accessed daily/weekly
3-Personal\ Store your resume, letters to friends, all those bad internet jokes, etc. here These files are being accessed weekly/monthly
4-Family\ This is where you store the cute pictures of your kids, your vacation plans, family budgets, etc. These files are being accessed monthly/quarterly
5-ArchivedListings\ Once a deal is closed this is where it goes until you get a chance to sell it again These files are being accessed quarterly/annually
6-ArchivedClients\ Once a customer completes a transaction on a property this is where it goes until you get a chance to sell it again These files are being accessed quarterly/annually
7-ArchivedPersonal\ Past resumes, former jobs, etc. are moved here These files are being accessed quarterly/annually
8-ArchivedFamily\ Past vacations, old photos, previous school years homework, etc. are moved here These files are being accessed quarterly/annually
9-Misc\ Anything you’ve scanned that you may not want to keep These files are being accessed monthly/quarterly
By labeling your directories names with a beginning number, you can match directories (1 & 5 are deals, 2 & 6 are clients, etc.) AND you can tap the number on the keyboard as a shortcut to moving to that directory.
Finally, in Windows XP or Vista – the user can right click on any given data directory and SEND TO – COMPRESSED FILE to create one .zip file that can be sent to co-workers, clients, the qualifying broker, etc.
Backups By organizing your data based on frequency of use, you’ve the backup process even easier. Daily information can be backed up in a few minutes using an inexpensive 4, 8, or 12 gigabyte USB drive. Weekly backups can be burned to DVD discs which hold 4.7 gigabytes in a matter of an hour or so, while monthly backups can be performed on all of the data to Blu-Ray discs which hold 25 to 50 gigabytes and take four hours or so to backup.
As a temporary backup, external data drives varying in capacity from 160 gigabytes to 2 terabytes can be purchased and connected inexpensively through the USB 2.0 or Firewire ports. Keep in mind that these drives have a limited lifespan and are subject to the same issues of safety and security that your laptop or desktop is – so they should only be used to move data from machine to machine or as a temporary backup lacking anything else.
Automated network backup systems work well, but require the user to be connected to the office network and physically limit your backups to one location – so use these only for interim backups.
Avoid at all costs medium or devices that are specialized in nature or that can be easily altered by the physical environment – this includes tape drives, Boolean drives, or any of the various drive cartridges. If you need to access that data on that medium in 10 years and that company is out of business will you be trolling on eBay for a 10 year old piece of technology to restore your old data?
Web based back ups, while convenient, bring into question who owns your data, who has access to your data, and what happens to your data if the backup company becomes victim of the next dot bomb era.
Depending on the amount of data that must be stored, the best final backup medium is CD-R, DVD-R or Blu-Ray. If kept in a nice scratch proof CD folio in a dark location, like a bank safe deposit box, these discs can be readily read on future format drives decades from now.
Years from now, you will be ecstatic you made monthly backups as files often become infected or corrupted, and being able to go back one month or many months prior to that backup and find a clean file is invaluable.
Client Access Whether you develop your own, pay a subscription based service or use any of the many title company services, there are an abundance of web based tools that allow you to create a virtual closing room to upload your files. This provides your client’s 24/7/365 access to the status of their transaction as well as all of the relevant files.
Envision the day when you leave the office, desk clear of all paper and clutter, all of your information secure in your two pound laptop, improving your efficiency, and offering a competitive advantage to your clients, and of course, how many places can you achieve a 207% IRR.
;)