So you deleted it, eh?

It happens to even the elite amongst the computer savvy ... It is usually followed by a primal utterance such as: AAAArg, oops, ugh, Ahh, Jehosafat, or some other unkind words that I do not use in mixed company.

Yes, I am talking about the dreaded accidental deletion of several paragraphs of text, or that mouse click that you wish you could take back...

Due to the warped sense of humor of whatever force in the universe that controls these events, they seem to increase in direct proportion to the importance of the work at hand. If you are like me, you didn't click save all day and you are on a deadline.

Never fear, if you did not panic and close the file you can simply press and hold the Ctrl key and (whilst holding Ctrl) press the Z key. This performs the Undo command. This works in most applications, even Windows Explorer.

In some cases, you might be able to undo several steps. This depends on the application though.

If you never bother to learn any other hotkey, this one is worth its weight in gold!

A Few Good Sites

43Marks.com –This is a fantastic page to set as your homepage. It allows you to store your favorite sites in neatly organized categories. You can use the links that are on the site by default or you can customize the list, either way, it is extremely handy.

iGoogle.com –I know I have mentioned this one about a zillion times, but good is good and some of the tools Google is cranking out are just plain stellar।

• Gmail allows you to grab email from all your accounts and keep it accessible online (very awesome if you have multiple email accounts like me)
• Calendar allows you to keep one or more calendars online that you can share with other users। This is extremely useful to coordinate your schedule with clients, family and associates.
• Webmaster Tools If you haven't checked into Google's Webmaster Tools and you are a site owner; what are you waiting for?
• Blogger If you have been saying "I really need to start blogging।" but have no clue how to go about it, here's your big chance. 15 minutes is all it will take to sign up for your free blog.

There are so many other useful tools that Google offers I can't even begin to list them all। You will just have to poke around and see for yourself.

Beam-it-up-scotty.com This snappy little site allows you to send files to your cellphone। What really makes this site great is the simple fact that you don't need to register. Just upload your files and away you go.

PDFhammer.com Edit PDFs online for free। I don't know about you, but I get really tired of Adobe's stranglehold over the PDF format.While it is extremely handy to send a PDF to anyone that can download Acrobat Reader, if you ever have to edit one, look out... PDFhammer solves that for you.

HitMeLater.com –Allows you to send an email to yourself that will be delivered at a later time or date. Again, there is no need to register. Just send or forward the email to Wednesday@HitMeLater.com and presto, the email is sent to you Wednesday. If you send it to 3@hitmelater.com then you will get the email in 3 hours. How cool is that? Check out the site for more details.

Make a note…

Every now and then I come across a tool or program that goes way beyond cool. The program that I’m about to tell you about is such a program. In fact it is completely off the coolness charts.
Actually, I’ve heard about this one for some time, but I just never got around to taking a look at it। Jott.com is a service that allows you to make a call from any phone and send a note to either yourself or somebody that you have set up a your Jott network. It converts your speech into text and sends I dare you or the recipient an e-mail message with an optional text message reminder. You can set the date and time that the text message will be sent to you or the recipient. How convenient is that?

If you are anything like me, you are tasked with an impossible number of things to do every day। Even though I take notes, voice mail, and e-mail myself, occasionally something falls through the cracks. To make matters worse, it is likely to be something important. Jott.com really comes in handy. If I am driving in my car, I can make a quick call ( I have it on speed dial) to Jott.com and send myself ( or someone else) a reminder for whatever it is that needs to be remembered.

It really could not be any easier। Once I have made the call to Jott.com an automated voice asks me; “What would you like to Jott?” Then, I simply say the name of the person ( including myself) that I would like to e-mail. And I simply wait for the automated voice to prompt me to begin my message. When the time is up the automated voice repeats the information to ensure that is correct and then asks me if I want to leave another Jott.

Of course, with any speech recognition program you have to leave some margin for error। In other words don’t expect to write the great American novel while you’re driving down the road. However, Jott.com is likely to approve quite instrumental to how business is done in the coming years.

In both the basic and free version you can leave messages up to fifteen seconds in length. The pro version allows you to record messages up to 30 seconds long. Additionally, there are many other features that can really help you get a handle and keep pace with the frantic schedule that is a byproduct of modern life. You will have to go and see for yourself. It’s easy, it’s free and it totally rocks.

What to do if you can't open an email attachment ...

"Why can't I open it? "

So you have recieved an important file or document in your email and no matter what you do, it just won't open. Worse yet, it is a Word document, or PDF and you have Word. According to "Murphy's Law" the amount of time that you will have to solve the problem will be inversely proportional to how important it is to get it opened immediately...

Well, there is good news... In most cases it is simply a matter of upgrading the application used to open the file. You can usually tell what program you will need by looking at the file extension. The File Extension is the three to four letters that follow the dot. For example if you received a file called Something.docx, docx is the file extension.

Computers use file extensions to determine what application is needed to open any particular file.

If you can not see the file extension, you can enable them by going to Start > Control Panel > Folder Options and then remove the checkmark from the "Hide Extensions of Known File Types" option.

Here is a list of common file extensions and the programs needed to open them:

.Doc and .Docx	Microsoft Word	A free upgrade is needed to open .docx files in versions of word older than Word 2007. You can download it here.
.Pdf	Adobe Acrobat Reader	If you have problems with this type of file, you may have an outdated or corrupt version
.jpg, .gif, .bmp, .tiff	Anything that will open images.	If you don't have something suitable then try Picasa
.psd	Adobe Photoshop	This one is a bit pricey. You can find more information here.

Good luck & I hope you make that deadline...

Social Media

Social Media Mania... What is it? Does it work? How can you get in on it? How much time does it take? If you have been asking yourself these questions and more then read on.

Social networking can be rewarding if done correctly. The most important thing is to be consistent and add a little content daily. If you spend 15-20 minutes a day networking online, the dividends can be phenomenal. By simply leaving messages here and there you can make vast improvements to your bottom line.

You see, there are many different things that happen when you begin to post content online.

You will:

Reach people directly –The people that read your articles and postings will begin to develop trust and generally respect you as a professional (this of course depends entirely on you...)
Attain a higher page rank –Ask any SEO (Search Engine Optimazation) professional that is worth his salt and he will tell you that Google is the 800 lb gorilla of search engines and "Link Popularity" is the 800 lb gorilla of Google's page ranking system. More on this later.
Save Money –Paying an SEO company can cost big bucks with little or no gaurantee of any results. By utilizing online guerilla marketing techniques you can produce some serious results assuming you put in the time and energy.
Personalize your business –By using social media to publish your own messages in your own words, you give your business that personal touch. This can go a long way when somebody is making a decision. If there is a positive personal bond (even a slight one) that is often enough to tip the scales in your favor.
Become technically savvy –As a matter of course, by blogging, working on a Facebook profile, posting on forums etc... your technical prowess will increase almost effortlessly. Once you start to enjoy what you do online, you will just start "picking things up". With a little time, you will become ... *gasp* ... proficient...
Make friends and contacts –Yup. From all over the world. There's a lot of good people out there and you may be surprised at the aquaintances you may make. Perhaps even an old long lost friend...

Your results (at first) will probably not be significant as your readership will be low. However, over time, if you keep it up you will see things improve. Slowly at first, and then with more speed until it hits a "Critical Mass". Once it reaches that level your site will gain speed all on it's own.


This will not happen by itself of course. The keys to success are:

Do NOT use your blog/article to directly market business. This is a common mistake by many people when they are in a hurry and just want to get something out there, but people are pretty resiliant to direct online marketing. They have to deal with spam, popups, popunders, banners and a million other distractions. Take your time to be different.
Continuity –Post on a regular basis. Of course it is best if you post every day, but if this is not possible try to post at least weekly (though spend a little more time on it). A cobweb is a spiderweb with no spider... Don't let your blog/site become a cobweb. Maintain new a fresh content.
Be magnetic –Give them a reason to come back. Whether that is new information, photos/content, giveaway or a contest...whatever, just give them a reason to come back!
Be useful –If you take the time to write things that are informative or otherwise useful then you will make yourself an asset to others. This will do a number of things:
Cause others to link to your blog/article thereby increasing the rank of your blog/article.
Based on the increased ranking of your blog/article any links to your actual Web site from that page will have a higher link popularity value ...
The higher ranking will provide your pages with more visibility, which will attract more readers, which will start the whole cycle all over again.
Social Networking is a powerful tool through which you can market your Web site and you business in a cost effective and efficient manner. It is not magic though... It takes persistance and dedication. Just stick to it, spend 20-30 minutes a day, and you will be pleasantly surprised at how rewarding it can be.

How to make money and generate traffic online

At risk of giving away some of my best secrets, I would like to share some ideas regarding online lead generation. I know many of you are looking for new and innovative ways to spur new business and competition online can be formidable. As scores of REALTOR® begin to look to the Web and alternative methods of marketing there are many questions that have left many seeking direction. It seems that everybody is looking to sell you the "magic bullet" that will attract the teaming masses to line up and buy or list their properties... "You have to do this..." "You need one of these..." "Oh, you haven't been doing _____ yet?" Of course, each so-called "magic bullet" has a price attached.

So how are you supposed to know what is going to work and what is a bag of horsefeathers? How should you spend your marketing dollars to acheive the greatest effect? How can you market your business without actually spending money? Who should you believe, who can you trust?

Well, fortunately, there are some things that you can do that will give you a leg up. All that is required from you is: a fair bit of know-how, time, elbow-grease, patience and tenacity. Oh and a marketing budget is useful (but not necessary).

The first thing you should know is; there is no "Magic Bullet", so don't kid yourself. However, there is a lot that you can do:

Optimize your site –By this I am talking about choosing some key words and phrases that you would most like to promote. Once you have determined your key phrases you can tailor your text to use those words and phrases. Don't go overboard though, if you are thinking about adding your phrase 1,000 times in a tiny font on the bottom of the page the same color as the background (these are known as spider lines) don't. Search engines have caught on to this and many other techniques (known as search engine spamming) and will penalize your site in their listings. The trick is; use your key phrases as much as possible, but write for humans, do not try to scam the search engines. It will most likely backfire if you do.

Be wary of SEO companies –There are some stellar Search Engine Optimization Companies out there, BUT there are many not-so-stellar SEO companies as well and some downright rip-off artists to boot. If you choose to hire an SEO company be very careful. I would look for a money back guarantee or only pay for performance... You will probably be roped into a contract so use as much caution as a naked man climbing a barbed wire fence when choosing ...

Links make the Web go round – Not only do links provide you with direct traffic, they also raise your ranking in search engines as well. Not only do search engines index your text, they keep track of all the links on it as well. Now, that doesn't really matter very much (as long as you don't have too many "outbound" links). What does matter though; how many Websites (inbound links) have links to your site. The philosophy here is simple; Website A has more links to it than Website B, therefore Website A should get a higher rankiing... Be careful with links as well: Links from sites with a high page rank will be given a higher value than those coming from pages with a low rank. If a page is linking to your site from a "link farm" (a Website that is nothing more than a list of links, a.k.a. free-for-all-links, a.k.a. link exchanges ... that exists to allow people to post a link to their site for the sole purpose of increasing link popularity) your site may be penalized in its page rank.

Talk it up online! –This is a big one. It will take time and effort, but it can be fun and rewarding. There are many venues through which you can practice the gift of gab... My recommendation here is; don't set out to market yourself. Provide news, information and your opinion on things, but if you go straight for the "sell" then you will most likely turn your readers off and they will move on... If you provide a genuine service, the will come back in droves.
Blogs –You are really missing the boat if you are blogging regularly. I know some of you are still getting your feet under you in cyberspace and may not fully understand the blogging sensation. In any case, you can grab a free blog at Blogger.com. All you have to do is sign up. It's free, easy and powerful. Just spend 20 minutes a day blogging as part of your routine and you will be surprised at the results. Not only will you gain the respect of your readers as a professional, and possible their business, you will also be promoting your Website and raising it's search engine ranking via link popularity.

Community Forums –These are very similar to blogs, but it is more of an online community where people can post messages back and forth in a message (known as a thread). The remarkable thing here is; the forum doesn't even need to be about real estate. Yep, you can chit chat about golf, sailing, or the price of tea in China. It doesn't matter. The trick here is; put a tagline & a link to your Website in your signature. Then every time you post, it will provide you with a link that will drive direct traffic & increase your link popularity with the Search Engines....
Social Networks –Not just for college kids anymore... Social Networks such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and others can help your potential clients learn a little more about you & your services. LinkedIn (a business oriented site) provides many tools that you can use to build a network. I recommend putting a profile on all of them, but concentrating on LinkedIn. If you know me, feel free to add me to your network..

MMORPG's –Massive Multi-Player Online Roleplaying Games may seem like they are kid's stuff, but MMORPG's such as 2ndlife & the Sims can be powerful marketing tools. With several heavy hitters in the corporate world gobbling up Online real estate in these games, perhaps you should think about doing the same..

YouTube –YouTube is considered by some to be an excellent venue to get the word out. I personally believe it is a double edged sword. If you can pull off videos that make you appear reasonably professional then go for it. Again, link back to your site!!!

How Search Engines Work ...

Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Dogpile and a whole gang of other search engine sites all work on the same basic principles. Find Web pages, index the content and return results when a user enters a "search".

Simple enough right? At first blush, this is basically all there is to it, however, when you look a little deeper, there seems to be a bit more than meets the eye at work here ...

When a search engine receives a Website submission (usually from the Webmaster that created it) it adds that Website to a queue of Websites waiting to be indexed. Once the search engine is ready to index the Website it runs a program commonly known as a "Spider".

The search engine spider reads the code on the site and removes everything but the text and links. Then it counts how many words exist on the page. Next, it removes common words such as: the, as, if, that, he, she, I, to etc ... and keeps the rest.

Then it counts how many times each word and phrase appears within the text. This is known as the keyword density ratio. For example; a real estate Website may have the phrase "New Homes" appearing 15 times out of a total of 1,423 words. This makes the keyword density of the phrase "New Homes" 15:1,423.

Still with me? Hang in there, it will make more sense in a moment.

The spider adds this information to the search engine database (known as indexing). When a user enters a search for New Homes the search engine looks in it's database and returns the results with the highest keyword density ratio.

Cool.

Finished right?

Well no. That worked in the early days of the Internet. Unfortunately, over time, some unscrupulous Webmasters began to figure out ways to beat the system. They then began to add keywords to their Websites in tiny fonts that matched the background color. This rendered the text invisible to users but since the search engines read the code they see it.

This technique is known as using "Spider Lines". Ultimately it got pretty obnoxious and porn and other undesirable sites began to appear even with the most benign search terms (this is now known as search engine spamming). Therefore, most of the search engines began to filter the keyword density and if it was to high the offending Website would be dropped from the database.

The search engine spammers then adapted to this and began to enter entire dictionaries in their spiderlines rather than the same terms over and over. This of course resulted in very inaccurate searches. Search engines began to allow the use of "Meta Tags" to give the search engines a clue to which terms were actually keywords. This of course, led to more abuse by search engine spamming. The cycle of oneupmanship continued.

This eventually led to "Link Popularity." Link popularity is the method of determining site ranking based upon how many other sites (and the ranking of those sites as well) that link to a particular site. In other words it is a count of incoming links. For example; if you had a Website (we'll call it mysite.com) and 50 other Websites contained links to mysite.com then your link popularity would be 50 (Again, remember that the quality and ranking of the linking site has a bearing also, but let's keep it simple.). A Website such as Amazon.com for instance can have millions of incoming links. By the search engine's reasoning Amazon.com is a more important site and therefore gets a higher page ranking.

Link popularity is the de-facto 800 lb gorilla when determining site ranking currently. It is difficult to falsely manipulate and a fairly accurate indication of the importance of a site.

How to get to the top of Google

Links and Spiders and Indexes ... Oh My!

Let's face it, there are millions of real estate professionals competing for similar keywords. Not only just REALTORS®, but Title insurance companies, lenders and anybody related to the real estate industry. So we are talking about a lot of people that are after the exact same thing you are after. The Websites that are included on the first 3-4 pages of a good keyword are almost bound to succeed. Of course the trick is getting there and you can bet they want to stay.

So what do you do? Shell out the big bucks to a professional SEO company? They can't really guarantee anything. In fact they don't have any more power over your rankings then you do. Before you resign yourself to page ranking #234,567th there is a lot you can do to come out on top. First thing you should know are the basics of how a search engine works.
Search engines at the simplest level are nothing more than a large database (OK, a really, really large database). A database is simply a container for information. Think of a craft organizer, or a tackle box ... Each compartment stores something. The different compartments make it simple to sort things. As far as databases are concerned we are storing and sorting data.

Simple right?

Well, Google, Yahoo, MSN etc... are more or less, massive databases. The web page that you see (or the search field in your toolbar if you like) are what is known as a Front End.

The part you see = The Front EndThe massive, scary database that you don't see = The Back End

OK, so when a user enters a search, they are asking the search engine to look into its' database and return the proper information.

Still with me? Good. Once the search is entered the search engine will return the results sorted by the websites page ranking. In a nutshell; the search engine attempts to return the results in order of relevance to the user. It is a relatively complicated process and it uses many parameters (known as algorithms) to accomplish this. However, to keep things simple let's look at the following guidelines. SEO is a complicated thing and the following guidelines probably aren't going to pole vault you to the top, but it is a good start...
Use as much text as possible.
Search Engines index all text on a website excluding common words like: the, that, then, at, a, I, when etc...
Search Engines don't care how pretty your site is. They can not index pictures or images and can not make a distinction between a picture of a flower and a picture of a fire breathing goat... Therefore, do not skimp on text!
The number of times a word or phrase appears in the text compared to the number of words in total is known as keyword density. For instance, if the phrase "Real Estate" appears 15 times out of a total of 135 words then your keyword density ratio is 15:135
In the early days of search engines this was the primary factor to determine page rank. It wasn't long before unscrupulous webmasters figured this out and began to use "spider-lines"... Text in the smallest point size in a color to match the background. This rendered the text invisible to the user, but the search engine would still index it. Techniques such as this to artificially raise page rank became known as search engine spamming.
Most search engines will either penalize or delist a Website using spamming techniques.
The keyword density should high, but not too high. If it goes past an undisclosed threshold then your site could be penalized
Link popularity is currently the largest factor in determining page rank. Link popularity is based on the number of external Websites that link TO your site.
Try exchanging links with other Websites in similar, but non competing industries. For example: Title Companies, Insurance Companies, Home Warranty Companies etc...


These are just a few of the techniques commonly employed to boost page rank. If you are interested in more advanced techniques

Faster!

Perhaps you have been noticing that the "Ol Gray Box" ain't what it used to be. Web pages are loading slowly... It seems to take a lot of time to boot... The computer freezes if you have more than three windows open, etc...

Assuming that you don't have a virus, or an overheating issue, then you are probably low on RAM.

Random access memory, or simply "memory" is what the computer uses to store files that are currently running. This is not to be confused with the hard drive which stores files that are not currently in use. So for clarity's sake, it doesn't matter (at least not regarding memory) how many programs you have on your computer, but rather how large they are and how many you need to run at the same time...

By adding more RAM to your computer you allow the processor (the "brain") to have more workspace. This allows the machine to operate more efficiently. You see, when a computer does not have enough memory (working space) then it has to access the much slower hard drive more often. This results in a big performance degredation.

It is fairly simple to install new ram yourself. However, most decent computer shops will not charge very much and may be the way to go if you are computer phobic. Make sure they are not charging more then 10-15 bucks for the service and that they are putting in the correct type of RAM (they should know).

RAM modules are relatively inexpensive and offer a substantial performance boost. For today's Rich Internet Applications I recommend at least 1 Gigabyte of RAM. You can get away with 512 Mb but you will be much better off if you have at least 1Gb.

Good luck and happy computing!

Google Chrome

Google® Chrome®

Don't look now, but Google® just upped the ante online ...

Yep, Google® just launched a brand new web browser. They are calling it Chrome® and it is now available in beta (a soft release for testing purposes). This is a significant step forward for Google and raises the stakes in the competition between Microsoft®, Yahoo® and AOL® in the all out battle for your attention.

While a Google browser has been long rumored, the actual launch of Chrome brings a new contender to the browser wars. You can download Chrome Here. It is a very simple approach to Web browsing and offers a simple easy to use interface.

Intel may not be the only thing inside ...

Into every infrastructure a bit of disaster must fall... As a long time I.T. guy, I know this. Throughout the years I have dealt with all sorts and manners of data loss ranging from hardware failures to virus infestations. I have recovered hundreds of systems under a variety of circumstances ... Fortunately however, I have never had a domain crash. I have prepared for them. I know what to do ... I have backups of the backups with complete sets offsite. I have worked to Still, it is not an event any I.T. department wants to deal with.
The other day when I walked into work my AE informed the that the network was down. There had been a power outage and even though I have backup power supplies, it lasted for quite awhile. My first thought was: I will probably need to restart the server and all will be well. With a raised eye I entered the server room and almost immediately came to the conclusion that I was in for a very long day. The entire network was a goner. I will spare you the dreary details, but suffice to say I was really happy at midnight when I was finally able to go home since I had presumed that I would still be there when employees started showing up the next day ...
Due to running a good backup plan, SBAOR was able to recover 100% with no data loss. It did however, cost me one pizza and I owe my wife a pair of shoes as a sacrifical peace offering ...
While this particular instance turned out well, I have dealt with hundreds of people over the years that have brought their dead and dying computers and laptops to me. Some I could save, some were D.O.A. and nothing short of super expensive data recovery was of any use. My first question is always the same when a person brings their ailing computer to me.
"Do you have backups?"
Before the words leave their mouth I know the answer; "No, I know I should have ... and I was planning on it ... Is there any way you can save the pictures of ______________ (our baby, wedding, kids, parents, vacation to bali ...) they were priceless and the only copy. Oh, and what about Quicken? Oh yeah, I had like $3000 worth of songs and downloads..."
My answer is also generally the same; "I will do what I can."
Sometimes the recovery goes better than others. I am actually suprised how much I can save in some cases. When the client returns for their computer I remind them again to back up, and try to refrain from asking how the cheese whiz got in there in the first place ...
For those of you that don't back up because you are not sure how here is the very least you should do:
1. Go to your favorite electronics store.
2. Buy an external hard drive.
3. Plug it in.
4. Drag and drop your most important stuff into the new drive.
5. Unplug the new drive.
6. Put the new drive somewhere safe...
7. Repeat as necessary. (daily, weekly, monthly depending on how important your data is and how often you update it...)
8. Hope you never need it.