Technology Corner

<p> Jott Yourself Jott is a free service that transcribes voice messages you send it into text, then e-mails a transcription of the message to you. The idea is to make it easy to record memos and reminders for yourself. </p> <div> <p> I learned it from <i>PC World&#39;</i>s <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,143111/article.html">Steve Bass</a>, (no relation!) and I&#39;ve been using it regularly. Jott is a new free tool I highly recommend. </p> <p> After registering online for the service, you can easily create reminders or dictate memos for yourself--or others--using your cell phone. </p> <p> Let&#39;s say you&#39;ve had a &quot;Eureka!&quot; moment while in the car. Dial Jott&#39;s toll-free number (866/568-8123) or, even better, push the speed-dial button you&#39;ve assigned to it. I use &quot;J.&quot; </p> <p> Almost immediately, a female voice responds: &quot;Who do you want to Jott?&quot; If the message is for yourself, just say, &quot;Myself.&quot; After the beep, start talking. Messages can be up to 30 seconds long. When you&#39;re finished, simply stop talking. A few seconds later, the voice will say, &quot;Got it.&quot; Within a few minutes, the message you dictated is transcribed and delivered to you via e-mail, text message, or both. </p>Other Uses <p> That&#39;s just one way to use Jott. Here are some others I&#39;ve tried: </p> <p> <b>Create a reminder.</b> You can tell Jott to create a reminder for a specific time. Jott will send you an e-mail and text message reminder 15 minutes before the event. </p> <p> <b>Send e-mail or text messages to your contacts.</b> Need to send an e-mail or text while you&#39;re driving? Easy! If you&#39;ve uploaded your Outlook or other contact database entries into Jott, you can just press the Jott speed-dial button on your phone and tell Jott to whom you want to send a message. The service will verify the name or ask for clarification. Dictate your message, hang up, and your contact will receive your message as a transcribed e-mail and/or SMS text message. You can send one message to multiple people, too, as long as you&#39;ve set up a Jott Group. </p> <p> Jott isn&#39;t perfect; it can have difficulty identifying the requested contacts if you&#39;re in the car or a noisy place. And make sure to clearly enunciate your words, as if you were dictating to your secretary. </p> <p> Jott&#39;s transcriptions of my voice messages have been nearly always 100 percent accurate. If you&#39;re using a more complicated word, like a name, just spell it after you say it. Don&#39;t tell anybody, but the voice file you create goes to India, where human beings do the transcribing! That&#39;s why it is so much more accurate than the Dragon Naturally Speaking voice recognition software I use at the office. </p> <p> In short, Jott just allows you to bypass the need to tap out e-mail or text messages on phones with tiny, awkward keyboards. </p> <p> Best of all, this service is FREE for now. They&#39;ll probably find a way to charge for it in the future or create some kind of &quot;premium version.&quot; </p> <p> So grab it while it&#39;s free! Go to <a href="http://www.Jott.com">www.Jott.com</a> and join up already! </p> </div>

<p> Can anyone explain to me (plain english, please) how to connect my laptop to the mobile phone and then get to my e-mail or web sites on my laptop? I&#39;m dazed &amp; confused, trying to figure it out. Do I have to change any settings on my laptop to do it? </p>

<p> Is anyone using Grand Central by Google in it&#39;s beta? </p> <p> I had a meeting with a REALTOR from FL who is in a beta test of this product and it seems like a very useful product. </p> <p> One number (local or toll free) that rings several phones AT THE SAME TIME, ie. it will ring your cell, home and office phone and you choose which to pick up. If you&#39;re on your cell at home or office you can &quot;transfer&quot; it to the desk (or home) phone with the push of a key. There is a record feature that allows recording. Voice mail and recordings are MP3 files and emailed to your email address. </p> <p> I&#39;ve signed up for a number and am waiting for a reply but I&#39;d like comments from any current users. </p> <p> Pual </p>

<p> I spend an hour to 2 everyy day reading or blogging. Some of the sites I use are: </p> <p> GRInetwork.org </p> <p> Relaynetwoking </p> <p> Activerain.com </p> <p> SRES </p> <p> InternetCrusade.com </p> <p> DrHousingbubble.blogspot.com </p> <p> Blog.inman.com </p> <p> Houseblogger.com </p> <p> Realblogging.com </p> <p> Therealestatebloggers </p> <p> Realesatetomatoe.com </p> <p> Trulia.com </p> <p> Zillowblog.com </p> <p> Realtownblogs.com </p> <p> Linkedin.com </p> <p> Realestatepros.org </p> <p> Realtown.com </p> <p> REwebpros.com </p> <p> In these unusual times every little bit helps, and we can get our referrals going. </p> <p> Libby McPherson-Mann </p> <p> <a href="mailto:Libbymm1@gmail.com">Libbymm1@gmail.com</a> </p> <p> My areas of speciality are Woodside, Portola valley, Menlo Park, Atherton, Redwood City and San Carlos, all in San Mateo County, CA San Francisco Peninsula. </p> <p> I will pay a 25% referral.... </p>

<p> Is anyone using RELAY? I recently came across this website (<a href="http://www.rebt.com">www.rebt.com</a>) and it almost seems to good to be true. Our office is thinking of trying it out, but I would like some actual feedback from people that are using it. Thanks </p>

<p> Does anyone know of (or the code for) a widget that I can use to scroll my blog headlines on my homepage that will then link when clicked to the appropriate blog entry? I am looking for something maybe 2&quot;x.5&quot;, I think you can modify the sizes of most of these types of tools. </p> <p> I want something with no link another site, widget producer, etc. It should only allow people to click to my blog to the entry that is associated with the headline. </p> <p> So if I have to pay for it I will. Or if someone has or knows how to get the code, please let me know! </p>

<p> Good Morning! </p> <p> My name is Kimberlee Morgan and I am a real estate agent in Sunny Indian Wells,CA. For those of you unsure where that is, it is in the Palm Springs area known as the Coachella Valley. </p> <p> I am currently taking the E-pro course in order to get up to date on using the internet and technology to expand my business. So here I am on RealTown.... :) </p> <p> My first step is to create a new website, so any ideas or suggestion would be greatly appreciated. </p> <p> Make today count! </p> <p> Kimberlee Morgan </p> <p> <a href="mailto:kimberleemorgan@windermere.com">kimberleemorgan@windermere.com</a> </p>

<p>Another RealTown member, Ginny Whitney, recently posted comments in another place in RealTown&nbsp;related to Skype and her and I emailed about it privately.</p> <p>I recently got a new Toshiba M700 tablet PC that had some Skype information included and I had been meaning to take a closer look at Skype (pronounced SKIPE). I was aware of Skype for about the last two years but had never gotten around to it. A friend of mine talks regularly to his friend in New Zealand (like every day) and does that for free using Skype.</p> <p>Longer story shorter. I ended up hooking&nbsp;up with Ginny with&nbsp;voice and video using Skype.</p> <p>My first trip out using Skype, I am sitting at an open house for a client&nbsp; and&nbsp;I have my new tablet PC with me and I am&nbsp;online via a Wi-Fi network some place in the neighborhood.&nbsp;I creat a profile in my newly installed (easy) Skype software and made myself visible in the Skype system.&nbsp;Low and behold Ginny see's me and chats me up and in no time we have a voice over IP conversation going complete with a video feed from both ends. We may as well have been sitting in the same room together. We were easily a couple thousand miles from each other. I was struck by two things. Dumbfounded actually. It was EASY and it was FUN.</p> <p>Skype is one of the coolest pieces of technology I have discovered in a while......and thats saying something.</p> <p>Later in the afternoon, while at the same open house, I have &quot;Skype Me&quot; turned on which is a mode where anybody can see you and you are indicating you want to communicate. Low and behold a guy from Brazil chats me up. And guess what.........there was a language barrier.</p> <p>I thought he was talking French at first but it turned out to be Portuguese. His opening salutation was &quot;Oi&quot;, so I figured French but that is also Hi in Portuguese (I get $250/hr as a consultant b-t-w).</p> <p>GUESS WHAT!!!........Google has a translator.......and GUESS WHAT ELSE!!!......its easy. Antonio Cesar Oliveira De Souza showed me how it worked and now I have a brand new friend in Barbacena Brazil.</p> <p>Politics, Culture, Images, Communication, Discovery.......</p> <p>Its all right at our virtual fingertips these days.</p> <p>I have been on this planet for a while and It just gets more interesting and exciting.&nbsp;</p> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><a name="_MailAutoSig">David A. Gibbs, Broker Associate, ABR, E-PRO</a></div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span>RE/MAX Professionals, Inc. </span></div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span>Gainesville, Florida</span></div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span>Cell:352.318.0811 Fax:888.520.6888 Office:352.375.1002</span></div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span>http://Your-RealEstatePro.com</span></div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt">&nbsp;</div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><a href="http://www.rebac.net/Content.aspx?PageName=AboutRebac.htm"><font color="#0000ff"><span>ABR</span></font></a><span><span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Accredited Buyer Representative</span></span></div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><a href="http://www.your-realestatepro.com/irw/article.php?cid=21488&amp;ctry=US&amp;arid=85753"><font color="#0000ff"><span>E-PRO</span></font></a><span><span>&nbsp;&nbsp; Certified Internet Real Estate Professional</span></span></div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt">&nbsp;</div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span>Residential - Land - Investment</span></div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt">&nbsp;</div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt">Experience is what you get when you can't have what you want.......</div>

<p>These days there are two ways to accomplish an electronic signature.</p> <p>Technology has been in existence for a few years&nbsp;whereby a software application residing on a computer provides the ability to create a unique and encrypted electronic &quot;representation&quot; of a person's signature complete with a date/time stamp. The electronic representation of the person's signature is made as a component part of the electronic document the person is signing. It is secure, it belongs to and is irrevocably represented as being the person's electronic &quot;mark&quot;. Adobe Acrobat has this technology built in now. I have worked with electronic medical record software&nbsp;where a physician's electronic signature is affixed to a medical record entry electronically in this manner.</p> <p>We now have technology available today where a person can actually and literally affix their signature to a document using their natural handwriting albeit in electronic form. The technical computer term for it is &quot;inking&quot;. Once a person signs a document (most commonly an Adobe PDF document) and the document is securely saved, the overlayed &quot;inked&quot; signature is rastorized (melded) in to the document and becomes a permanent part of the document.</p> <p>And thus we have electronic signature.......two ways of accomplishing.</p> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt">David A. Gibbs, Broker Associate, ABR, E-PRO<br /> RE/MAX Professionals, Inc. <br /> Gainesville, Florida<br /> Cell: 352.318.0811 Fax:888.520.6888 Office: 352.375.1002<br /> <a href="http://www.Your-RealEstatePro.com">http://www.Your-RealEstatePro.com</a></div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt">&nbsp;</div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><a href="http://www.rebac.net/Content.aspx?PageName=AboutRebac.htm"><span><font color="#006bb5">ABR</font></span></a><span><span>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Accredited Buyer Representative</span></span></div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><a href="http://www.your-realestatepro.com/irw/article.php?cid=21488&amp;ctry=US&amp;arid=85753"><span><font color="#006bb5">E-PRO</font></span></a><span><span>&nbsp;&nbsp; Certified Internet Real Estate Professional</span></span></div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span><br /> Residential - Land - Investment</span></div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span> <div><span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #111111"><a href="http://www.skype.com/"><font color="#006bb5"><br /> SKYPE</font></a> me at <strong>dave.gibbs.florida.usa </strong>and be sure to let me know you are from RealTown.</span></div> </span></div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt">&nbsp;</div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt">I am never too busy for your North Central Florida real estate referral&nbsp;</div> <p>&nbsp;</p>

<p> Hi! My name is Mike Bowler Sr. I live in Lansing Michigan; I have been a Realtor/Broker/Owner for the past 30 years. I specialize in marketing real estate in the greater Lansing area. I also own a company called PRETEC (Professional Real Estate Training Education &amp; Consulting) I am focusing much of my efforts on Blogging and Internet marketing for my clients and customers who include the general public and for real estate agents, staff, managers and ancillary businesses for training, education and consulting. </p> <p> I hope to learn more and be a contributor to this group. Mike </p> <p> <a href="http://mikebowler.net">http://mikebowler.net</a><br /> <a href="http://mikebowler.com">http://mikebowler.com</a> </p>

<p>For those real estate professionals out there who have not yet tuned in to the new Tablet PC technology, there is a pretty good presentation of the technology at VREO.com.</p> <p>VREO is pushing their RedTablet real estate dashboard solution at their web site and I can tell you there is more than one way around the bush with regard to going paperless and secure electronic e-signatures and utilization of a tablet PC solution.</p> <p>It is however a nice presentataion of tablet technology at the VREO web site that I recommend as a way to gain a good and quick understanding of the possibilities with tablet PC usage.</p> <p>I have a Toshiba Portege M700 tablet and like it VERY MUCH.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><a name="_MailAutoSig"><span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #111111">David A. Gibbs, Broker Associate, ABR, E-PRO</span></a></div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #111111">RE/MAX Professionals, Inc. </span></div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #111111">Gainesville, Florida</span></div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #111111">Cell:352.318.0811 Fax:888.520.6888 Office:352.375.1002</span></div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #111111"><a href="http://your-realestatepro.com/"><font color="#006bb5">http://Your-RealEstatePro.com</font></a></span></div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt">&nbsp;</div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #111111"><a href="http://www.rebac.net/Content.aspx?PageName=AboutRebac.htm">ABR</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Accredited Buyer Representative</span></div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #111111"><a href="http://www.your-realestatepro.com/irw/article.php?cid=21488&amp;ctry=US&amp;arid=85753">E-PRO</a>&nbsp;&nbsp; Certified Internet Real Estate Professional</span></div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt">&nbsp;</div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #111111">Residential - Land - Investment</span></div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt">&nbsp;</div> <div><span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #111111"><a href="http://www.skype.com/"><font color="#006bb5">SKYPE</font></a> me at <b>dave.gibbs.florida.usa </b>and be sure to let me know you are from RealTown.</span></div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div><span style="font-size: 9pt; color: #111111">I am never too busy for your real estate referrals</span></div> <p>&nbsp;</p>

<p>We build interactive neighborhood websites, and contract realtors to be the primary sponsor of the area. This is a great way to gain exposure in your area, and position yourself as the neighborhood expert. This is a free service to the residents provided by the realtor. Imagine the community or area you farm has a community intra-net, and you were the only realtor on their, as the primary sponsor, imagine the personal exposure the realtor will gain. This is passive marketing, and niche marketing. Take a look at what we do, and I would love to hear some feed back.</p> <p><a href="http://www.EZNeighborhoodWebsites.com">www.EZNeighborhoodWebsites.com</a></p> <p>&nbsp;</p>