RealtyTechBytes.com » Cool Freebies

Monkey with your business card for better results

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 07 May 2012 02:00:35 +0000

Ever wondered what happens to those business cards that you pass out to people that you meet? My hopes were that the person would take the card and sooner, rather than later, use it to contact me!

Of course, the reality is much different. Unless someone has an immediate need to get back to me, what most often happens is that the card gets “filed” somewhere. That’s because there is no immediate need for them to get back to me when they take the card. The problem arises when they do want to reach me and can’t find my card. It would be a heck of a lot easier for all concerned if my card could somehow “magically” get into their address book with the click of a button or a tap on the screen.

There are products on the market that allow you to to have an online business card, but they often only offer a download of a VCF format file which very easily imports into Outlook. VCF doesn’t always import easily into the other forms of address books that people use. Also, many of those do not show you tracking statistics, offer QR codes, and give a way for a person to receive automatic updates when you change you contact info.

This is where a Canadian company called Contact Monkey comes into play. Their product takes your contact info and your picture and displays it in an online business card. The magic that they apply is that the person viewing your card has the option to download the information in any of 19 different address book formats. In other words, they make it extremely easy for someone to store your information in the address book that they use every day, be it their Blackberry, Android, Windows or iPhone, as well as their Google, Yahoo, Outlook, Salesforce, ACT!, Goldmine and many more other formats.

After they access and save your info, they are also given the option to receive email updates when you change any of the info on your card!

Once you finish entering your data into your Contact Monkey card, you are given a QR code that links to your online card as well as a link that you can use in your email signature. Here is the email line they suggest that you use:

Add me to your address book – it’s easy! http://contactmonkey.com/jerrykidd

The service is free for individuals and is $3.00 per month for a business. The business does get a few “extras” for that subscription fee, most notably the Contact Monkey branding is removed and replaced with your company branding and colors. Companies can also maintain a directory of employees and staff contact info which can be published on your web site!

A pretty sweet deal all around. And if you haven’t already done so, please click on the link to my card above, and add me to your address book. You never know when you’ll need my services!

Realtytechbytes.com by Jerry Kidd is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.Realtytechbytes.com. Did you know that I have arranged for readers of my blog to receive licensed software for free? And that there is something new everyday? Click on the link to go to the blog and look for Give Away of the day in the sidebar.

Monkey with your business card for better results

MagicPlan takes the work out of creating a floorplan

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 02:00:18 +0000

I am constantly amazed by the iPhone apps that keep appearing. The brilliance of the designers and the versatility of the iPhone just blow me away sometimes.

Case in point, I just ran across a FREE iPhone/iPad app (MagicPlan) that will allow me to to create floor plans by just using the iPhone camera. The usage reminds me a bit of taking a panoramic photo. You start by identifying a corner, then another corner, a door, windows etc until you have the entire room “mapped”. You can add hallways, additional rooms, even furniture an appliances.

The finished floor plans can be downloaded as pdf, jpg or files that are compatible with CAD software (Computer Assisted Design). One hitch, the finished floor plans may NOT be used commercially. If you want to use it for your own private use that’s ok. But, if you are an agent wanting to use it in connection with your real estate business, then you need to purchase a license. Fortunately, even the single use license is cheap at $2.49.

Or, you could “like” them on Facebook and get one free floor plan commercial use license. It looks like a great way to build “Likes” on their fan page and give some incentive for doing so.

Go download the free version and noodle around your own house to get a feel for it. It’s actually very intuitive and easy to use, and it produces some very well done floor plans.

Who’s got access to your Social Accounts?

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 02:00:10 +0000

It all starts out innocently enough, a game asks for permission to access your account, then an email app does, then another game and before you know it there are countless numbers of third parties who have access to your social accounts.

Most of these are harmless enough and they don’t really cause any grief, but the part that I found worrisome was that in order to keep track of them on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and others, I’d have to know many different ways of tracking them down. For instance, on Facebook I have to get into my Account privacy settings and then know where to look to find the App controls. It’s the same process with the others. I’d need to know where to look.

Knowing where to look isn’t the whole story though. What is really needed is an easy way to check on the apps that I have given permission to access my accounts. Without having to memorize a bunch of different ways to do it. Because, what I (and you) need to do, is to frequently check which apps are using your accounts so that WE can decide to if we really want some game poking around.

Here is where MyPermissions.org enters the picture. Just go to the site and click the icon for the account you want to check. If you are already logged in you will go directly to the place where you can manage the apps within each social service.

There is even a place to drop your email address so that they can send you a monthly reminder to go check your accounts.

Looks like an easy way to keep my “Social House” clean. And, oh by the way, it’s free!

If you want to give them permission to clean up your apps, they will do it for .99 per month which is certainly cheap enough, but I find that installing another app to clean up previously installed apps is just a bit over the top for me!

Who is mentioning you?

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 02:00:39 +0000

I found a cool way to monitor any mentions of your name, your brand, your clients, your competitors and virtually any keyword you choose.

You can monitor mentions on blogs, websites, videos, news feeds, forums, images,Twitter and Facebook. You can do this online or you can download desktop clients for Windows, Mac or Linux machines. You can even do it for free! The free version will limit you to 1,000 mentions per month, but that should be enough for most of us.

This is similar to Google Alerts, Nutshell Mail and Social Mention which I covered in a previous blog post at http://realtytechbytes.com/what-are-they-saying-about-you-2, with one big difference. This tool has a component called “Anti-Noise Technology” that learns from what you delete so that it can ignore non related search results. In other words, if you mark a result as being not related to what you want to see, it will ignore similar things that it finds in future searches. Eliminating the “false positives” will greatly speed up the process of monitoring by eliminating things that you don’t want. Like the others, it will send you email alerts when it finds new mentions for your stored searches.

To give it a try, go to https://en.mention.net/ to set up your free account. Are you using any of these free tools to monitor what is being said about you? Or are you content to have people talking about you behind your back?

Scatter some pictures on your Facebook Timeline Cover

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 02:00:50 +0000

The new Timeline for business pages went active on Friday for most Facebook business pages. This change is a pretty radical departure from what was available before, and at first I was inclined to hate it.

But, since Facebook looks like it is going to become the “Borg” (of StarTrek fame), the quote “resistance is futile” led me to find a way to like it. Once I started digging in to the changes, I found that there is a lot to like, not the least of which is the Cover Photo feature. Facebook gives us a huge picture space to tell a story to our fans. The space is 851 x 315 pixels. That covers the entire width of the fan page and is tall enough to really convey a lot of information. But, Facebook giveth and Facebook taketh away…you can’t use the space to overtly market! No calls to action, no links, no “Like my page” … all of which seemed like a natural way to use all of that space.

Determined to find a way to use this valuable space in a way that would not violate the Facebook Terms of Service, I went on the hunt. I found a lot of resources that would help you create a Timeline photo, but none that offered a marketing slant…until I found PicScatter.

At first glance I thought “so what?” But, then when I saw that I could take a photo album and use it to create a collage, the light went on. If you have a listing that you want to put on Facebook hopefully you will have uploaded a ton of pictures for it. Why not use PicScatter to create a collage for that page. Here is an example of what I mean: http://www.facebook.com/3058LiveOakCourt. I used PicScatter to create the cover image from the photos in the album on that page..

The free version uses your Facebook account to login and will allow you to take photos from your personal account, your Facebook Friends or your Likes. For less than $5.00 you can have the pro version which will allow you to remove the branding from the picture that it creates, add your own branding and also to grab pictures from any Facebook fan page! There are 8 different effects that you can apply, you can change the pictures by clicking on them or you can shuffle the whole mess and you can move the pictures around to get just the right look.

I am pretty impressed with this little tool and maybe you will be too!

If you are interested in learning how to use the new Facebook Timeline in your business, there are still a few seats left for my Facebook Timeline class on April 4th. Go here for info and for the registration form: https://www.facebook.com/events/357857867590964/

Mosec Mobile Secretary for Android Phones

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 03:00:26 +0000

iPhone and Blackberry users can sit this one out, as it’s all about a cool new Android app.

For the past few months I have been in an email dialogue with Bernard Huang who is the CEO of Mosec, a startup based in Providence, Rhode Island.

We’ve been discussing his app that is aimed at real estate professionals and seeks to provide a tool that will help agents get a better handle on their communications with prospects, clients and others.

The latest version of Mosec hit the Android App Store early last week and is available for downloading now. It’s a free app and you can get it here: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.getmosec

In Bernard’s email to me that told me about the launch he said, “Mosec’s goal is now to help REALTORS® communicate and follow up better by letting them take notes, schedule appointments or remind them to call back later after calls.” More information is available on the Android site.

Given that it is free and it seems to provide a useful service, I think that if you are an Android user you’d be missing the boat if you didn’t go get it now!

Disclaimer: I don’t have an Android phone as I am a died in the wool Apple fanboy! So, that means that I haven’t tested it out. However, you could test it and report back! I am sure that Bernard and his team would love to hear constructive suggestions as to how to make this product even better. And if he hit a home run on this one I know he’d like to hear that too! You could leave your comment here, or at Mosec’s blog at http://blog.getmosec.com/

How to REALLY know what cell phone carriers will work where you do!

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 03:00:50 +0000

The biggest hurdle in purchasing a new cell phone has got to be determining which carrier has a strong signal in the areas that you intend to use the phone. If you get this one wrong you are going to be stuck with a phone that frustrates you at the least. And for a two year period at that!

In previous articles here I talked about the importance of carefully selecting your carrier before buying a phone. (http://realtytechbytes.com/what-cell-phone-should-i-buy and http://realtytechbytes.com/how-to-choose-the-cell-phone-that-is-right-for-you-2)

While the information in those articles was good then and still is now, there was a lot of room for interpretation…in other words, it is difficult to accurately determine whether or not a carrier had a good signal available at any given location.

A new website, http://opensignalmaps.com, uses the many Android phones that are out there to gather information about cell tower locations and signal strength to draw two maps. One map is of the location of cell towers and the other map is a heat map showing signal strength overlaid on geographical maps.

You simply plug in your zip code and you get a map back that shows you whether or not your carrier will work in the area you have chosen. You can plug in zip codes, one at a time, for every area that you think that you’ll be traveling to or through to compare carriers.

The site is easy to use and it is the best one that I have found for determining signal strength. The only better way would be to get phones on all the major carriers and drive around yourself and compare bars!

If you have an Android phone, and you want to contribute to the project, they have a free app that you can download and install. They claim to gather no personally identifying information in the process. And you don’t need an Android phone to make use of the site. Sounds like a good deal to me!

Simple email reminder system

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 03:00:56 +0000

My day usually starts at 6 AM with a cup of coffee and my email. From there I move to reading my RSS feeds which are the equivalent of the morning newspaper of yesteryear. Then I switch to Tweetdeck to see what is going on with the Twitterverse. From there I switch over to LinkedIn and check my groups. Finally I log in to Facebook and handle any friend requests, updates, clear my newsfeed lists and wish happy birthday to any of my friends who have completed another orbit around the sun that day.

That is a lot to do, but oddly enough, the biggest time sink is the email. I typically get over 80 emails during the night. Some are junk and are easily dispatched to the Trash or Junk folders. Some are informational and a quick read can get rid of them. Others require some action on my part. The easy ones I handle right away, the more complex ones get flagged for later in the day. For the most part my system works. But often my inbox is full of flagged messages. Some of which should be higher priority than others. The problem is that a flag can’t show me which message should be dealt with first at that later time. The best solution for me would be a system that lets me get a message out of my inbox and have it magically re-appear at a later time or date.

As it turns out, a new service can do just that and so much more! It’s called FollowUpThen. And guess what? The basic service is free! It’s all pretty simple, you just forward the email you want to see later to the time and date @followupthen.com. (The first time you do this you’ll have to confirm your email address and time zone). That’s it! At the appointed time and date you get an email from them with whatever you forwarded. In the meantime you can can archive the original or delete it to get it out of your inbox. That really helps to reduce the clutter and minimize the possibility of overlooking an important action item.

You can also use this to set reminders to yourself, send documents to clients (In order to send attachments or SMSs you will need to upgrade to the paid version for $24.00 a year) and when you get a reminder, you can also hit the “snooze” button. Not really a snooze button, but you can tell the reminder to come back later if you wish.

There are a lot of ways that I can see using this, so I went ahead and bought the upgrade. Give it a try and tell me what you think! http://www.FollowUpThen.com

CCleaner for Mac

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 03:00:36 +0000

If you use a computer for any length of time, you eventually start to accumulate all sorts of useless files on your hard disk. The biggest junk file creator is your web browser. Every web site that you have visited leaves behind a file that is the exact duplicate of the site that you visited. If you’ve been browsing for years and have never cleared your web browser’s cache files, you are probably storing gigabytes of useless files on your hard drive. And that is space that you can’t use for important things like music, pictures and business related files.

Another source of junk files occurs when you delete programs. The uninstall process is never as thorough as one would like and fragments of programs get left behind. And the list goes on. Back in the dark ages when I was a Windows user I relied on a product called “Crap Cleaner” which was later renamed CCleaner, probably in an attempt to be politically correct. It was great. Once you downloaded it and installed it, it would analyze your hard drive and then give you a list of the junk files that it had found. You could choose to have them all removed or you could be selective about it. You could also ask it to analyze the Windows registry and clean it up as well. I loved that program and ran it at least once a week.

When I moved to the Mac platform CCleaner was one of the things that I had to leave behind as they did not have a Mac version. Yes, Mac’s create junk files too!

But, all of that has recently changed! Piriform has released a Mac version that is free, as is the PC version and it works as well on the Mac as it does on the PC. Since the Mac doesn’t have a Registry, there is no option to repair the registry. The Mac does have issues with file permissions and when these get out of whack strange things can occur. CCleaner for the Mac will repair file permissions so running this frequently on the Mac is a good idea.

The last remaining tug at my heart from the PC world has now been removed. CCleaner from Piriform belongs in your arsenal of maintenance tools whether you run a PC or a Mac. And the price is right too! It’s FREE!

Get the PC version here: http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

Get the Mac version here: http://www.piriform.com/mac/ccleaner

Cool way to store your year end records

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 03:00:22 +0000

Part of the year end process for any business is storing the records from the previous year. And real estate agents are no exception. We commonly have many transaction files to store and once they are boxed up they get transported to a storage facility. Often times the facility is off site and inconvenient to get to when a record is needed. Additionally, if there are many boxes stored, it can be chore to determine which box holds the record you need.

I recently ran across a web site that has what appears to be a great solution. Although the creators of the site tout it as a way to help people that are moving keep track of which box has which household item, they say it can be used for anything that gets stored in sealed boxes. I believe that it may be the perfect solution for finding transaction records and other financial records for individuals and companies still keeping paper records.

It’s called Boxmeup and the web site is http://www.boxmeupapp.com.

Here is how it works. You create a free account (there is a paid option, but I couldn’t determine what advantages there are to becoming a paid member) and then you create a “Location” where the box or “Container” will be stored. These locations are the physical address where you store your records. You can have multiple locations and each is identified with a Google Map and unique name that you give it.

Then you create a “Container” and name it. By default the “Container” is placed in the “Unassigned” location so you have to then select to which location the “Container” belongs.

Then you enter your “Items” into the “Container”. This can be transaction files or anything else that you are storing in the box. Once you have filled the physical box and recorded the files that are in it to Boxmeup, you can print a QR Code that you then tape to the outside of the box.

To find out what is in a box at a later date you simply scan the QR code with your mobile phone and you get a list of the contents!

You can also log in to the website to view all of your Locations, Containers and Items. Additionally, you can go to the physical location where the actual boxes are stored and scan the QR codes to see what is inside the box.

Finding that needed file couldn’t be easier!