RealtyTechBytes.com » Fuel Economy

Black Friday

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 03:00:14 +0000

From Filmosity via Flickr

I don’t know too many people who haven’t been affected by the current US economy.

The news has been all doom and gloom for far too long. Many of us are staring at the holiday season and thinking about how we can provide gifts for our family, friends, acquaintances and clients.

Quite a few of us are also faced with having to replace or upgrade failing phones, computers and other tech gear.

Fortunately for us, Black Friday is upon us this week. Black Friday is defined by StreetAuthority as: “In the retail world, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving (which is always on a Thursday). The day marks the advent of the holiday shopping season and the point at which most retailers begin making profits (also known as going in the black).”

You and I might define it as the time to buy when the prices are at their lowest as many retailers offer tremendous values on some items in order to drive traffic to their brick and mortar and online stores. In times past you had to wait until Thanksgiving to see what stores were selling what products at what prices. Today we have it so much easier. Here are a collection of links to web sites that have aggregated Black Friday ads, as well as one site that is a year round technology bargain hunters paradise, one site that is a (tech and everything else) year round bargain hunters site and one site that will help you protect those price guarantees.

Year Round Technology Bargains

– http://www.techbargains.com/
“This is a great site dedicated to helping you save money on all your technology product purchases. They search the Internet and physical stores for the best deal on the best products. TechBargains helps you find hot deals on the latest Tech products as well as great prices for ANY product via our Low Price Search Engine. The site features continuously updated Bargain News Headlines with all the latest sales, bargains, coupons, and deals. See what is on Sale, so you can save the most money. Discount Coupons for most of the major online stores. Hot Tip articles to educate users on specific topics. Recommended products database with a short list of products you should consider buying. Rebate and vendor information helps ensure you get the best deal with the maximum amount of safety.”

Protect your price guarantee

– http://www.priceprotectr.com/retailers.jsp
“PriceProtectr now supports 150 retailers and here’s a list of each one, along with the pertinent information to help you get the most out of your next purchase. Use Price Protectr to track prices of things you’re thinking about buying, and save money even after you buy.” This one will help you keep the stores price guarantees honest!

Year round shopping news and deals

– http://dealnews.com/
“At dealnews, every deal we list is the lowest price we could find for that product, sold by a reputable store. That means we list the best deals period, regardless of our relationship with the seller, and we ban stores with a history of poor customer service.”

Sites devoted to Black Friday

– http://www.2008blackfridayads.com/
“Here you can find all the 2008 Black Friday Ads before the circulars come out in the newspaper. They also offer direct links to each store so, if the retailers allow, you can purchase the items online on Black Friday without having to stand in line at the store!”

– http://www.blackfriday.info/
They have ads, coupons, rebates and deals posted in an easy to use format.

– http://bfads.net/
Different from BlackFridayAds.com, this one also offers buying guides and helpful articles on how to choose between items, in addition to the ads from the retailers that they also feature. It’s a good idea to check this one as well as the others in case one or the other misses an ad important to you.

– http://www.iblackfriday.com/
This site lets you view the 2008 black Friday ads weeks in advance. Not only can you view the ads, but they also let you build out your holiday shopping list so you know exactly what items to buy on Black Friday.They also show you how you can buy these items online on Thanksgiving morning instead of having to stand in line on Black Friday.

Shopping guides published here previously

I get a lot of emails and calls asking what phone to buy and /or what computer to buy. There really isn’t way that I can recommend one model of phone or computer over another, as both purchases are entirely subjective. But, here are a few posts that will help you choose a new computer: http://realtytechbytes.com/what-laptop-should-i-buy-in-2008/ and http://realtytechbytes.com/what-computer-should-i-buy/

I hope that you enjoy the holiday and if you must go shopping on Black Friday don’t go until you’ve checked out the sites I’ve mentioned.

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Black Friday

Free conference calling for everyone!

Jerry Kidd — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 19:58:48 +0000

Have you ever had the need to set up a conference call? And have you ever been stymied by how to do it on the office phone or your cell phone? Do you know if your home phone can do conference calling? I may have the answer to these questions for you in today’s post. It’s called rondee, and yes, it’s absolutely free!

With rondee you can set up scheduled conference calls or you can create on the spot conference calls. You can have up to 100 callers on the call and you can record the call. You can email invitations and you can track the invitations so that you know who has accepted (and who hasn’t!).

There are no downloads, there is nothing to install. You log on to rondee and set up a free account. Thereafter, you login to setup the date and time for your call. You are then prompted to add the details of the call and to enter the email addresses of the people that you want to invite. (Or you are given a pin number to distribute to your invitees via text messages or even by calling them yourself and giving them the log in info). They simply dial in at the appointed time, enter the pin number and they are connected to the call.

Here is what the email looks like that your invitee receives.

Not much too it and notice the lack of advertising for anything but rondee itself. If they click on the link in the email, they come to a web page where they can accept or decline. If they accept, they can add comments and even invite other people as well. It’s all pretty easy to follow, and you get notified of everything they decide to do.

To get started, just go to rondee.com and create an account. You don’t have to do it this way, but if you do create an account, you get to register your phones. A benefit of registering your phones is that ever time you use the phone to call rondee, it recognizes your phone so that you don’t have to use a pin number to get to the call. Another benefit of registering is that you can create an address book of frequently used email addresses. This will save you time when setting up a rondee. Once you have done that, you go the web site and follow the steps as illustrated here. Pick a date, pick a time, invite attendees, choose a topic and you are done. You can even download the details into your Outlook or iCal calendars!

I see several uses for this for real estate agents. The first and obvious use is if you have clients who are at different locations and you need to talk to them both. One might be at work and the other at home. Just setup an on demand rondee and you are good to go. You can add in the lenders, title, inspectors and so on. And, don’t forget that the call can be recorded. If you do decide to record the call, all parties to the call are notified that the call is being recorded and all parties can later download the finished call. (You will need a free 3rd party converter to convert the call from the GSM format to WAV or MP3, but that is all explained on the rondee website, complete with links to the converter software)

Another use is in prospecting. Have you ever wanted to set up a First Time Homebuyer seminar, or a short sale seminar, or an investor seminar but were concerned about the cost? In today’s world of high gas prices, doesn’t it make sense to do a teleseminar? You could use rondee to do just that. They have a two tier pin system where some invitees get one pin that allows them to talk (you and your presenters for instance) and another pin that you would give to attendees who could only listen.

Given that you can record the calls, you could create your teleseminar with just you and your other presenters. Do a seminar, record it, download it and convert it to MP3 and then put it on your blog or web site. The possibilities to use this to promote yourself are almost endless.

Remember, it’s free. All you need to enter into a call is a telephone. Cell phones work just fine, too. Please don’t whine about the fact that you have to call a San Diego number. If that is a huge problem for you, you can pay rondee for the use of an 800 number!

Tell me how you would use this tool to enhance your business by leaving a comment so that we all can benefit!

11 ridiculously easy ways to improve your fuel economy and save at the pump!

Jerry Kidd — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:01:05 +0000

I don’t know about you, but these $75.00 trips to the gas station are getting to me. It would be more than $75.00, but Wells Fargo in it’s infinite wisdom, cuts me off at $75.00 and stops the pump. I have a 2007 GMC Envoy, which on a good day gets about 18 miles to the gallon. This means that for every mile I drive I am spending 25 cents. I’ll spend more per mile as the price of gas continues to go up. I notice that my pay check is not going up commensurately, and I am sure that yours is not either.

So, since I still have about 2 more years of payments left on the car, getting a hybrid is not an option, yet. So, I need to get this under control and soon! I did some research and have come up with some ideas to improve the fuel economy of my car. They may help you too. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Go slower! Remember the 70s? When we had a national speed limit of 55? There was a reason for it then and there is a reason for it now. Opinions vary on how much a drop in speed will save, but it is worth doing. Ignore the one finger waves and the angry horns from your fellow drivers.

2. Easy does it. Don’t mash the pedal to the floor when you start out. A slow acceleration will save gas. On short trips around town the extra time that it costs you to start up slowly and brake gently won’t amount to more than 5 minutes or so. More than enough time to make another hands free call to a client

3. Don’t idle your engine. If you are sitting with the engine running, turn it off.

4. You don’t need to warm that car up here in California. Start the engine, fasten your seat belt, and adjust the mirrors and go.

5. Cut down on the drag. Put the windows up, close the sun roof and take off the luggage rack! If you have a pick up truck, open the tailgate or remove it all together.

6. Take everything out of your trunk except for the spare and the jack. Do you really need all of the stuff that you haul around? I don’t think so. Remember, all of your forms are on line (so you can ditch that box of forms that are probably outdated anyhow) and if you have been a regular reader, you know how to work remotely by now.

7. Check that you have your tires inflated properly. Don’t over inflate as that will affect handling, safety and tire wear. Under inflation also increases drag and therefore lowers fuel economy.

8. Maintain your car! Change the oil according to the manufacturers specifications and at the same time change your air and fuel filters. Have your wheels aligned and replace any worn tires. Keep the engine tuned up and get to know your local mechanic. With all the extra money that they are going to make keeping all of our cars in great shape they can probably afford to buy a house from you.

9. This is a long shot, but keep the exterior of the car clean and have it waxed from time to time, as this will also cut down on air drag.

10. Finally, a car gets its best economy when it is in the garage. Try to combine trips. Plan “round-robin” trips where you get everything done in one or two trips. A really great technology tool for this is Microsoft Streets and Trips. This program allows you to input a list of stops and then arrange them visually so that you can create an economical trip routing.

11. Keep track of what you are doing so that you can see how effective you are at saving at the pump. By doing this, you can do more of what works and back off on what isn’t working. Here is an online tool that will help with that: http://www.FuelFrog.com

All though I have been somewhat whimsical in this post, the ideas are sound, and if you implement these ideas, you will save money at the pump because you will be visiting it less often!