Marketing Open-Realty listings with RSS

Posted on June 18, 2007
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How to easily display Open-Realty RSS on external sites

Have you ever wanted to take your listings in Open-Realty and display links to them in external sites? Many times I’ve been asked to setup either external featured listings or RSS feeds on sites only to be surprised at how few are actually doing this.

About 4AM this morning while waiting for my updates on a site I decided to check this article off my list by doing some brief additional research on the subject. What I discovered over the past few weeks looking at this, is that sites that use the feature for marketing their listings tend to rank a bit higher than those that don’t comparatively. Now I make that statement based on search terms of course solely experimenting on listing titles.

Open-Realty has a built in RSS feature that complies with 2.0 standards providing you with a simple means of syndicating listings to external domains. The easiest of all methods I’ve experimented with uses a product called Magpie RSS. Magpie RSS is certainly not the only application of its type but it is the one I discovered to have the largest number of followers and users not to mention an arsenal of features you may likely never use.

Magpie RSS takes a naive, and inclusive approach. Absolutely non-validating, as long as the RSS feed is well formed, Magpie will cheerfully parse new, and never before seen tags in your RSS feeds. This makes it very simple support the varied versions of RSS simply, but forces the consumer of a RSS feed to be cognizant of how it is structured.(at least if you want to do something fancy) Magpie parses a RSS feed into a simple object, with 4 fields: channel, items, image, and textinput.

With easy to follow instructions and minimal skill required, any real estate site owner can publish links to RSS feeds in their Open-Realty site with relative confidence. I chose to test with cache options to explore how well it works and then tested it with Image inclusion so listing details on a remote location could also or alternatively include a photo of the listing as well. Use of photos is not advised with RSS although possible providing the server in which Open-Realty resides doesn’t prevent it.

Use the following links and resources to experiment with your own listings. I’ll write on this in greater detail this week.

MagpieRSS Display of RSS Feeds RSS Popper for MS Outlook

osCommerce Version 3

Posted on June 18, 2007
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osCommerce New CSS Template Structure

Long over due but and certainly welcomed is the osCommerce version 3 alpha 4 release. With this release we were able to get a peek inside the new methods being attributed to a more compliant design structure as the default layout is nearly all CSS.

This version of osCommerce will likely bring down the price in stock templates across the board as a template support and methods are greatly enhanced and much easier to work with as designers will discover.

I brief look at some of the features;
* New object-oriented framework
* New installation routine
* register_globals and magic_quotes_gpc compatibility
* New template structure implementation
* Search-engine optimizations
* Service modules
* Checkout procedure cleanup
* New language definitions implementation
* Updated payment modules with post-transaction actions
* Catalog front-end, administration tool, and installation routine combined
* XHTML/CSS based default template layout for the catalog side
* Multiple product images implementation
* New action modules
* Administration Tool access levels
* Administrator Log
* Administration Tool batch action capabilities
* HTML Editor for product descriptions
* Full zone entries for most countries
* Language injection feature for similar languages
* GeoIP Modules for the Administration Tool Who’s Online section
* … and more! (application_top.php has never been so clean!)

Professional PHP Applications

Okay so play time is over and after many years of hacks, tweaks and hobby code, PHP has reached a level in application development that corporations are taking it real serious. Granted PHP isn’t quite as robust as ASP among others, PHP has managed to hold its own quite well and developers are beginning to take it a great deal more serious. Joomla, osCommerce, and several other application developers are delivering earth shaking quality applications based on lessons learned from all those years of discovery. The overall quality of php applications available on the internet is almost as pronounced as the overall quantity. PHP milestones are being set as application developers and serious businesses start to pursue this easy to learn and easy to implement code engine at exponential pace.

All I can say is “It’s about time”

Where Are Those Templates

Posted on June 17, 2007
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Joomla, Open Realty, WordPress Templates

All this time about the templates and shame on me for not being clear that those templates Real Estate related are all listed on The Brokers Edge under “Template Inventory”. That section will be turned on and off as I finish the redesign.

All other templates will be (not there yet) on ASiteAbove.com and or TemplateDesignKit.com. This blog is just my personal place to rant, show a few things and list occasional templates.

FREE WordPress Tutorials

Posted on June 13, 2007
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WordPress 2.2 Tutorials

Free WordPress 2.2 Tutorials are available on The Brokers Edge Forums for basic subjects at this point. After careful consideration of the topic inventory we wanted to cover I’ll be mainly directing the blogging tips and tricks in general terms rather than focusing on any particular industry.

~ Not to be confused with wordpresstutorials elsewhere.

Real Estate Websites

Posted on June 13, 2007
Filed Under Design, Real Estate News | Leave a Comment

“Real Estate Websites”

Forget all you have assumed about Real Estate Website development and consider just a few quick pointers.

70% of all home buyers search for their home online

According to a wide variety of webmaster guru’s on the web, as much as 70% of all new homes being sold were first searched for and reviewed on the internet.

Home buyers search on an average of 5 websites

A San Diego Realtor I spoke with said that his site retains more people per statistical capita than the national norm. According to experts, the average home buyer searches for listings on 5 separate sites before taking action and contacting a Realtor. My client states that three simple sentences can retain home shoppers on your website long enough to take action. Details on The Brokers Edge.

Home buyers want details, but you wont provide them

Studies show that many people seeking to locate a home online usually wont bother to register on a site unless they can benefit from a specific call to action. Techniques most commonly employed by Realtors is to provide listings with only partial details on homes and properties where additional information can be seen once registered. The call to action, “register to see address” or other details seeks to weed out curiosity seekers and increase the agents chances at more qualified prospects. Other incentives to registration include free documents and or guides that have a perceived or special value to be made only to registered members. I’ll cover this in the article “Top 10 prospect generators” next week on The Brokers Edge.

People judge a book by its cover

I’m the first to admit I’ve seen tragically ugly sites pull in millions in sales while graphically beautiful sites sit stagnant and eventually die. Such is almost clichÃ© but none the less true as we see sites that are tragic to look at, generate unbelievable sales volumes. Does appearance matter? I think the reason simple sites are so appealing is they are not overwhelming and you can always spot someone trying to overdue it when they make their real estate site look more like a portal or the jack of all trades. Such sites are almost never successful.

Attractive designs however are usually perceived as high quality and tend to depict authority from appearance and rich informative content. Maybe the key to good design is as simple as that ugly site but as beautiful as, well, that beautiful site. Don’t you love it when a plan comes together.

I’ll be writing on this and FSBO marketing success on The Brokers Edge.

CSS Menus Design Generator

Posted on June 13, 2007
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CSS Horizontal and Vertical Menus

Don’t you wish there was a nice little tool to generate truly valid CSS Menus? Well soon a new application will be freely available on the main Template Design Kit website located at http://www.templatedesignkit.com.

I’ll have more details and screen shots by mid week next week which will feature the better half of 50 different menu types some of which would be generated for Joomla and OSCommerce.

FREE Open Realty 2.4.1 Templates

Posted on June 13, 2007
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Open Realty Software Templates

With the new release of the patched version of Open Realty 2.4.1 the FREE inventory was tested to make sure there were no template inconsistencies. You can find templates for sale and free download on http://www.thebrokersedge.com/ As I’ve said before the templates were to be uploaded by the time I get the new design in place.

Custom Open Realty Templates 2.4.1

Custom designs are also being provided on limited distribution terms since the house photos I purchased for them are rather expensive for an unlimited license so its one of those deals where I but a few and publish even fewer.

I’m still open for custom designs so feel free to drop me a line.

Saving your life with regular backups

Posted on June 13, 2007
Filed Under Design | 2 Comments

Windows Backup Steps I take

So last night my system got nailed by a virus or some other bug which totally pissed me off because I was right in the middle of finishing up my network and ready to deliver some project files to a client when WHAM! The sinking feeling in your gut and then the red faced annoyance that I just lost the last 6 hours worth of work for the most part. Yeah panic is what I use to do but experience with such things teaches many lessons.

I don’t run automated backup tools (although I should) because they always seem to slow my machine down so I do everything manually. So, I’m going to briefly outline my simple steps to saving myself from tragedy many times over. Now keep in mind. A good tool to have is good solid backup device like tape drive or external drive and I’m guilty for not using either all the time.

I tend to follow a basic routine when it comes to backups. I have three hard drives available, one of which is external via USB2. Here are my little steps.
1) I run a windows batch file every morning that simply copies several files to the secondary hard drive (FileZilla.xml, my bookmarks for IE and FF, My code snippet DB, my DreamWeaver snippets, my Flash Snippets, my email PST backup, and my chat logs)
2) I always drag and drop large client project files into folders with an underscore on my secondary drive. _clientname/ for example. Why the underscore? because it shows up above all other folders.
3) Once every night I make a WinRar Zip of each client folder simply overwriting the existing one. I do this because in the event of a serious system issue I can quickly run KNOPPIX from my DVD drive and use the FTP feature to simply upload the client folders to one of our servers or the local machines on the network with ease before I try to repair any problems. BTW KNOPPIX i
4) DVD backups religiously. Get a copy of http://www.zero2000.com/cd-catalog-expert/index.html
$30 is absolutely no money when compared to ease of locating your data across dozens or even hundreds of media types.
5) Last I make sure I keep passwords, license numbers for software, and all mission critical elements logged into a simple hard bound journal I got from Office Depot for $14. I can’t tell you how many times I need a password for something I rarely use only to waste time searching when I can have it at my fingertips in moments. This very reason is why I’ll be building a simple stand alone VB application to store such things.

There it is, fast and dirty.

Open-Realty and CRM vTiger

Posted on June 12, 2007
Filed Under Design, Products, Real Estate News | 4 Comments

Integration Bridge for vTiger and OpenRealty

About a year ago I commissioned the development of a bridge between SugarCRM and Open Realty which was received with minimal demand and request at time. Recently however I’ve got that bug again to spend some money and hire a coder to bridge Open-Realty with vTiger using my small inventory of Open-Realty notification and custom form scripts into an all in one FREE package for people to use.

Now as I begin to write more and more on the marketing side of websites for Realtors and such I’ll be suggesting the use of vTiger in many many articles and this bridge tool will be maintained as a result. Granted, the UltimateIDX we have does include some CRM features mainly geared toward persistent tracking and management and conversion of contacts, but vTiger goes beyond to the point of extending an ongoing relationship between you and your prospects.

So with my $350 spent on the coder today (broke again, I hate that) to get this bridge done I explained this in terms an complete novice would understand. A) Make it EXTERNAL from Open Realty entirely. Open-Realty changes way to much for me to maintain an addon that could literally break from one release to the next (a common situation with Open Realty) and B) play well MySQL and Postgre and then C) Should NOT require both applications to be installed in the same database.

I like having my email server on one machine and the web server on another simply for convenience. I know from experience there are people who would host vTiger in once place accessible to employees of a Real Estate agency and the actual site elsewhere. I myself would use that if I were a Realtor. Keep the Real Estate site on its own domain and the CRM in a sub or different domain all together. So unique database connectivity is essential in this package.

Now PRIORITIES are exactly that. This project is taking second place to the WordPress Listings plugin which is to be back in swing before we get completely side tracked and move on to this new project. I’d love feedback and ideas.

Oh yeah! Did I tell you this is FREE?

WordPress Documentation Tips and Tricks

Posted on June 12, 2007
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WordPress 2.2 Template Documentation / Themes

After spending a few hours on the phone with my programmer I finally hashed out the format for making a cleaner form of documentation that absolute newbe’s can follow and my only concern is where to place it. I have about a dozen domains I own and administer and I administer or moderate about 12 forums around the web as a favor to the site owners but I want this set of tutorials and documentation elements presented in a site that centralizes the ideology and spirit of open source.

I use to own OpenSourceU.org which I quickly abandoned and I’ve though long about having a centralized tutorial resource for all types of applications I tend to work with and I figure the best place to put this is on my new domain http://www.livedemosite.com where is where all the demo’s will be anyway. So, moving on we start with WordPress.

I absolutely love the work that the developers of WordPress and WordPress MU have done and respect the fact that they do more than just toss together code as many open source app developers have done but one thing has always baffled me. The documentation is in disarray and hard to organize in terms of logical structure. So I asked, “Can a person easily wrap their head around the concepts and technology in WordPress?” No, they can’t! At least not without a great deal of background and experience in these types of things as most would tend to agree.

Now years ago I use to love talking above peoples head after being armed with new technical words in my vocabulary, but today I tend to follow a more pleasant practice of speaking in terms a novice can understand. So why isn’t documentation easily understood by those that teach or use it to inform users on how to use their product? I don’t believe anyone at WordPress is incompetent and I know for a fact that they are sticklers for quality as anyone can see, but I think that sometimes professionals have a hard time speaking basic English when it comes to expressing technical jargon. Why? Because the terms we understand articulate the point faster, we understand the technical vocab. Naturally this poses a problem for the new guy, because that person would first have to learn our jargon and then review what is being documented or instructed before understanding what is being read. I’ve concluded that this is a lofty task we ask our students who read our words in the technical terms we and those like us understand. Onward…

WordPress 2.2 Multi User Documentation / Themes

WordPress MU for instance is NOT for rookies and its NOT for the new guy wanting to setup a blog farm on a $6.95 a month hosting plan. Its best implemented by professionals and hosting companies with a firm understanding of LAMP configuration (although I’ve seen WAMP configured WordPress MU before) and networking, specifically DNS and how to deal with sub domains effectively. Now a common environment most attempt to install WordPress MU on is either cPanel or PLESK but both of these present unique challenges. I’ve installed or administered the installation of WordPress MU across many many genera of sites from education to Real Estate and most of these do not have any particular control panel interface. But when dealing with cPanel and or PLESK many find the installation anything but easy.

So now that we have this ideal format I’ll assemble a nice inventory of startup how tos and examples that follow what we call the “reconnect format” to teach in the most effective way. As an educator who teaches Photoshop, I adhere closely to the philosophies outlined in “The Journal of Effective Teaching” and short 3 - 8 minute tutorials accompanied by follow along written documentation is what you can expect.

WordPress 2.2 Real Estate Templates / Themes

I’m already using this very technique in thebrokersedge.com forum as the new design goes into place members with “X” amount of posts will be able to download and use video tutorials free of charge for those things Real Estate related in terms of technology naturally. I exhaustively cover WordPress in part because of my love for the application and its effectiveness for Real Estate professionals to have a site that is more than just a bunch of gallery images with dorky centered text. These existing videos will be adapted in part to teach WordPress usage as well for this venture.

Now I’m not building alternative documentation for any political motive and its not really designed to replace whats already out there but rather to provide a more structured format in easy to follow and navigate format. What WordPress and WordPress MU do for guys like us is just fine. For the new person, well, lets just say you need to NOT be a new person to follow along.

Check out the demo’s over on http://www.livedemosite.com later in the month.

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