CRE Loaded Dreamweaver Extension

Posted on November 25, 2007
Filed Under Technical Resources | Leave a Comment

I’ve been actively working to get the CRE Loaded Dreamweaver Extension complete but had ran into issues with the differences in template code between versions. The CRE BTS system, unlike other template engines changes its core so frequently that building templates in the past has been an expensive endevour. The only real reason why many template houses charge so much money for templates for CRE has everything to do with the complexity of the code in making it work relatively cleanly across many installations.

This version of the CRE DW Extension will have only basic layout and foundation tools for building templates as testing and feedback from users will be most beneficial in determining what is working and what isn’t.

Check the download section later in the week.

Joomla OpenSEF Download Link

Posted on November 24, 2007
Filed Under Technical Resources | 7 Comments

Joomla Search Engine Friendly

Its been my opinion that the best open source freely available component for Joomla SEF is the OpenSEF Component. Unfortunately further development on the component seems to have fallen off the map as many claim to be furthering development yet none seem to post any progress or updates. Regardless, since there didn’t seem to be any download link for this in the Joomla Forums or the Joomla Component Index today I figured I’d make it available here.

Download the OpenSEF Component RC5 Service Pack 2

Download: Joomla OpenSEF Component RC5 Service Pack 2

Open Realty and Joomla RTDS Available

Posted on November 24, 2007
Filed Under Products, Real Estate News, Template Design Kit | 4 Comments

Joomla Template Design Kit Now Available

I finished the final edits to the Dreamweaver Extension for Joomla template building. Granted this is a bit late considering that version 1.5 is on our heels but this product has sat in limbo for the better part of three years now. My original Mambo Dreamweaver Extension which I released back in 2003 was downloaded about 3,500 times and since that time I’ve seen several variants spring up here and there I’ve been asked to customize for clients. Naturally my template design tools branded under the RTDS simply because that was my intended objective. However today while doing a Google search I was surprised to find that there are in fact two or three other Dreamweaver Extensions on the market for Joomla template building. I’m just surprised I’d never noticed them before. That prompted me to be a bit more motivated in wrapping up version 1.0.12+ so I could quickly update and finalize the 1.5+ version.

Initially, the idea is to release this version which you can download in the Downloads section today, and then release the enhanced version that includes parts and sections of the full blown RTDS which will be available on TemplateDesignKit.com after the first of the year. I’m not going to disclose what is available in the kit at this time. None the less go ahead and download the free version today and tell me what you think

Open Realty Template Design Kit Now Available

I’ve completed the final tests on the Open Realty template design extension, having tested it in Version 9 and CS3 of Dreamweaver. This extension simply wont work in older versions such as DWMX or prior. This extension features all the necessary coding generators “Wizards” necessary to build a standards compliant XHTML / CSS design and was specifically updated to accommodate version 2.4.3 and 2.5 of Open Realty.

As with the other Dreamweaver Extensions, this one had originally been intended for the RTDS as a package item when I came to the conclusion that delays in the project are such that these tools could outlive their usefulness if I don’t make them available. Download this extension as well from the download section and tell me if you encounter any issues.

Open Realty IDX RETS MLS Joomla WordPress

Posted on November 23, 2007
Filed Under Design, Real Estate News | 2 Comments

Multiple Listing Services with Open Realty

It seems I get a lot of questions regarding IDX and RETS with Open Realty even though I post all over the web clear answers to how this can be achieved. Apparently confusing and sometimes conflicting information is encountered by people that read what others have written on the subject and end up avoiding the venture all together as a result.

To me that is a tragic conclusion to come by considering that most integrations with standards compliant RETS or IDX providers offer. I’m going to just very briefly write about the summary technique we use and later expand on this with some instruction on how to do this yourself with PHP. Lets begin with the most common formula we use.

Open Realty MLS IDX or RETS Import

Open Realty as the listing manager is one of the more common tools Realtors are using given the lofty inventory of features the developers at Transparent Technologies have included.

When using Open Realty, most people discover that in situations where RETS is available, the tool more often than not chosen is vieleRETS (see support list here) developed by Mark Lesswing, this application comes with provisions for importing data directly into your Open Realty site out of box. Coupled with a little PHP scripting the process can be automated and designed to run outside of the domain root for optimal results.

IDX and Open Realty are a bit different all together and although there are many options available the method we most often employ is straight PHP and extraction of the listing data into the Open Realty database which is configured to run daily via CRON. Somewhat complex for the non programmer this method is likely the better choice when compared to applications that attempt to convert the listing data to a CVS text file format first. More on this later.

Joomla MLS IDX or RETS Import

Using Joomla for real estate sites is actually so dramatically on the rise that my coders developed 4 proprietary code tools specific to the real estate industry that allow the easy integration of MLS listings into your Joomla site. Requiring either Open Realty or ezRealty to work effectively our snippets will be bundled when the release of Open Realty 2.5 becomes available as a turnkey solution.

WordPress MLS IDX or RETS Import

Once the venture I had financed heavily was the development of a listing manager that integrates with WordPress. Still on the project task list for completion, I’ve been more often asked to simply integrate Open Realty with WordPress using our MLS IDX and RETS methods. Again dependent on an external application to bring in the listings from the MLS, this method is actually the ideal as we often suggest people do not use their Open Realty install for all their text content exclusively as a blog may be better served.

This technique again does require the use of some proprietary code soon to be bundled but is none the less available upon request now. Pricing depends largely on the MLS system you need code for.

I’ll write on this extensively in future posts.

Itronix Rugged Laptop Driver Software

Posted on November 22, 2007
Filed Under Products | 83 Comments

General Dynamics Itronix Rugged Computers – eBay – Sofware

Itronix Rugged Laptop Some time ago I purchased a handful of Itronix computers through ebay in hopes that I would have affordable entry level computer durable enough to give to my youngest daughters. Each computer was sure to suffer some battle scars as the machines get hauled around which had me concerned. After a great deal of searching I was glad to discover that eBay had several rugged laptops from Itronix listed and all reviews for the item were quite positive. Retailing originally at or about $3,500 it became clear that I had found the ideal solution. A great buy considering other options, after upgrading memory and hard drives the total investment proved to cost less even combined than a well put together desktop system. My girls are happy with their new found mobility and rugged features of the laptops so I’m happy.

I ended up winning the bids on three IX-250 models and a single IX-260 all in relatively flawless condition as each was a corporate lease return item. The only issue I discovered was the absolute lack of support software and system drivers necessary to load an Operating System on each as these machines are on average, 3 – 5 years old. However, after spending many days of searching downloading and installing software, I decided to package each of the driver packages up in case someone else finds the need for the software. Below is a basic outline and download link should you consider similar options.

Itronix Go Book IX 250 – Software Drivers

The Go Book IX-250 is a great entry level machine for children and of all those I’ve stumbled upon, I’m glad I found several with CD-ROM’s as not all are equally equipped.

Each has a P4 CPU running at 850 MHz and CD-ROM and a touch screen with stylus. Naturally with the plummeting cost of memory and storage devises, I quickly upgraded to 512 meg of RAM and a 60GB shock resistant IBM hard drive. An affordable WiFi card and new stylus for each put three of my girls in command like never before. No fighting over the computer anymore and each machine is capable of running several learning game software programs they love and plenty of MSN and chat features keeps em busy for many hours a day.

IX 250 Software Download For Additional downloads for the Itronix Computers is available in the Downloads Area

Itronix Go Book IX 260 – Software Drivers

Itronix Rugged Laptop This single machine I purchased for myself after having my Dell crash on me only to discover that tech support with Dell was vastly lacking. Not only was the Dell computer tech support call forwarded to India, the language barrier proved so difficult I still haven’t been able to resolve the problems related to hardware to this day. So Dell is OUT and an affordable travel worthy bullet proof tough book is in. Costing about $500 and change the IX 260’s feature an 1.7ghz CPU that can be upgraded along with the RAM and HD to compete with similarly older machines but still providing the forgiving design characteristics of a rugged laptop should a coffee cup spill over onto the keyboard.

After my brother examined the machine, he set out to purchase several off of ebay for his construction company for off site estimators and project appraisers. His wife, a professional real estate insurance agent often finds the need to photograph properties and would love to have a solution that could survive traveling woes and the Rugged Itronix seems to be a sure win as computing power is not as essential as durability in both their occupations.

Should you end up with the Itronix IX-260 please find the software drivers here.

IX 260 Software Download
For Additional downloads for the Itronix Computers is available in the Downloads Area

Military and Law Enforcement Grade Computing

Itronix Rugged Laptop Military Use A few final notes on the computers is that not all of them come equipped for you to install an Operating System via a CD-ROM or DVD. Since many of those on eBay are either Law Enforcement turn-ins, these Military grade computers very rarely have the kinds of common peripherals that normally come in your average laptop. Ideal for contractors, construction related businesses or just a person that wants to toss the computer in the back seat of his H2 before he heads out fishing as I do; then these are ideal computers. I figured if the Military and Police Departments find them rugged enough to use than my three youngest daughters will find them difficult to destroy. Weaning kids on computers is not really avoidable. The idea is to get them started on computers that can survive spilled juice, a drop down the stairs, bumps and bangs getting in and out of a car among all the other potential hazards was my goal. These computers, each less than $300 was WiFi capable, touch screen and multi media capable, have proven to be great first computers for children.

Open Realty Featured Listings – Anywhere

Posted on November 16, 2007
Filed Under Portfolio, Real Estate News | Leave a Comment

How to put Open Realty® Featured Listings Anywhere!

Previously we had released a small code snippet that worked independently of Open Realty® that provided site designers to place featured listings rotators on external sites or even external pages outside of the application. Given the rework of some of my other code snippets I found that this one has proved very valuable to the 70+ people who purchased the basic version and decided on an update.

The new version is in part motivated with the anticipation of Open Realty® 2.5 and features many features above and beyond our basic $5 version. Here is a short list of what currently works in this next release.

Display Featured Listings by Agent
Display Featured Listings by Listing Office
Display Featured Listings by State or City
Display Featured Listings by Neighborhood
Display Featured Listings by Listing Office
Integrates well with our Multi Site feature
Templates can be placed in one of three optional animated features (more on the way)
Click Stat Tracking
Display Featured Listings with document attachments
Display Featured Listings throughout your site each with independent and different templates

MORE FEATURES TO BE ANNOUNCED……

To purchase the snippets please visit the Featured Listings Anywhere Product Page

Open Realty announces version jump to 2.5

Posted on November 16, 2007
Filed Under Products, Real Estate News | 1 Comment

Open Realty® – Major Upgrade Release

Open Realty®, the ever changing ever evolving application for real estate listings management is scheduled for a milestone release jump from version 2.4.3 to 2.5 as a result of many reworked elements of the applications core.

Unknown at this time regarding backwards compatibility with previous addon developments, this release is one of the most anticipated in the 2.0 series of Open Realty®.

Open Realty®- Compliance XHTML CSS Template Structure

Announced by Transparent Technologies earlier in the month;

2.5 will be a substantial upgrade over previous versions and that is why we have made the decision to move to the Minor version from .4 to .5. There are the usual small bug fixes however here are some of the features we are working on for 2.5:

File Attachments – Open Realty® – PDF – Video – YouTube

The most anticipated of all the new features in version 2.5 has got to be the addition of the long awaited and much discussed “file attachment” feature. Ryan states that they decided on the implementation of the file attachment system for property listings after taking into account the market demands for such features. Agents and Real Estate Agencies will benefit greatly by the feature as listings can now be accompanied by support material and other documents such as pre-qualification loan applications and other related materials right in the listing details pages.

Previously such a feature was largely made possible via a custom listing detail field with a link to an uploaded item via FTP (File Transfer Protocol).

File formats are likely to include PDF, RTF, MS Word DOC, ZIP, RAR, and an assortment of various video and audio file formats. The items attached will be made available for download from either a direct link or a drop down list for multiple items. Given the available integration possibilities its likely developers and designers will find a way to integrate video from YouTube as we see this trend on runaway status with Real Estate sites today.

Ryan Bonham – Transparent Technologies – Open Realty® Templates

Ryan states in his blog and throughout their forums that being conscious of the markets demand on compliance with CSS and XHTML, Open Realty® is moving more and more toward fully qualified code output. These features sound off with a loud encouraging voice as one of the most important features in choosing Open Realty® by designers.

Its with great pleasure to see and post this announcement given the new release of Open Realty® and its LONG AWAITED compliance features making it a truly web standard application when compared to previous releases.

Open Realty® is the product of Transparent Technologies owned and operated by Ryan Bonham, all rights reserved. All this designer can conclude in saying is “Congratulations and Thank You Sincerely” to Ryan Bonham and his team in the successful maintenance and updating of his signature product, Open Realty®

CRE Loaded Releases Major Update

Posted on November 16, 2007
Filed Under Real Estate Websites | Leave a Comment

Chain Reaction Ecommerce (CRE), makers of the popular open source shopping cart CRE Loaded, announce the release of CRE Loaded 6.2 SP1 with several new services, partner tie-ins, and essential updates and fixes. All CRE Loaded 6.2 storeowners (applies to Standard, Pro and Pro B2B applications) can visit www.creloaded.com and download SP1 for FREE.

New CRE Loaded Admin Panel Features

CRE MerchantSM for the best rates in credit card processing.
CRE MessengerSM for free in-store sales and customer-service chat.
New Partner Integrations available inside the CRE Loaded 6.2 SP1 admin panel:

PayPal Pro integration and PayPal certification – CRE Loaded

In addition to the integration of PayPal certification and PayPal pro features, this service pack update also includes the addition of BuySAFE transaction bonding service. The BuySafe transaction bonding service is used to enhance customer trust and security.

Additionally, features in this update included with CRE Loaded brings the MyStoreRewards pay-per-performance buyer-loyalty program as anticipated.

CRE Loaded with Godaddy.com

Google Feed support enhancements.
Enhanced Create Order and Edit Order functions for better product selection.
Enhancements to Sub-Product handling to provide more consistent functionality.
Major enhancements to the Affiliate presentation and reporting to reduce confusion.
Enabled editing of product prices when editing an order.
Fixes applied to the backup.php and backup_mysql.php to better support compression.
Corrections to the PayPal IPN module to support Invoice Number and Printing.
Easy Populate Advanced Import / Export updated to work in a PHP 5.2 environment.
Several enhancements to better support special characters, such as apostrophes, in product names and attributes.

A major change to Sessions to provide more stability.
Correction to Date handling for Spanish-language sites.
Several enhancements to Coupon handling and functionality.

Why you should avoid paid links like the plague.

Posted on November 13, 2007
Filed Under Design | 1 Comment

AVOID PAID LINKS – OR SUFFER GREATLY

Here is a small little blurb about a recent discovery I encountered with a client of mine that got brutally crucified by Google for selling paid links. I’ve never entertained the idea of selling advertising of any kind on my site aside from Google Ad Sense and after doing some detective work on options available for future reference one thing surfaced as an absolute dangerous practice.

Selling links seems to be this little fad that site owners feel they can beat ole google at its game and I’m simply going to say this. You play with fire, you will get burned eventually. Selling links is deception in the eyes of many SEO experts and although I haven’t been able to find many people outright calling the practice “Black Hat” I’m under the belief its exactly that.

Reciprocal Link Exchange Programs – Fraud?

Long long ago before people got beat up with the reciprocal linking fall out, I was involved with a client that was smack in the middle of financing and producing a PHP script that would put most link farm solutions to pure shame. Had it not been for the brutal reality of reciprocal linking rising up and taking many by surprise this person would have continued investing tons of cash in his dream machine application. At the time this person felt it could be marketed globally for hundreds of dollars a copy.

I’ve never liked the notion of people exchanging links because of the cheaper than cheap appeal and quite honestly it looks like fraud to many. I’ve always asked myself “why would a Realtor link to another Realtor anyway”? Or any industry for that matter. I’m sure Google has asked that same question a few times I’m sure. I mean seriously, people who sell clothing or watches or even jewelery online don’t have links to competitors even if they are in different markets.

Not to single out Realtors specifically but this market and the Realtors who represent it, I find I have a great deal of compassion for. I’ve been providing services to Realtors for 11 years having started out in the print industry and I’ve always been amazed at how “industry firsts” approach Realtors for every stupid gimmick, gadget, and fad wasting time and resources the moment they are out of the gate. Intelligent Realtors know that fundamentals never die and all the car magnets, door hangers, balloons in the air and faceless institutional advertising mean little in providing a service to clients. But some one sold Realtors on a bag of tricks that was based largely on black hat principles working under the white hat pseudo facade. That trick was forecast almost 5 years ago as a negative that would surface to bite, and that was reciprocal link exchanges. What is a safe alternative then?

Paid Links ARE Bad – Is There A Safe Alternative? I think so!

About a year ago on one of my blogs I DON’T cross link to this one began by publishing “Content” written from those who wish to provide a link leading to their sites. Today that blog, which again, I don’t link to from here or the reverse, has risen from a nothing site to a PR6 blog ranking #1 in google for every single one of my chosen keyword terms. WHY? Well I have a theory and its one I’m going to start practicing here at my personal blog as well as the blog at the college I maintain. My theory is this;

Content is King! End Theory!

Look at it this way. A standard ole hyper link is about as exciting as watching dust settle on my Hummer because I can’t afford the gas. But when a person asks me for a link, I reply and say yep no problem, you write content or an introduction about what it is that you want the link to and I’ll give you the link, NO COST. It needs to be RELEVANT and it needs to be in some way related to a category that I have in the blog and it shouldn’t compete with that blog. I gain search engine food, the content, and you gain a one way link or several if need be to articulate your article.

I’m starting this practice for this blog now that I have the updated scripts installed and anyone who provides content related to something in design, testimonial, art, templates, Joomla, Open Realty, you name it. I’ll even entertain competing content links providing the article is intelligent and informative. Tutorials are the ideal. If my THEORY is correct, the results garnered on my 6 other blogs will replicate herein. The old saying should ring true; “you follow the same recipe, you get the same results”. That being the subject of yet another post forthcoming.

In conclusion: You want links on other peoples sites? You want those links one way? You want links that are relevant and in my opinion more effective than any paid link could be? Then offer unique well drafted content to site owners. Paid Links will hurt you if you are caught by Google offering them or even buying them as I understand it, so don’t do it.

For more information on the subject you can visit a few sites of people I have a great deal of respect for. Matt Cutts, Greg Boser, and more to follow.

Jared Ritchey Blog Reaches 141,000 visits

Posted on November 11, 2007
Filed Under Design, Products | Leave a Comment

Today checking the logs I see this blog has reached 141,000 visits (hits and visits I should say) in just 9 months.

Annoyed at my lack of motivation to complete this site after God knows how many announcements that I would, leaves me embarrassed. 141,000 is a large number of visits that could have been better served had I added and provided what I’ve been promising for eons to provide. It’s like the old story of the shoemakers kids without shoes. We seem to neglect ourselves many times as we work for others and its always been my belief that a customers project comes first above all else.

Well a little hired help is in order so I’m sporting the funds to find a competent PHP programmer to wrap up a series of snippets I’ve had on the books for some time and to invite ANYONE interested in testing my Dreamweaver extensions for bugs to please drop me a line.

Do designers hire designer? Yep as 80% – 90% of all my template designs go to template clubs, sites and other designers who outsource to me on a regular basis. Now however this designer is in need of a designer. I’m looking for people who can quite simply use Photoshop skillfully according to industry standard design parameters to complete a handful of designs for me. Again, email me if you are that person.

keep looking »