Plug-in Translators Needed

Posted on March 17, 2008
Filed Under Products | 1 Comment

The Featured Listings WP Plug-in Translation

We have added a new file and folder in the plug-in for languages and would like to hire translators for 5 paragraphs of documentation. and 22 specific words in the language file. For anyone interested we are looking for the following languages and need to know what your FEE will be for the translation. German, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian and any other languages of interest are welcome. Please use the contact form on my site if you are interested. Although this plug-in is available by request I’d like to make it available with multi-lingual support.

General Dynamics Itronix Laptop Software Drivers

Posted on March 16, 2008
Filed Under Real Estate Websites | Leave a Comment

IX250 IX260 and IX260+ (plux) Drivers

Here is a collection of all drivers for these laptops that I’ve once again updated after digging them out of the archive directory.

I get a lot of emails and traffic to the original post regarding the laptop drivers I had assembled. After spending a great deal of time locating them, I packaged them up in to a single download which I’ve updated again today.

Back when I purchased a handful of these laptops on ebay I discovered that none of them came with driver software which made the task daunting to get an OS loaded.

These machines are not top of the line in CPU and memory speed but I can’t suggest a better more affordable or durable computer to toss in your truck to go camping or fishing or even for use in service vehicles for lawn care, construction, security services, or anything where you need mobile computing. The mere fact that these computers can connect to a standard Motorola 9211 radio makes them ideal for contractors that want to use them for GPS mapping among other things.

Next on my list is a pair of vehicle mounts and a pair internal radio updates. To visit the updated collection of software drivers please visit the Downloads Area

EZ Pro Realty Contributor Blogs

Posted on March 15, 2008
Filed Under Real Estate News | 2 Comments

FREE Project Blogs for EZ Pro Realty contributors

Moments after I made my post live regarding software standards on EZ Pro Realty, I received an email from the developers that the "Contributor Blogs" are already setup and configured. I had previously quoted that these things were pending when in fact they are live now.

Who benefits from contributor blogs?

The blogs were my suggestion originally which I had made a checklist available to the project developers quite some time ago and after discovering that they would be implemented I was excited to finally see a project take the same quality standard attitude that Joomla, Drupal and others take regarding disclosure of contributions.

My initial suggestion naturally was to give credit to those who either provide designs, code, financial support or other types of contributions regardless of capacity. I further suggested that the blogs be given to any members who meet a minimum post requirement so they could promote their sites that are using EZ Pro Realty in a way that a forum really doesn’t quite satisfy. I’m glad to say that this is one of my favorite aspects of the project because users are now provided with the things people find most interesting about these types of solutions.

Designers, coders, and other types of contributors can even use the blogs to promote their services in addition to providing a good internet neighborhood for links back to their relevant sites. Since SEO and other aspects of Search Engine marketing are concerned I agreed to draft the policy of use for the blogs to prevent spam registrations and or fostering a spammy type neighborhood on the internet. Stay tuned!

WordPress Real Estate Plugin

Posted on March 15, 2008
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WP Real Estate PLUGIN - WHERE IS IT AT? HOW CAN I DOWNLOAD IT?

A ton of emails and questions led me to make this post rather than answer all the emails. The plugin was completed 10 days ago and beta testing has passed so this is available now. I took it offline to rework the interface and I’ll get it posted with details on the new page specifically assembled for this plugin and the others.

~ Jared

How to remotely backup your domain FTP

Posted on March 15, 2008
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Remotely backup your domain to our FTP backup service

Shane, my partner in hosting and I have about a half dozen servers across the web with various providers we market as Click Once Hosting. A few days ago after considering our expenses and each servers usage had come up with the idea that one server we have gets literally no traffic and that rather than try to fill it with websites and site hosting maybe we could use it to provide a way for people to remotely backup their sites on a scheduled bases.

Now the idea behind remote backups is to provide a secure way for people to backup their data from their existing domain by providing only ftp accounts and blocking all other IP’s from connecting as to avoid any unwanted traffic. Since cPanel or Plesk will not be needed we decided to start offering this feature to people interested in keeping backups of their data and set a pricing schedule based on bandwidth.

But is there a benefit for using this type of method for backing up data? I think so, one thing I’ve always been lucky enough to do is regularly backup my domains once a week and the database once a day to my local Linux box that sits right here next to my work station. Facts are facts and servers don’t last forever. Hard drive failure, viruses, hosting company loses power or doesn’t pay their bills and goes out of business among other hosting hazards are ever present. So this solution to me seems like one people would be interested in having and I’ll be promoting it openly even though we generally do not provide open hosting this is a service we will make available to anyone interested. That leads us to yet another service we now offer.

Hosting your site on a mirror hosting server.

Shane and I had discussed taking our largest server with Rack Space in Texas and using it for mirror hosting for companies that need to have a backup solution for directing traffic in the event of high usage and or failure on the primary domain. The facts are, many small companies that suffer from a virus or other tragic event regarding their domain NEVER come back. Statistics show that most companies who lose their website having put time, energy and countless types of resources into never make a second attempt if all is lost. Although many products and or site solutions do provide database backup utilities, some things are only salvageable by having an offsite backup or archive that may include the actual software running the site or simple things like media elements and documents.

Since the name of the game is rapid recovery, most companies that can afford mirror hosting use mirror hosting in having some redundancy to their products and services websites. We wanted a way for the small entrepreneur or blogger to have a similar feature without breaking him in half. Now many would argue another server or hosting provider will work just fine, why bother with a solution that is specifically setup for mirrors. The simple fact is the risk factor involved in hosting mirrors on shared hosting servers that are not specifically setup for this service. Many potential hazards can present itself causing sites to index incorrectly or even worse. I personally maintain a mirror of all my blogs and all my sites on a server elsewhere that I update changes to daily in the event of an issue. I simply go and switch my DNS to the new location should something happen to this server. Here is the current pricing structure we have setup.

Remote FTP Backup (NOT HTTP WEB ACCESSIBLE)

Basic plan up to 3500 meg per month $5 per /mo
Silver plan up to 10 gb per month $7 per /mo
Bronse plan up to 25 gb per month $8 per /mo
Gold plan up to 50 gb per moth $9 per /mo
Corporate level packages and Realtor solutions where there are large databases are quoted on a per client basis.

DNS Domain Mirror Solution

Mirror 1 plan up to 30 GB space per month $6 per /mo
Mirror 2 plan up to 50 GB space per month $6 per /mo
Mirror 3 plan up to 75 GB space per month $10 per /mo
Mirror 4 plan up to 100 GB space per moth $12 per /mo
Corporate level packages and Realtor solutions where there are large databases are quoted on a per client basis.

I’ve not written sales material on this yet or even tried to promote it but I will get to that later in the week. So please, if you need this service please do not hesitate to contact us.

EZ Pro Realty - The New Standard?

Posted on March 15, 2008
Filed Under Open Realty, Products in Review | Leave a Comment

Professional PHP/ MySQL Real Estate Listings Manager

I was writing an article in my post manager (via my new plugin) for the new "Professionals In Review" section of my blog I got to thinking about standards in software related to the real estate industry. Fitting I thought, I would write a post about the fork of Open Realty called EZ Pro Realty since my post in draft touched on this very idea briefly as I wrote about one of the most influential and in my personal opinion one of the most articulate leaders regarding real estate technology standards, Mark Lesswing. Since I was in the "standards writing" mindset while writing about Mark, I quickly jotted down a handful of little notes in the planner section for later reference like; Who sets these standards? Why do they matter? Should websites that don’t follow them include legends similar to those used on maps? And dozens of others as I kept that ever present hand drawn depiction of my target audience in mind as I wrote.

Mark Lesswing, the NAR’s Chief of Technology Officer is the brain behind many tools that were developed in support of "industry standards " like the RETS compliance mandate for MLS providers. vieleRETS, one of Mark’s best known tools, is an open source application used to connect real estate sites to the standards compliant MLS provider using an XML wrapper. Such is easy to follow as we can see how these key words net us the acronym RETS (Real Estate Transaction Standard). I’ve been supporting vieleRETS since the earliest version releases, and knowing the history of this application, the proprietary position it occupies, being an application defining a standard is easily understood. Not unique per se, contrast and focus are evident when comparing to similar applications that may appear to be trend setting in a lead role, contributing or setting standards even though the opposite may actually be true. All of this naturally assumes that the one setting the standard had an authoritative position and foundation of support that could be agreed upon. (well, thats the ideal anyway)

Software and website solution standards for real estate?

Real estate website applications by and large are custom solutions not following any particular pattern of implementation quite similar to the shopping cart standards in the early days of their development. Today as many would agree, shopping carts follow a pattern that is standardized for what a shopping cart should have and be in regards to features. Anything falling short is just that, falling short.

In the real estate industry one thing that rings true is how slow the industry reacts to change and implementation of technology. Jokingly we know that the very last people to toss their pagers and brick like cell phones were Realtors as many are very slow to change and unfortunately prone fads more so than other industries I’ve followed. But when the real estate industry does implement change the vast majority of those who attempt to be pioneers do so running in the dark with a sharp object in hand. Realtor site applications are just not quite to the level of bare minimum standards that an effective site should have. When someone does introduce an pseudo imposed standard its usually so proprietary that no incentive to follow it or even emulate it could possibly come to fruition, so where is the standard in that.

The Open Source influence on standards

Today, Open Source applications are positioned unlike any in the history of computer and software solutions being the defining guide post to standards. Joomla and Drupal, the worlds premier content management systems set the standard for cms systems. Early on commercial application developers fought the notion of open source cms solutions like a rabid dog, yet today they must concede and keep up or risk an early grave. phpBB a forum solution that fell into the very pits of hell climbed out recently, not only jump above standards in forum solutions similar in many regards to that of vBulletin and at least as high of quality as vBulletin.

Proprietary applications and developers of those apps can follow standards set by Open Source and survive just as effectively as mega popular open source solutions can. Applications like SMF (simple machines forums) for example have historically tried to straddle the fence between what is or what should be a standard have been essentially defined by following the lead of others which likely prove successful for SMF’s survival even though they maintain their proprietary status.

Before we move further in the software solution discussion for Real Estate its important to point out that for those interested in reading further on CMS solutions and how they impact the industry, one would be benefited by visiting the publications of Bryan Ruby. Bryan Ruby is an authoritative and intelligent expert well versed in the myriad of CMS solutions available and writes extensively on the subject.

EZ Pro Realty - Standards from the REALTORS perspective

Early in this post I said that standards are something that are ideally agreed upon and widely accepted. In an ideal world, standards should also be based on user needs in such a way that one would seek to eagerly employ or at least eagerly suggest without regret. This is not always true in software or standards as we have seen Microsoft impose them in bold disregard and often dictated adversity with what actually works.

Open Realty among other similar applications like Hot Properties or EZRealty for example are open source per se yet maintain some level commercial or proprietary status. Open Realty, the most open and free for use or modification, has been by far the most widely used application of its type by Realtors seeking to avoid other more restrictive proprietary solutions. Proprietary is not a bad thing providing you are not a prisoner of the solution as many have experienced. Since this post is about standards its important to point out that none of these applications have set or adhered to any in part because none exist.

Solutions for real estate sites are among the most awkward in any genera or industry I’ve encountered. For this reason Its been an unfortunate experience to witness the consequences the industry has suffered as a result. The lack of a "base line standard for real estate web sites" leaves many Realtors exposed to an lofty level of wide abuse and lies as there is nothing to gauge what is and isn’t to be expected in a solution. Is there help? Is there a defining solution that can save all the hassle? Yes, and its called EZ Pro Realty as in Easy Professional Real Estate solution. So EASY (EZ) a one armed monkey could use it yet so effective any real estate PROfessional would stand up and take notice regarding a new way to recognize true utility value. (Sorry for the play on words)

Utility value is a term Realtors should be most interested in as its an economics or financial term that is used in description of return on investment. Since the above mentioned solutions are investments into your site they should help make a valuable return on your investment as opposed to hindering it by falling short of widely accepted standards in what makes a good web site work. Now I’ll show you some standards that you can expect with EZ Pro Realty without revealing to much regarding changes made.

Quick mention first; Open Realty, EZ Realty, and HotProperties although mentioned in this post for comparison are in no way sub quality products and are to this very day highly recommended tools for effective real estate site solutions. In no way would I disparage these applications even though I will write about and compare solutions based on my experiences. Each of the above mentioned are quality products.

Professional real estate website software solutions.

Professional Documentation and Tutorials

EZ Pro Realty documentation is being assembled using RoboHelp from Adobe as opposed to a dictionary or encyclopedia solution used by some for documentation. The tutorials will give designers and developers a jump start on implementation, use and deployment of the solution. The fork will feature a new modified version of my very own Dreamweaver Open Realty extension and will have ample documentation in a well articulated informative format.

Friendly Support (paid and non paid)

EZ Pro Realty forums will be used to provide support in a friendly environment that is not often seen in forums around the web. People can’t set a standard and then treat those who seek to follow it with mis conduct, rude responses, and abuse and expect to do so with a straight face. The support provided on the EZProRealty.com site is PAID support meaning that they are paid a monthly fee to provide technical assistance to users and support can be paid for regarding customization for users at a super affordable fee that is based entirely on a donation scale. Those who contribute and donate even if for paid support are given credit for contribution.

Credit given where credit is due

A pet peeve with some applications that are open source is the apparent harboring of all credit by the powers to be. With the release of EZProRealty, developers, designers, and other contributors are not only given their own contributor blogs but are mentioned in the list of credits. Lessons learned from products like Joomla and Drupal that boldly disclose who makes the product and project possible.

The chief contributor will be on top naturally and that is Ryan Bonham the developer of Open Realty. In keeping with Ryan’s license as of version 2.4.4 (see this post) Open Realty will be given full unrestricted credit for the application. Open Realty will also be mentioned throughout the documentation as I boldly requested that the developers of EZProRealty must not make any attempt to hide or attempt to disparage Open Realty nor depict it as as a rival. That was my request in joining the effort of the fork by providing all of my add-ons and my three plug-ins which are also FREE.

Project request board for customization

Although many applications provide a way for users to hire professionals for design, customization and other aspects of development for their products, EZProRealty will provide this in a facilitated manor where projects are managed using an escrow system to set standard for quality. Facilitated "subcontracting" or outsourcing will also help them establish network of qualified professionals with actual experience in Open Realty and this variant.

MORE TO COME SO BE PATIENT.

Mark my words with this prophesy because it will come true.

Open Realty and other applications will either follow the path that EZ Pro Realty is laying or be side stepped as a solution Realtors choose. I make these predictions not to harm the other applications but to simply provide a place I can easily send people back to when I get to say, I told you so.

Here is what I predict will happen. BTW I looked to see if any of these were either planned, bug fix posted, or pending in those applications above and none as of this date were.

Open Realty will fix their URL issue and add in the features at bare minimum that allow users of the product to take better control over the URL, Title, and other aspects of good SEF features that are present in the fork.
I further predict that Open Realty will copy almost verbatim every feature that EZ Pro Realty added to the fork related to the way template management is handled and possibly the administrative interface features.
I further predict that Open Realty will implement similar features in the core templates that EZ Pro Realty provides and may also be copied by EZRealty and Hot Properties as none of them offer this feature.
Developer blogs? I’m sure the other applications would likely add or at least copy the idea by providing blogs via our method which uses WordPressMU or something similar. The benefits to template designers, developers, Realtors and contributors would be so beneficial that not copying it or something close to it would be a surprise to me.
I predict that the opposing applications that are proprietary with solution providers will either emulate structure of the template system and features or at bare minimum provide the same post and page editing features we have implemented into EZProRealty’s page editor. The editor has a few dynamic features that makes posting a blessing as opposed to a chore.
Module management based on page is something that EZRealty and HotProperties offers and I’m guessing that since EZProRealty offers this, open realty will be sure to follow. This feature allows for page specific code to be placed in page specific locations via the editor similar to the EZProRealty new {header_include} tag. Super powerful especially considering its use in cross linking and marketing.
I’d bet many features in EZProRealty will be copied, emulated and duplicated on every level regarding the integration and cross platform sharing ability that is currently under development and announced on the EZProRealty site.

EZProRealty, to expect anything less is lowering your standards!

WordPress Featured Listings Plugin Change

Posted on March 14, 2008
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Version changes for the Featured Listings Plugin

Okay today my coder sent me some very significant changes to the plug-in so it would work with sub-domains and this plug-in was removed temporarily from the download section until Saturday or Sunday. We discovered a nasty little bug that would render some fields in WP useless as a result.

Version Numbering Method

Rather than call this release 0.98 or 1.0 RC2 (release candidate 2) we have tested it enough to start our version number to start at 1.2.1 Here is why; keeping with the standard version numbering criteria, 1.0 was considered stable and tested by dozens of people for the past two months and is even functioning live on a few dozen sites now but a minor or major-minor rewrite of the methods were changed to such a degree that we call the version 1.2. This morning my coder made a few important changes that we will now follow the sub versioning criteria with small changes and bug fixes. As it stands for this release Starting TODAY (download-able tomorrow morning) we are at 1.2.1

New method employed to increase usability, Search Engine Support, and features.

Some of the things we ran into with the previous version that was tested by so many beta testers (I thank each of you) was the issue with making different templates show up on different pages and the issue of locking people into only one field. As we have encountered in the past month, sites that have an IDX or RETS installation in them, the fields are often dynamically created with each refresh of the database. This of course poses a serious problem with flexibility. As many of you know some MLS providers can be real sticklers for things like the listing of brokerage, office, or even MLS logos. Couple that with proprietary needs of each Realtor or real estate office and we compound the problem making this plug-in of little or trivial use. Well we could not stand for that naturally.

Our solution to those problems was to rewrite the plug-in to allow at bare minimum, 80% user defined search criteria in the search results while allowing for ways to include one or more per post. This way the WordPress Featured Listings Plug-in can operate as a mini listings detail plug-in or a featured listings plug-in randomizer as it was intended for. Now an agent blog can have listings displayed by literally hundreds of variables that can be organized with three simple fields and each instance will be a completely separate instance. What does that mean? Well lets have you look at the next post to see how it will work.

WordPress Featured Listings Scenario

Posted on March 14, 2008
Filed Under Products, Real Estate News, Real Estate Websites | Leave a Comment

Featured Real Estate Listings for SEO advantages

Lets look at a scenario for building SEF and SEO presentable content for your blog with real estate listings. In the previous post I outlined some of the basic issues we encountered with the beta versions and then went on to briefly explain some of those changes for this version 1.2.1 release. One way to articulate the details for those changes would be to simply present a scenario for better understanding of why this method is so very important and beneficial. First lets do a little history about writing effective real estate blog marketing posts, and then examine the scenario

Marketing Real Estate Listings With Your Blog - Search Engine strategy proven to work.

One thing I’ve been telling many of my Realtor clients is that when using a blog, should they discover that they have little time to contribute to the blog on a regular bases, they could consider extending an opportunity to their clients to write content for them. How and why you might ask? The reasons and benefits may surprise you.

Back in October 2006 when I began using WordPress regularly on Realtor sites, I came up with the notion that no one really knows their home better than the owner of the home (as most agree) and the home owner would be better positioned for writing informative content. MLS and many times website inclusion of an mls type feed present very little useful information to a prospective buyer as much of it is rote bland summary points. As such I came up with a solution that we decided to test out on a few real estate sites. As said, mls data can be rote, boring and mundane and it stood to reason that if a Realtor could present better information about a property he / she would be in a better position to sell that property. Right?

So by extending an opportunity to home owners to write detailed information about their homes and provide photos, among other things, a Realtor could publish valuable details to their blogs therein providing a link back to the listing details for that property in a way that better markets the property. Hence one of the motivating factors in building the WordPress Featured Listings plug-in.

Since testing this idea over the span of just over a year now, we discovered that everyone who employs this method reports back extremely favorable results. Some devices being employed in addition to the home owner’s submitted content is the inclusion of things like charts and or maintenance schedules that have been logged over time by the home owner which can include remodel expenses, roofing, lawn care, patching the driveway and other things readers would be interested in. I know that if I were shopping for a home, I’d be interested in knowing how often someone had performed home owner maintenance and I’m sure others would be too when shopping for a home. A blog presents a way to achieve this with home owner submitted content. As most of my Realtor clients use a format schedule I assembled for them, they can set the criteria of the types of things a home owner can or should cover in describing their home. More on this later in the post but for now, just keep the premise in mind as we look at this scenario.

Marking My Featured Real Estate Listing (scenario)

New listing by Realtor: Some Luxury Home In Some Town, Some State
Following a common standard operating procedure the Realtor tasks his staff to add the listing to the local MLS, orders a yard sign, and sets about adding the property to their prescribed marketing efforts (website, printed magazines, news paper and other rag sheets etc…)

The Realtor decides that he is way to busy to write a blog post about the property and may opt instead to task an employee to write the post following some checklists and procedures for writing such content or the Realtor may outsource the content writing to a copywriter. All said and done, the copy complete, property listed, now time will tell how effective those efforts are. But, why leave it at that?

This same Realtor is an educated Realtor with lots of marketing and psychology studies in his background so this Realtor knows that a more personable and heart felt the informative description is in the blogs copy, the longer a person will stay on the site and the more likely they contact the Realtor would be. But who is to write about this property in such a way and wouldn’t it cost a great deal to have it professionally written with all the checks and balances of keyword density and link relevance? This two part questions is one we can answer in two sentences.

The Realtor extends the opportunity to his client home owner to share as much detail as their heart desires and they can include video tours, photos and other media elements to be published on the world wide web. Next the Realtor visits a site like The Brokers Edge and uses the online tools for checking the material for link relevance, keyword density, and other facets prior to publishing, which the Realtor does by using a pre-formatted method like the one included in our Professional WP Editor Plug-in. Now the post is ready for the next step.

The Realtor uses the WordPress Featured Listings plug-in and includes a single instance of this particular properties listing that rotates random images from those available with each refresh of the page. Then the Realtor adds a second featured listing inclusion using the WordPress Featured Listings plug-in showing an additional 3, 5, or say 10 listings from that very neighborhood which he / she includes just below the blog post. Do you see where I’m going with this?

Who stands to know more, write more and inform more about a particular home than a home owner? Who can write how they "feel" about their home, the neighborhood, the schools, and other facets of a home so effectively? Any Realtor would be hard pressed to provide such information in a cost effective way and even more hard pressed to justify such an expense of conducting research the home owner already knows. write from their perspective for inclusion into the Real Estate blog for greater potential ranking and buyer interaction.

Now you might just say why not include hard coded links in the post to the listings details from photos you add to the post? Why use the Featured Listings WordPress plug-in for such a mundane task.? The answer is simple. Speed and flexibility. With this plug-in we have been able to create custom variants for clients that allow them to use it with products like the UltimateIDX, IDX Web Pro, vieleRETS and others. It has been recently tested with not only Open Realty 2.4.4 but the variant version called EZ Pro Realty and we have plans to port a version to EZRealty for Joomla this next week.

Please read the latest posts on this today.

WordPress Post Planner Plugin

Posted on March 10, 2008
Filed Under Real Estate Websites | Leave a Comment

Effective content planning for your WordPress blog.

Some time ago I had a friend write me a small PHP application of sorts that was used to assist in the assembly of well structured written content following the 5 paragraph narrative format of a thesis writing project. Having built the mini-app for one of my classes, the idea behind the tool was based almost entirely on the process of good writing. Taking from the influence of the Scott Forshmans English Writing Handbook, the mini-app was essentially a collection of RTF generators where fields were filled in depending on the format chosen.

Now, you may have seen or even used content generators in Microsoft Word or other popular document publishing solutions, but none seemed to exist for the web and certainly none seemed to exist for blogging. If a blogger could publish content based on pre-formed and well structured writing formats, the expected quality of the content should increase right?

Well, after looking at all the old documents I had on writing styles and processes taught in grammar schools and English classes, I came up with an idea to make many of these "rote format" methods of writing a tool for bloggers by building a WordPress plugin to assist in the writing process. Although many professional bloggers tend to use offline tools for drafting content, many I’ve spoken with said that the tools for truly professional writing and editing are not available in most blogging solutions although they wish such tools were. So, I ran the idea by my coder in order to take that mini application and turn it into yet another FREE Plugin for WordPress that will help bloggers write better content, online.

Writing Better Content! WordPress blogging 101

What this next plugin will feature basically centers around the process of writing and the management of resources specific to writing using formats often found in good research writing taught in schools and colleges. So here is a brief summary of what is currently in this plugin and what is pending prior to release. Again, this plugin is being released as a FREE plugin for WordPress.

POST PLANNER PLUGIN FEATURES

When you sit down to write, how do you approach a writing project? For me it always begins with the idea of what the subject should be about and then I write down a clear statement of who the target audience is before I begin to write (in most cases that is). With my audience in mind and an idea of their expectations I write according to those expectations presenting to them my ideas and thoughts related to the subject I write. I may start out with a thesis statement of sorts and certainly an introduction that may either fully set the expectation of the content or I’ll shoot from the hip and use a technique in writing I learned where you take a person one direction only to arrive at another. A common technique in politics you may have noticed.

So what this plugin seeks to do is simple, it seeks to provide you a way to write content based on optional structure and methods of writing while providing essential tools for writing good content.

More than just a collection of available pre formatted fields to fill in, this plugin will feature some basic file management and even analytical tools for testing keyword density and other SEO important things prior to publishing your post or page. Now in the test I have been able to get the keyword analyzer to work rather quickly, but some of the features of the plugin are going to clearly require a person well versed in AJAX and mootools which I’m actively seeking now.

Mark, my programmer, has also assisted me in the creation of the admin interface which will feature a modified version of the FCK editor along with some drop down user defined preselects for rapid publishing of content. With the plugin a writer will be able to organize notes, organize resources, gather files and other media elements, prior to the writing stage. Getting the ducks all in a row as the cliche goes makes the writing process much easier. Now its a lofty goal naturally for some features I have planned but my sincere objective is to make this plugin worthy of serious use by any professional writer or journalist by providing features many in such a line of work would require.

Does this replace the standard POST editor page? In part, yes especially with the addition of some new fields and the customized editor.

I’ll get you a screen shot later today of what we have already come up with.

Product Downloads Page Update!

Posted on March 10, 2008
Filed Under Real Estate Websites | 2 Comments

WordPress Real Estate Plugin, also released

I’m updating the downloads page for many of the items that were blocked later today so please check back. The Featured Listings WordPress plugin and other plugins are available now so please feel free to drop me a line regarding features ideas, bugs and general feedback as I’m already planning the next release of this plugin.

Also, I’ve added a few templates for Open Realty and a variant for the new pending fork release titled "EZ Pro Realty". Since template compatibility isn’t 100% due in part to several modifications to the core, I’ve ported some of the older Open Realty templates in my inventory to work with the new "pathfinder" release of EZ Pro Realty.

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