The Brokers Edge has finally wrapped up the development of several pending services that had been in the works for nearly two years. Free Realtor Blogs, Free Real Estate blog themes, free real estate tools and code snippets along with unlimited and unrestrained access to their forums, The Brokers Edge is just days from bringing years of work to the real estate market. Included in their array of services and tools, The Brokers Edge will be providing all members to their forums with flash video tutorials on many facets and subjects related to Real Estate websites, email, marketing, SEO, software, blogs and much more, FREE! Why pay a company $100 an hour to tell you how to properly format a blog post or how to update some particular aspect of your site. With The Brokers Edge you not only get these tutorials 100% FREE you get them without without any advertising, sales pitches or gimmicks.

Earlier this week I had noticed that the WordPress MU and vBulletin installation dates had been initially done nearly 2 years ago and now that they are updated to the latest and greatest versions wrapping up the design features is ensue. TBE has be painfully busy with MLS IDX installations in dozens of markets with their signature product called UltimateIDX. Only until recently have they set aside the time and resources necessary to make some very important features a reality.

The Brokers Edge has always planned to have Realtor blogs from its very beginning as well as a Realtor forum using vBulletin. No nation on earth has as many Realtors as the United States yet there are only seven (7) major active forums at the last count that are actually based in the US and of those seven, only three are owned and operated by Realtors. The Brokers Edge is owned, managed and operated by many Realtors who have years of experience building their own enterprises. The Brokers Edge solves the kinds of issues Realtors face every single day and are reluctant or afraid to pursue in part because of mis information or simply false information. With their new forums information and techniques are shared in a way that does not step on toes, does not seek to dictate and does not seek to retaliate against those who express an honest opinion. The forums are quite literally a public forum for Real Estate professionals.

Realtors Taking Control - No Hassles.

Since The Brokers Edge is Realtor owned and operated, each of the services they have been providing are based entirely upon experience in using or having used proprietary solutions only to discover better ways of doing things. Having tracked and actively paid avid attention to the mounting frustrations of Realtors in selecting types of services for web site building, The Brokers Edge is certainly versed and in position to counsel on what is generally available. The forums at The Brokers Edge will actively seek reviews of services for comparison so members get all the facts to make an accurate decision. No forum on the web that I’ve encountered would allow the discussion of competitors products in their forums. TBE may be the first of its kind among those in its genera.

Touching again on proprietary solutions, these products are certainly not an evil thing as many qualified and responsible companies do deliver great products and services to Realtors that are exclusive products of those firms. But Realtors as well as other Real Estate related professionals are discovering that the Open Source solutions not only provide similar features but many provide features in website technologies that far surpasses proprietary solutions. All though the reasons for higher quality in open source applications is well beyond the subject of this post; it is worth mention that many open source solutions like CMS, Blog, and Listing manager software are actively maintained by a huge community of users and developers that share in the development and advancement of such products. The Brokers Edge not only recognizes this, it embraces it by providing FREE Real Estate Blog Themes and other templates for many open source applications including Joomla, OpenRealty, and WordPress and possibly EZ Pro Realty once live.

Therefore, The Brokers Edge is both proprietary and open source in its mind set which has a unique duality in perspective that has proven most beneficial to Realtors in every market they have entered. Granted, there are literally dozens and dozens of solution providers out there that use tools like Joomla or WordPress as their primary development platform but The Brokers Edge does not limit its resources to these tools alone. The Brokers Edge first embraces the Realtors decision and then provides solutions of its own to either enhance or work in concert with the sites platform. The UltimateIDX is an ideal example as it works with literally any website solution hosted on a LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL PHP) system, even on shared hosting.

Free themes for WordPress do not require you to host with The Brokers Edge as FREE literally means FREE and after porting some of my own FREE Open Source plug-ins for WordPress, OpenRealty and Joomla to TBE, many of their themes will be pre-formatted with features Realtors are sure to use.

I’ll be posting more on The Brokers Edge later in the week as I’m given more information.

Why you should check back in the next few days!

• Adding video tutorials on how to use the plugin
• I’ve setup a forum which will be skinned to look like my main blog when I reskin it. http://www.jaredritchey.com/forum/
• New updates to the plugin will have been tested and added
• New templates for layouts will have been added
• The details and instructions page will be complete
• More on the way.

I’ll be posting future updates to this product in the forums and on the product landing page for each plugin.

Only a brief moment available to drop in and make post about a few updates to the AWBS tool.  Previously I had posted that more than 16k errors or should I say declarations and code structure were changed in the default template to make an all new one based on XHTML coding standards. Yesterday and the day before I found dozens and dozens of additional changes I needed to make in order to get my broke template master to work.  Fixed I decided to make a Dreamweaver snippet and extension tool real quick which although isn’t super beautiful it is fully functional.

AWBS Template Dreamweaver Extension

What I did is take all the code out of the templates that were considered tags that can be used elsewhere and put them in to three snippet categories in the extension.  After visiting the AWBS documentation site I took a list of the available tags and simply put them in the drop down menu for the extension.

I have NO IDEA what changes AWBS has in store for future releases and I’ve offered the template to them as a master layout if they so desire which is cleaner, lighter, faster and validates better. Its loaded with comments for novice persons to easily and quickly build a template for AWBS.

I’ll still keep the extension, support files and template masters as part of this very affordable template kit for AWBS.  If AWBS decides to implement the new reworked template as part of their release, I’ll still provide minimal support for it in the new forums I’ve installed on my domain.

I have literally been up to my neck with catch up tasks and have turned down freelance projects as a result to get these projects complete and out the door.

If you want the kit now, without the tutorials or video guides, you can purchase the kit for $29.95.  Please note however that when other elements of the kit become available I will notify you of download location.  What is pending is the video how to guide, the dreamweaver extension needs testing and I just wrapped up the photoshop action and image TDK for AWBS standard icons and I’ve included several reworks in that area too.

AWBS is a great product written by intelligent programmers.  We all know that programmers and designers don’t always see eye to eye so all the above mentioned errors and issues are design related and should not reflect poorly on the quality of AWBS as an ideal solution for hosting companies.  Besides, AWBS is likely the most affordable and easy to use solution among the many I’ve tested. I’m a fan and a user of the product and have it on no fewer than 33 client servers ( last count ) at any given time.

Please EMAIL me or contact me to purchase the kit without the videos or documentation until they are complete.

The time has come that my existing contracts with real estate website service providers is so demanding that free time to pursue any projects of a freelance nature is not realistic and delays are just foolishly long and simply un manageable.  I’ve decided to wrap up my existing commitments and agreements which can be easily done today and tomorrow which I will then publish my existing open-source projects and free plugins which have been delayed time and time again and I do not want to anger people so its time to put these "delays to rest permanently".

As it stands I will only wrap up my existing projects I’ve agreed to. I’ll refer and and all requests for request and proposal to a designer I’ve worked with in the past who is well versed in Open Realty, Joomla and WordPress and has a substantial background with server migrations and integrated solutions.  My teaching schedule along with my above mentioned contracts are too demanding and rather than have things slip beyond any possible control I’m going to step out of the freelance arena for a period of time.

Any requests for work related to the posts that led you here may be submitted which I’ll forward to a designer who is competent and qualified for most entry level to mid level design projects.

A complex lesson learned during the build of my new production machine making me realize how little I actually know about the building of computers or hardware in general.  The entire weekend from Friday about 1PM until late Sunday evening I spent building the machine to replace my tired old production work station. The process may be interesting enough for some readers facing the challenges I had with projects being drawn out sometimes months because the tools for the trade were just simply out dated and not up to the challenge of high end production.  So herein before I get my Monday morning started I’ll share the details with you at this early hour.

The first objective, a new local linux box for testing.

My old machine, a dual CPU AMD 1.8 Ghz was plenty fast for many things but not at all current or ideal for things like Adobe Dreamweaver, Flash Pro or Photoshop CS3.  So rather than toss it to ebay for $100 I spent Saturday converting it to a linux server to test apps and websites on before they go production. It was simple really, the installation and configuration of CentOS with the necessary server software to run a local linux box on my network, so it gets only casual mention in this series of events.  The real challenge was the build of the work station.

Lengthy project delays became a serious problem.

One thing that has nearly crucified me time and time again is the lengthy time frame it has taken me to complete MANY dozens of projects of the hundreds I’ve undertaken over the past three and a half years.  A lofty chunk of these delays was due to over booking projects or multitasking which really isn’t a bad thing if you have the infrastructure to handle such a daunting schedule.  Teaching Photoshop at the College the first 3 hours of my day leaves time for freelance projects usually from about 11AM until about 11PM daily (which seems to be my average schedule).  Over stacking or over booking projects is common with designers, especially those in freelance given the nature of the business. But such practice can be dangerous and costly if you are not experienced or well versed in how to juggle projects with a little finess.  Hardware does in fact matter and even though you have all your finest procedures down to an effective set of steps, things bottle neck with outdated and troublesome equipment as I’ve experienced.

Can a person really claim that better computers can help with production time with design? YES! Experience has shown me that people who are able to produce high levels of output and production in the design business either have a well placed standardized procedure for turnkey production or a serious inventory of resources which usually includes an impressive production work station.  Naturally there are other factors in successful design procedures that I’ve left out only because my post is really geared toward the individual designer and not design firm involving many individuals.  Because of this, proper design systems then tends to look like the solution I built with the help of Shane Gibby at Click Once Computers.

The graphics work station, a PC platform.

When I set out to solve this nasty history of lengthy delays in project completion I had strongly considered the transition to a Macintosh noted for its reliability and impressive super computer like characteristics.  I work with the Macintosh at the college three times a week and the speed and reliability of a Mac is difficult to compete with as many would tend to agree. However two key limitations in that platform motivated me to stick with the PC for my specific need. 

The importance of graphics horsepower can not be underestimated in our business and although a Mac certainly has this down to a science the PC can be build to rival a Mac in this area leaving the balance of the required features all pointing to the PC for my concern.  Hard drive space, graphics power, speed and ram were all top priority with peripheral components as secondary considerations.

Here is what we came up with for my new work station.

The CPU needed to be ideal for graphics and video related production and a dual process was my original plan until I discovered the very impressive criteria of the AMD Phenom X4 9850 Quad Core Processor.  More cache per CPU than the competitors coupled with true quad core chip structure the hyper transport feature provides separate pipes for data, a major motivator for me.

The 800MHZ front side bus speed of the DDR2 memory sticks  was sure to provide substantial performance improvements over my existing older 2GB setup. Now when considering this I had to decide if I was going to install Windows Vista in order to take advantage of the 4GB I installed or stick with XPSP3 Pro which would only see 3.5GB of the total available.  Most would agree that XP would run much faster given the current setup but we had to be sure.

Trial and error is sometimes the best teacher so having spent Saturday installing Vista, it took only a few hours of testing and examination to quickly motivate me to re format the drive and simply go back to XP which I knew would run circles around Vista in terms of speed.  So I took the half a gig loss with XP for the compounded increase in speed when compared to Windows Vista.

Next was the drive space.  One thing my old machine was infamous for was rebooting during the save of large files like Photoshop files or video tutorials from Camtasia studio.  There were times that this reboot during the save to the hard drive would deliver a blue screen of death as the NTFS system file would be corrupted forcing me on more than a half dozen occasions to recover data and start over.  Frustrating and costly these delays have forced some projects to literally go into certain death overtime as my systems lack of quality RAM and drive space just beat me up with tragic performance issues.  Hard Drive and redundant backup would be essential.

The net results looks like this;

• AMD Phenom X4 9850 Quad Core Processor 2.50 GHz / 4MB Cache running up to 2000MHz FSB
• ASUS M2N SLI Deluxe2 Mainboard
• Thermaltake 140MM ORB CPU cooling fan
• The "Ultra Black Box" 1000 watt full tower case with slide in hot swap drive bays, 2 120MM Case Fans and a spank of room for components.
• 3 SATA 160 GB HD’s 2 of which are on RAID 0. ( I chose the 160GB only because I don’t trust high density drives for mission critical data storage having had many high volume drives crash to frequently )
• 2 EIDE 160 GB HD’s migrated from my old box
• 1 Multi media card reader for USB and other types of data cards like those in my digital cameras.
• 1 DVD-CD-RW Drive
• 1 DVD Blue Ray
• 2 Married Visiontek Radeon HD 3870 X2 Video Card - 1GB GDDR3, PCI Express ( With SLI you can put two of these together with an SLI card bridge.)
• 1 21" flat screen trinintron monitor which will soon be upgraded to 2 View Sonic 24" DVI flat panel LCD monitors (on back order)
• 4 GB 800MHz FSB DDR2 EPP RAM ( 3.5 actual with Windows XP )
• CL Audigy Pro 4 Sound module with the Sanson C01U USB condenser microphone ( podcasting naturally ) I added a 31" boom stand for the mic and a professional model PF1 pop stopper and a 60" X 54" acoustic box to keep external sounds out.
• 1 WACOM ArtZ-2 12×12 art pad (migrated from my old system)
• 1 Epson pre press printer with Ultra Chrome 7 ink features and Kodak’s Matchprint roll feeder. I use this when I get hired to create print materials and need to produce a match print for examination. This system costs 1/10th the cost my Fargo Dye Sublimation printers and can easily match its quality under most conditions.

When done my new system will feature dual monitors, all my printers on a network hub, and the Sony digital video production box for producing video for real estate clients. 

There you have it, my new motive for this Monday morning in getting all my outstanding projects caught up and completed. Eager to get rolling, I’ll be back later today to post the release of all my plugins and modules.

Exactly what I’m referring to!

What I’m talking about is this silly notion that products developed and or announced in advanced by Joomla developers, WordPress developers and even Open Realty developers getting the bad rap from a very mouthy individual who has the day occupation working for the tax payers and the night occupation of bashing guys like you, the developers of software.  This individual seems to be under the belief that things happen over night and that when a product is announced other factors come into play where endless hours of free time at the tax payers expense is NOT a luxury we all share. Naming this person isn’t necessary because this post is intended for one target audience and that target audience knows exactly what I’m referring to.

I extend my thanks, my respect and my support to all developers of plugins, addons and components for the open source world, you are greatly appreciated even if it takes a bit longer to deliver than planned. We’ve all been there.

A visitor to my blog asked me to update the information regarding the options available for Joomla regarding listings managers and as I was informed EZ Realty a Joomla based product is not being developed for Joomla 1.5 due in part to license restrictions related to the product.

As it stands Open Realty is the ONLY game in town for integrated listings managers for Joomla 1.5 and as I was recently informed EZ Pro Realty is NOT going to pursue the day and night difference between the apps as I had originally been told.  Apparently the developers of EZ Pro Realty are going to build the variant (Fork no longer used in the language) Open Realty for a specific market and not as an alternative to the mega popular Open Realty.  What was the motive for the change?

Well in part the change was due to yours truly, ME! I have been working with Mick (one of the Open Realty contributors) by providing some code and suggestions I’m quite happy to see are now being implemented.  Like EZ Pro Realty, Mick has taken a few suggestions that we discussed via email specifically the changes in files and features.  Here is a quick update on the development of both applications as they currently stand.

Open Realty Pending!

• Better search engine friendly URL’s that includes the use of hyphens as an option.
• Inclusion of a change in the default common file which has been renamed common.dist.php
• Possible inclusion of PDF support I had contributed
• Possible inclusion of a new method for installation process we discussed.
• Possible inclusion of a globals.php file which I had briefly discussed EZ Pro Realtys idea behind it.

EZ Pro Realty Pending!

• Search engine URL’s were naturally from the start but like Open Realty the option for hypen or plus sign is an option but EZ Pro Realty has taken it one step further where you have the option of deciding what the extension is as either .php .html or simply a trailing slash / which will result in url’s like /listing-name-example/
• EZ Pro Realty finished the implementation of three new templates each of them used to introduce the template methods used in building user interfaces based in part on a new CSS foundation provided by again, yours truly.
• PDF Support is a guaranteed feature. ( I can’t go into the latest details)
• Do you like vieleRETS, well EZ Pro Realty provides a way for you to LOVE vieleRETS, you will love it.
• Brand new installer and a brand spanking new admin control panel with a some nifty features.
• TinyMCE and XHINA editors are not to be included initially.
• There is a new featured listings manager.
• There is a new featured agent manager
• There is a new Google Maps feature
• And more…

Open Realty Gets Friendly?

Time away is what the doctor ordered according to Mick  one of the main contributors to Open Realty as he visited my blog and made a few comments related to my original post about EZ Pro Realty features.  Mick and I have shared a few ideas which I’m glad to say have been implemented into the 2.5 release of Open Realty.  Mick states in his email the suggestion that will likely be a more friendly environment at the Open Realty forums. Mick, who occupies a profession full of the kinds of stress that make life difficult did say that time away has given him some new perspective.  All I can say in this regard is I’m glad to see Mick returning to an attentive role at Open Realty and wish him and the other moderators well.

So what is the difference?

EZ Pro Realty is pursuing a different path not as a fork of Open Realty as originally planned but as a variant seeking to achieve something all together different with a product that is quite similar for the most part.  As best I can tell the only real major differences between the two developments is the core features most often achieved via add-ons in Open Realty.

AWBS Template Designers Resource Kit

1. AWBS master layout template kit (of sorts) that is XHTML and CSS compliant for the most part.
2. Dreamweaver snippets I use for the drop in template tags
3. The JS Library
4. The Joomla External Modules code and video on how to use
5. The WordPress inclusion functions called wpglobal.php This allows you to put snippets from your blog in AWBS.
6. swfobject.js version 2.0 for the flash jpg slide show I have included
7. 3 videos outlining the use of the master layout for building templates.

Released as AWBS Template Kit - version 1.0 - the price is $39.95 and is available now.

Having worked with WordPress now going on 2 1/2  years one thing that seems to catch most people by surprise is the compatibility issues with some plug-ins and themes with successive developments. When the introduction of Tags was added to WordPress many themes simply would not work without modification.

For those who may find this a bit of a challenge I would like to extend the offer to perform the updates for you including any minor template fixes or simple modifications to plug-ins in order to bring you up to date with the worlds number one blogging solution.

Upgrading WordPress - $25 per project

Upgrading WordPress - $25 per project for any release from 2.0 to current.  Please feel free to use the contact me page to request an upgrade. 

The price is based on average time of 1 1/2 hours and includes DB and domain backup, compression of code, I remove white spaces from core code, and perform general SEF and SEO examination as part of the update. This examination includes a look at your HTACCESS for things like Canonical URL configuration, image caching, proper redirect and permalinks directives along with removing white space since HTACCESS does not cache the smaller it is the better for performance. I then add a robots.txt files which WordPress does not provide by default.  Most would agree that an update to WordPress is a mere 10 minute job which is true but why stop there when a detailed assessment and proper update and archive should be performed. 

Contact me today for an upgrade to WordPress 2.5

Special note regarding the WordPress 2.5 update process:

WordPress 2.5 does require a database update and I mentioned above that I always make a backup of the entire project folder prior to performing an update. This database update is essential to taking advantage of WordPress’s new features and careful attention to backup and recovery procedures should be followed.

An image just for the sake of putting an image.

Eager to get this product installed so all my addons and plugins can be tested I’m taking down my site for one hour to move things into place.

Great work WordPress developers!