Labor day is just around the corner, and with that comes traditional end of summer thoughts such as back to school, colder temps, and wondering just where did that summer go.  For NAR staff, Labor Day is akin to the 2 minute warning in a football game due to NAR's Annual Convention and Expo looming on the horizon.

This year CRT will be sponsoring 6 educational sessions, the WiFi Hot Spot, and the Bloggers' Lounge.  CRT's own Ian Smith will be giving a digital video primer at the NAR booth theater on the expo floor. We'll also be at the Young Professionals Networking Event helping with video interviews and meeting with the young professionals.

Our six educational sessions are designed to be part IT track part social media education.  I'm very excited to share the 6 session titles: Internet Security, Data to Syndicators, Digitally Expose Yourself,  VoIP, RETS: Impact of the Rule Change, Using Social Media to Engage Clients, and Services You Can Use in Your Business.  We're excited because not only are we helping bring great content to our members and the IT community that serves them, but we'll have notable people from inside and outside the industry including Dustin Luther, RE.net guru; Evo Terra, one of the authors of Podcasting for Dummies; Mac McMillian, internet security expert from CynergisTek; and Bob Hale, CEO of the Houston Association of REALTORS®.

The Bloggers' Lounge will once again be operating as home base for all social media folks to come and do their posts, upload their pictures and videos, and get to know each other.  We'll be closer to the expo floor this year in an attempt to make us easier to find.  However, to give all the lounge users some incentive to find it, CRT and the Realtor.org content team will be co-hosting a reception on Friday
night at the lounge.  It'll be a good time to find the room for the rest of the weekend, meet some RE.net folks, and have some pleasant conversation.

As we move towards november we'll be posting reminders on CRT's blog about the sessions as well as things like the location of the Hot Spot, Bloggers' Lounge, and other tips and tricks we think you should
know.

See you in Orlando!

Keith Garner
kgarner@realtors.org

Firebug is an Extension for Mozilla Firefox which allows the debugging, editing, and monitoring of any website's CSS, HTML, DOM and JavaScript, and provides other web development tools[1].  Really, this is the swiss army knife of web development gadgets.  It allows for the logging of web pages; JavaScript Debugging; page error reporting; page inspection, AJAX request logging, and to top it all off - Live Page Editing. 

This is really a tool that you need to install, fire up and just start tinkering with it.  For me, it winds up being one of the most useful utilities that I have at my web page development/surfing disposal. 

The one trick that I use the most is the HTML inspector (view screenshot).  If you are ever on a page, and are curious of the layout or inner workings of the HTML, just open up Firebug,  click on Inspect->HTML and navigate your mouse to the section you are interested in.  Firebug will highlight the HTML code of inquiry, and you will see it in all its raw markup glory.  You can use this to easily find out how a nifty feature, design or layout work.  Or to figure out a way around a pesky pop-up JavaScript link when you want to just send a link to someone. 

In fact, one of my favorite uses is when developing DOM interactive JavaScript, I can easily find out where an object lies within the entire document.  From there, I can do all the nifty JavaScript manuipulation I need.

Now, let's say that the page is one that you control, or have the ability to affect design decisions.  You may not have the ability, time or patience to continually make a change to the code, save it, reload the page, and do whatever various tasks it takes to update the page.  And then, what if you were doing that on a live page, and you made a mistake?  That's not a fun thing to fix.  Well, once you use the inspector to find the piece of HTML you want to change, you can click over to Edit and make live changes to the HTML or the CSS,  As in this example I changed the size of the picture and added some bolding to one of the paragraphs.  Now how fancy is that?  Tinker with a live web page without ever touching the production code.

Once you decide on some changes, and roll those into production, FireBug willl also  notify you if there are any problems on the page.  Green is good, red means that there is something wrong.

We can even take it past some of the hocus-pocus that we have been discussing, and get to some performance overviews.  FireBug has a built in page performance monitor.  With this you can watch the different aspects of your page, and the time it takes to load.  Clicking on the Net tab and reloading the page will give you the stats for the individual components of the page load, as well as the total time to request the page (Performance Monitor Screenshot).  You can also click on each request and see the headers of each itme that was recieved.  Outside of performance testing your own pages, these headers are a great way to see cookies, AJAX requests and all the other dirty little details that the browser and server are communicating.

Two other exciting features are the ability to step through JavaScript code line by line.  You can set up breakpoints and evaluate each step of the code execution including editing, stack tracing, nested groups and assertions.  Additionally, it helps remove one of the bears of JavaScript development, the "alert debugging" and having to click OK multiple times per page to see how variables are changing.  With FireBug, you can log messages from JavaScript directly into the FireBug Console.

As I said earlier, this is a tool that you really need to explore for yourself.  Its the MacGyver tool for web developing.  The way one person uses one of the tools, can be completely different than how someone else works it into the testing and debugging routine.  That is really the power of FireBug.  Download it, explore it - it's a great little extension that at its bear minimal tells you when a web page is broken or not!

[1]  Wikipedia

 
Christopher McKeever
cmckeever@realtors.org

Not too long ago, I was at dinner with a few real estate professionals.  During the conversation, Jott came up.  If I remember correctly, I thought Jott still referred to "writing something down on a piece of paper."  Silly me!  Someone at the table explained that Jott is a time-saving tool that she uses and really likes. 

What is Jott? 

I recently gave it a try. Jott is a useful, transcription service.  Let's say that you are mid-commute when suddenly you get a great idea for the next sales meeting.  All you have to do is speed dial Jott, and leave a voice message.  Jott then sends an email or a text message to the group or individual of your choice.  Hands-free!  You don’t need to have a computer within reach, and you don’t need to type into your wireless device.  You can even message a reminder to yourself or send an entry to your calendar.

Set-up was easy.  There’s nothing to download.  All you have to do is call an automated activation system, where your email and phone will be confirmed.  Then an automated voice at the other end will ask you to make your first Jott, which, unless you have already added contacts through the web interface, will be to yourself.   I just spoke into my phone, sent myself a message.  And it worked. The email message came across perfectly and it included a voicemail file just in case I wanted to hear the actual message.   (This is especially handy if something is not transcribed accurately, which may happen from time to time.)

Jott also has a web interface where you can add up to five contacts at a time, create groups, add RSS feeds, or add other Jott links.     

What else do you need to know about Jott?

- Up until a few weeks ago, Jott was free.  Jott Basic is still free but it does not convert your phone messages to text or email.  This service is now part of the services offered by Jott for a monthly rate.  Jott charges $3.95/month for Jott and $12.95/month for Jott Pro.

For Jott's phone message to text or email service:

-Before sending a Jott, the intended recipient must be in your contact list.

-If you want to text someone, keep in mind that you’re using up their text messaging minutes. (If you don't want to text, don't enter a phone number for the contact.)

-Under Settings, you can add your picture! This is a nice feature, and Jott takes the typical formats...jpg, gif, png, bmp, or tiff files.  Your picture will automatically be scaled to 50x50 pixels.

-Settings also allows you to add an html signature to your messages, if, for example, you want to include a link to your web page.

-You can add multiple phone numbers to your account in case you want to Jott from your cell phone and/or your office phone. 

-More FAQ.   

The bottom line is this: if you decide to give Jott a try, you're likely to find that it's super user-friendly.

Here are some other interesting tools for you or your office:

Audacity

Audacity is an audio editor.  It's free, and downloads of the program are available for Windows and Linux. I've used Audacity to cut and splice one huge audio file into separate tracks. Having multiple tracks made the audio more manageable—they were smaller in size and easier to post on a web site. 

I had to play around with Audacity before I figured out how to splice and cut. If you've used other audio editors, this may be a breeze for you.  And there is one feature that needs improvement:  the program has no fast-forward feature.  Maybe the next release will include it.

This was my first time using an audio editor, but I know I'll certainly use Audacity again.

GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program)

GIMP is an image-editing program comparable to Adobe Photoshop but without the cost.  GIMP is a free download  for Windows and Linux.  I've used it to crop & resize images, change the file extensions from jpg to gif or png, and to change existing logos so that they have a transparent background.

How easy-to-use is GIMP? Everyone learns at their own pace.  For me, I found that the program takes some getting used to, but after using GIMP a few times, it's easy to remember what to do next.

What other useful tools are out there?

You may already be using some of the best technology products available.  To find out, check out PCWorld's “100 Best Products of 2008” and "20 Tech Habits to Improve Your Life". 

Audacity made it onto the list at #98.

And, lastly, you can always count on finding information about different technology tools through the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. 

-REALTOR® Magazine: Buyer's Guide 

-REALTOR® Confidential  

-Center for REALTOR® Technology Blog  


Ana M. Schmitz
aschmitz@realtors.org

Are you aware that, during the 2007 Annual meeting in Las Vegas, the Multiple Listing Issues and Policies Committee passed a new rule that requires all Association-Owned MLS Providers to be RETS Compliant by June 2009?  This ruling is intended to promote easier data transfer and it could significantly change how you get data from your MLS.  In addition, the new rule is also designed to benefit you, as it will help maintain the MLS’s position as the primary source for reliable property information.  The ruling is based on a report that the committee received from the NAR Internet Strategy/Technology Work Group. Here’s what the ruling actually says:

            “The integrity of data is a foundation to the orderly Real Estate market. The Real Estate Transaction Standards (RETS) provides a vendor-neutral, secure approach to exchanging listing information between the broker and the MLS. In order to ensure that the goal of maintaining an orderly marketplace is maintained, and to further establish REALTOR® information as the trusted data source, MLS organizations owned and operated by associations of REALTOR® will comply with the RETS standards by June 2009, and keep current with the standard’s new versions by implementing new releases of RETS within one year from ratification.”

As you can see, the ruling was created with your priorities in mind; its aim is to promote better tools and practices within the real estate industry.  A required standard makes it easier to leverage existing tools, and prevent a nightmare of different ways to access your listing data from multiple MLSs.

As a result of this rule change, the Real Estate Standard Organization (RESO) is currently in the process of clarifying what compliance means; they will have the requirements established before June 2009.  At the same time, the RESO Certification Workgroup is working on defining certification.  You can contribute to the workgroup by participating in one of its periodic conference calls. 

What will this change mean for you?  Before the June 2009 deadline the RESO Certification Workgroup will have a suite of tools to test for compliance. As we get closer to that date, you’ll see your MLS getting ready.  For starters, they will be setting up a RETS server, if they don’t have one already.  Once this RETS server is in place, depending on your MLS’s policies, you might be able to start taking advantage of RETS tools (some provided by CRT) to access your MLS data.  And as your MLS moves towards certification, the usefulness of these tools will improve—so you might be able to reap the benefits of the ruling sooner rather than later! 

CRT also invites you to a session we’re sponsoring at Annual, this year in Orlando.  We’ll discuss the ruling and the work that’s being done towards defining compliance.  This session, currently titled “Impact of the RETS Ruling,” is scheduled for 1:30pm - 3pm on Saturday, 11/8.  It will provide you a more detailed overview of this issue, and it will feature speakers who can give you a comprehensive understanding of the ruling’s impact and answer any questions you may have.  So, come to the session or get involved in the workgroup and make sure to have your voice is heard!

Andrew Tillman
atillman@realtors.org