Imagine having your own personal handwriting font that is uniquely yours because it is based on your handwriting (nobody would be able to read mine unfortunately).  However for those who are not scribe-challenged, this could be an interesting, unique and easy way to incorporate some personal warmth into your written communications.

Fontifier is a Web-based service (from the U.K.) where you use a very simple seven step process from scanning and installing your own personalized handwriting font.  This will allow you to create a font with up to 99 characters, numbers and symbols.  The best part is that the system will allow you to preview your completed font before you have to pay for it.  If you like it, it will only cost you $9 to download and install it into your computer for unlimited use.

If you decide to try this and get good results (i.e. compliments from people you send messages to using it) then please let me know at Mr.Internet@russer.com.  We’ll feature your message as an example of how this service can help sales associates stand out.

TIP: if your handwriting makes chicken scratches look like calligraphy, consider hiring a VA with really good handwriting to do this for you :o)

DISCLAIMER: Always investigate any third-party products or services to your satisfaction prior to using them.  RUSSER Communications, its officers, staff and consultants do not receive any compensation whatsoever from third party vendors and are not responsible for any damage or liability you may incur as a result of using products or services mentioned herein.  If you do not agree to these terms do not use the product or service mentioned.

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You know how prospects love to get automatic listing updates that match their search criteria?  Now you can have the same kind of automated update service on Craigs List.

CL Genie is a free service let’s you set up an email notification for any kind of item matching certain keywords within your city (if listed).  The moment someone posts a listing that matches your criteria (including optional price range) CL Genie notifies you via email.  It really is that simple and fast.  Once you start receiving notices of postings matching your search criteria, you may want to tweak it a bit to receive more precise results.

Okay, so not everything has to be business related.  Sometimes the best tips are not only free, but fun too!

DISCLAIMER: Always investigate any third-party products or services to your satisfaction prior to using them.  RUSSER Communications, its officers, staff and consultants do not receive any compensation whatsoever from third party vendors and are not responsible for any damage or liability you may incur as a result of using products or services mentioned herein.  If you do not agree to these terms do not use the product or service mentioned.

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Almost everything you do on the Internet requires the use of passwords.  User ID’s and passwords are supposed to protect us from having our bank accounts etc. cleaned out while we are sleeping.  Yet most people find themselves frustratingly try to manage dozens of passwords, or worse, use the same one for everything.

The use of effective passwords are a fact of online life that you can choose to ignore at your peril.  Just the other day someone was relaying to me that a mutual friend of ours had his company Website hacked into so many times that Google has blacklisted it.  This means if you do a search under his or his company’s name, the search results actually recommend staying away from it because it is not safe!  BTW, the user ID he used was “admin” and his password was unsurprisingly not much better.

Password Etiquette For Maximum Safety

The more you use the Net, the more passwords you will need to use. There are caveats to follow when creating and using passwords so they don’t fall into the wrong hands:

• Don’t use anything that resembles a real word, name, date, or public information about you (i.e. address, date of birth, social security number, etc.).
   
• Use a combination of at least 8 upper and lower case characters (passwords typically are case sensitive), special characters (i.e. /!@&*], etc.), and numbers.
   
• Don’t leave the password any place near your computer or where it could be found easily.
   
• Make sure you can remember it and keep it in a hidden spot in case you forget it.
   
• Do not give it to anyone or put it in any documents available to other people.
   
• Don’t let anyone look over your shoulder when you type it in (a.k.a. “shoulder surfing”).
   
• Avoid using the same password for different kinds of services.
   
• Change critical passwords often.

At this point you are probably thinking “Awesome, now how am I supposed to remember dozens of unbreakable passwords?!”  Actually, you’re not…

Managing Passwords the Easy Way

As of this writing I have over 630 User ID and Password pairs.  Every one of the passwords meets the criteria above and it takes no time at all for me to find and enter any of them when needed, and I only need to remember one master password to access all the others.  The key is to use a password managment tool and there are several very good available.  Password Agent is the one I use and it sits on my computer task bar ready for action —which it sees a lot of because I use it probably 20 - 30 times each day.  To use it I do a nearly instant search for the Website or program that needs password access, double click on the entry and it takes me to the Website in question and then I just hit a special key combination on my keyboard to enter the security cedentials and I’m in.  Password Agent will also generate new passwords for me at random of nearly any length and character combination.

Another program that I’ve heard works well also is RoboForm.  This is a browser-based application that appears to make the process of entering Web-based form information (including User ID’s and passwords) a snap, even easier than Password Agent.  However, since it is strictly Web-based, it cannot help me with keeping and entering non-Web based security information.  I suggest checking both out and see what works best for your needs.  Almost all password management solutions however, require that you use a “master” password that gives you access to all the others.  Obviously, it is critical to your security to use a master password that is very hard to break, yet one you will never forget or have to write down…

Creating Hard to Break / Easy to Remember Passwords

The trick to creating a password that really does its job (i.e. protect you!) yet is easily remembered, is to use acronyms. Use the first character in each word of a sentence or phrase that you would never forget. And just to really confuse the would-be hackers of the world, begin and end your acronym based password with special characters. For example:

(And no, I no longer use this as a password :o)

Living with passwords doesn’t have to be hell-on-earth.  Trying to use the Internet without a way to use them effectively will almost certainly end up being that way.

DISCLAIMER: Always investigate any third-party products or services to your satisfaction prior to using them.  RUSSER Communications, its officers, staff and consultants do not receive any compensation whatsoever from third party vendors and are not responsible for any damage or liability you may incur as a result of using products or services mentioned herein.  If you do not agree to these terms do not use the product or service mentioned. 

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Sometimes the best things in life (or your computer) are free.  For example, I’ve been using this very cool free tool called Pure Text.  It just does one thing, but it sure saves me a ton of time!

Often when we do a cut-n-paste operation, we often get much more than we bargain for when we paste what we copied.  For example, doing a cut-n-paste from a Web page into Word will preserve much of the formatting that was in the Web page —when all you really wanted was just the text.  Once in stalled on your PC, Pure Text will allow you to paste just the text into any application and strip out any formatting code that otherwise might come with it.

In Windows CTRL - V executes a simple paste operation.  Once you have Pure Text installed (you only have to do it once), WINDOWS - V  (the Windows key + V) pastes your copied text without the formatting.  It’s that simple and you will be surprised as to how much you use this very handy tool!

DISCLAIMER: Always investigate any third-party products or services to your satisfaction prior to using them.  RUSSER Communications, its officers, staff and consultants do not receive any compensation whatsoever from third party vendors and are not responsible for any damage or liability you may incur as a result of using products or services mentioned herein.  If you do not agree to these terms do not use the product or service mentioned.

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Your Website is not the only way to generate online business.  Your listings can be an incredible source of new and serious inquiries IF they are placed in the right place at the right time.

What not many people know is that Craig’s List can be one of the richest sources of listing-generated online lead inquiries.  However, even if they post to Craig’s List most sales associates don’t know how to do it in a way that will stand out and compel people to call, visit your site or contact you via email.

This is where ListingsToLeads.com comes in.  They figured out how to easily create powerful and compelling multi-media HTML templates that stand head and shoulders above the rest of the property listings.  They also know the best strategies with respect to when your listings should and should not be posted.  Now for as little as a $1/listing/mo (sales associate pricing, depending upon the number of listings you have) you can easily post and manage high-visibility listings on Craig’s List.

The folks at ListingsToLeads.com have shown statistics proving that using Craig’s List in this way will generate 2 - 2.5 times the traffic of other typical listing directories such as Realtor.com, Trulia, Zillow, etc.  And when consider just how expensive third party lead generation services are, this is perhaps the best listing-based online lead generation tool that has come around in a very along time!

DISCLAIMER: Always investigate any third-party products or services to your satisfaction prior to using them.  RUSSER Communications, its officers, staff and consultants do not receive any compensation whatsoever from third party vendors and are not responsible for any damage or liability you may incur as a result of using products or services mentioned herein.  If you do not agree to these terms do not use the product or service mentioned.

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What do you do when you have a chance to hear how a struggling agent goes from zero sales to $160 million/yr? —You listen, very very carefully!

We are proud to announce Valerie Fitzgerald as our next Guest Expert as she shares how she started out in this business making as many (or more mistakes) as anyone and not selling a single thing her first nine months.  She will then cover what she did to radically turn this around to become a multi-millionaire sales professional, corporate executive, philanthropist, speaker and coach all while raising her daughter as a single mom.

There are so few opportunities to experience “the real deal”, and this is one of them.  If you want real world experience on how to change challenge into opportunity and build a business that serves you, DO NOT MISS THIS SESSION!

IMPORTANT: You must register to view the live Webinar. Just go to the following URL: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/448680696 and complete the registration form. The registration confirmation e-mail will give you instructions on how to login to the Webinar.

When: Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 - 7:00pm (EDT)

Call In: Will be given at time of registration

NOTE: This Webinar is part of the regular Online Dominance Live Group Coaching Guest Expert series which is usually for Online Dominance members only.  However, since Valerie is a personal friend of mine I have decided to open this up to Mr. Internet News subscribers as well.

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A few weeks ago I shared a free online file storage and sharing service called DropBox.  This week, we have another entrant into this growing field with ZumoDrive.  ZumoDrive is a free virtual hard drive that you can install on any PC and it works just like any other drive on your computer.  Anything you can store on your regular hard drive you can also store on your ZumoDrive.

Since it is online, you can also give other’s permission to use it as well —perfect for document sharing among your virtual support team.  ZumoDrive is free for the first 1 GB of storage.  If you want more it will cost you some nominal amount each month.  For example, upgrading to 10 GBs of storage is just $2.99 /mo.  This service is a great example of something called “cloud storage” which means your virtual hard drive is located among many different servers around the world, creating massive redundancy yet delivering great performance (for uploading and downloading).  Let us know what you think of it!

DISCLAIMER: Always investigate any third-party products or services to your satisfaction prior to using them.  RUSSER Communications, its officers, staff and consultants are not responsible for any damage or liability you may incur as a result of using products or services mentioned herein.  If you do not agree to these terms do not use the product or service mentioned.

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PDFs make life so much easier in the digital world, turning anything you can print into a universally viewable document. However, they are not easy to modify and sometimes you really, really need to convert them to a Word document so they can be edited or repurposed. Now there is a new way to convert PDFs into Word that is so faithful to the layout of the original that it blew me away the first time I tried it.

PDF = Particularly Difficult Format

If you ever tried to edit a PDF document, even with some of the best tools available (including Adobe’s own rather expensive Acrobat Professional), then you understand why PDF can stand for “Particularly Difficult Format”.  And other software that purports to convert PDF to Word has failed miserably in my experience, until now.  Enter PDFtoWord.com which is a free online service that is as simple as 1-2-3:

1. Upload the PDF you want to convert;
    
2. Indicate whether you want a .doc (Word) or .rtf (Rich Text Format) conversion (TIP: stick with the .doc);
    
3. Give your email address where you want the service to send you the converted document.

That’s all there is to it!  After a period of time (usually within 15 - 30 minutes) you will receive an email with your PDFtoWord conversion as an attachment.  I converted three very different PDFs into Word using this service.  If you right-click on the respective thumbnails below you can download and compare what the original PDF and resulting Word document look like.

The first test is a single-page flyer with graphics and several different styles of text.  Notice how PDFtoWord very faithfully preserved the positioning and look of the various fonts and styles.  My only complaint on this one is that the main graphic seems to have dropped one or two colors.

The second test is a PDF report from the California Association of REALTORS with the results of their 2008 online consumer survey.  This report is over 60 pages and contains many different types of charts and tables.  PDFtoWord duplicated everything extremely well with the exception of 2 or 3 bar charts.  Other than that I was completely amazed at how great a job it did.  Once again however, the first page graphic looks like it had several colors dropped compared to the original.

The last test is very complicated series of forms which I honestly didn’t think would convert successfully.  Check it out for yourself to see just how well PDFtoWord did.  The only thing I noticed in this particular test is that the software seemed to be confused about the font case in some instances.

Needless to say, PDFtoWord is going into my special box of cool “must have” tools.  Chances are you will agree whole heartedly once you’ve tried it as well.

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If you are scifi aficionado then you are doubtless familiar with the evil Internet-based artificial intelligence called SkyNet which is bent on destroying humanity (i.e. Terminator).  While definitely not evil or conscious, the next major evolutionary step for the Internet IS here.  It’s called Wolfram/Alpha and it is a major game changer for Google and a potential life changer for everyone else.  Here’s why…

Google’s primary mission is to index the world’s information and make it immediately and freely accessible to anyone with an Internet connection.  Many people on the planet use it every day because finding the information we want when we want it is really useful.  However, we’ve actually had search engines since the early days (circa 1994) of the Internet.  Google just happens to be the best at it.   However, any search engine has limitations as to what it can do with the information it finds.  In most cases it only returns references to documents that may contain the information you are looking for.

This is where Wolfram/Alpha provides a quantum leap over any search engine no matter how good (or rich).  In addition to indexing the Web, it also curates the information and codifies it so that it is “computable”.  That is, it allows you to ask regular human questions regarding just about anything that has a specific answer and it will provide you that answer plus abundant supporting information.  Now this is where it gets really interesting, the answer may or may not be found anywhere on the Net, which is irrelevant because Wolfram/Alpha computes the answer in real time.  Since all the indexed information in Wolfram/Alpha is computable, this also means you can ask questions about relationships between any number of things and it will spit out the answer.

The folks at Wolfram Research call it a Computational Knowledge Engine.  This can be a bit tricky getting your head wrapped around this one (a typical malady associated with quantum leaps :o), so here’s a demonstration video featuring Steven Wolfram (CEO of Wolfram Research) at a Harvard University gathering just last Tuesday.

Now Everyone Can Access Expertise For Free…

Google gives us information, but is not capable of really telling us much about that information and its relationship to anything else in the world.  Wolfram/Alpha on the other hand gives us access to expertise that is limited primarily by our ability to ask the right questions.  Now all the rapidly growing petabytes of information on the Internet has suddenly become a whole lot more valuable —in ways that no ordinary search engine could ever hope to duplicate.  The technology behind Wolfram/Alpha is nothing short of astounding and represents hundreds (if not thousands) of man years of development in computational knowledge areas that are highly proprietary (i.e. Google with all its might and money is not likely to dupicate this one).

So how is this going to affect your real estate sales business.  I honestly can’t say for sure at this time.  But I do know this, it will affect your business and just about everything else we do from this point on.  Information by itself is not knowledge.  Instant access to expertise that understands nearly endless relationships between bits of information is the most valuable kind of knowledge.  Wolfram/Alpha totally redefines the bromide “Knowledge is power.”

NOTE: Wolfram/Alpha is currently in restricted Beta but will be released to the public later this month.  Keep an eye out in this blog as I will keep you up to date as I fully explore Wolfram/Alpha specifically with respect to it’s impact on the real estate business.

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My virtual staff and I have been using a really nifty tool called DropBox to share documents and keep track of their latest versions.  It integrates nicely into your Windows file system where you can create any number of folders and subfolders.  You can then “share” these by sending an invite to those who you want to give access to a particular folder.  And best of all, the service is free for the first two gigs of space.

Here’s how it works.  Suppose you are working on a document (say, Word or Excel) and then put it into your one of your drobbox folders.  DropBox will immediately upload it to their servers and then automatically download to those with whom you shared that folder.  Also, any time you make a change to a particular document, it stores the previous version should you ever need to go back to earlier one.

We (i.e. Vickie, Lisa, Robin and myself in addition to some outside virtual consultants) have found it to be totally seamless to use (since you only use the Windows file browser like you normally would) and it creates a perfect way to share and collaborate on documents.

NOTE: always do your own due dilligence prior to using any product or service.

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