Jan. 31, 2009 - A Single / Took Out The Universe… Err Google Anyways…Well The Universe Basically
You might have saw a post I made earlier today when I noticed that Google was broken and every single site on the internet was showing up as containing malware. It was rather weird too because I had just read the email they sent me about making sure to check your site for malicious content. (You can read that warning here)
Well as it turns out and this is no joke, it was all caused by a single character /. I mean literally this “/” took out the entire Internet basically for anyone who was using Google. It didn’t actually take down the sites but it was still bad enough. For most people it lasted about 45 minutes and if you were still sleeping then you probably never noticed. What is strange is a single character could do that but that’s just how computers work. Thank god it wasn’t code for nuclear reactors or something like that…
If you are on Twitter but find it hard to navigate then you might find Flittr useful. It’s a really cool way to basically sort it all out and filter (Ahh now Flittr makes more sense instead of just being a cute name!) out some of the non sense. There is a lot more to it than just my explanation and as to how it would or could work for you… well that’s up to you! I just present you with the information or at least try to propagate it more. I hope you find that useful. Anyways, I try not to report on every single Twitter thing that comes out because there are about 20 each day and most seem functional but lacking on the practical side. Either way make sure you check it out.
Jan. 31, 2009 - Going Viral: The SEO Dream… Repeats?
If you are familiar with SEO then you know it’s all about the links and what better way to get lots and lots of links than going viral? At its heart that’s what it’s all about but no one ever seems to be able to achieve it once let alone twice. So for the average person they are still working on it for the first time but what about those who are going for number 2? Check out this article where the simple question is, can you repeat your success? Well apparently it has and its working great but I think what the article is missing out on is why. But the why is as simple as basic marketing. If you got something going good for you then you need to expand on this and the quicker you can, the more effective it can be. Never forget that simple lesson.
If you have something to say please leave a comment.
If you would like to work with an agent who is leading the way call 715-894-1001today or send me an email.
Jan. 31, 2009 - Google’s YouTube Just Added Easier Annotations: They are Good, Bad and can be Really Ugly
If you aren’t familiar with what an annotation looks like on a YouTube video you might consider yourself lucky by some standards. Personally I think they can be pretty cool but have a high potential for abuse. The thing I like is if you can tastefully insert something useful for instance if you are posting a lot of useful videos on YouTube and you want a way for people to find your website easier this might be a quick and dirty way to do it. But they can be horribly annoying as well. If you want to see what they look like or to learn more about what the changes are exactly you can check out this story here. I would provide an example but I am still debating if I want to subject my website goers to them or not. I don’t think it would take too much to figure out how to make them work for you and it’s rather easier compared to the old method.
If you have something to say please leave a comment.
If you would like to work with an agent who is leading the way call 715-894-1001today or send me an email.
Jan. 31, 2009 - New and Easy Way to Sync with Gmail and Your I or Windows Mobile Phone
A new company has a new way to sync your phones up with Gmail, Contacts and Calendars and it’s called NuevaSync of course. You can find out more about the service here. I thought it was pretty nice actually. I only wish it offered an offline option so that you can use USB or Bluetooth in the office or at home. But if you have the web on your phone I don’t see any easier way of doing this. Oh, did I mention it’s free?
If you have something to say please leave a comment.
If you would like to work with an agent who is leading the way call 715-894-1001today or send me an email.
Jan. 31, 2009 - Google Gmail Available Offline Too—You Might Not Have Noticed This
If you use Gmail and probably a lot of you do, you might not have noticed that they rolled out a pretty cool new feature that gives offline access to Gmail. It works by basically retaining a snippet but it’s pretty useful as far as I am concerned. I switched as soon as they activated it on my account. If you are interested in doing this you have to manually set the feature. Just go to settings and then see the new offline tab. Just click it and then you have to install Google “Gears” which is another new thing that basically adds offline functionality to Gmail and a few other things.
Jan. 31, 2009 - Google is Fighting Your ISP (And Hopefully Winning)
If you pay for internet access and you probably do if you are reading this then what you might not know is that for years different ISPS (Internet Service Providers) have been silently deploying kill switches and throttling methods to actually cut certain users from the internet. They are also trying to force certain websites such as Google to cough up extra money simply for existing. There is much more to it than this, including privacy concerns where it has been revealed lately that your ISP might have sold off your personal information to different companies. Google is guilty as well as far as privacy concerns go. Regardless this is one fight that you need to know about because it’s your rights that are being taken away and you might not even know it. Not to mention that it’s your money going down the toilet paying for a connection that might not be “unlimited” like it was marketed to you!
Jan. 31, 2009 - Google #1 and Gaining: Your Chippewa Valley Home is Growing Too!
I just read an interesting article about the growth of Google and guess what? It’s growing! DUH! Well what is particularly interesting is that they are eating up 90% of the growth of searches too which means out of the new people using the internet to search for stuff, Google is taking a huge chunk of the potential market share.But guess what? So is my site!
I have enjoyed a 250% increase in traffic this month alone! Every day I have checked and my rankings are going up and up. Thanks to all the people visiting my site and as always let me know if you think we need to change anything. I designed the site for you, so if you don’t like it just let me know! You can contact me anytime using the comments and suggestions section of Your Chippewa Valley Home.
If you have something to say please leave a comment. I will try to comment on your blog as well.
If you would like to work with an agent who is leading the way call 715-894-1001today or send me an email.
Jan. 31, 2009 - Google Security Warning: You Seriously Need to Check Your Site
Google released a warning this morning about websites that are being abused. I don’t think this was necessarily related to the other fiasco this morning where every site was tagged as malicious. But it does seem like a strange coincidence to me. Regardless everyone knows that the internet isn’t necessarily the safest place and the more you put yourself out there, the more you open yourself up for attack. Anyone who owns a website or blog is definitely a prime target. If you think you are safe because you are a small site, think again! The smaller the better because it’s more likely that someone who runs a small site might not even know that an attack is being triggered from their site. There are a variety of ways that they implement these attacks and you should be aware of the potential danger, especially for the safety of your visitors. If this morning’s upset was any indication of the potential damage that can result from your site being labeled as malicious, can you really afford to take any chances? Trust me they are not coming back to your site if they think it’s dangerous.
If you think this can’t happen to your site I know of one agent who is in my city whose site at this very moment is infected with several viruses and for obvious reasons I am not going to link to it. But this is a very real thing and I can’t imagine the impact it would have on your visitors if they thought they could no longer trust your site!
If you have something to say please leave a comment. I will try to comment on your blog as well.
If you would like to work with an agent who is leading the way call 715-894-1001today or send me an email.
Jan. 31, 2009 - Wow! Google Just Fudged up The Whole Internet—I am Not Kidding
I just got an alert from Google Webmaster Tools this morning and so far I can’t tell if its related to this or not. But apparently it’s all over Twitter as well. Do a search on Google. ANY SEARCH! You will quickly see what I mean. Every single site that I can tell has been flagged by Google as being MALWARE! This is not a joke. I hope everyone is smart enough to realize that this is not true but if it’s affecting your traffic to your site you might want to send out an email to everyone you know.
This is not a joke and very serious.
There is more information here but no one really knows what it is.
Jan. 27, 2009 - Creating a Custom Google Search For Your Website –SEO & More
I saw a post on this on ActiveRain but I would like to expand a bit more on some things that I think were overlooked. I also think Google has added a few more reasons why you should have one of these on your site.
When you go to create your own custom search this is what you see.
Click for a larger view
If you fill out all the information in this section you have basically started building it. Then just follow the directions until it gives you the HTML code for your site or blog (yes you can put it on your blog too!)
click for a larger view
You might be wondering what sites you want the Google search to actually search through. Well I did some thinking and came up with activerain.com, realtor.com, and then my own site of course. You may or may not wish to include your own site if there isn't much information on it then they probably wont be able to find much. If you have a lot of information available maybe you wont want to include other sites and then they can search only your materials. Its up to you, its your engine.
If you are worried about this in any way, whether you can do this or not, its not hard. Just fill out what you can, you can go back later and add whatever else you see fit.
Once you have the code you just need to insert it into your site.
I recently created mine but unfortunately it only works from within my website so you have to go there to try it out yourself. You can go to my Eau Claire Real Estate Website here.
Now remember in the title I mentioned something about SEO?
Well Google has added a nice little feature to the CSE (custom search engine
) that you cant find anywhere else, not even in webmaster tools.
This is a nice little feature that lets you take control of a sitemap and then tell Google you have added new content and then hopefully they will send one of their friendly bots over to index it. This is the only method I have ever seen that let's you have this much control over how Google indexes your site. Yes a sitemap is required but its quite easy to do. There isn't much of a point just to keep pressing the button and they only let you do it once a day, but if you added new content this is a great way to tell them and then they can index the new pages. It might also be nice if you are working on new meta data or something like that. I have noticed that sometimes it can take a week to update this. You used to just sit and hope they would come and crawl it but with this it should update faster.
“Custom Search is built on top of the Google index. This means that all pages that are available on Google.com are also available to your search engine”
“Improved index coverage is not instantaneous as it takes some time for the pages to be crawled and indexed. Please note that this improved indexing only affects search results within the search engine you create, not your rank and indexing on Google.com.”
Now this might seem to contradict what I said above but I guess its one of those read between the lines things. If the bot comes to index your site for your CSE are they not going to include that newly revised page in the regular search? I doubt it.
Overall creating a custom search for your site can make your site a much richer experience. If your customers use it and whether they do can be if you can explain how it works to them and what it does exactly. You might want to actually promote it too.
If you have something to say please leave a comment. I will try to comment on your blog as well.
If you really like this story flag it for a feature!
If you would like to work with an agent who is leading the way call 715-894-1001today or send me an email.
Jan. 26, 2009 - 10 Ways to Get More Followers on Twitter--by The Guy With The 2nd Most Followers
Well this guy should know how to do what everyone wants to attain, the holy grail of Twitter, the cult leader or Kool-Aid pourer. Whatever you want to call it, its what everyone seems to want and hes the one who did it. The only person with more followers than him is Barack Obama if I am not mistaken and that might be a hard act to top.
Who is he?
Kevin Rose – Founder of Digg
I am not going to copy or attempt to paraphrase what he said but you can check out this article here. It just came out today so this is fresh information and something that you probably might want to do.
Also if you notice the end of his article he follows his own advice... maybe hes making for the top after this article?
Jan. 25, 2009 - Searching for a New Home - Eau Claire Real Estate Advice
Searching for a New Home - Eau Claire Real Estate Advice
In my last post I discussed the first step in buying a home in Eau Claire Wisconsin or the surrounding area, for first time home buyers. But really the advice is true for anyone looking to buy a home. But once you know a good price range to start looking, how do you start?
Well almost any site offers a search but how can you know for sure that it has all the available properties? Well certain sites are directly linked to our MLS system but many are not. That's why I always recommend that you use the search on my website. I am sure that many area websites offer this basic feature. But the problem is always how agents enter the information. Because of the way our MLS is set up we are only allowed to enter in one location. Our MLS has different locations for instance Eau Claire is divided into areas 1-3 which are south side, west and north. Then area 5 which is Eau Claire schools but more on the outskirts of town. Then area 7 for Eau Claire county but not in Eau Claire schools. Confused? The problem is how do you decide where a house is exactly? If its on the south side of town but near Lowes Creek is that out or in town?
Even more confusing can be the Fall Creek area. Homes can be in Eau Claire or Chippewa County, Altoona, Fall Creek or anywhere in between. You can't just look for Fall Creek because some might be near Fall Creek but be in any of these school districts.
This is why its important to have an expert on your side who knows how to search for homes accurately. It takes a lot of experience and a lot of computer training. It is very easy for an agent to overlook certain homes if you are not very careful with how you manipulate the data. Being off by one dollar can be the difference between whether or not you even see a home in your searching.
So why not use me as your guide? I am resourceful and consider myself an expert when it comes to computers.
Here is what I can do for you:
Take time to thoroughly explain the entire buying process
Answer any questions you might have about buying a home
Make a comprehensive list of every single home that fits the criteria you set
Set you up for an automated search based on your criteria
Receive emails the instant matching homes come on the market
Be in the know when homes are listed in our MLS
So now that we have a list of homes that might work for you what's next?
Let's take a look inside of them!
If you have something to say please leave a comment. I will try to comment on your blog as well.
If you really like this story flag it for a feature!
If you would like to work with an agent who is leading the way call 715-894-1001today or send me an email.
Jan. 25, 2009 - Eau Claire Real Estate Advice - First Time Home Buyers
Eau Claire Real Estate Advice - First Time Home Buyers
When I get approached by potential clients about buying a home in the Eau Claire area the first question is almost always, “How do we get started” As many times as this question is varied my answer never does. I know the overwhelming feeling is you want to get out and start looking at houses. I always feel bad when my answer is so much more boring.
The first step is going to a lender.
But why?
Well they can help with a variety of things that we need to know before we can start looking. First they can tell you if you can get a loan or not. As much as I would love to get you a house, if you can't afford it financially then I don't want to see you in trouble this way. They can also tell you what price range will work for you as well. They can show you a good range of what you can afford. You don't want to buy into a house that could put you on the edge. We don't want you to miss any payments, buying a house is a wise financial decision if you do it right. You can build up your credit rating at the same time you build up equity in your home. It can be the best financial investment you make in your entire lifetime and thats why I always stress that we do it right.
So yes I am going to ask you to take a couple of hours out of your time and go see a professional lender but it is so important. I promise as soon as this step is ready we can sit down and begin the next step, searching for a home.
If you have something to say please leave a comment. I will try to comment on your blog as well.
If you really like this story flag it for a feature!
If you would like to work with an agent who is leading the way call 715-894-1001today or send me an email.
Jan. 24, 2009 - The Gift That Keeps Giving: Viruses Out of Control
I have reported on this virus a few times and with good reason, its a doozy. When I first read an article about it I thought it was appropriate to send the word out. But then MSNBC came out with their own report that basically said there is nothing to worry about. Well like I said then, if you aren't in the tech industry maybe you should stick to reporting on what the tech industry is doing rather than trying to provide technical advice to your readers. They insisted their was nothing to worry about with this virus and called it a dud basically.
Apparently Conflicker is poised to take over about 30% of the world's PC's which amounts to about 300 to 350 million computers! That sure sounds like a dud to me MSNBC. The worst part is that the 2nd part of the virus is about to drop and no one even knows what it is intended to do. So that certainly is nothing to worry about if you don't like using your computer or having your data entirely destroyed or any of a million scenarios that a serious virus could potentially bring about.
If you have something to say please leave a comment. I will try to comment on your blog as well.
If you would like to work with an agent who is leading the way call 715-894-1001today or send me an email.
Jan. 24, 2009 - Twitter Beats Out Digg and Digg Responds
It appears the growth of Twitter is growing. That makes sense right? Well its pretty obvious that most people on the web are becoming familiar with Twitter and it seems to go hand in hand with the growing popularity of texting in general. But few could have seen this kind of growth when the application was first launched. But as the saying goes, what goes up must come down and Digg appears to be going down. According to this article they seem to be struggling for breath.
But will the same happen to Twitter?
Well I keep saying this and maybe I am wasting my breath but I really see it losing popularity. Why? Because people are gaming it like crazy. I just saw a group forming whose only purpose was to follow each other in order to artificially inflate the number of followers that the people have. Why? Because apparently some are seeing the number of followers as a gauge of who to follow. I guess some weighting system is needed but a lot of people are trying to wade through all of this mess including developing apps that can basically “see through” this mess. One idea was to put weight on the number of retweets a person has but I looked at the chart and all it seemed to me was a list of the same exact people with the most followers. Time will tell...
If you have something to say please leave a comment. I will try to comment on your blog as well.
If you would like to work with an agent who is leading the way call 715-894-1001today or send me an email.
Jan. 24, 2009 - Google Apps: Not Quite so Free Anymore
I came across this article the other day and being an avid Google supporter and Google Apps user ( I use dozens of them) I was a bit disappointed. Now I guess I am complaining about my ability to use a no charge program but for one of the biggest corporations in the world I guess I would think they can afford it. Not to mention that when we use the word free, sure its free of charge but it certainly is not free of advertising. Not to mention the majority of Google programs that we use track our every move which in turn leads to more advertising or rather “better” advertising.
Also as the article points out, lets not forget that “When Google Apps first launched in August 2006 it was free and described as “a service available at no cost to organizations of all shapes and sizes.””
The other thing to consider is the price we pay in using them. For every Google app that we use that another company makes a similar product we are taking away from their potential revenue. Now when this comes to Microsoft I am not going to be offering anyone a tissue but when it comes to smaller companies then yes I take issue.
Another thing I take issue with is how Google enforces usage on some of their programs. I offered to help my wife set up a blog using blogger for her students but after getting everything set up I quickly realized that it required that the students have a Gmail account to even have access. This is really disappointing to me and frankly reeked of Microsoft. We ended up having to dump the whole project because you can't force public school children to sign up for Gmail.
If you have something to say please leave a comment. I will try to comment on your blog as well.
If you would like to work with an agent who is leading the way call 715-894-1001today or send me an email.
Jan. 24, 2009 - Apple + KISS + Real Estate for 2009
This recent article is saying its simple, in fact its KISS, rather K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple stupid) The article is a good read and I think they have a good point. As much as everyone loves choices, sometimes you don't need a hundred basic variations of the same thing. I think an old business model was putting slight changes in a product line and hoping the confusion would lead people to purchasing a more expensive version that doesn't necessarily have any specific reason why it should cost more. For years computer companies have done this, throw out a bunch of confusing numbers that even a computer “expert” like myself can barely decipher. You walk away thinking you got the best buy and have to wonder if you did.
That's why web 2.0 and the Internet are changing things. Information is available at a high rate of speed, its mobile, and there is lots of it. These factors are having an effect on real estate and it shows. Consumers are dependent on us, the real estate experts to help them with these important decisions. Well, you see, that statement used to be true but when you think about it, how true is it today? Our roles are changing. Sure we are always there and we are able to be reached even easier than before but information is free and its everywhere. There are so many great resources out there that we could quickly become outsourced so to speak.
But that doesn't mean we aren't resourceful either, we change and adapt. But just because we have MLS access doesn't make us a resource. Its our experience that becomes the resource. We help buy and sell more houses in any given month than the average person deals with in their lifetime. Its these experiences that equate to value. So go out and provide the most valuable experience you can with the most valuable resource available, your experience.
If you have something to say please leave a comment. I will try to comment on your blog as well.
If you would like to work with an agent who is leading the way call 715-894-1001today or send me an email.
Jan. 24, 2009 - Obama Reveals Part of Stimulus Plan: Cutting Your Energy Bills
I just came across this article and regardless of your political affiliation this sounds like a good idea to me. It actually feels a lot like thinking outside the box so to speak because of the hundreds and thousands of articles I have seen and read I have never seen this suggested. But why not? Everyone has to pay the energy bill regardless of whether they are a home owner or renter. This would really hit home for almost every American faced with bills that can just be plain overwhelming. Maybe there is more to this but to me it seems spot on. Good job is all I can say.
If you have something to say please leave a comment. I will try to comment on your blog as well.
If you would like to work with an agent who is leading the way call 715-894-1001today or send me an email.
Andrew Wyeth, the legendary painter of Christina's world, recently died. I have always had an appreciation for art but it wasn't until one of my last semesters in college that I had an opportunity to take a formal art class. It was there that one of my favorite professor's and friends taught me about Andrew Wyeth and introduced me to the aforementioned work.
When I first started designing my website I thought it would be important to include some of my interests as well. Thats why on each page I have tried to include important works of art or pieces that I found interesting. One of my pages on my site looks like this.
If you take at the first painting the house in the background is the house on my website. It was the home of Christina Olson the subject of the painting. There is a lot more to the story and I don't think I could tell it as well as the first time I heard it but I invite you to take a look.
If you have something to say please leave a comment. I will try to comment on your blog as well.
If you really like this story flag it for a feature!
If you would like to work with an agent who is leading the way call 715-894-1001today or send me an email.
The Real State of Real Estate in the Chippewa Valley. A blog created for the people of Eau Claire and the greater Chippewa Valley to extensively cover real estate matters as they pertain to the people who matter most to me. Local real estate issues for local people.
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