Ken's Sandbox » Applications

The Only Phone Number You Need

Ken Gregg — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:42:25 +0000

I have had a Google Voice account since before Grand Central was bought out by Google. Like a lot of things, I signed up, played with it a little and then let the account sit there gathering dust.

Last month, Google opened the system up to allow users to set Google Voice as the default voice mail for cell phones. I had no problems with the way my ATT voice mail was working but it got me started about the service some more. Last week I forwarded my cell phone voice mail and, with the help of Aaron Blakely at Comspan) I got my office phone voice mail forwarded.

From the couple of test calls we made I know I am going to love the system. Here is how it works:

If you call my cell phone, I will probably answer. The only time I have it off is sometimes on the golf course or in places where it is not allowed or impolite to have it on. I also don’t answer it if I have to dig it out of my pocket when I’m driving. If I don’t or can’t answer, you will go to my Google Voice voice mail where the message you leave is transcribed and emailed to me. The call details and the first few words of your message are also sent via text message to my cell phone.

If you call my office number and I am at my desk, I will probably answer (unless you are trying to sell me oil futures, I love my caller id). If I don’t answer it in 3 rings, it forwards to Google Voice. However, before you get my voice mail, Google Voice rings my cell phone where I will probably answer (see above).

I have often felt like I should publish my cell phone number for clients. With Google Voice that is no longer necessary. Call me at the office and you will get me if I am awake and alive.

There are lots of things you can do by grouping contacts and assigning special features to different groups. That is going to take a little time. I also want to play with the Google Voice widget. The widget puts a call me button on a web page. Click a button and Google Voice will call your number and connect you to me. Sounds like the answer for real estate contact me pages huh?

Google Voice is still in limited beta but I have 3 invitations that may get you an account faster than their normal request process. First 3 to request an invite gets them.

By the way: as of January 1, 2010 talking on a cell phone while driving is going to be illegal in Oregon. I picked up a couple bluetooth hands free accessories for our cars at Costco. I’ll let you know how they work if anyone is interested.

Vista: Another reason to not go there

Ken Gregg — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 14:37:00 +0000

When I got my new notebook, I went out of my way to avoid Vista. I’m not quite able to go to Linux yet so XP was number one on my list of “features”. Since making that decision I have read reports that Microsoft Vista runs 15% slower than XP (a billion lines of code, what do you expect), Vista is no more secure than XP (ditto), and I just ran across this article about the information Vista sends back to Microsoft. It seems that M$ is collecting more information about Vista users than even I suspected. And I suspected a lot.

How’s your Spelling?

Ken Gregg — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:13:16 +0000

A while ago an agent, who shall remain nameless, mentioned that some of the spelling in RealWorld ad copy made our agents look like a bunch of back country hicks. That may be a bit excessive but spelling and grammar when correct go pretty much unnoticed. When was the last time you read something and thought “wow, no spelling errors and what nice grammar”. However, if spelling and grammar are bad, you notice. And when you notice, you automatically wonder about the person who wrote it.

A spell checker won’t catch all of your errors. It won’t catch typos like an accidental d on the end of an. It won’t catch there for their and other grammatical errors. But if you are a bad speller like me, you need to check your spelling.

I was told RMLS uses a plug in that allows you to click a button and check the spelling. This would be nice but it is one of the things that makes their system compatible with IE only.

I was delighted when I installed Firefox 2 and discovered that it had spell checking built in (automatic for text areas and you can right click on a text input field and spell check it).

If you don’t want to use Firefox, iespell is an Internet Explorer spell checking plug in that will spell check your web input before you submit it. You can download it at http://www.iespell.com. It is free for personal use, $15 if your conscience bothers you.

So their you have it. You know longer halve any reasons to look bad in print. (hay – it passed the spell checker).

Picassa 2

Ken Gregg — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 23:02:36 +0000

I have been meaning to write something about Google’s Picassa photo organizer since before I started my bolg. I just ran across an article http://www.hartnup.net/wordpress/picasa-2-vs-iphoto/ comparing Picassa to Apple’s iPhoto 5 and wanted to link to it so …I downloaded Picassa when my sister emailed me a question about it (it’s difficult to provide tech support for a program you have never seen).

I am not easily impressed, but this program impressed me. It spent several minutes combing my hard drive for photos and presented them nicely organized. What was impressive was that it was able to determine if a photo was taken in landscape mode and needed to be rotated.

I immediately started thinking about the uses for Picassa for real estate agents. John’s article has saved me the work of writing a detailed review, but here are some highlights you might find interesting:

Very easy to organize photos (hey, it’s a photo organizer).
You can select any number of photos and email them from within Picasa and, no matter what size a photo is on your hard drive, it automatically resizes them for you.
Tag and title your photos making the quick and easy to find.
Use Picasa to move your photos from your camera to your PC. Or if you copy them using Windows Explorer, next time you run Picasa they are there.

You can download Picasa from http://www.google.com/downloads/.