Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category
“I know an app for that!”
Saving time, increasing efficiency, leveraging your time and effort is a priority to every Real Estate professional. After all, time is money.
And modern technology can come to the rescue. It can be your “productivity builder” best friend.
But, who has the time to keep up with all the advances, changes, upgrades and new apps available to make your life easier?
Now, you can have your very own expert and Nerdy best friend—Beth Ziesenis—(Beth Z for short) who will guide you to the Best FREE & Low Cost online tools and apps.
In her new book, “Upgrade to FREE”, Beth reveals dozens of tools and applications that will save you time, effort and $.
Chapter One, titled, “Tools for Efficiency at Home and on the Road” (does that strike a cord?) offers 23 online tools and apps to help you accomplish that goal.
Check out her site:
http://www.facebook.com/AskBethZ
Become a friend and receive her regular tips, updates and reviews.
Wouldn’t it be great to have a BFF who says, “Yeah, I know an app for that”?
To your continued success,
The YRI Team
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Filed Under ( Technology) by admin on November-28-2007
How to Improve Productivity, Competitiveness and Safety!
ActiveKEY Helps Agents Compete in Today’s Real Estate Market by Providing Real-Time Showing Alerts and Other Intelligence, While Offering Revolutionary New Agent Safety Feature
GE Security, Inc., a wholly owned indirect subsidiary of the General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE), announced its new wireless lockbox key, ActiveKEY, has garnered significant early acceptance since its launch in August and is now being used by more than 33,000 real estate agents in more than 30 markets nationwide, with more than 100,000 ActiveKEY deployments planned by year’s end.
ActiveKEY, a first-of-its-kind lockbox key designed by and for mobile real estate professionals, wirelessly delivers near-instant notifications of showings and
associated detailed showing feedback reports. The real-time intelligence offered by the ActiveKEY solution can help agents be more competitive in today’s tight real estate environment, by more quickly reacting to local market conditions, while better serving their customers through more efficient and effective interactions with showing agents and buyers.
Additionally, ActiveKEY will soon offer the first wireless safety alert feature designed to enhance agent safety. Using pre-assigned phone numbers and e-mail addresses, ActiveKEY will allow agents to alert others in emergency situations through a combination of e-mail and text messaging. With the press of a button, agents will be able to send emergency contacts a safety alert that automatically includes the property address of the last lockbox opened. This new safety feature will be available to new and existing customers beginning in early 2008.
“The market’s response to ActiveKEY has been nothing short of tremendous,” said Jeff Antrican, general manager, GE Security’s commercial real estate products.
“The real-time notification capability is helping listing agents be more productive and changing the way they interact with both sellers, and buyers and their agents. We expect the new safety feature will allow agents to feel more confident and secure in virtually any showing situation.”
“Safety is always a key concern for us,” said Suzy Stone, real estate agent and president of the Fredericksburg (Va.) Area Association of Realtors. “This new safety feature will give me another tool and another level of protection while I am out with clients. Our business has the potential for us all to be targets, especially women. Having another source to call for help is a monumental step for Supra to take for its clients.”
Currently, there are more than 33,000 ActiveKEYs in use by real estate associations and boards in markets throughout the country, including Tampa and Clearwater, Fla.; Boise, Idaho; Santa Rosa, Calif. and Oklahoma City, Okla.
ActiveKEY’s real-time notification feature can inform listing real estate agents as soon as other agents and prospective buyers walk into a property, helping them be more in control of their listings and more efficient in pursuing sales opportunities by allowing immediate follow ups on showings. Subsequent eFeedback reports provide details necessary for listing agents to work with clients to maintain competitiveness based on real-world local market conditions, potentially reducing days on market and increasing sales.
“ActiveKEY constantly takes care of business without me having to remember any steps to take,” said Tom McAuliffe of Don Cies Real Estate, Inc., Norman, Okla. “It’s user-friendly and brilliant. I get reports from the showings of my listings.”
ActiveKEY’s wireless connectivity ends the need for on-the-go agents to return to the office or their home to access a hardwired cradle for updates. With ActiveKEY, agents can receive real-time wireless updates when their properties are shown whenever they are in an area that offers cellular phone network coverage. Its security features are also a major selling point for local real estate associations and agents nationwide. ActiveKEY also allows real estate associations and multiple listing services (MLS) to instantly take lost or stolen keys out of service by issuing a simple wireless deactivation command.
In addition to its new safety alert feature, ActiveKEY’s built-in flashlight improves nighttime safety for agents, allowing them to more easily locate lockboxes and navigate in and around dark houses.
“The product performs perfectly and does everything it should – and more,” said Check Gregg, president of the Cecil County Board of Realtors, Elkton, Md. “ActiveKEY is a quantum leap into the future of lockboxes.”
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Filed Under ( Technology) by admin on August-25-2007
GE Security’s ActiveKEY
GE Security Inc., a wholly-owned indirect subsidiary of the General Electric Company (NYSE: GE), is a leading supplier of security and life safety technologies, with operations in more than 35 countries.
GE’s Security business offers one of the industry’s broadest product portfolios, covering explosives and narcotics detection, intrusion and access control, video surveillance, key management, and fire detection. The products are used to help protect people and property across a wide range of industries, including aviation, law enforcement, banking, education, healthcare, mass transit, real estate and retail.
GE Security designs and manufactures key management, access control and integrated management solutions to meet the needs of those in the real estate industry. Agents, brokers and real estate boards and associations alike have come to depend on GE Security’s line of innovative key control products to become more efficient and productive. These products include the complete Risco and Supra lines of key control solutions purpose-built to meet the challenges of virtually any real estate professional.
GE Security’s newest addition to its family of industry-leading real estate products is ActiveKEY, the first such product that offers near real-time showing notification to listing agents and eliminates the need for “cradling” to receive daily updates and user authentication.
With GE’s ActiveKEY, real estate professionals will be able to choose from the most complete line of state-of-the-art key control devices to help make selling easier.
For more information on GE Security’s leading line of real estate products, please visit gesecurity.com/supraekey GE-Security, making the world safer.
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Mobile broadband will let you do business on your terms — everywhere you go.
Dramatic improvements in speed and coverage areas make mobile broadband the productivity solution for successful real estate agents. Mobile broadband gives you internet connectivity almost anywhere you go – at a clients home signing or resigning a listing, open houses or wherever you can use it to answer the question that makes a deal possible. No need to find a Wi-Fi hotspot. You can have high-speed connectivity built in to your notebook computer, always ready and available to make your next deal happen faster, more effectively.
In the past two years, mobile broadband (also known as cellular data service) has achieved dramatic improvements in both speed and coverage area, making it an ideal choice for a REALTOR® who wants to connect from virtually anywhere without hassle.
With Mobile broadband Agents can work wherever they are with increased flexibility. The freedom and added productivity makes Agents busy lives less hectic and potentially, more profitable.
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What is Mobile Broadband?
Mobile broadband is different from Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi provides localized wireless coverage in some cafes, airports, and hotels via hotspots. In contrast, mobile broadband is offered through digital cellular networks–making it possible to connect to the Internet or check e-mail virtually anywhere you can get a cell phone signal.
By using a built-in adapter or a PC Card, plus a monthly data service plan, your notebook computer becomes networked with the click of a button. And with new third-generation (3G) technologies, mobile broadband services can provide download speeds of 400-700 Kbps or higher, which is plenty for reading e-mail, browsing the MLS, or connecting to important documents. The connection feels fast. Offered by most major carriers, and with prices starting around $60 per month, mobile broadband quickly becomes an indispensable “must-have.”
A Day in the Life of Mobile Broadband
Just like your cell phone service, mobile broadband is available virtually anywhere you go during your business week: • In an office conference room • At a client location • At the airport • During your commute on a bus, train or ferry • In a hotel or at a friend’s house • At a family doctor appointment • In a restaurant or café • Waiting at the mall • At a kid’s soccer game (you can always turn it off) • Where you are right now?This article was written in part while sitting in a comfortable chair in a doctor’s office waiting room. Without mobile broadband, I’d be reading six-month-old magazines.
Instead of trying to track down the person who knows the Wi-Fi password at your client’s office or trying to find and sign in to yet another Wi-Fi hotspot which can cost $10 a pop, you can connect with mobile broadband easily and bypass these aggravations with the click of a button on your notebook. So don’t go on a quest for hotspots. Instead, enjoy your morning coffee or make good use of time while waiting on a showing to start – from where you are — because connectivity comes to you. Mobile broadband eliminates the boundaries, giving you a productive environment almost anywhere you are.
More Productive Work Time
Many agents are using single-function devices and smart phones connected through cellular data networks in order to read e-mail. While these devices are great for “e-mail triage,” the small screens and tiny keypads of these devices make creating a full response or accessing attachments difficult. By bringing broadband connectivity to your notebook computer, with its larger screen and full-size keyboard, you can read these same e-mail messages, open attachments, and craft full replies that can make the difference in solving a client’s problem or moving a sale along.
And unlike the very basic Web-based information services available on these smaller devices, you can use your desktop applications, a full Web browser, and other connected applications to work normally from virtually anywhere.
Built-in Benefits
Most users will prefer the reliability, convenience and performance of a built-in mobile broadband modem compared to an external PC Card. Built-in cards stay out of your way and integrate with existing wireless antennas, which are usually integrated behind the notebook display screen. By building the antenna into the notebook, the risk of it getting bent or broken is minimized.In addition, when a notebook computer is purchased with a built-in card, all of the appropriate drivers and connection manager software come pre-installed. (You can purchase built-in cards from Dell for Cingular, Sprint, or Verizon Wireless mobile broadband services1 in the U.S. and for TELUS mobile broadband service in Canada.) You just need to perform a one-time service activation and then click the “Connect” button. It’s that simple.One more benefit is the improved performance of built-in cards compared to external PC Cards. By placing the antenna away from the internal components of the notebook computer, where there is the most electrical interference, performance has been shown to improve by more than 45 percent in some studies.
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Mobile Broadband |
Wi-Fi |
| Coverage Area |
Measured in miles |
Measured in feet |
| Connect From Virtually Anywhere |
Yes |
No (requires Wi-Fi Hotspot) |
| Technologies |
3G (HSDPA, EVDO) |
802.11b/g |
| Single Plan provides broad coverage |
Yes |
No |
| Service Costs |
$60 per month (with voice plan), ~$80 per month (data only) |
$30 per month per service, ~$10 per day for day pass |
Who Carries The Data?
Mobile broadband comes from the same companies that bring you cellular voice service:
• Cingular BroadbandConnect
• Sprint Mobile Broadband
• Verizon Wireless Broadband Access
• TELUS Wireless High Speed
The data service can be purchased separately, but many carriers offer a discount if you couple the plan with an existing cellular voice service. Because of this discount, most users will opt to purchase their voice and data services from the same carrier. Although the technologies are different, all services provide fast data connectivity.
Mobile Broadband Solutions from Dell
Dell offers a full selection of mobile broadband products along with customer assistance for sign-up and activation with the mobile broadband service of your choice. Whether you are purchasing a new notebook, or upgrading an existing notebook to mobile broadband, Dell has a wide variety of options, including built-in mini-cards and external ExpressCards for Cingular, Sprint and Verizon Wireless’s mobile broadband networks.Dell has the right notebook to meet your needs. Every small business notebook computer that Dell sells can be fitted with an ExpressCard and many models support the built-in mini-card. The mini-card option is currently available on the Dell Latitude D420 ultra-portable, D620, and D820 notebooks as well as the Dell Precision™ M65 model and XPS™ M1210. Because these Dell notebooks ship with low-interference wireless antennas hidden behind the display screen, your mobile broadband performance can be up to 45 percent faster3 than other options. So when configuring a notebook computer, it’s not just the processor, memory, and hard disk choices you need to consider. If you’re a busy professional, a built-in mobile broadband card can add more productive time to your week.
For more information on mobile broadband, visit www.dell.com/mobilebroadband
For more information on Dell Real Estate technology solutions, visit Small Business 360™
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