Blogger Paul English has compiled a great little “cheat sheet” to bypass the automated answering machines for many of the larger companies and many of the ones I use on a daily basis…http://www.paulenglish.com/ivr/

Thanks, Paul! You rock!

I’ve had a few agents contact me lately about the Treo VS the Tablet PC products.

Tablets may be a bit off the Treo topic, but they are dead-on the mobility issue…and, it’s something I’ve been looking at myself lately… trying to decide if a tablet makes sense for me, and if it’s a “now” item or a “soon” item on my wish list.

What I’m dying to see, what I’ve been scouring the reviews, the “upcoming products” and the other geeky sites and pubs to find is a truly great tablet PC.

Not just any old tablet — I want one that will work for me and that I can recommend to my clients. For me, it would have to have…An extraordinary battery life.

One of the things I love about my Treo is the number of hours I can work on it and the ease with which I can plop in a new battery. Now, on a Tablet, I’d like to have the battery last all day and be hot-swappable. I don’t like to “power down” and reboot. I hate it. And most PCs (unlike the Treo, again) take so blasted long to boot, that it makes me crazy. I’m not a patient woman. ‘Nuff said.

It would have to run decent graphics. (more…)

Yesterday, we went to my sister-in-laws for the holiday meal. We took a broccoli and beef dish, zucchini with pepper jack cheese, a vegetable muffin with cashews and Wayne’s famous pasta salad (a regular recipe and an organic one he made for us).

Alex and I ate only the organic versions, as usual. Wayne (also as usual) sampled some of the typical fare. He usually eats organic with us, but occasionally eats regular food when he’s out. He doesn’t go nuts, though. Since we have started eating organic, he says he only really misses two things — bread and ham. I bake bread occasionally, but he’s SOL on the ham (simply out of luck, that is). So he ate ham at dinner.

He and Alex hated missing out on ice cream, so we got a machine and I make vanilla from organic cream and milk with organic vanilla and local honey.

We pack Alex’s lunch so she doesn’t eat the crap at school — have you SEEN the lunch menus lately?!?! And my seven-year-old reads the labels on her food herself and if she can’t pronounce it, or if she doesn’t know what it is, she doesn’t eat it. It’s pretty amazing.

Anyway, there’s the background and after Thanksgiving dinner, we went to visit my friend, Daphne. (more…)

An independent research group recently conducted a comparative use study on the Treo 650, the Samsung i730, the UTStarcom PPC6600 and Blackberry 7100.

And the size, design and useability of the Treo device came out ahead of the pack, with the Samsung i730 being second…

It makes me wonder how long the Treo can keep the edge. I love my own little device, but unless Palm continues to keep stride, I’m sure they can’t keep the lead in a market as competitive as this one is becoming.

I had a reader write me this week to ask my why I wrote about the Treo 650, why I didn’t pick the HP device instead, since it had a larger screen, etc. (more…)

Mobility is attractive. Miniaturization and nanotechnology are now the rage. We want our technology tools to fit on keyring or inside our pockets or purse and they must bring the whole world to us.

We don’t want much, do we?

The problem is that the choices for mobility are so broad that it’s sometimes overwhelming. How does a person begin to sort it all out?

Consider the following questions to help narrow your choices to a more manageable scope:

• Do you WANT to be completely mobile? Sometimes we feel we need to do what everyone else is doing because it’s expected. If you want the technology, if you crave the toys then buy them. But be sure to weigh the pros and cons — as they relate specifically to you and your business and your life — before making the leap.
  (Some people swear that not having a cell phone is a life enhancer!)
• Is mobility worth the cost? It costs two to three times as much for a laptop as it does for a desktop with the same functionality. Do you really NEED to take your computer with you? Would you do just as well keeping notes and then organizing your thoughts on your office machine when you came back to review the meeting?
  (Some people still use a notepad — by choice!)
• Is it saving you time? Or, are you spending more time buying and tweaking, maintaining and updating your technology than you are doing your work? Do you spend more time with your toys than you do with your family and significant other? How much of your budget is swallowed by technology toys and their accessories?
  (Simplicity is a joyous thing — how complex is your life?)

Statistics some time ago proved that “labor saving devices” did not reduce the amount of labor on the home front — make sure your technology and mobility choices do reduce the labor on the office — and out of the office — before making that purchase.

This weekend, Wayne and I took Alex and Derrick to see the new Harry Potter release. I must say, for a kids movie, it’s wonderful. I love the Harry Potter Series. There, I admitted it! One of the things I like best about it has to do with my hubby. He was reading one of the books when we were dating… and he started reading it aloud to Alex. Since then he’s read three or four of them to her and I attribute her love of reading, in great part, to this activity.

In the past few months (say about 10) she’s gone from struggling to sound out words here and there in books to devouring them at an astonishing rate. (more…)

Businesses on the web are blogging their way to marketing success. Blogging has become increasingly popular from corporate CEO to sole proprietors. How does this form of online writing help a company’s bottom line and who should consider writing a blog? More importantly, who shouldn’t?

A blog (short for web log) is a dynamic, regularly updated journal entry created in “real time” and uploaded to your website or blog server. For real estate professionals, it can be a fantastic marketing tool. It’s now hit the mainstream and if you have ever considered a blog for your Real Estate website, it’s time to move forward with your plans!

(more…)

I try to be a “kinder, gentler Angela” in my blogs and articles. I succeed most of the time. But on November 3rd, I failed. An article in Forbes magazine on “evil” bloggers managed to “get my dander up” in a way that few articles do. (see my WickedBlog entry of November 3rd) I’d like to say that makes the Forbes piece good writing, or an excellent topic, or (at the very least) a powerful approach. But no — it was just a bad, narrow minded and hateful article.

I tripped across several responses to the Forbes article today from others and of the ones I read, the most impressive was one on how to avoid blog bashing.

You know, it’s an excellent post on how to run a business — aside from the goal of reducing your exposure to bad blog reports. I contacted the author (and Villanova Law professor) Jim Maule, and he’s given me permission to quote his own easy 10-point “cure” for blog bashing here: (more…)

I’ve made the switch back to Outlook. I hated making that decision, but I did it. There’s a new program I want to use, one I think will be an “everything” program for me — like my NoteStudio on the palm and desktop, but with more power. And, to use all the features available, I needed to go back to Outlook. So, after much hand-wringing, online research and chatting with fellow geeks about outstanding security issues, functionality, etc… I took the leap.

Then my Treo pitched a fit. It didn’t want to sync with outlook. At ALL. Then it finally did sync, once. But wouldn’t do it again. I got errors ranging from “Exchange synchronization failed” to it simply hanging and doing the “sync” thing for hours. I even went to bed and left it in disgust last night. But, this morning, in between appointments, I’ve tweaked it and figured out what has to happen to make it work — at least in my case.

Below you will see my version of:

How to Move from Using the Palm Desktop to using Outlook with your Treo 650 in 10 Easy steps. (more…)

READ IT TO ME (Download MP3 Version of Today’s Blog)My sister is struggling in her Ichthyology class. (It’s the study of fish.) She’s a graduate student most noted for her art and her love of botany. This “fish” class is out of her normal realm and she’s finding it a challenge.

Yesterday, I dropped by to see her on my way home from another appointment. She was cramming for a test that evening and we started talking about Hagfish. It was a discussion which I found delightful, disgusting and quite enlightening…

A little history on the Hagfish… (more…)

I had an offsite appointment today, and didn’t have a chance to upload my new Audible content from this month (I keep a monthly subscription and listen whenever I’m in the car, walking or even cleaning house).

Audible Air came to my rescue!

I’ve probably “read” more books on marketing and small business and ebusiness in the last six months (thanks to Audible.com) than in the past two years. I’m constantly devouring online content, but sometimes a well-written book is a nice change of pace!

I keep extra books on hand everywhere I go — thanks to my SD card — but I really wanted to listen to my newest selection and I didn’t have time to download and sync before leaving the office.

I did (over the weekend) load up the Audible Air program, so I thought I’d take it for a test drive on my way up I-75. (more…)

As the fall marches forward, I’m in a dismal state of disorganization. The old “it must get worse before it gets better” goes double for me right now. I spent the weekend reorganizing my computer. (more…)

Lately, I’ve been writing a series of articles on the advantages, and near necessity, of using the current local search specific options to get your website seen in the regional market… on all the big-boy search engines (and a few big-boy directories and indexes) and (as you know by now) I’m a Treo nut. That said, a professional peer sent me to the following site to listen to a song by one of the Google Mobile Team’s bloggers…

Listen to Get Lost and Found on Your Phone by blogger Matt Waddle of the Google Mobile Team.

I thought all you Treo users might get a kick out of it.

Now THAT’s promoting your product!

*grin*

Real Estate Business Magazine published my article “Diving for Pearls” in the November issue. A client picked up a copy of the magazine while at the NAR conference in California, and sent it to me this week.

The article discusses the five steps you need to take to get listed in the local search engines and even discusses the importance of including GPS information in metatags.

I’ll be writing more on this topic in the future, since the importance of local search in increasing daily.

In the meantime, if you would like to read a PDF of the article, I’ve uploaded it HERE.

The last couple of days, I have learned how important my senses are for the way I operate.

First, I’m too impatient to sit and watch water boil. Nor can I bear to wait (like a good cook) when things bake in the oven.

I have to get back to my other projects. I knew this, but didn’t realize how much I depended on my sense of smell to do my baking until the last few days… when I’ve had a cold from Hades that’s blocked all sense of smell. So, my family has endured a cabin filled with smoke, alarms blaring and scorched meals. All because the 7-year-old escorted the latest variety of “crud” home from the public school system. (more…)

My son called me today to show me a demonstration of “Google bombing” that he knew I’d enjoy.

If you would like to have your own fun (and especially if you aren’t a fan of our current President) you should go to Google and… (more…)

If you are like me, you love your little Treo, but you really REALLY wish it could be just a bit louder — especially when you are driving along in your car, there’s a bit of road-noise, and you can’t quite make out every word — even though your signal is strong.

The Treo really needs a bit of a boost to volume — especially in “handset” mode and I found the answer…VolumeCare is it. It’s by GoTreo Software, Inc. and I got my copy at… you guessed it… PalmGear.com. It set me back about $15, but with that boost it makes my life less frustrating and more open to communication.

If you find yourself saying “huh?” or “I missed that, can you pass that by me one more time” too often, this may be the trick for your Treo.

It also controls the mic, the back speaker, the ring tone, the speaker phone and even a headset.

(Dunnville, KY – November 3, 2005) Blogging has received considerable attention in the traditional press. Although many companies have embraced the blog phenomenon, some larger companies and a few major publications find the power of blogging threatening. In online marketing circles, experts continue to praise blogging as an excellent tool to help businesses – especially small businesses – succeed. On November 17th, www.RemoteProfessionals.com will offer a teleseminar to help entrepreneurs begin their own business blog. (more…)

It’s interesting that the author of the cover story for Forbes Magazine this month should claim that bloggers are dangerously opinionated. I find it even more interesting that this writer entitles his article (in a fair and even-handed tone) “Attack of the Blogs!” which is illustrated with an (equally non-judgmental) image of a man being punched out by his computer monitor .

The author, Daniel Lyons, states, “Blogs started a few years ago as a simple way for people to keep online diaries. Suddenly they are the ultimate vehicle for brand-bashing, personal attacks, political extremism and smear campaigns.” Hmmm… Now THAT’s a fair, even-handed, and balanced and position, wouldn’t you agree? (more…)

The SOHO and outsourcing advantages are numerous. I love working in my home office and apparently I’m not alone. In a recent survey by Yahoo HotJobs… 18% of those planning on changing jobs in the next 12 months were doing so because of the commute.

Hmmm… My commute is only a few steps. How’s yours?

The report, quoted in a recent article on Forbes.com states that 40% of the individuals surveyed plan to find another job in the next year, and 21% of them are already looking.

(more…)