You just landed a wonderful listing. Congratulations! It’s a tough market right now, but the home is in a good neighborhood and with just a little work it may be sold in a couple weeks.

Then you actually start working with the client. This client is motivated to sell the house, but is completely unwilling to raise a hand to help you stage, show or sell the home.

They want to move because they already have a new house. They don’t want to organize, paint or be bothered with “the old house” and they don’t believe it matters. Your suggestions are meeting with resistance and you get the distinct impression that your recommendation that they paint the dark blue entryway a lighter color is… well… rude.

You don’t want to upset the client, but you can’t engage them in the project. You need them to be cooperative. How do you achieve that goal?

In three easy steps… (more…)

Ok, I’m salivating. This new Motion tablet has it all. First, I’m a power-user, my little LE-1600 is often screaming “mercy!” from my multi-tasking ways — but this new duo-core model offers an upgrade to 4Gigs of memory. That’s enough to keep even me quiet for a few months. (more…)

If you are planning a move from Outlook 2007, or if you just want to “soup-up” your open-source Mozilla Thunderbird product, I’ll share some tips, some links and some add-ons that I found particularly useful during my own MS to open-source migration.

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After the concert, I’ve listened to the new Finger Eleven album several times. It’s all pretty darn good, but three of the songs really shine:

1. Change the world (Acoustic Mix) - The acoustic version outshines the standard, IMHO.

2. Paralyzer - (only a few songs make me want to get up and dance, but this one keeps me tapping, nodding and feeling the urge to move)

3. Talking to walls - I just like it.
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I wanted to convert my use of Outlook 2007 to an open source option. The problem was determining which one to select.

Problems with Outlook 2007

Outlook 2007 is so blasted slow, I nearly pulled my hair out nearly every day. My “trial” version expires Saturday, so I’m busy converting my stuff over to an open source alternative that will easily follow me when I discard the Windows operating system for a Linux model.

I’m tired of using Microsoft products. I despise what they have decided to do with Vista and the more I read, the more determined I become not just to avoid Vista, but to avoid all Microsoft products as much as possible.

Rather than buying a program to do the conversion from OL2007 to opensource, I was convinced I could find a way (even if it’s a multi-step process) to make this conversion myself. I wanted to share my findings with those of you interested in going on the same path, and hope that I save you time, research effort and frustration in the process.

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Evanescence

I didn’t take photos (I was one of the few people who actually listened when I was told “no cameras”) at the concert. I sorta wish I’d been less honest. But, I did find this on YouTube this morning, to give you a bit of the “flavor” of the event:

Amy put on a great show. The thing that impressed me the most (aside from her amazing voice) was the fact that she never took a break. She never slowed down. I (being my age) had a hard time simply standing through her entire show. In the meantime, she bounced around on stage — working it from corner to corner, belted out song after song — with an awesome vocal range, and did solos on the piano while her band members took a break. It was impressive. Quite.

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Today, I was the coolest Mom alive. Yup, honestly. I picked up my son just after 12 noon from school and surprised him with the rest of the day (a week early) to celebrate his 17th birthday.

I invited his girlfriend to be in on the surprise, so she was waiting in the car when I checked him out of school. We whisked him off (without telling him where we were going) to Louisville. He thought the gift was a half day off school and to see his girlfriend (who recently moved back to the state).

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If you are like me, your Outlook suddenly did something weird a couple of weeks ago. I ended up going in and changing all the errant times by hand (grumbling the whole while about a government with nothing better to do than to once again mess with the laws of nature and my clocks).

And, I was looking forward to the same issues this fall…

But I found a download to help those Window’s users who are still enjoying the fun now, and those who worry that they will enjoy the fun again in a few months.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=931836

If you have downloaded Windows updates lately, or if you have automatic updates enabled, you probably already have this patch. (But if don’t know, then apply the patch. If you already have it a message will tell so and it will not install.)

Hope this helps your frustration level.

Ok, maybe I’m a little slower than others, but I’ve not tripped across any posts about the new dynamic Google themes for my Google Personalized home page. It’s available in the upper right hand corner of your screen and is flagged “new” — which is why I noticed it this morning.

The design (I picked the beach one, since I’m still missing my sunrises every morning) actually changes during the course of the day, based on where you are. So, at night it’s dark, during the morning it’s a morning view. You may pick from a handful of themes (and I’m hoping more are coming soon).

It’s a small thing, but quite cool, so I thought I’d share.

Hot Spot #2 for simplification (a process that has amplified importance in a tiny house) is the kitchen.

The kitchen is a minefield for complication in your life. There are gadgets for every imaginable use. Only you can determine which of these are actually essential. But, beware — this is an area where gadget lovers face their biggest demons and where “coolness” factors can often outweigh usefulness realities.

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My father is converting to Linux. It’s something he’s considered for awhile, but he’s all bent about the new MS Vista release. I told him my concerns about the use of the CPU to be “big brother” to be sure you were doing nothing wrong — and my concerns that my own iTunes and ripped CD content would no longer be playable on Vista (among a plethora of other concerns).

They may have fixed this by now… I’m beyond caring. I quit researching the new Vista OS when I hit “saturation” point on the issues I wasn’t willing to accept. I’ve made my plan to scoot away from Windows-based computing completely. Pops is going to make the OS swap before I am, but I’m well on my way with applications already.

I saw an article today that referenced the fact that the US government is also moving away from the MS model. It quoted, in particular, the FAA and the DOT as they consider a move toward Linux.

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Here’s an informative chart about the value of various wholesome foods, which arrived by email from my mother this week.

Personally, I’d recommend using organic versions of these to boost the value even more. Staying healthy with excellent whole food choices in your diet is one of the best ways to save money and improve overall health.

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Some areas are tougher than others when you begin your journey to a simpler existence. These areas of your home will stop your efforts dead, if you are not both diligent and careful.

I offer the following tips for these areas to help you push through the hard spots. The first (and the top offender) in the “collections and stuff I don’t really need” category is the closet.

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I’ve been using The Gimp for a couple months now and so far, it’s great. It took a bit of time to learn the new format and to be able to find the functions I wanted or needed, but I think most of the learning curve is behind me now.

It’s a keeper. I’m not a heavy user, but I am a regular user and I find that The Gimp loads much faster than Paint Shop Pro 7.0 and it screams past the molasses-style loading speed of Paint Shop Pro 9.0. I uninstalled 9.0 almost immediately because it loaded so incredibly slowly– on both my machines.

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I’ve made the choice to start to move away from traditional closed-source software as much as possible in my business. I’m working on adopting the software this year with the idea that in 2008 I will move to Linux.

With all the stuff I use, this is a pretty bold plan. I hope I can make that deadline for the complete switch before the end of 2008. In the meantime, I’m searching for (and finding) a number of fantastic programs. And, over the next few weeks and months, I plan to share my findings in the hope that it makes the transition easier for others.

This means my findings (for the most part) will be limited to those programs that offer both a Linux and a Windows version, unfortunately. As I have it figured, there’s no way I can learn a new operating system, address software/hardware conflict issues, learn new software packages and keep a business going. Thus, I’ll be limited to cross-OS offerings for now. I’m looking for the best reviewed of the options and will pass along my findings as well as my resources for the reviews and the download pages.

Whether you are changing for ethical, moral, technical or financial reasons, I hope my findings will help your own transition.

I’ll keep the header “Open Source Gems” for each find to make it easy to search and I’ll tag them all with “open source” as well.

After being extremely pleased with the results of using ChatterBug for my long distance, I’ve hit a brick wall. Last week, while I was still in Florida, the service went down. The company sent out an email offering an alternate 800 number to use to place calls.

This meant an additional step, but I was ok with that because 1.) I wasn’t using the service at the moment and 2.) Contacting me with a word-around is great customer service. Things happen, I get that. I’m ok with a temporary work around for snafus.

However, it’s now Tuesday and the service still isn’t working — and neither is the “work around” 800 number. They don’t even offer the opportunity to leave a message today either (I left one yesterday). Now, they have a recording saying that the service is down, that they have no idea when it will be restored and that I should continue to call back because they will update the recording as things change…

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I found an article today about the tiny houses being built by Lowes for the needs of Katrina survivors. These minuscule dwellings offer all the basics and nothing extravagant. These and other homes like them are, IMHO, the wave of the future.

I’ve watched and dreamed about the designs of the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company for several years now, myself. I even developed the floor plan for my own house based, in great part, on the desire to keep the footprint small and the utility high in my home.

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I saw some interesting information the other day about the current debt load in America — the result of the “war on terror” (aka: Bush’s public display of overwhelming narcissism).

And I felt that the $145 billion in additional debt for his little role as the vain queen gazing into a mirror and crooning “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the biggest little guy of them all?” could have been better spent in other ways.

For a graphic breakdown of alternative projects for that debt, I refer you to the Budget Graph Blog (aka: Death and Taxes: A Visual Graphic of Where Your Tax Dollars Go). It’s pretty interesting stuff.

As always, I support our troops and all those individuals with the horrid responsibility to protect us and enforce the orders of their not-so-superior commander in chief. It’s not a job I’d want. But the commander himself??? Very little respect and support streaming from me in his general direction these days.

This is, hands down, my favorite holiday. Has been for years. But today, being away from home and having this HUGE conversion project underway for my blog has dampened my usual high St. Patrick’s Day spirit.

It’s going to take ages to get my new WordPress blog here on WickedBlog working exactly the way I need it to work. I’m verbose. I write alot. Usually, that doesn’t bother me. But, usually, I’m not in a position of checking over 500 posts for errors, for weirdnesses in funny characters that happen when you convert databases (like question marks inside black diamonds — what’s up with that!?!?)

I know this is going to be great when it’s complete — I already see indications of greatness around the edges — but for now I’m frustrated. It will pass, but for today… I’m just frustrated.

Bear with me over the next few days as I work on the appearance of WickedBlog.com. Yes, it’s still the same wicked blog, and you are in the right place.

Pardon the dust and the noise as I work on the backend to create a blog that’s easier to read, much easier to navigate and permits you to select stories by topic and/or tag.

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