Agent Tools Page 4

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Shopping - For Real Estate Stuff:

REPS - Real Estate Products & Services Online

Advertising:

AdWriter - software that makes creating ads for Real Estate easier, faster and more intuitive

Mapping & Satellite Photos:

MapPoint - I hear this is better than MapQuest!

MapQuest - maps, directions - you've probably seen it

NavPro - put in all the houses you are showing, and it puts them in order geographically. Now if it could make the appointments for me that would really be great!

Switchboard - Careful - Heard some disparaging words about this one!

TerraServer - Only narrows down by municipality, then you have to zoom in, but better quality for free.

ABR - Accredited Buyer Representative:

The Real Estate Buyer's Agent Council - REBAC

Federal Sites:

FedWorld - a place to find links to all kinds of government information

Home Inspection:

American Society of Home Inspectors - ASHI

Appliance Help - This guy will help you diagnose and fix your appliances over the phone!

Energy Savings Tips

Printing, Copying:

Color for Real Estate - Printing of all sorts specifically for Real Estate

$39 per hundred, including shipping! - color copies delivered in 24 hours

QuantumMail - Full Service Postcard Printing and Mailing. Starting at only $.39 per Jumbo postcard—including postage.

Connection Speed Tests:

Measures the speed of your Internet connection

Appointment Centers:

EShowings.Com - They'll take care of all your listing appointments for you!

Maintaining Your PC:

Event ID - When you find error messages and go to your event viewer locate the event # and enter it on this site for explanation

WinCleaner - Keep your PC running healthy with 9 utilities to do it!

Auctions:

Closing Gifts:

KitsInc - 28 Essential Items (w/ 15 "Keepers" ) All-Purpose Shears, Bottle Opener, D Batteries, Extension Cords, Flashlight, Hammer, Nail Assortment, Pens, Phillips Screwdriver, Phone Jack, & Cord, Pliers/Cutters, Regular Screwdriver, Work Gloves, Tape Measure, Utility Knife, Bandages, Eating Utensils, Facial Tissue, Garbage Bags, Hand Soap, Kitchen Sponges, Light Bulbs, Masking Tape, Paper Towel, Plastic Plates, Styrofoam Cups, Toilet Paper, Writing Tablet

Home Journal Software - software package which allows you to easily track any improvements to the interior, exterior and mechanics of your home from window treatments to a kitchen or bath remodel. In addition, you can keep a complete inventory of everything in your home either by room or category

Follow-up, Automated sites:

I-Pro - automated e-mail follow-up for online prospecting

Sharper Agent - e-mail and print follow-up marketing tools

Autoresponder & so much more! Intersend - designed specifically for real estate!

Flyers:

Express Copy - Terrific company! You can build your postcards, business cards, and flyers online with no software to buy and nothing to download. 100 Color copies for $39 delivered in 48 hours!

Imprev - Online marketing piece design center comes highly recommended

Law, Miscellaneous:

Fax Law - Broadcast Fax and Junk Email Illegal - here's the law!

IPWatchdog - The source for Intellectual Property, Internet and Antitrust Law.

Linking - What's legal, and what's not? Good article that discusses precedents being set for linking, deep-linking, and framing.

NoLo.Com - offers answers to most basic legal questions. Also, there are many free forms you can use to handle simple legal matters as well as links to other more detailed informational sites. Nolo also offers specialized books on an array of different subjects

Spam:

Courtesy of Mr. Internet - Michael Russer - http://www.russer.com

Any time you receive an unsolicited commercial e-mail from a real estate industry vendor, just forward it to the Spam Recycle Center (spamrecycle@chooseyourmail.com) —be sure to save this address in your e-mail address book.
Before sending it on, put this text in the message area, above the spam: “To whom it may concern - Please add this sender to your *blacklist* of suspected spammers so that I (and others in my industry) will no longer be bothered by unsolicited e-mail from this vendor --Thank You!”
Lastly, “CC:” the forward to the vendor who originally sent the message --this will scare the heck out of them and you will likely never receive e-mail from them again! (NOTE: don’t try this with professional spammers (i.e. non-legitimate vendors), because all it does is verify that your address is correct.

This method *works* and puts you, not the vendors, back in control of your inbox, where it should be!

Another place to forward your spam is UCE@ftc.gov

Article - One company that was fined in the US

Article - Australian sentenced to 5 years in jail

Article - Can-Spam act ramifications

Article - Gigalaw - Spam Laws

Article - E-Mail Coalition Announces False-Positive Forum

Article - Primer: Spam Filtering: The False Positive

Reference - Technical jargon that shows all the different kinds of tests that are applied to “weight” e-mail in terms of whether or not it is likely to be spam

CAN-SPAM Act of 2003

Direct Marketing Association "OPT-OUT" list

Emc (EmailControl)

MailWasher

Outlook - Tutorial for using filters to filter out spam.

PanicWare

Spam Arrest - I do NOT recommend using "Challenge Response" spam systems - Gary

Stop Spam Now! - Turn your volume down - they have an annoying audio background.

Photography - Digital:

Also see here

Camera Comparisons - and basic information

Digi-Slave - Digital Flash attachments

IrfanView - FREE Photo software

Macromedia Captivate - Record your computer monitor screen movements, and play them back on Media Player - FREE

Panorama Factory - Digital photo stitching shareware

MS - Photostory - photos to slides and a whole lot more

Watermark your Photos for security

User Groups:

Online Agent/Agent 2000/Power Pak/Executive Agent

Bulletin Boards Online:

Community Zero - an interactive website that allows a group of people to communicate and exchange information over the Internet in their own private and secure area.

eBoard - for posting tech stuff, useful web sites, real estate tips, real estate stories, jokes, etc.

Caricatures:

Beth Owens - Beth was recommended on Real Talk. Click for her e-mail address.

Remote Access to your PC:

Go To My PC - Use the Internet to connect your PC's between office and home!

Uninvited Guests:

GoHip - This %^&* program plugs itself in as your home page, puts a banner across the bottom of your browser every time you open it, AND "pop-up" ads keep coming up, AND it sticks a bunch of favorites, that aren't your favorites, in your favorites. Click on GoHip to get rid of it!

State Associations:

PAR - Pennsylvania Associations of Realtors

Hardware - Bargains:

AllStar Shop

Street Prices - Shopping site

Educational Courses, Tapes & CD's:

ACRE - Designation course for "Accredited Consultant in Real Estate"

Are you tired of working for free?
Are you tired of having buyers or sellers waste your time?
Are your negotiating skills valuable?
Do you want to have another source of income based on your real estate knowledge?

Earning the ACRE™ designation will allow you to have a powerful choice in your toolbox when dealing with home sellers or buyers. You will have a structure to work with “For Sale by Owners” where you will not be dependent on getting the listing to get paid. You will be able to earn fees for the work you do whether or not a home sale closes. More info...

All Star Tapes - Order tapes from conventions. Also, complete audio recording services for your events and conferences. Contact us concerning your next event and we will show you how easy it is to have recording services. Information and recordings are available on recent and past conferences if you attended or not. Use our website to explore our network of associations.

Playback Now - Tapes from NAR conventions, and others, etc.

Sell with Soul University - Online Classes from $12 to $259. OUR MISSION - To help real estate agents live up to their own lofty dreams and ambitions, without sacrificing their souls to do so.

Files:

Missing DLL Files - ever get a message that says you're missing a .DLL file? Go here to find the one you need and replace it.

Designations:

Nar Glossary of Designations

Sex Offenders:

Sex Offenders Database - Links to databases around the country

Hardware Help:

Fix your own printer - HP help pages for old laser printers

IP Addresses:

If you have the set of numbers that is the IP address, you should be able to plug those numbers in your browser's address search window to go to that address. Once there, you may be able to see the "actual" address. However, the "Actual" address IS the 4 sets of numbers separated by periods (e.g.: 24.94.1.47 ); that is the IP address, while what I think you are looking for is the domain name. Sometimes all you get is the IP address. That usually means it is unregistered and if being used - is an illegal site set-up. If you have the domain name and want the IP address, go to the windows Start button on your task bar, then click Run; type in " ping www.domainName -t " and click "OK" (e.g.: ping www.internetcrusade.com -t ) this will give you the "Reply from" of 206.251.24.84 which is InternetCrusade.com's IP address. You need the "space -t" to continue the pinging, or you won't be able to read in the short time a ping reply is shown. To close out of that window, just hit "ctrl C".

DLL:

Replace missing DLL files - ever get a message that says you're missing a .DLL file? Go here to find the one you need and replace it.

Credit Cards:

ClickBank - accept credit cards on your site

FTP Software:

Filezilla - A fast and reliable FTP client and server with lots of useful features and an intuitive interface.

Global Scape - Cute FTP is the software I use for File Transfer Protocol (FTP) - Gary

Internet Browsers:

Mozilla - FREE - An alternative to Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator

Opera - FREE - An alternative to Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator

Safari - MAC alternative to Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator

Thunderbird - An alternative to Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator

Learn...

Computer & Internet Terminology - dictionary/encyclopedia

HTML - tons of information related to HTML & building a web site.

Virtual Assistants/Assistance:

AssistU

Brenner Books - VA Industry Study

Double Click

ELance

IVAA

REVA Teams - Real Estate Virtual Assistants

Virtual Assistance - Find a seriously qualified assistant, or have them train one for you!

Certified Real Estate Virtual Assistants - Our Certified Real Estate Virtual Assistants (VAs) service Real Estate Professionals nationwide. We specialize in Online Transaction Coordination (OTC), Client Database Management (CDM), as well as Lead Follow-up & Tracking, Drip Email Campaigns, and more.

Lead Generation:

Autoresponder - Automatically follow-up with people that e-mail you for information. Increase your sales while decreasing your work load! Get automated e-mail follow up through AWeber Communications. More info...

Boxes - shipping boxes of all kinds for moving, innovative, inexpensive, & customizable

I-Pro - automated e-mail follow-up for online prospecting

Intersend - Created and still be used by an active Real Estate agent. The first client I referred them to said she couldn't believe the response she was getting from it. She said she had several calls thanking her for the information. "...and I didn't have to lift a finger...this is great!".

More info...

Gooder Group - Marketing Tools

Pro Quest

One user says:

"They have a great marketing manual, samples of advertising, free reports. Their web site is FULL of stuff for this "direct response" marketing system - read it to your heart's content They also, every couple of weeks e-mail you an e-mail newsletter with tips

and tricks on using the 800# phone line - I like that. Proquest is also one of the few companies that provides Names and addresses

of people calling (about 60-65% of the time). I like that as I can

cross-reference the callers to see who the seller is and add them to my seller follow-up program."

Lead Phone - LeadPhone™ will call you on your cell-phone with the details of every Website lead.

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