Turner's Perspective

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Happy To Be Chosen An Utterz Ambassador

Yesterday, I was thrilled to learn that I was chosen to be among the first group of Utterz Ambassadors.

Utterz Ambassadors

Although my tongue in cheek "audition" tape may have indicated otherwise, I wanted to be a part of the group for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, I believe Utterz is one of the best mobile social media tools available. I've written about it before.

I've even been able to convince my wife to use Utterz. She was reluctant at first, but has finally realized the value in using it to distribute content to her different blogs and social media. Utterz is a free service, but I would pay for it. Willingly.

I already talk about Utterz everywhere I go, and even use it to do simple stuff like birthday messages, so it only made sense to be a part of a group that will get to contribute to where this service is heading and be able to test new features first.

I'm honored to be a part of this group.

I'm also hoping this gives me special parking privileges somewhere. :)

Here is the complete list:

 

Jeff Turner aka respres

26 comments • Jeff Turner • May 29 2008 12:28PM

PicLens Will Change The Way You View Flickr

A very special thank you to Teresa Boardman for turning me on to this browser plugin.

PicLens "transforms your browser into a full-screen, 3D experience for viewing photos and videos across the web. With one click, PicLens makes online media come to life via an immersive presentation that goes beyond the confines of the traditional browser."

If you're a flickr user, and you should be, this browser extension will be your new best friend. PicLens works with Firefox (Windows) Firefox (Mac) Internet Explorer and Safari (Mac).

Here's a quick look at PicLens. Best viewed full screen.

Thank you, Teresa!

Jeff Turner aka respres

65 comments • Jeff Turner • May 29 2008 09:03AM

I've Got To Be Honest, I'm Really Not Into This Place

I've written a bunch about the emotional aspects of the home buying experience.

In a series of posts on Sex And Real Estate, I reviewed the excellent book by Marjorie Garber by the same name. The emotional triggers that cause us to fall in love with a home often overwhelm the "information" that is presented about. There's no denying it. I have personally rationalized away the fact that the home I was about to buy didn't have enough bedrooms because it just "felt like home." I was in love with it.

I couldn't resist posting this hilarious video. It illustrates just how strong these triggers can be. It wouldn't be so funny if it weren't so true. :)

Jeff Turner aka respres

77 comments • Jeff Turner • May 28 2008 09:47AM

Happy Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day to everyone on ActiveRain!


My country,’ tis of thee,
sweet land of liberty,
of thee I sing;
land where my fathers died,
land of the pilgrims’ pride,
from every mountainside
let freedom ring!

Jeff Turner aka respres

22 comments • Jeff Turner • May 26 2008 11:59AM

Me.Dium May Be A Perfect Fit

I stumbled upon a social browsing site that immediately caught my eye - it's called Me.Dium.

Me.Dium LogoWhat is Me.Dium? By their own definition, "Me.dium is a social browsing software company offering a browser extension that allows people to surf with friends." Me.Dium was founded in 2006 and is compatible with a range of browsers in addition to Microsoft Internet Explorer, including Firefox, Flock, and The Songbird Media Player.

The Me.Dium browser extension presents a visual depiction of what your "friends" are looking at online at that exact moment. What makes Me.Dium unique is that everything in Me.Dium is always presented in real time. If I give you permission, you could see what URL I'm looking at right this very moment.

Now, I know for many of you that sounds a bit scary. Many of you will have privacy concerns. I understand. I had to ask myself this question: Do I really want people knowing my every move online? Perhaps not, but I' like to consider the potential benefits of anything before simply writing it off. The only way I know to do that is to actually try it. :)

It should be noted that you can set yourself to "invisible" anytime you like. So, if you want to hide, you certainly can. I have been using Me.Dium for over a week now and have only invited and followed a very small number of people. The people I invited were folks who surf the web looking for solutions and ideas as a matter of course in their daily lives. They spend a good amount of their time in "exploration" mode and I knew that being able to see what they were looking at in real time might present some opportunities for discussion.

I recorded a short video of my first use of Me.Dium so you can see how it works.


Me.dium Seems To Fit Pretty Darn Good from respres on Vimeo.

How might this be used in your real estate world?

Me.Dium was not built to be a business application, but I think it could have some strong business uses. You'll have your own ideas, but here are a few ideas that come to mind.

  • Learning From Trusted Sources: Friend and follow those whose opinions you respect. Join them as they are exploring a site you've not seen yet. Chat with them instantly about their thoughts.
  • Timely Local Conversations: Invite a few of your local real estate friends and use the sidebar. Alert each other to timely news in your local area. Chat in real time about the issue, event or finding.
  • Discuss New Listings: Friend other agents and brokers in your local area and use the tool to chat about new homes for sale or problems around specific listings.
  • Social Search: Looking for something and just can't seem to find it? Enlist your friends to help you search. We all search differently. So two heads (or 10) may be better than one.

My personal opinion is that Me.Dium is a tool that will be best utilized with a small number of people at a time. The visual window is not very large, so populating it with as many followers as I have on Twitter, for example, would make for a tangled mess of activity. It would simply be visually impossible to follow the movements.

I have a few suggestions. Since I am certain the folks responsible for making changes to Me.Dium will be reading this post, I have 2 simple suggesstions that would make this a more powerful exploration tool for business purposes.

  • Friend Groups: Allow me to organize friends into groups so I can follow a certain group at certain times. And allow people to be placed more than one group.
  • Selective Hiding: Allow me to hide myself from some people, but not others. There are times when I might like to use this for private exploration within a tighter circle of friends, or just my co-workers. Right now, I can only set myself to visible or invisible.

Me.Dium is one of those applications that you have to try for yourself. So, if you'd like to give it a test run, go install the browser plugin and find me. I'm respres on Me.Dium. I will have it running almost continuously.

Jeff Turner aka respres

46 comments • Jeff Turner • May 15 2008 01:36PM

I Have A Brand New Son

There is a new child living in our house.

He looks exactly like the 7-year old who was living here before. He wears the same clothes and he sleeps in the same bed. But he's not the same child. Not even close. He's happier, funnier, more loving and more in contol.

My wife wrote about these changes in great detail on her personal blog. First with "Meeting My Son For The First Time" and then with "Our Life Is Different Now." We don't use our kids names online, so Rocky always referred to our 7-year old as "Mad Man I" whenever she wrote about him. It was an apt description.

On our trip cross country to West Virginia last year, my wife and I almost pulled out our hair. He was beyond out of control at times. And we were at a complete loss on how to deal with the situation. We have five other children, but none of the techniques we used with them were working on him. He displayed all of the symptoms associated with ADD, ADHD, or ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder).

He was, as my wife describes, like a time bomb waiting to go off. When he was good, he was overwhelmingly good. But when he exploded, it was unbelievable. And we had NO desire to put him on medications. We didn't want to loose the spark that made him who he was.

Then A Miracle Occurred. 

Food ColoringI call it a miracle because the change has been so dramatic that I find myself staring at him like a long lost friend, smiling and thinking to myself, "wow, where have you been for so long.?" And all it took was a change of diet.

The solution came right after my wife's recent trip to Africa. His teacher had had enough and suggested we take a high protein diet approach to see what would happen. The first day he was better, but the second day he had one of his worst afternoons ever. His morning was fine, but the rest of the day was a nightmare. Then my wife realized he had purchased lunch that day and found out he had ordered a Cherry Slushy with his lunch. That's not a normal thing.

That one fact caused my wife to ask questions she'd never asked before and finally led her to this article, "Is Red 40 Food Dye Additive Having A Negative Impact On Your Child?"

When she read the symptoms, they fit our son like a glove. So, we went completely organic, first just with him and then with the entire family. I can tell you that what I have witnessed is nothing short of a miracle. The spark that made "Mad Man I" unique is still there, but the time bomb has been difused. His name has been officially changed to "Funny Man." I literally cried when she wrote it for the first time.

This morning he quietly made his way into our bedroom.

It was just before 6am. He was already dressed and ready for school and said he'd been up reading for about 30 minutes, quietly. He then crawled up betwen us and laid there, still, as we both cuddled with him.

There is a new child living in our house. And I'm Falling In Love All Over Again!

***********************************************************************

Why am I writing about this here on ActiveRain? Because I know that my wife and I are not alone. We hear stories almost daily from friends who are struggling with similar issues and don't want to put their children on ADD Medication. If you know someone who is struggling with the same kinds of behavioral issues, forward them my wife's posts above. They go into a great deal more detail than I have gone into here. It may be what they need for their own miracle.

Jeff Turner aka respres

99 comments • Jeff Turner • May 14 2008 07:02PM

Getting Your Blog Into A WidgetBox - A Video Tutorial

Your email inbox should be the greatest resource for blog post ideas.

That thought is certainly not original to me. Many have said this. They say it because it's true. It's certainly true for me.

The other day I received the following in an email from Anita Carrington: "How do I get the WidgetBox without ending up with your blog running on my page."

When I get an email like this, I often send back a quick response if I think it can be answered easily. If I've already answered the question in an existing blog post, I send a link. But if a followup question returns, that's usually an indication that I've either not answered the right question or I'm not seeing things the way the person who emailed me is seeing things. It also indicates to me that others may have the same question.

So, Anita, and anyone else who might have this question, this post is for you. :)


ActiveRain Tutorial: WidgetBox from respres on Vimeo.

Jeff Turner aka respres

37 comments • Jeff Turner • May 10 2008 12:36PM

@thelovelywife I Care!

twitter logoIt's not about what you're doing.
It's not about what I'm doing.
It's about what you and I are doing right now.

Like you, I didn't get twitter either. I was trying to make it something it wasn't and it's just not that complicated. 

It's about the conversation.

It doesn't matter whether it's here on ActiveRain or on Twitter. You, of all people, should know that.

Is there a lot of silly conversation on Twitter? Sure. There's a lot of silly conversation here too. That happens on social networks. It's how people get to know each other.

If it weren't for the silly conversations, the completely "meaningless" banter, you and I would not be as close as we are. If it weren't for the silly conversations, the off-topic hijacks, you and I would not be as close as we are. It's SOCIAL media. It's about being social. It's not about Google juice or SEO. It's not meant to be purely about business. It's social.

Saying it sucks without actually engaging... that's not the TLW [SVW] I know. The TLW [SVW] I know is always up for some crap. She's always up for truly getting to know someone else. She's a master of engagement. She understands how to connect on a real level. You'd rock Twitter. And I'd enjoy spending more time with you.

Twitter is about the conversation. Period. 

So, you want to have some good conversation?  I found a few people you might enjoy getting to know on a different level:

Oh, and about the opportunity crimes thing.

Sorry. I understand your point, but for those who are concerned, Twitter is safer than ActiveRain, if you want it to be. Just set your account to private and only those you allow to see it will see it. Block them and they can't follow you. If a stranger wants to see what you have to say here, all they have to do is become a member. :)

 

Jeff Turner aka respres

77 comments • Jeff Turner • May 09 2008 02:06AM

"You Can Blog That!"

As we walked around Whole Foods looking for organic versions of the stuff we usually eat, my wife, Rocky, incorrectly read the price on some organic chewing gum and I reacted to it in disgust. I don't remember exactly what I said, but it was something like, "That's ridiculous. Why would something be that much more expensive because it doesn't have any chemicals in it? You should write about that."

My 7-year-old then reacted to my response with the comment below. I about fell over laughing.

Jeff Turner aka respres

50 comments • Jeff Turner • May 03 2008 09:15PM

Point And Shoot Cameras. The Wider The Better.

When it comes to digital point a shoot cameras,
bigger is not necessarily better, but wider certainly is.

One of the first posts I wrote on ActiveRain was titled, "Sell Your Camera On eBay & Buy This One."

That post was written about the Kodak v705, which, along with the Kodak v570, would still be my recommendation for a point and shoot camera. Unfortunately, Kodak decided to stop making both the v705 and the v570 and they are getting harder and harder to find. So I was forced to find another camera I could feel confident recommending.

My search led me to a brand new camera on the market, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX35.

Comparing the Panasonic Lumix FX35 to the Kodak v705, I found it's features to be comparable, the photo quality slightly better and its 25mm wide angle lens is the widest currently in production, though not as wide as the v705's 23mm wide angle lens. Still, the review left me wondering if people were being fooled into thinking they were getting a wide angle lens when they really weren't.

The Wide Angle Claim 

Point and shoot cameras with a 28mm wide angle lens, like the brand new Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5, say they have a wide angle lens. And, compared to the standard 35mm lens, that's certainly true. But is it enough to capture a small room in the best possible way?

I wanted to see the difference in wide angle lenses for myself.

To do that, I purchased a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5 as well and borrowed Martin Rodriguez's Sony DSC-H9. (Martin's primary use for the DSC-H9 is not real estate photography, by the way.) The TZ5 has the very commonly 28mm lens that most point and shoot manufactures call wide angle, and the DSC-H9 has the standard 35mm lens. I compared them with the 23mm v705 and the 25mm FX35.

Here are the comparisons between the four different point and shoot lenses.

Sony DSC-HP 35mm Room Shot 35mm lens

Sony DSC-H9 35mm

Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5 Room Shot 28mm lens

Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5 28mm

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX35 Room Shot 25mm lens

Panasonic Lumix DMC FX35 25mm

Kodak v705 Room Shot 23mm Lens

Kodak v705 23mm

Smaller rooms will show an even greater difference.

I used my family room as the subject matter, and it is fairly large, so you can imagine what a difference the FX35 or the v705 would make in photographing a very small room. In my opinion, neither the Sony DSC-H9 or Lumix DMC-TZ5 did this room justice. Only the 25mm lens on the Lumix FX35 came close enough to the 23mm lens on the Kodak v705 to get my vote of confidence. A wider wide angle lens makes a huge difference in your multimedia presentations as well. Here is a Real Estate Show illustrating how the different wide angle photos look when put in motion. Click on "more photos" to see them in static form.

My Conclusion?

A digital point & shoot camera with a 28mm lens can certainly claim wide angle status, but for real estate purposes, 28mm simply isn't enough.

Jeff Turner aka respres

79 comments • Jeff Turner • May 01 2008 12:46AM