Hey team,

 

For today's tech Tuesday email I am reminding you about a few of the more popular items I have mentioned in the past few months.  Have a quick read and expect even more tech tuesday info coming your way in 2012!

 

Have an app, website or tech tool you want to share? Let me know at cory@coryraven.com

 

My updates are quite apple-centric.  Have great Android or Blackberry apps you enjoy? Send them my way cory@coryraven.com

 

Have a friend in the business that could benefit from receiving tech tuesday emails?  Have them fire me off an email cory@coryraven.com and I'll be sure to add them

Here are a few new tips and tricks in the tech world.

You have all heard of dropbox.  There is a competitor called box.net that is making a run.  They are offering 50 GIGS of free cloud storage to IOS5 users (newest ipad, iphone, ipod software) download the box.net app to activate.

facebook - you've heard of this one I would guess?  Facebook has recently revamped its privacy settings to allow for some pretty cool stuff.  I always get agents asking me if they should have a business page, a separate personal account and/or a business page.  While that is still a decision you can make (remembering that facebook's TOS does not allow for multiple accounts so having a work and personal account could get one or both deleted) - however, there is really no need to separate.  You can now put your facebook friends in to groups (clients/buddies/hockey fans) and choose who sees what on your profile.  Which photos can be viewed by which group can be filtered, right down to who sees which status updates.  Don't want to bore your fellow REALTORS with updates meant for your clients (or tip them off on a new great marketing idea you've come up with)? Write the status update and choose to have it only show to clients. Your REALTOR friends won't see the status update on their feed (or on your page if they come directly to it)  Play around with it and see what you think.

gotomeeting use this from your ipad.  There are now a bunch of applications and websites similar to gotomeeting, a lot are free to use.  Start using one and use it.  Imagine being able to take over your client's mouse and see what is on their screen and point out certain things on a contract, even when they are in another City or Country?  The technology exists, get in front of it.

ewallet not real estate specific, but a great little app none the less.  Do you have 100 different websites that you are registered for?  Most of us use the same username and password on all of them, which is not good for security.  ewallet provides a password protected place on your phone or tablet where you can keep a list of your different passwords.  Over and above that, you can also keep other secure info like passport numbers, frequent flyer numbers, etc.

Skype - not a new service, but it is now being used in new ways with most new tablets and cameras now having front facing cameras.  Cameron Herold, former CEO of 1800 GOT JUNK, says that 50% of his phone calls are skype video calls.  50%!  Sure, a video call isn't as good as meeting in person, but it is a heck of a little more warm and personal than a phone call and lightyears ahead of email, in terms of connecting with our clients

free time - Free time is a neat little app.  It goes in to your calendar and shows you how much free time you have (and when) in a given day.  Great for planning meetings, scheduling tasks, etc.

vlingo - Vlingo is voice recognition that has vastly improved with the new apple software.  You can now open up the app and say things like "text message Cory Raven You're a great guy" and it will not only translate to text, it will open up your text message application, find Cory Raven in your phone book and draft a text message to him.  Very cool.  It does the same for email (keep them short) - for longer voice to text, try dragon dictation