And Then There Was a Podcast...

Hi Folks,

   Glad to have you back here today.

   We live in a world that is constantly on the go. We live on our mobile phones, Blackberries, Droids, IPhones, IPads, laptops, etc. While some people enjoy finding time to read through their favorite Blogs and Feeds, the vast majority of people do tend to have a hard time nowadays.

   Podcasts have become immensely popular, since you can listen to them on any device that can play MP3 (Sound) files. Basically, for those who are not familiar with this, a Podcast is a portable broadcast, and as it applies to the world of Blogs, it is the spoken version of a Blog post that you can listen to while on the go.

   For almost a year, I have been personally recording Podcasts of the most popular and most heavily-trafficked posts on my Blog. The negative is that is takes such a long time to record, edit, upload, link, etc, for each Podcast. This huge amount of time makes it virtually impossible to have a Podcast for every single on of my Blog Posts, of which some of you had E-mailed me about since I began Podcasting last year.

   We recently have been evaluating a number of different products to automate this and meet the requests mentioned above. We have decided on one of these products called, Odiogo, which automatically generates a Podcast shortly after I have made the Post. This is now an active feature, and you can begin using it right away with the "listen now" button that is directly under the Title of each Blog Post.

   Now, the one "drawback" for you is that it is a computer-generated voice (and if you don't like my voice, this might actually be an improvement for you). However, we look at it as a trade-off; In order to have a constant stream of portable content for you, we had to take this route with the computer-generated voice. Going forward, we will evaluate some more natural-sounding voices, but for now, we wanted to make you aware of this new feature that is "live" right now.

   Feel free to hop onto the Blog and listen or download the Podcasts (remember, as I mentioned above, there is a short lag of a few hours from when the Post is made and when the Podcast for that Post is generated). We would absolutely love your feedback on this.

Have a Great Week, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !
Regards,
Rob Eisenstein
HomeRun Homes Blog http://blogging.lease2buy.com
HomeRun Homes Website http://www.lease2buy.com

Cloud Computing and Real Estate

Hi Folks,

   Glad to have you back. If you are lucky enough to have the Holiday off for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I hope that you have a nice, relaxing day planned.

   Lately, every time you turn on your TV, you hear, "To The Cloud", or "Cloud this", and "Cloud that". What exactly is this, "Cloud". Well, this is not the kind of cloud that you see in the sky. This is referring to a virtual cloud, where a sky cloud has billions of little droplets of water, and the Computing Cloud has billions of servers hosting Web sites and Web Applications ("Apps").

   As Wikipedia refers to it, "Cloud computing is location independent computing, whereby shared servers provide resources, software, and data to computers and other devices on demand, as with the electricity grid.", which is the "Cloud", or you can even think of it as an ocean. It's huge and made up of billions of pieces.

   Now, as Cloud Computing relates to an industry, such as the Real Estate industry, Wikipedia continues to say that, "This frequently takes the form of web-based tools or applications that users can access and use through a web browser as if it were a program installed locally on their own computer." So, to break this down, a Realtor or an investor can be on the road looking at homes, and can pull out their laptop, IPad, IPhone, Droid, etc, and can access a Web Site that can run the same Home-Valuation App that they can run from their desktop in their office. Thus, they are accessing the "Cloud" to do exactly what they can do from their office. As long as their is a connection to the Internet, they can do this.

   Hopefully, this can give you a good understanding of how Cloud Computing is and how it relates to the Real Estate industry. Things have come a long way since my Commodore 64K Computer in the 80's! (Now, I'm dating myself with that statement !).

   Did I miss anything? Comments? Suggestions? We'd love to hear

Have a Great Week, and Happy Rent-to-Owning !
Regards,
Rob Eisenstein
HomeRun Homes Blog http://blogging.lease2buy.com
HomeRun Homes Website http://www.lease2buy.com


Tags: #cloudcomputing #realestate #realtor