Category: Information Technology

The past few years I’ve worked in real estate. One thing I’ve noticed: a general dis-trust, or at least dislike for many technological solutions. The slow adoption of e-Signatures are one that particularly get me. It’s hysterical to me how many institutions refuse to accept them. Many of the government owned properties as well major banks amongst them. It’s so much easier to forge a ink signature compared to electronic, that I really am not certain that’s the reason for the refusal.

These institutions tend to have very rigid, and exacting, contract terms, what they want signed and all that. I’ve wondered for quite some time why they don’t each build their own website for the offer and contract process. Electronic forms can be set to demand a signature/initial for each item, with prompts set up and refusing to advance in the process until completed. It seems so much cleaner to have folks go to a website and fill out the form with prompts than to email me information, I enter into a website, the site prompts negotiation points, email those to other party (redo until agreement reached), print a contract, email the contract, print it, review it, sign it, rescan it, email it back, then upload to some site. If nothing else, these multiple steps violate the basic principles of data normalization. Which, to me, is begging for trouble.

I expect that technology will make real impacts in this space soon. Now that e-signatures are part of our MLS, many real estate services provide that complimentary, the demand will clear and straightforward. Hopefully, the better security will become more obvious, too. And I see some great innovation opportunities (easy and simple idea: dialog box pops out to highlight a key contract term…just a simple, easy example). Slow but steady evolution will come, surely.

My started with a few chums wishing me a happy birthday. Problem? It’s not my birthday (October, if you care). Turns out, my Skype profile was displaying today is my day of happiness and aging acknowledgment.

My profile in Skype was right. So, after a brief, and fruitless, web search, it finally occurred to me, “check the website”. Sure enough, my profile at Skype.com was pretty weirdly messed up. My full name appeared in my First Name spot, my picture was gone, and my birthday was today. Oddly, I made the edits, clicked save, then pinged a friend to see if they’d taken. Nope. Then I tried the slow approach. Changed the profile pic. Saved. Clicked out, then back into my profile. Edit. Change Name. Out. Then back. Change birthday. Out. Back. I’ve logged out, then back in. The changes seem to be holding. We’ll see.

My theory is something got mucked up during the port over the Microsoft. Perhaps with the interconnection with my Hotmail account. Or, well, who knows. Just, hopefully, it’s fixed.

Technology makes your life better…when it works.

Cheers!

After reading this TechCruch piece on Coin, I’m wondering if, someday, credit card companies will stop producing the plastic throw-away cards. This future would see us using our cell phones with NFC functionality or tools like Coin. That should reduce the amount of plastic added to our waste stream, and, I expect, lower costs for the credit-card industry. They won’t need to manufacture, much less distribute cards.

I also hope gift cards will evolve this way. One example: I get a number of Starbucks cards as thank-yous for various efforts. The first thing I do with them is transfer the balance onto my iPhone’s Starbucks app, then toss the card. Usually, the plastic card is in my possession from a few minutes to a day. It’s really rather wasteful.

So, green benefits and cost savings; what a better win/win combination, right?

I’m suffering a bit from Android Envy, centered around the app Mighty Text. This makes Android phones more compelling to me. And, sadly, there isn’t an iPhone version, nor competing product…well, at least not on Windows. Now I get Apple, and understand why they haven’t/won’t make a Windows version of the product: Apple’s drive for their products integration. Perhaps, though, there’s a way for Apple to build a tool and expand their market-share of another Apple product: Safari.

My idea: integrate iMessage functionality with Safari. Let me send/receive SMS messages via my iPhone from my Safari browser. That would drive me to use Safari nearly exclusively. Right now, on my work PC, I use (in order from most to least used) Firefox, Chrome, IE, then Safari; on my Mac, Chrome, Firefox then Safari. I tend to only use Safari extensively on my iPhone.

So, here’s a way to expand Apple’s hold in one market, increase the functionality of a key tool, and help make iPhone’s that much more usable. Apple, what says you?

I’m seeing a flurry of emails from friend’s accounts with this subject line and the text below:

I just created a secured shared document using Google Doc. To access this doc please Click here and for security reasons, you have to log on with your email to view it, its very important“

As I’ve received at least three with exact same message, I’m confident they’re exploits from hacked accounts. They’re coming from good friends, but also have dozens of emails in the “to:” line. 

Anyway, I advise everyone to avoid clicking on such. 

I’ve been exploring WordPress over the last few months (see my blog NotJustSeattle.com). I really, really like the platform and have found so many benefits over Blogger. Plus, watching the demise of Google Reader a few months back makes me wonder about the long-term status of this. With Google+ garnering the lion’s share of Google attention and public focus, I wonder how long they’ll continue to support the platform. Blogger seems like a neglected stepchild.

With all this, I commenced planning out my migration. It’s not appearing as clean as I’d hoped, but the research is pretty early on. It seems my URL might be the biggest challenge. Plus, I need to decide if I will just move this to a site hosted by WordPress.com, or pony up for something hosted by BlueHost or GoDaddy (or….).

So, taking a thoughtful and well planned approach on this. It’ll be interesting to see where it leads.

Any ideas, hints or tips? Just leave me a comment. I’d be quite happy for advice.

I want to dive a bit deeper into ThinkUp, but like what I’ve seen so far. Give Mr. Dash a few minutes of your time. Then let me know what you think. I’ll be here…

Just read “Why Pierre Omidyar decided to join forces with Glenn Greenwald for a new venture in news” over at Jay Rosen’s PressThink. So much of this makes me near giddy. The potential: amazing! Combining key stakeholders within both the online business sector (Pierre Omidyar founded eBay, for you who don’t know. And I’d like to think any reader here would know Glenn’s work. If not, here’s his Wikipedia article. These are the higher profile collaborators. Read the article for a more in-depth list).

Not many details released yet, I expect that these are getting hashed out as we speak. their motivations, though, and the backgrounds of the collaborators are what give me the most excitement. This combination of talent presents an amazing opportunity to deeply innovate this space. Both from a financial side (let’s face it, modern news has struggled with finding a sustainable financial model) as well as deeply utilizing elements of the modern web culture, and, lastly, bringing a renewed focus on the core of journalism’s power: investigation. Watching the watchers, pushing deep and holding our society’s leadership accountable (note: not just government) is critical, but a weakened force right now.

Anyway, these are the thoughts that roll off my keyboard this morning. I look forward to learning more as this gels.