Dominate Your Local Market!

In our last post, we stated that to begin a successful email marketing campaign, you need to do two things:

1. Build a quality list of prospects or customers.
2. Email to that list in a way that achieves maximum deliverability.

In that last post, we covered #1, building a quality list. Today, we’ll cover #2 – emailing to that list in a way that achieves maximum deliverability.

Read more…

“The much-loved Firefox Web browser reached a milestone Friday morning — its billionth download.

“Quite a feat for a browser that, unlike Microsoft’s Internet Explorer or Apple’s Safari, is run by a nonprofit organization with fewer than 250 employees.

“Firefox, the free browser built on open source software that debuted in 2004, consistently gets high marks for speed, efficiency, adaptability and user-friendliness, and has become hugely popular worldwide.”

Source: Los Angeles Times via San Jose Mercury-News

Download Firefox here

If your answer was “Internet Explorer” only, you may be antagonizing huge and growing parts of your market. I never understood the “one browser” web development philosophy, even back in IE’s hey-day.

Back then I used to hear some non-forward-thinking developers say they only tested in IE because it had some 75% or the market, the rest of the contenders divided up the other quarter of the pie, there was only so much time in the day, blah, blah, blah.

But thumbing one’s nose at 25% of web browser never made any sense – at least to me.

But the nose-thumber’s lot has grown worse with time. Over the past year, IE’s segment of the market (combined IE6 and IE7) has shrunk from 53.2% to 46.6%. IE 5 has all but disappeared.

In the same 12 months, Firefox’s share of the market has gone from 36.4% to 44.2%, Safari’s from 1.9% to 2.7% and Opera’s from 1.4% to 2.3%. So anyone now developing for IE and ignoring the others is building for less than half of the market.

But I still see websites and applications that misfire or completely fail in Firefox, Safari or Opera. For a personal website, it’s just dumb. For a commercial website, it’s suicidal.

If the current trends continue, it won’t be long before Firefox assumes the #1 position, a mean feat considering you need to go get it, download it and install it. But Firefox is gaining popularity for a lot of reasons – not least of which is that it’s extensible.

There are Firefox extensions that add all sorts of useful features to the basic browser. One of my favorites is the Foxmarks bookmark extension that allows me to keep all of my bookmarks automatically synchronized across four different Firefox installations on two OS X Macs, a PC running XP and a Linux laptop on Ubuntu.

I also installed extensions such as the Google toolbar, the Web Developer Toolbar, ColorZilla (tells me the value of any color on my screen) and a Del.icio.us bookmarking button.

Add to that the fact that Firefox is Open Source (free) and very crash-resistant. If you’d like to try out Firefox, here is the link to download it:

There are a lot of tools on the market to help you make edits to your own web pages. The problem is has always been that they are both expensive and difficult to learn.

Editing and creating new pages from scratch or from a template just got a whole lot easier… and less expensive. KompoZer is an Open Source (free) WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) HTML and web page editor. If you can use Word®, you can use KompoZer.

And to make using KompoZer even easier, there is a complete video tutorial series that will take you from total newbie to expert in a few, short, entertaining lessons. The Konquer KompoZer Video Series is now available and you can view a sample video from the series here.

KompoZer is available for Linux, Mac and Windows systems. We use KompoZer on an almost daily basis here at BobStovall.com and highly recommend it.

You can download KompoZer for FREE here

More info on the Konquer KompoZer Video Series here

I’m often asked about what programs I use to handle images… you know, do the routine cropping, resizing, basic retouching, etc. that many images need before they are put on a website or into a video.

I own Photoshop® CS3 and have found it be an invaluable tool. But not everyone is thrilled about the prospect of dropping $650 for the latest version of Photoshop. But how would FREE sound?

As it happens, there is an Open Source (free to use) clone of Photoshop called the GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program). It is a very powerful application and can do pretty much anything Photoshop can do.

But like Photoshop, it has a fairly steep learning curve. So learning by trial and error can be a long and frustrating process. The 7DollarVideoStore.com has just released a 27 video Creating Stunning Graphics Using the GIMP tutorial set that makes learning the GIMP a simple and entertaining experience. Watch the video to get the coupon code for $10 off the video set.

The first video in the series shows you how to download and install the GIMP for free. The remainder of the series hows you step-by-step how to use the GIMP to create stunning graphics and enhance your photos to make you look your best. You can download this video and others for free here.

Download the GIMP here

Using Apple’s QuickTime on your Mac or PC, it’s a piece of cake to make a video from still photos. You can then take that video and put it on YouTube, Google Video or Yahoo Video as well as other leading websites.

Or use the Perian QuickTime Plugin to export the video as an FLV (Flash Video) for display on your website if you are using a Mac. If you are on a PC, use Any Video Convertor to output the FLV file.

Make videos of your homes for sale, apartments for rent, cars, trucks, bikes and planes for sale, small products, etc. Why put static images on your website or in your eBay ads when you can put narrated video? Tests have shown that using video brings faster sales at higher prices.

This video tutorial shows you how to create a video from still photos using QuickTime Pro. We’ll be looking at how to make a video from stills in Windows Movie Maker shortly.

The 7DollarVideoStore.com is creating dozens of new videos every month and they never cost more than $7. You can register to be notified every time a new set of videos is available by visiting the 7DollarVideoStore.com website.

A short while ago, we posted a review of Open-Realty® 2.5, the latest version of the popular real estate listing and website program. (You can read the review here.)

Feedback tells us that there are still quite a few agents and investors who could be using Open-Realty to build their business, but are intimidated by the thought of installing the software, setting up the databases, configuring the application, changing themes (templates), and so on.

I have always felt that technology should level the playing field in most occupations, not set a bar that makes entry or advancement difficult. That is one of the chief reasons that Orange Cat Productions set up the How Do I DO That? Videos website – to make technology easier for folks like you and me to understand and use.

There are a LOT of web hosting companies who offer control panel installation of software and configuration of the databases they run from, but you still need a degree of technical knowledge to keep the process from turning into a nightmare. Many of these accounts sit around doing nothing for their owner, wasting both time and money.

Well, now OrangeCat.net has a solution to that. Hosting accounts with Open-Realty, WordPress or Joomla! Content Management and PHPList list building software already installed and ready to use. Have a look at OrangeCat’s pre-installed hosting solutions here.

No more uploading, installing and configuring software. No more setting up users, passwords and tables to get a database up and running. No searching for and installing templates, themes and plugins to get the most out of your software. It’s all done for you. All you do is add content – which is as easy as creating a letter in Word.

And if that’s not all, OrangeCat.net can manage your site for you from top to bottom. Whether it’s adding, updating or deleting content, listings, products, email addresses or anything else, OrangeCat can do it FOR you. Find out more about OrangeCat’s Done4U Internet Marketing Services.

So now even the most devout technophobe can use the Internet to build their business – no matter what that business may be. And now there’s no reason why you should ever feel intimidated by technology. Make technology work FOR you! Click here to learn more.

The latest version of the Open-Realty® real estate listings software is Version 2.5. Open-Realty® has been the standard in Open Source Real Estate applications since it first appeared in 2003. With the release of Version 2.5, Open-Realty® has solidified it’s position as the premier tool for Realtors® and Investors to publish their property listings on the Internet.

Web hosting service with Open-Realty® pre-installed and configured is available from OrangeCat.net. Customization service is also available from OrangeCat. Investors and Realtors® who are members of the Association of Real Estate Investment Professionals (AREIP.org) can get a special package deal on membership and Open-Realty® hosting. AREIP Members have access to special Open-Realty® templates that display the AREIP Membership logo and link.

The list of features for the software and users below was originally published on the official Open-Realty® website, which contains a lot more information on the software, documentation, a support forum and more.

Open-Realty® v2.5

Open-Realty® is a professional, open-source, web-based real estate listing management system written in PHP that is provided FREE by Transparent Technologies, Inc. Designed to be flexible, powerful, easy to install and maintain, Open-Realty® has powered thousands of real estate web sites worldwide. Open-Realty® is a mature application that is actively developed, and has been community supported since 2003.

Features:

Open-Realty® is written entirely in PHP, and utilizes a standards compliant XHTML template system, designing a new template from scratch or incorporating the look of an existing web site is greatly simplified.

Open-Realty® Features For Realtors:

Great software that you don’t have to pay for.

On Wednesday, we published a very useful, but admittedly incomplete list of Open Source software for PCs running Windows. Today, we have the list for Macintosh users.

Here are a few of our favorite Open Source applications for Max OS X – most of which we use on a regular basis. We’ll list some our favorite free applications for Windows and Macs in later posts. In the near future, we’ll go in these great apps a little more in-depth, one at a time.

In the meantime, download the ones that interest you and start using them. If you have any reservations about learning about how they work, visit HowDoIDoThatVideos.com and see if there is video for the software. If there isn’t now, there very likely will be in the near future.

Web Browsers

If you’re not using Firefox, the Open Source web browser from Mozilla.org, you are missing out on some of the best the web has to offer. Faster and more standards compliant than Internet Explorer, extensible with add-ons that allow you to surf the net safer and easier, themes that allow your Firefox to look like you want it, and much more. Use more than one computer. There is a Firefox plugin that keeps your Bookmarks in sync on two or more computers, even if you have a mix of PCs, Macs and Linux boxes. Get Firefox here.

Camino is an open source web browser developed with a focus on providing the best possible experience for Mac OS X users. The Camino web browser is powerful, secure, and ready to meet the needs of all users while remaining simple and elegant in its design. Camino combines the awesome visual and behavioral experience that has been central to the Macintosh philosophy with the powerful web-browsing capabilities of the Gecko rendering engine. Get Camino here.

Sea Monkey – Web-browser, advanced e-mail and newsgroup client, IRC chat client, and HTML editing made simple — all your Internet needs in one application. Get the Sea Monkey suite here.

Email

Thunderbird from Mozilla.org is an extensible Open Source desktop email client that is at home on PCs, Macs and Linux alike. Just like web browser Firefox, Thunderbird has a ton of plugins and themes so you can get it to look like you want and do what you want. Pick up and send mail from multiple email accounts, set up signatures for each of your mailboxes, and much more. Like all Open Source software, Thunderbird is free for you to download and use. Get Thunderbird here.

Calendar

One more Mozilla product before we move on. If you have a need for a desktop calendar program (and who doesn’t?), you might want to give Mozilla Sunbird a try. Set appointments and alarms, get help remembering birthdays, anniversaries and other important dates. Schedule your days and weeks. Set reminders about dates far in the future. Then publish the calendars you choose to the web in standard iCal format. There’s even a 3rd party PHP application that can handle that for you. Get Sunbird here.

Office Applications

NeoOffice is the Mac OS X-native port of OpenOffice. NeoOffice can do anything that Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access can do. But it can do more. And it’s much easier on our wallet. NeoOffice is a full-featured set of office applications (including word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, and database programs) for Mac OS X. Based on the OpenOffice.org office suite, NeoOffice has integrated dozens of native Mac features and can import, edit, and exchange files with other popular office programs such as Microsoft Office. Get NeoOffice here.

AbiWord 2.6.3 is an award winning, small, fast, full-featured and cross-platform word processor. Get your copy today to experience the state of the art in word processing. Light weight, easy to use and it can read and write MS Word and Open Doc files. Get AbiWord here.

Bean is a small, easy-to-use word processor (or more precisely, a rich text editor), designed to make writing convenient, efficient and comfortable. Bean is Open Source, fully Cocoa, and is available free of charge! MS Word, OpenOffice, etc. try to be all things to all people. But sometimes you just want the right tool for the job. That is Bean’s niche. Bean is not a replacement for MS Word. It does not do footnotes and is only partially compatible with the various Word formats (more here). Get Bean here.

Image Processing

Seashore is an open source image editor for Mac OS X’s Cocoa framework. It runs natively in Mac OS X – it does NOT require X-11. It features gradients, textures and anti-aliasing for both text and brush strokes. It supports multiple layers and alpha channel editing. It is based around the GIMP’s technology and uses the same native file format. However, unlike the GIMP, Seashore only aims to serve the basic image editing needs of most computer users, not to provide a replacement for professional image editing products. Seashore was created by Mark Pazolli who, together with a handful of other developers and helpful users, still develops it to this day. I have used it for basic image processing jobs like resizing images and adjusting color and it worked just fine. Get Seashore here.

Ever had a need for PhotoShop but couldn’t justify the expense of buying it. If so, you owe it to ourself to take a good look at theGIMP, the GNU Image Manipulation Program. The GIMP can do most of the things that PhotoShop can do and it’s Open Source so anyone can download and use it. There are hundreds of plugins and extensions developed by theGIMP Community. TheGIMP can read and write PhotoShop PSD files as well handle images in it’s native XCF format. As I write this, running theGIMP on a Mac requires the use of the X-11 system extension which is not very Mac-like. You can install X-11 from your OS X installation disks. An OS X-native version of theGIMP is in the works, but no date has been set for it’s release to the general public. Get theGIMP here.

Video

Perian is a free, open source QuickTime component that adds native support for many popular video formats.
Perian enables QuickTime application support for additional Media Types:
• MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, DivX, 3ivX, H.264, FLV1, FSV1, VP6, H263I, VP3, HuffYUV, FFVHuff, MPEG1 & MPEG2 Video, Fraps, Windows Media Audio v1 & v2, Flash ADPCM, Xiph Vorbis (in Matroska), MPEG Layer II Audio
• AVI support for: AAC, AC3 Audio, H.264, MPEG4, and VBR MP3
• Subtitle support for SSA and SRT
Get Perian here.

VLC Media Player (formerly VideoLAN Client) is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, etc.) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network. I have used it to play AVI files that have audio or video problems when played in QuickTime even with the Perian plugin. Get VLC here.

Audio Processing

Record, edit and output audio files in all of the popular formats including MP3, WAV, AIFF and Ogg Vorbis. Convert your records and tapes into digital recording and put them on CDs. Cut, copy, splice or mix sounds. Audacity is cross-platform and top-quality. Get Audacity here.

HTML and Text Editing

KompoZer is a complete web authoring system that combines web file management and easy-to-use WYSIWYG web page editing. KompoZer is designed to be extremely easy to use, making it ideal for non-technical computer users who want to create an attractive, professional-looking web site without needing to know HTML or web coding. KompoZer has built-in FTP and site management capability. Get KompoZer here.

Smultron is a free text editor for Mac OS X Leopard 10.5 which is both easy to use and powerful. It is designed to neither confuse newcomers nor disappoint advanced users. It should work perfectly for a whole variety of needs – like web programming, script editing, making a to do list and so on. Versins are also available for OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and 10.3.9. Get Smultron here.

FTP Client

Open Source and cross-platform, we use this program all the time. It is fast and has a logical side-by-side interface. FileZilla supports FTP, FTP over SSL/TLS (FTPS) and SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP). It supports resume and transfer of large files. Site Manager, drag-and-drop and remote file editing are just a few more of it’s features. Get FileZilla here.

Cyberduck is an open source FTP, SFTP, WebDAV and Amazon S3 browser licenced under the GPL with an easy to use interface, integration with external editors and support for many Mac OS X system technologies such as Spotlight, Bonjour, QuickLook and the Keychain. Very easy to use “drag-and-drop” interface. Get Cyberduck here.

RSS Client

Applications that collect data from RSS-compliant sites are called RSS readers or “aggregators.” RSSOwl is such an application. RSSOwl lets you gather, organize, update, and store information from any compliant source in a convenient, easy to use interface, save selected information in various formats for offline viewing and sharing, and much more. It’s easy to configure, available in many many languages and the best of all: It’s platform-independent. Get RRS Owl here.

File Utility

Very simple to use and install – simply copy it into your Applications folder or whereever you prefer, and then set archive filetypes to open using it. This can either be done the usual way, or by double-clicking the icon to show The Unarchiver’s preferences. Supported file formats include Zip, Tar-GZip, Tar-BZip2, Rar, 7-zip, LhA, StuffIt and many other more or less obscure formats. Support for so many formats is achieved by using the libxad unarchiving library. Get Unarchiver here.

This is by no means a comprehensive list of Open Source software for the Mac platform. These are programs I’ve used and feel comfortable recommending. We’ll be reviewing more software as time allows. A more complete list of Mac Open Source software is available at: OpenSourceWindows.org

FreeSMUG is the Macintosh Free Software Mac User Group. There’s a whole lot of info on free software for the Mac including update news on Open Source software. FreeSMUG holds events around the world and live streaming video of the events is available at the FreeSMUG website.

Great software that you don’t have to pay for.

So what’s the difference between Open Source and Free?

Wikipedia describes Open Source software as “Open source software (OSS) projects are built and maintained by network of volunteer programmers. Prime examples of open source products are the Apache HTTP Server, the internet address system Internet Protocol, and the internet browser Mozilla Firefox. Yet, one of the most successful programs is the Linux operating system, an open source Unix-like operating system.”

Free software is often created and maintained by commercial software developers who release a free version in order to let you try their application before buying a more feature-laden version. Often, the free version serves the user’s needs quite well.

The web hosting offered by OrangeCat.net uses several Open Source applications including the FreeBSD operating system (also the underpinning of Apple’s Mac OSX) and the Apache web server software.

Here are a few of our favorite Open Source applications for the Windows O/S – most of which we use on a regular basis. We’ll list some our favorite free applications for Windows and Macs in later posts. We’ll have our Open Source list for Macs later this week. In the near future, we’ll go in these great apps a little more in-depth, one at a time.

In the meantime, download the ones that interest you and start using them. If you have any reservations about learning about how they work, visit HowDoIDoThatVideos.com and see if there is video for the software. If there isn’t now, there very likely will be in the near future.

Web Browsers

If you’re not using Firefox, the Open Source web browser from Mozilla.org, you are missing out on some of the best the web has to offer. Faster and more standards compliant than Internet Explorer, extensible with add-ons that allow you to surf the net safer and easier, themes that allow your Firefox to look like you want it, and much more. Use more than one computer. There is a Firefox plugin that keeps your Bookmarks in sync on two or more computers, even if you have a mix of PCs, Macs and Linux boxes. Get Firefox here.

Email

Thunderbird from Mozilla.org is an extensible Open Source desktop email client that is at home on PCs, Macs and Linux alike. Just like web browser Firefox, Thunderbird has a ton of plugins and themes so you can get it to look like you want and do what you want. Pick up and send mail from multiple email accounts, set up signatures for each of your mailboxes, and much more. Like all Open Source software, Thunderbird is free for you to download and use. Get Thunderbird here.

Calendar

One more Mozilla product before we move on. If you have a need for a desktop calendar program (and who doesn’t?), you might want to give Mozilla Sunbird a try. Set appointments and alarms, get help remembering birthdays, anniversaries and other important dates. Schedule your days and weeks. Set reminders about dates far in the future. Then publish the calendars you choose to the web in standard iCal format. There’s even a 3rd party PHP application that can handle that for you. Get Sunbird here.

Office Applications

OpenOffice can do anything that Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access can do. But it can do more. And it’s much easier on our wallet. In their own words, “OpenOffice.org 2 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose.” Get OpenOffice here.

AbiWord 2.6.3 is an award winning, small, fast, full-featured and cross-platform word processor. Get your copy today to experience the state of the art in word processing. Light weight, easy to use and it can read and write MS Word and Open Doc files. Get AbiWord here.

Image Processing

Ever had a need for PhotoShop but couldn’t justify the expense of buying it. If so, you owe it to ourself to take a good look at theGIMP, the GNU Image Manipulation Program. The GIMP can do most of the things that PhotoShop can do and it’s Open Source so anyone can download and use it. There are hundreds of plugins and extensions developed by theGIMP Community. TheGIMP can read and write PhotoShop PSD files as well handle images in it’s native XCF format. Get theGIMP here.

Audio Processing

Record, edit and output audio files in all of the popular formats including MP3, WAV, AIFF and Ogg Vorbis. Convert your records and tapes into digital recording and put them on CDs. Cut, copy, splice or mix sounds. Audacity is cross-platform and top-quality. Get Audacity here.

HTML and Text Editing

KompoZer is a complete web authoring system that combines web file management and easy-to-use WYSIWYG web page editing. KompoZer is designed to be extremely easy to use, making it ideal for non-technical computer users who want to create an attractive, professional-looking web site without needing to know HTML or web coding. KompoZer has built-in FTP and site management capability. Get KompoZer here.

Notepad++ is a free (free as in “free speech”, but also as in “free beer”) source code editor and Notepad replacement, which supports several programming languages, running under the MS Windows environment. It features syntax color-coding and some nice HTML features. Get Notepad++ here.

Last updated (v3.70) in 2004, Crimson Editor is an oldie but goodie. HTML and PHP syntax coloring, simple interface, light-weight text editing program, it is no longer in development, but is available for download. If your are comfortable hand-coding, Crimson Editor may be all you’ll ever need. Get Crimson Editor here.

FTP Client

Open Source and cross-platform, we use this program all the time. It is fast and has a logical side-by-side interface. FileZilla supports FTP, FTP over SSL/TLS (FTPS) and SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP). It supports resume and transfer of large files. Site Manager, drag-and-drop and remote file editing are just a few more of it’s features. Get FileZilla here.

RSS Client

Applications that collect data from RSS-compliant sites are called RSS readers or “aggregators.” RSSOwl is such an application. RSSOwl lets you gather, organize, update, and store information from any compliant source in a convenient, easy to use interface, save selected information in various formats for offline viewing and sharing, and much more. It’s easy to configure, available in many many languages and the best of all: It’s platform-independent. Get RRS Owl here.

File Utility

Fantastic archiving utility to extract and pack archives of an extensive amount of formats. PeaZip also features password protecting archives, keyfile support, system integration, a lovely interface, and much more.Get PeaZip here.

This is by no means a comprehensive list of Open Source software for the Windows platform. These are programs I’ve used and feel comfortable recommending. We’ll be reviewing more software as time allows. A more complete list of Windows Open Source software is available at: OpenSourceWindows.org