Recycling

Recycling is becoming more important to businesses as time goes on. At Landmark we generate a lot of trash which we used to haul to the landfill. Recently we added a dumpster for materials which can be recycled. It does not take long for it to fill up with cardboard and other items. Since I am involved with the technical devices at Landmark, especially computers, I have also been concerned about how to recycle these devices. Our monitors and computers do wear out or become obsolete.

One company which has an excellent program for recycling almost anything electronic is Best Buy. They accept most items at no cost and make it easy. I have taken old CRT monitors, televisions, VHS recorders and many other items to them for recycling, and with them I know it is done right. Maybe you can also join in the recycling process. For more information go to the Best Buy website

Technology Has Benefits

This morning I wanted to test a feature for processing credit cards on the web site for Dino's Storage and I used my personal card. I wanted the transaction to fail and it did, three times. Within minutes I received a call from the credit card issuer asking me to verify that those transactions were really mine before they disabled the account. So my card is still active and I have no problems. But if someone else had been using my card it would now be disabled, saving both me and the credit card issuer a lot of headaches.

A few years ago that ability did not exist. This is not the first time I had what was considered suspicious activity, but the last time I had to call the credit card company after it had been disabled and get it reactivated. So as far as I am concerned technology is good and I am enthusiastic about many of the advances in recent years.

Using Community Forums

Have you ever encountered a problem that seems unsolvable? Do you feel alone facing a problem? Fortunately you are not alone. There are many forums available on the web and frequently you can find answers to your most vexing problems.

I ran into a problem with an anti-virus system I had recently added to our network that caused a crash in our backup system. I have been working on a solution for several days with customer support. Finally yesterday I went the the vendor's forum and posted a description of my problem. Within hours I received responses that pointed me in the right direction. I wrote back thanking them and told them I was making progress. They had a couple other suggestions that I followed, and now I feel confident that I can resume using that software and not have the problems.

The web is a wondrous tool. People who have experience problems are willing to share their solutions. You do have to be careful that the advice you are receiving is good, but when it is on a respected and well-followed web site, you know that if the suggestion will not work other followers will let you know.

And this is true not only about computers and software but many other things. I have used the internet to research things as diverse as proper pruning of trees to recipes for someone on a gluten free diet. So the next time you have a problem go online and ask for help. You might be pleasantly surprised at how easy the solution is.

Computer Malware Keeps Attacking

Malware has been a problem on computers for years. What started as problems with a few viruses is now an international problem with viruses, worms, trojans, botnets and more. The most important thing you can do for your computer is put a good anti-malware suite on it, and there are several available.

On Monday I had problems with one of our remote computers because a file was not found that was needed to run some of the programs. I spent time and reloaded the operating system. A few hours later that computer had the same problem again. Then another computer had the same problem. It turned out that our anti-virus was too aggressive and had flagged that file as a trojan and therefore had quarantined it. Once I realized this I reloaded the file and then modified the anti-virus scanner to accept that as a valid file. Problem solved. But I know the program was working.

Make sure your anti-malware is working. It should be updating at least every day and scanning your system regularly. Your computer is probably being attacked several times daily so it needs good protection.

Digital Pictures Are Too Big

Managing a computer system, I have to keep an eye on hard drive utilization. A lot of space on our hard drive was being consumed by pictures. New cameras have a high megapixel count and can make a high quality print in a large size, but they take up a lot of disk space to store. They also take up a lot of space when you try to email them. Most email systems will not send attachments over 5 Mb, and a picture from a 12MP camera is already that size.

For an explanation of MP and print quality see this article from Hewlett Packard: Is there an easy way to make pictures smaller? The answer is yes, there are many programs available which will resize the picture to make it fit in emails or take up less storage. A program I found and use here at Landmark Group is called "Shrink-O-Matic" which can do one picture or batches of pictures.

When we take pictures of houses we save the pictures, then run them through Shrink-O-Matic to reduce the size by 70% or more. If needed we can still get decent quality prints and we save disk space. There are many other similar programs so I suggest you look around if you have ever found this to be a problem. If you would like to use Shrink-O-Matic, click here to go to thier website and download it.

Bringing Real Estate and 3D Modeling technology Together

Nearly everyone has Google Earth software, if you don't, then come out of your cave and GET IT now. Check it out again, you will find that more and more you are seeing 3D models of buildings. Open up Earth, go to Omaha, NE. Type in the address for Landmark Group, 2702 Douglas, Omaha, NE and you will see a 3D model of the corporate headquarters. I built this model in relatively short amount of time. Also check out 2725 2nd Avenue, Des Moines, IA.

This is a link to a PDF brochure from a company that is taking this marketing tool to the next level. It is very informative, and helped me visualize the blending of this technology into the real estate industry marketing tool bag. Click here to see the PDF.

All agents and brokers already have the home or building size and measurements and the digital photos (more would be needed though) What they need are the 3D models. The software is called Google SketchUp. It's a free download. I have used the program for a couple years on and off. If I can be of assistance to anyone at Landmark Group interested in pursuing this as a marketing tool, just send me a email - dale@landmarkmg.com

Using Smartphones for Business

I have been with Landmark / Dino's Storage for over three years and things never get boring or repetitious in the IT department. There are always new things to learn and new challenges. Some challenges take longer than others to understand. And when you learn something it can be good for a short time and change quickly.

Smart phones is a good example of that.

Several people in the firm use smart phones to access and read emails. Each model phone is a little different and requires its own tweaks, but right now everything is going smoothly. But as users upgrade to 4G networks some of those settings will change and we start again. We were designing our web pages to be optimized on large screens and monitors. Now we are rethinking our web design because many people use smart phones to access the internet and we must give them a good experience at our web sites. There is always something new to learn and I plan to keep learning.