Eau Claire Wisconsin Real Estate Blog

Eau Claire southside home for sale on Pine Meadow Golf Course 1713 Heartland Dr N 54701

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:23:39 -0400

Practically tee off from your own backyard! Custom 4 bed 3.5 bath home on Pine Meadow Golf Course with plenty of space for your family with 2600 Sq ft finished. Large 3 car garage with plenty of storage. Enjoy a cup of coffee and beautiful sunrises and sunsets from one of the two decks overlooking PMGC. Perfect Southside location near Meadowview South Middle School Memorial High School Oakwood Mall restaurants and shopping areas. Formal dining room large kitchen/dining area. Master bed/bath with two walk-in closets.

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(In case you do not agree with something I said or feel that my blog or my beliefs could be construed as libelous I hereby declare that my entire blog is meant as a joke. I consider myself to be a comedian and everything I say or have said should be considered comedy. I want nothing I say to be taken seriously and if you do take it seriously take a break. If you do not think what I said is funny then that is your opinion. But for anyone who wants to sue me everything I said or say is meant purely as satire.The only thing that is not a joke is this disclaimer.)

Google 411 adds new function and Bing 411 competes –Check them out!

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 09:49:20 -0400

Google recently added a new feature to their 411 service that tells you what intersection a business is on. Of course that’s really cool if you are on the go with a mobile phone and need directions. This feature is pretty cool and will hopefully lead more people to businesses easier than ever.

Bing a new search engine from Microsoft just released their own 411 service to directly compete with Google’s. I have mixed feelings about Bing in general (I think it’s mostly useless when compared to Google but hey competition is good right?) but Bing seems to have some cool stuff like “local business listings, as well as local traffic, weather, and movie listings”

Check out the links for more information on both of these 411 services. While you are at it stop paying for expensive 411 when you can use either of these services for free!

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BPA may be “leechier” than previously thought

Tue, 26 May 2009 16:23:31 -0400

I found this article over the weekend and it’s rather disturbing. I know there was a lot of hype over BPA and water bottles recently but it’s also found in a lot more places than that and it turns out it’s much easier to get into your body than previously thought. If it’s that bad for you or babies it’s hard to say at this point but the article points out that heating up baby bottles made of BPA could lead to even more BPA being released which could be really bad for infants. I don’t want to try to scare anyone but it’s something that you should consider especially since it’s not limited to just plastic products (aluminum cans apparently as well)

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Windows Vista Service Pack 2 is ready for Download

Tue, 26 May 2009 16:07:42 -0400

In case you haven’t seen the news SP2 is ready for Windows Vista. Every time a service pack is released it’s always a good thing. Generally it brings added functionality as well as security updates.

Some of the highlights that look interesting to me:

Added Bluetooth support
Improved search
Removed half open TCP limit (This always bothered me)

You can find more information from Microsoft here.

You can download here:

32 bit

64 bit

I have not had a chance to try it out yet. I guess I could but I don’t feel like rebooting right now. I will try it later tonight.

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Eau Claire south side home for sale on Pine Meadow Golf Course 1713 Heartland Dr N 54701 - real estate

Tue, 26 May 2009 14:40:28 -0400

Eau Claire south side home for sale on Pine Meadow Golf Course 1713 Heartland Dr N 54701

Practically tee off from your own backyard in this custom built 4 bedroom 3.5 bath home on Pine Meadow Golf Course. Plenty of space for your entire family with 2600 Sq ft finished. Featuring a large 3 car garage with plenty of storage Enjoy a cup of coffee and beautiful sunrises and sunsets from one of the two decks overlooking PMGC. Perfect Southside location near Meadowview, South middle school, Memorial high school, Oakwood Mall, restaurants and shopping areas. Formal dining room and a large kitchen/dining area. 2 fireplaces. A large master bedroom and bath with whirlpool/jetted tub and double walk-in closets.1^st floor laundry and mud room makes it easy.

Check out the virtual tour below.

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Turns out the possible cure for cancer is Down Syndrome

Fri, 22 May 2009 11:57:47 -0400

I saw this article last night and I was trying to be very careful with the title. I realize that cancer is a very serious thing and I know that almost every other day someone is trumpeting this or that as the next cure. I realize it’s not as simple as that and I am certainly not trying to get anyone’s hopes up. If anything this might be a long way off but it certainly does look like one of many new things that could be very promising. The premise of the story is that for years scientists have known there is a link between Down Syndrome and cancer because for some reason people with Down Syndrome had an abnormally low rate of cancer. That’s good news but as the title of this post suggests the bad news is of course the Down Syndrome.

You can read the article here which I found rather interesting.

On a side note I had a pretty scary moment just a few months ago. I didn’t really say much about this to anyone outside of the people I know the most. I had a bone scan done to find out what is wrong with my back which it turns out is a torn disc and a bone defect. I had an epidural done on Monday to take care of some of the pain. Fun stuff. Anyways the bone scan turned up what is known as an uptake. I tell you what that seems like an innocuous word but when you find out what it means it sucks. I don’t have cancer or least they don’t think I do (they don’t know for sure but it’s only a small chance) but anyways they tell me I more or less might have cancer. It was pretty devastating. I will also say right now that I can’t honestly know what it’s like to have cancer. I don’t have cancer and thinking you might have cancer is not the same as having it.

Regardless it sucks anytime someone mentions that word and I don’t think I was ready for it especially since they were trying to figure out what is wrong with my back. It really sucks when they say the good news is you have a bone defect the bad news is you might have cancer. What they found was a tumor in the marrow in my leg. The first thing I did of course was Google what “uptake” was to find out what the heck is wrong with my leg. What I read didn’t exactly make me feel better. Basically if it was cancer the treatment was to cut my leg off. That’s if it doesn’t spread through your blood stream which is highly likely. Again I don’t know what this is like and I can’t imagine how terrible it must be if you had to go through this. But thinking about it sucks.

The other thing that sucks is that even though it’s only a small chance I might have this type of cancer the only way to find out is to drill a large hole in my bone. This in turn weakens the bone and pretty much breaks your leg. The risk of cancer is so low that they typically don’t do a biopsy like this unless they see the tumor grow. But having a tumor in your leg sucks and having it checked again in a bit here will get me thinking about this again.

One thing I can say for sure that really sucks about this is the waiting. I had to wait 2 full weeks to find out if I had serious cancer or not. Of course not having it is much better than that but waiting is hard. What didn’t make me feel better was them saying to me “you’re lucky. There are people who have to wait longer than 2 weeks for treatment and they have cancer!” I don’t know what to think about our health care but I do know that if I didn’t have insurance none of what is wrong with me would have been treated. Our system is broke and as great as the treatments are that are available they aren’t available to everyone...

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First Tweet from Space? Turns out it was a lie. First Tweet from Everest? Hope that wasn’t a lie as well…

Fri, 22 May 2009 11:03:31 -0400

I don’t know if the first Tweet from space was a giant leap for mankind but I thought it was interesting or neat in the least.

You can read the tweet here. http://twitter.com/Astro_Mike/status/1777093627

The story about that Tweet is here. http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/05/13/twitter.space/index.html

Here is a story announcing when the Tweet will be.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/08/tweeting-from-space-nasa-turns-to-twitter-and-youtube-to-reconnect-with-the-public/

Then here is the story today saying it’s just not true.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/22/revealed-astro-mike-was-not-updating-twitter-from-space-nor-was-he-doing-it-in-real-time-heck-it-wasnt-even-him/

I guess I just wonder why fake it? I thought it was an interesting thing. Sure, as the last article points out, astronauts probably have better things to be doing than sending out Twitter messages but the same could be said about a lot of neat things they have done in the past.

Just yesterday this was announced. You can see the video below.

They also tested stink free underwear.

Certainly none of this is a giant leap but it keeps it interesting and it gets publicity. Publicity = funding as well.

So why fake it?

Another interesting Twitter story was the first Tweet from Mount Everest. Certainly this wasn’t necessary and it’s already been climbed but the question remains, what if they faked this too?

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Looking for some sizzle in your “virtual tours”? Shock and Awe with Animoto and Photosynth

Fri, 22 May 2009 10:01:00 -0400

Recently I have been talking a lot about video. I like video. It’s a great format. It’s engaging. Everything about it is great. But making videos of listings is troublesome at best and a nightmare for most people. Editing raw video footage requires some computer processing power and it takes time. Even just putting some clips in order and making it look seamless isn’t as easy as it seems. But there are alternatives that are equally impressive.

I have two different applications that I have been working with lately that are just incredible. In the past I have used Slide.com and I liked it. It’s good but it’s not animoto.com. I don’t know what it is but Animoto is simply amazing. It only takes a few minutes to make a “video” and the results are impressive.

Take a look at some Animoto clips below. Notice it says YouTube?

You see that’s the other thing I like about Animoto. Once you have your clip made you can convert it to a YouTube video at the press of a button. After that you can tweak the title and other SEO components and you have yourself some SEO FIRE. You have several options available through Animoto itself as well. You can send the clip to a zillion different social networking applications as well as Tweet the video! I just sent out a tweet of my clip for a listing at the click of a button. There is nothing easier than this. I am not going to do a step by step to show you because it’s so simple you don’t really need directions. In minutes you have a slideshow created. One word of caution, it allows you to upload mp3s. This is a huge copyright issue waiting to happen. You don’t have commercial rights to use those songs regardless if they are your favorites, just use the ones that they have available if you like music.

The other dazzler that I came across is the Microsoft Live Labs Photosynth. This thing is amazing as well. The potential here is staggering. I know virtual tour companies that charge hundreds of dollars to create something similar to this. You also have to wait several days for them to “process” the video as well as wait for them to send out a photographer. That’s fine and dandy if you can do all this weeks in advance of a listing but when I list a house I want this stuff online THAT DAY! And now you can and you can do it for free.

What this does is take pictures and seamlessly puts them together. How it does it I don’t know or care really just that it works. Call it magic if you will. The only trick is to take dozens and dozens of pictures. You want to take them from as many angles as possible and think in your mind of seaming them up. So don’t take a picture of the front and then one of the back of the house thinking it’s going to fill in the space. You need to follow around the house and fill in the gaps. With neighbors houses this is a bit trickier so it can get jumpy but the better you can do it the better your synth will turn out.

The one I added below is a recent listing that is currently on hold until the inside is finished. For now I wanted to create some hype about the listing so I used Photosynth to create a virtual tour of the outside. It’s on a golf course so I was able to show off the yard and the course as well. You will notice a few gaps as I pointed out above how to avoid that. Sometimes there is nothing you can do about it because of the layout. Anyways as you can see the results are pretty good. The trick as I said above is to take a lot of pictures and try to stitch them together in your mind. This makes it easier later and gets rid of the gaps.

Doing the inside is the same as the outside expect in reverse. The outside was taken from vantage points outside the home pointing in (except the golf course which was pointing out). For the inside just stand in the middle and shoot around you in 360. It works by using the vantage points and tries to see where the camera was when the pictures were taken. So if you can imagine that it might make it easier to do.

Anyways I am always looking for some new ways to get my listings to stand out. I recently went on a CMA and showed these technologies to the owner. I know virtual tours don’t normally look like this and I wanted something different. With so many homes on the market I don’t see how doing the same thing everyone else is doing is going to sell anyone anything. Both of these create a hyperlink and don’t require software to view so there is no issue whether someone can see them or not. Hope you enjoy.

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Apple coming to your local Wal-Mart? Better keep your eyes peeled!

Tue, 19 May 2009 12:03:48 -0400

I just spotted this rumor or speculation (depending on what you want to call it) that Wal-Mart might start selling Apple computers. Of course that would be big news and possibly drive the price down? (My own speculation) According to the article Apple has had some great success selling I-accessories. Of course as the article also points out, the issue is whether the “high end” Apple as I am sure they would like to think of themselves, would want to be seen in the “low end” Wal-Mart’s.

This also comes as news surfaced the other day that Wal-Mart is sending its electronic attack dogs after Best buy. Ok well they are planning to expand their electronics reach in their stores to fill in the niche that was left behind the recent closing of Circuit City.

Either way this is good news for us? Or maybe it’s good news for me because I know my wife wants a Mac really bad and it would be great if the price wasn’t double what a similar PC costs.

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Like GPS? Could you learn to live without it again? This might happen…

Tue, 19 May 2009 11:38:08 -0400

For the most part GPS was a pretty new thing about 10 years ago or so. The units were expensive and seemed unnecessary for the most part. Sure people get lost navigating a new city but how often did this happen that you would spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars to avoid it when a $3 map would probably do the trick. Well the technology got cheaper and it got smaller and better. Now GPS units are in phones and almost everywhere but what would happen if this technology suddenly broke down? Well it turns out that’s a very real possibility. I have seen a few stories lately about this but I guess I am finally buying into this as well.

How real of a possibility is this? You can read more here.

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Hackers Breach Their own “Rules” and Take out a Game Community

Mon, 18 May 2009 11:48:30 -0400

This one really bugs me. First of all let me step back for a moment and talk about the hacking community in general. There are two types for the most part, for profit and the ones that are still trying to unlock whether or not aliens landed or if we landed on the moon. Now the latter is generally harmless. They might do something prankish here or there such as the Palin incident but for the most part it’s nothing malicious. They aren’t stealing your pin number and it’s more or less a game. Then there are the ones where they are out to get your last cent, steal all your passwords and take over your computer. They could care less about what you want or think and the dollar is the bottom line.

But recently a hacker or group of hackers went over the line. The line was always (if you don’t want to be one of those bad hackers going after bank accounts) don’t do anything malicious. Don’t seriously hurt anyone. Only target bad guys (you know the Dick Cheney’s of the world) But someone completely wiped out a gaming community and for no apparent reason. The site has been around over a decade and was meant for flight simulator enthusiasts. If you aren’t familiar its basically like flying a plane, you can literally fly any plane ever built such as the Wright brothers or anything you can imagine because the communities create models of every plane every built. The people working on the programming spend thousands of hours creating models and maps (so you can fly anywhere in the world) its horribly painstaking but they do it for the love of flying and why anyone would maliciously target a site like this is beyond me. It doesn’t take a hacker much to take down most sites because sites like this don’t typically have anyone targeting them. Security isn’t an issue because it would be like hacking into a baby’s breathing machine, most people wouldn’t ethically even consider such a thing. But someone wanted to show how tough they are on the internet and went ahead and wiped out both servers. In an instant they destroyed the work of thousands of people who spent over a decade working on the site.

But the lesson here is that apparently fewer and fewer people have any sort of ethics and who knows who they would attack next. Just because your site only has a little bit of traffic doesn’t mean that it’s safe from these sorts of attacks. If you don’t know if your site has a backup you should create one now. If it’s an online backup (which they typically are) they could easily wipe that file too. You should backup the site and move it offline or at least put it in a few different places. This isn’t hard to do and after a few months of work or a decade of work to see that gone in an instant it’s important that you think about this. If you are unsure whether you have multiple backups or this is beyond your ability to fix then I seriously suggest calling someone right now to have this done.

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Major FaceBook Fphishing Attack Going on

Sat, 16 May 2009 18:35:48 -0400

You might have seen this in the news lately and it’s really nothing new but FaceBook is under another attack where some group is phishing for passwords. You can read more about it here. When I say this is nothing new I mean that there is always something like this going on. Everyone always asks why anyone would do this but of course its money. I guess most people don’t realize that getting their hands on your FaceBook account might lead them to your bank account especially if you use the same password. There are a variety of other things that these types of attacks are generally after or in the case of computer viruses it’s typically to gain control of your computer.

What can you do about it?

Just play it safe. Don’t click on fishy looking links and never ever give your password to anyone.

Technology and Internet Marketing Works! Eau Claire Homes For Sale 1713 Heartland Dr N Eau Claire WI 54701 Real Estate Video

Fri, 15 May 2009 16:27:05 -0400

There are many tools available today to help market a home on the internet. First impressions are important whether they be when you first pull up to the house, open the front door or check out a video on the internet. Take a look at this home for sale in Eau Claire Wisconsin at 1713 Heartland Dr N 54701. Located on Pine Meadow Golf Course you can almost tee off from your backyard! Featuring 4 bedrooms and 3.5 baths with a large 3 car garage. This is an excellent location on Eau Claire’s south side. You are near plenty of shopping just minutes from Oakwood Mall.

The following was created using Microsoft Live Labs Photosynth:

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First time home buying seminar – Location, Location, Location - Eau Claire Chippewa Falls Altoona

Fri, 15 May 2009 15:22:52 -0400

First time home buying seminar – Location, Location, Location - Eau Claire Chippewa Falls Altoona

This is a simple enough step in the buying process. Basically where do you want to live? We need to narrow down the location to specific areas because there are so many homes for sale in Eau Claire Altoona and Chippewa Falls Wisconsin. If we can narrow down the search even a little it means a shorter time looking as well less homes to sort through. Eau Claire is divided into a few areas in our MLS system – West – North – South – and Eau Claire schools but outside the city limits. I originally posted this in my Eau Claire Real Estate Blog.

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First time home buying seminar – Preapproval Letter - Eau Claire Chippewa Falls Altoona

Fri, 15 May 2009 15:13:08 -0400

First time home buying seminar – Preapproval Letter - Eau Claire Chippewa Falls Altoona

Another important aspect of the buying process is to get a preapproval letter from your lender. Basically it’s just a simple letter that says you have been prequalified for a loan with that institution. A lot of real estate agents in our area like to see these letters so that they know that you are a truly qualified buyer. Just ask and the lender should have no problem getting a copy of this letter to you. I originally posted this in my Eau Claire Real Estate Blog.

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