Due to lack of interest we will be suspending realtortech.org for the time being. If you happen to read this post and are interested in contributing, please contact Stevie or Mike. It will remain on the net till about April 2009 so for the time being it will be available for reference. Thanks…

Here in WA we are about to begin converting our database management system from Rapattoni to LAMPS. From some of the conversations I had at the Tech Directors Conference I’m curious to see how the process will play out.

I’d love to hear success stories, pitfalls, what to watch out for… anything that will let me peer into the world of LAMPS.

Of particular interest to me is LAMPS’ Website Manager. What kind of front-end code does it output? Is it XHTML? Does it pay attention to web standards? Will I have control of design and layout with CSS? If anyone can relate their experiences with this, I’d be eternally grateful.

What are your experiences, positive or negative, with LAMPS?

So here in WA State we have a new law going into effect on 6/12 that’s called the Distressed Properties Law. It will profoundly change how REALTORS® deal with foreclosures. To put it lightly, it has been a big deal for us getting our membership educated on the finer details and protocols called for in this new law.

At WA REALTORS®, our Communications and IT departments are one and the same. I’m usually involved in bringing certain aspects of our PR campaigns to the web. The Distressed Properties campaign has been no different.

For those of you who attended the Tech Directors Conference in March, particularly those who took part in the Podcasting breakout group, may remember me mentioning the Flash Media Server (FMS) hosting we use for our streaming media. There are a handful of companies out there that specialize in Flash Media hosting… we use a company called Influxis.

So getting back to the Distressed Properties campaign, we produced an hour long DVD for Broker’s to share with agents. We kind of decided as an afterthought that I should prepare a streaming version of the DVD in six chapters for viewing on warealtor.org. So I went ahead and did this last week and officially published it last Thursday (5/29). We have a pretty stripped down account with Influxis that allows for a modest 40 concurrent streams.

So fast forward to Monday morning… we start getting calls from members that they are having issues watching the video. I naively open up my FMS Admin Console and immediately notice our total connections are pegged at 40! We did not anticipate the tremendous response at all! So I was immediately on the phone with Influxis upgrading our account to handle the huge demand. After a quick reboot of my Virtual Host, we were able to host 100 simultaneous streams. Quick and painless for the most part.

But demand kept increasing throughout the day yesterday and overnight so I upgraded again this morning to allow for 200 simultaneous streams! Thankfully working with FMS is pretty easy and Influxis makes upgrading your service a snap as well. It really saved us (me!) a lot of stress.

I realized if we had attempted to host the video locally on our web server it would’ve been toast! There’s just no way it would be able to keep up with demand… we use a Windows 2K3 Server which has no business streaming content! That’s the beauty of using FMS… it’s built specifically to stream Flash files. Not that you can’t host streaming Flash on a generic Linux or Windows server; it can be done but you run the risk of staring down the barrel of a serious crash. Take my word for it.

So next time your association needs to use streaming media, definitely take a look a Flash Media Server. It could save the day and save you a lot of headaches.

You can also buy the FMS software and run it locally if you are so inclined.

Do you have any experiences with Flash Media Server?

Resources:
Adobe’s Flash Media Server Page
Influxis Flash Media Hosting
Flowplayer: Flash Video Player for the Web

I must say I spend the vast majority of my day in Firefox which is probably the case for many web developer types out there. It is the de facto browser for development for a myriad of reasons… adherence to W3C standards (for the most part) being the biggest. But I think what gets me most excited about Firefox is the mind boggling array of add-ons available to developers. The foremost of which, in my opinion, is Chris Pedrick’s Web Developer Toolbar.

This add-on has so many amazing features that I will only introduce you to a few that I use regularly… ones that can save you huge amounts of time in debugging and help make your development cycle more efficient in general.

Continue reading…

So I don’t know about you but I do a lot of image editing and optimization in my everyday web development tasks. Typically, in times past, I’ve used Adobe Fireworks CS3 and Adobe Photoshop CS3 for these activities. I’m still a heavy Fireworks user (I just love the CS3 update) but sometimes I want to do some quick and dirty editing without having to deal with the overhead of a desktop app (Photoshop I’m looking at you!). Enter Picnik.

Continue reading…

Hello! So here it is… a blog for all of us Realtor® techies. Welcome! Go ahead and sign up for an account and you’ll be able to write and manage your own posts, leave comments, and share information with everyone. Again, welcome and I look forward to continuing the dynamic conversations we started at the Tech Directors Conference! Make sure to subscribe the RSS feed to stay updated.

Your friendly Admins are, yours truly, Stevie Benge from WA Realtors® and Mike Cutlip from MA Realtors®. Let us know if you have any questions…

Also, I’ll be continuing to refine the layout and design for a bit so don’t be alarmed if things start looking funky . Feel free to share any suggestions you may have…