Microsoft has a new mouse that looks normal from the top, but flip it over and you have a whole world of new features. Ok, so it's not that exciting, but you have to admit, it's pretty innovative.
Check it out here

I've been a gamer a long time now. From Duke Nukem, circa 1997, to present, CS:Source, and the most buttons I've had on a mouse is 7…the normal right and left buttons, the scroll wheel, and then buttons on the side that are programmable to do anything. I never used the programmable buttons but it was cool to tell my friends and family I had a 7 button mouse.

I doubt this mouse will help any gamers, since you have to flip the mouse over to access the additional buttons, but the laser pointer alone is well worth the $90 price tag.

What next?
Well that's pretty obvious, Microsoft is obviously going after the iPhone, which will be released later this year. I expect to see full mousing on all cellphones within the next 10 years, maybe sooner.

I can see myself using this mouse with my laptop, since I always use a mouse. I hate the touch pads on laptops. When giving presentations or seminars this will come in very handy. It's bluetooth enabled so no wires. Just pull it out and start playing with it.  

Popularity: 5% [?]

Good news for all you Vista Users. Winforms, ie. Zipforms has patched the Winforms desktop and made it Vista Compatible.

Winforms worked with Vista, but you could not use the Vista Aero theme and Winforms at the same time. More of a hassle then major problem. 

I just downloaded it and upgraded our laptop and winforms is working fine now with the Aero theme, so all is good for that. Now I just need to patch all the other problems I am still having.
Get the Winforms patch here

I really tried to get Trang over to Ubuntu, but there are some major deal breakers, most are not because of Ubuntu, but they are deal breakers all the same.

1. Couldn't connect up to all our printers. WE have 2 all-in-ones and 1 laser printer. The all-in-ones work fine with Ubuntu, but there are no drivers for the laser printer…and Konica does not plan to support linux. I will not buy a Konica printer again. It was on sale, and it was cheaper then all the other makers, but prices have really come down so next time, it will be an HP.

2. Cannot connect to the San Francisco MLS. You need IE6 or 7 to connect. It will not work in Firefox. I also tried to run IE6 with Wine (windows emulator on linux) which will run IE6, but sfarmls.com still did not work. This also bring ups another "Major" Problem with sfarmls.com. They do not support the public access to the IDX anymore, yet they still allow agents to use it on their websites. The problem is, most agents do not know that is does not work with Firefox and and their home searches are broken. The Solution, get a third party IDX provider. This brings up another problem….You can only use the IDX provider that your broker uses.
   As you can see I have some issues with Sfarmls because they make it so difficult for agents to use there products. Ironic since, San Francisco is the one of the most technologically advanced places on earth, yet our home search technology is from 1984.
3. Top Producer will not work. Again it's an IE thing, will not run with Firefox. Solution, use SugarCRM, a free open source Customer relationship manager, or Act. Unfortunately Top Producer puts its users into year contracts.

Other then that it works fine. Email, Excel, Word, Browsing all work great.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Trang sent me an email today that KW has partnered with Cyberhomes.com to market KW listings.  This was the first time I have seen cyberhomes, and I saw they have an online house value estimator, so I I thought I would put their values up against the other online estimators that I already know about. Cyberhomes is powered by Fidelity National Title, so I was expecting their information to be very comparable to Zillow (The leader in online property values).

Let's start by looking at the web ranking:

Now, My House Details
Bought in Oct 2005, as a 2 Bed, 1 Bath. Converted about 6 months after to a 4 bed, 2 bath. 

The Cold Hard Facts: 

Cyberhomes.com
Estimated value: 777K, Beds= n/a, Baths = 2, 2 Month value change=Down 77K (Ouch!).
I'm dissapointed that they have the beds and baths wrong…especially since they are title company. I'm also dissapointed in the price, since I gander at my zestimate every now and then, I know this is way below.
Trang's reaction: "That's crazy..they're totally wrong!!!!!!"

Zillow.com
Estimated value: 894K, Beds= 4, Baths = 2, 1 Month value change=Up 32K (I love you).
that's more like it, I can't remember if I went in a changed the beds and baths, I don't think so.

RealestateABC.com
Estimated value: 723K, Beds= n/a, Baths = 1, 1 , they do not provide value change.
Not much to say here

Reply.com
Estimated value: 779K, Beds= 0, Baths = 1, 1 , they do not provide value change.
Not much here either…this site has a few errors, and I think they do provide a price trend, but it was not working.

Results:
Zillow is the winner, not because they priced my house higher, but because they had the correct information and priced my house higher. But with a high of $894K and a low of $723K, I'm not too confident with the results.

On a side note, I really wish the other players would release their data as an api, like Zillow does, so I could put them all together in a simple search, but I doubt that will happen. 

Popularity: 11% [?]

It's been a pretty tough week for us. We got hacked by the wordtube exploit that has nailed many websites. If you are unfamiliar with this exploit, it allows hackers to upload perl scripts to your server and then run wild.

We added the wordtube plugin to our sites. It is a plugin that allows you to easily add video to your blog. The publisher Alex Rabe has a few plugins that all have these exploits, and he is feverishly trying to patch them. I think he already has the wordtube plugin patched, but I think we will hold off for now.

We are reloading the server and will get the site back online as soon as possible.  Thank you for your patience.

Popularity: 5% [?]