While laptops are not a new technology, companies are remodeling laptops with business men and women in mind by adding wireless capabilities, large hard drive, and long battery life. A computer’s speed and memory make it an optimal tool for managing Web sites, storing files, and accessing the local MLS system.

Here is a list of the three best laptops in 2011 based on capabilities:

Lenovo ThinkPad X201/X201 Tablet

The thinkPad is the PC professional standard for a reason: quality. The ThinkPad X201 series is the ultra compact high performance series. Housed in a magnesium alloy case with metal hinges and a spill resistant keyboard, it will take on any abuse travel could throw at it. The black case is very unobtrusive and does not scream “BRAND NAME” on the front cover as most companies do. With up to an Intel i7 processor, the X201 will handle any programs, including Adobe Creative Suite, very easily. At 2.9 pounds with up to 12 hours of battery life, not only is it extremely light, but it will keep working all day.

My aunt, who works as an agent in Arizona and also teaches real estate courses with Sanford Brown, told me over the holidays: “The ThinkPad is just as good, if not better for my business and teaching than the iPad.”

Every ThinkPad is customizable and has features, such as mobile broadband, that can easily be added. An optional docking station has a DVD burner and speakers built in. What you could miss is the lack of an option for a discrete graphics card for video editing and possibly a built in optical drive. Starting price is $879 (1300 recommended), and $1300 for the tablet version.

Sony Vaio Z Series

Very few of Sony’s laptops even come close to the $1000 line, yet its high performance Z class is one sweet piece of machinery. Its durability is sold by its encasement in carbon fiber, standard solid-state hard drive, and aluminum keyboard panel. Solid State drives not only perform faster and more efficiently than traditional hard drives, they are less prone to failing because they have no moving parts . NVIDIA’s Optimus technology comes standard, which switches to its more powerful discrete graphics card the 330M when it will make a difference. This saves battery life, and offers great graphics performance when needed. These lightweight materials keep it at around three pounds and give it seven hours of battery life. While the standard 128 GB hard drive seems sort of small, it is an expensive upgrade for competing machines, and is expandable up to 512 GB. The Z series can also be upgraded with other luxuries such as a full 1080P display and blue ray burner. A great feature is the option to have a “Fresh start” application wise with the purchase of Windows 7 Professional. Fresh start meaning no annoying trial software, and Sony software would not be included. The Sony Z is a sexy machine and might as well yell luxury when taken out of a bag. Whether this is a pro or con is up to you. If computer performance matters, this is the one. It starts at a much higher price than the competition, but this is due to the more powerful standard features. Starting price is $1900.

Macbook Air 13 inch/Macbook Pro 13 inch

You know who are you when you’re looking at a Mac. Nothing in this article should steer you towards or away from Apple. Nothing is cooler than the Macbook Air, yet no Mac is more practical than the 13 inch Pro. Neither Mac is more powerful than the Sony Z. The aluminum alloy enclosures on both look very elegant and professional. The widths and depths are the same, while the Air is about 1/3 to ½ the height of the Pro. Going with the Air saves your back about a pound and a half. The five hour battery life for the 11 inch Air is just not enough for a full day, while the 13 inch Air’s battery life of seven hours and Pro’s battery life of ten hours are pretty similar to the Sony and ThinkPad. Choosing between the two should be based on whether or not an optical drive is important, but most of the other features are similar if not identical. The Air uses a solid state drive just like the Sony Z, while they are an optional upgrade on the Pro. What you will miss with the Macs is the option for built in mobile broadband; you will have to buy an external adapter. Starting price for the Macbook Pro is $1,200 and $1,299 for the Macbook Air.

And for some real agent comments, check out this debate on RealTown about the Mac’s.

A promising start...

In terms of acceptance of this kind of digital signature, it’s an entirely open question due to how rapidly technology is changing. DocuSign, on the other hand, has years of experience and they’ve spent a great deal of resources to ensure the legitimacy of their solution. I’m not a lawyer, and in my opinion the onus is on the company to make it abundantly clear whether something is legally valid or not.  Personally, I might use a solution like SignMyPad for simple forms/ applications/ etc, but I’d stick with a more established system like DocuSign for important contracts until I learn more. Anyway, on to the review:

Getting Started:

The documentation is minimal with SignMyPad, which is great when something’s super intuitive, but made for a bumpier start in this case. The app opens to a empty list, where your saved pdf’s would go. Maybe I’m slow, but it took me a few seconds to figure out that I had to email myself a pdf, then in Mail click “Open In SignMyPad” for it to then appear. This could be made a lot more intuitive.

Usage:

The first time I tried opening a doc in SignMyPad from Mail, it crashed. It worked the second time, and I started by selecting the “add text” option to write in the address in my sample purchase contract. That worked fine, but then when I tried to delete the text, I simply couldn’t figure out how. I clicked and I dragged until it was time for the last resort: reading the instructions.

Finding the instructions wasn’t easy: I clicked menu, didn’t see it, then clicked “PDF list”, read the instructions, and came back to delete my text (you need to double tap the text to delete). Unfortunately, my text was already gone: it doesn’t save automatically, or warn you if you go back to your list of PDFs. The mystery of the disappearing text would haunt me throughout the entirety of my review. It was not clear at all how or when your input was saved, which in a seven page contract can get incredibly frustrating.

Where are my signatures and text!?!

I tried the “save” option, and the “save/email” option, but was unable to actually save my text. I emailed myself three blank contracts, then gave up.

Bottom Line:

I absolutely love this idea, and I commend the developer for focusing on this need, but the current implementation was unusable for me. If you are highly technically savvy and patient, give it a try. From the reviews on iTunes, some people have been able to make it work for them, though the consensus seems to be that it’s pretty buggy. Until we see improvements, I would save your $4. If anyone has had a better experience, by all means share in the comments.

Current iTunes Rating: 2.5 stars

My Rating: 2 stars

Price: $3.99

iTunes Link: SignMyPad

From the Google blog: “You can now view them with a single click — no need to download, save, and open files with a desktop application when you just want read them. The Google Docs viewer that allows you to view .pdf, .ppt, and .tiff files in your browser now supports .doc and .docx formats too.”

All you have to do is click the “View” link at the bottom of your Gmail, and you can edit the file by clicking “Edit online.”

So now that you can use Excel, Word, and Powerpoint online through Google Docs, do you even need to buy MS office anymore? For the fairly simple tasks that real estate agents and brokers perform everyday, what functions does the desktop version of office provide that the Google cloud doesn’t?

I searched around for something REALTOR® friendly.  Something simple and affordable.  Something that works smooth-like-real-butter, on my desktop, my notebook, my iPad and my iPhone.

I  and settled on a beautifully simple application called Dropbox.  The process is straight forward. If you’re looking for a simple synching solution, I think you’ll like this.

1. Sign Up for your Drobox account.  2Gigs for free.  50GB for $9.99 per month. Or, 100GB for $19.99 per month.  There are discounts if you pony-up a year in advance.
2. Simply download the software to your computers/mobile devices and launch.  Computer, iPad and iPhone applications are free.
3. Drag previously saved files into your Dropbox folder (See below) and begin saving new important files to your Dropbox folder and you’re good to go.

Most of my important stuff, listing presentations, .PDFs, letters, contracts, photos, slide-decks, etc., I create on my desktop or notebook.  For things I want to have handy anywhere (my desktop, my notebook, my iPad the cloud or my iPhone), I save it to the Dropbox Folder.

Here’s what you get on your computer when you install the Dropbox application.  Notice the Dropbox folder on the left hand side (red arrow).  To sync your files on all your geek stuff, either save new files to the Dropbox folder or drag previously created files from another folder to the Dropbox folder.  The little green-for-go check-mark means the file has been successfully synced (the syncing magic happens quietly in the background).

After you save something, the Dropbox application automagically syncs your stuff to your high-security Dropbox cloud account.  In the unlikely event that you need something important, and heaven forbid, you don’t have your computer/phone/iPad with you, just log on to your secure Drobpox account and get what you need.  Here’s what my Dropbox cloud-account web site looks like:

After you save a file to one of your Dropbox enabled devices, or the cloud site, the next time any of your devices is connected to the internet, your files are synced.  You can open any file, change it, save it, and it’ll be good to go on all you devices.  Plus everything you need is everywhere you need it.  Very simple, very affordable and very cool.  The Dopbox app for mobil devices has some cool forwarding and sharing features too.

For the iPad, I recommend you buy (.99cents) the GoodReader.com application.  This cool app, syncs with Dropbox and gives you magical viewing powers. You can open and read the most popular and common file types. Yes, Mac and PC.

OK.  That’s it.  I imagine there are other solutions, this one works great for me and I know it’ll work great for you too.  If you get started, within a few minutes, all your important stuff will be everywhere you are, whenever you need it – Geek Sync completed.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers.

Here’s a summary from Microsoft about the Microsoft Tag technology:

Microsoft Tag is a breakthrough technology that transforms everyday things in the real world into live links to online information and entertainment.

From your mobile phone, simply snap or scan a Tag image anywhere you see it – in editorials, advertisements, product packaging, signs and storefronts – and gain instant access to Websites, videos, reviews, schedules, contact information, social networks, discounts, promotions and more!

All you need to do is download the free Tag reader on your web enabled camera phone and when you see a Tag, snap or scan it to interact with the world around you in new ways!

For today’s demonstration about the new technology from Microsoft, I set out to see how hard/long this would take. I’m happy to report that it took less than 5 minutes to get setup and running with Microsoft Tag. That’s right, I had this technology implemented and running on my phone and my site in under 5 minutes.

In today’s example, I’ll be using my profile from a new site that we launched this week – Real Estate Agent Resume. The possibilities are endless for real estate applications.

Example of using 2D Barcode Reading on your social profiles

 
After working at CareerBuilder for all those years (8 actually), resumes are very near and dear to my heart. I always thought it would be cool to give real estate agents a way to share their ‘public’ real estate resume if you will…and those ideas all culminated into the launch of a new site which we rolled out this week: Real Estate Agent Resume.

I’ll be using my profile on REAR as the example of how the Microsoft Tagging platform can be implemented, but you can easily use any link, URL, landing page, etc. for combining Microsoft Tags and your online presence.

You might be wondering what the differences are between Microsoft Tag and QR Codes. That article goes over the advantages/disadvantages of each type. In a nutshell, Microsoft Tag will allow you to create a unique tag that can be tied directly to any page, site, URL, etc. (Think your home page, Twitter URL, Facebook Profile, you name it). You can then print that tag out, put it on a listing flyer, business card, heck, even your car window if you wanted.

Next, anyone with a mobile device using the Microsoft tag reader just snaps a picture of your tag and voila, they’re taken directly to your URL that was associated with that Tag.

Creating and using your first Microsoft Tag

 
Creating a new tag is very simple. Once you’re logged into your account, just click create Tag, then assign a URL to the tag you’re creating. After tag creation, you’ll see it in your list of available tags to manage like so:

From here, you can download, email, print and take actions on the tag. If you wanted to get the tag as a PDF or JPG to use inside a flyer or on a site, just download the tag. Here’s my tag I created for my profile page on Real Estate Agent Resume:

If you’ve downloaded the Microsoft Tag Reader to your phone – (Currently supported OS/Devices include: Android,Blackberry,iPhone,J2ME,Java 2 Micro Edition,PalmOS,Symbian S60,Symbian S60 1st Edit,Symbian S60 2nd Edit,Symbian S60 3rd Edit,Symbian S60 5th Edit,Windows Mobile,Windows Phone), take a picture of the tag above with your phone and you’ll be taken directly to my profile page on REAR.

There are so many uses for this application in the Real Estate space – I’d love to hear what you all think? Do you think Microsoft Tag will catch on? If so, how can you see yourself using it?

Cheers, Matthew

Useful links from this article:
Download the Microsoft Tag Reader to your phone

Tag and QR code differences

Microsoft Tag

                As one of the “Original BarCampers” dating back to its inception in S.F., prior to the Inman convention in 2008, I was desperate for a way to bring back the “True Spirit” of REBarCamps to the new and innovative “Virtual” BarCamp! When it was first suggested, as an “Anti-Convention” idea that fateful summer, we wanted a face-to-face exchange of ideas, in a relaxed atmosphere where true learning & innovation had an opportunity to blossom. We wanted to exchange “best practices” to further the advancement of technology in the Real Estate space through open dialogue. Then we wanted true exchange of currency at the local Pub for some “Icy Cold” ones afterwards! Some of my best relationships in this business came from that combination

                I’m not condemning the “Virtual” concept, quite the opposite; this new way of bringing REBarCamp to the masses is exactly the type of thing we were getting together for in 2008! I get it. I embrace it. I also wanted to keep that original spirit alive, thus the concept of “Meetups”!

A Meetup is simply an organized gathering of Virtual BarCamp participants in a single location, logging into the Webinars, as they are projected onto a common screen in the room. Its people gathering to exchange thoughts and wisdom, while the whole time having fun socializing and learning. And, it’s Awesome!

I could drone on and on about this, but I thought it better to let you hear it from the Participants themselves…Thanks so much for the great testimonials everyone….

“Eric - Thank you for being such a great host” 

“The virtual bar camp, while full of good information and speakers, has the potential to be an isolated event with only short conversations occurring in the chat rooms or on twitter. Thank you to the Pango Group and First Team for hosting the VREBC Meetup in Costa Mesa and providing a space to have real dialog! Some of the greatest value for me came from the people IN the room not online. After all, the sharing of ideas isn’t a one-way street and sometimes needs more than 140 characters.

Paul Mobley, MBA

CEO | Broker

Infinite ROI, Inc.

“I wanted to thank you for creating the opportunity to meet and share thoughts and ideas at 1st meet-up Virtual Bar Camp!

The lay out was fantastic and the fact that you were so gracious in providing lunch, meant that we were able to focus on the sessions given and then had the opportunity to discuss among ourselves what was said, what we thought and in some cases, given a different perspective, which is something that I always appreciate!   

On the plus side, it was great to bounce ideas off one another, on the downside, if we got carried away in conversation, it made it difficult to listen to the rest of the session…that was the only drawback for me…other than that…. 

I met some great new people, we shared wonderful thoughts on the realm of Social Media and how it affects us individually, and even were able to brainstorm ideas about creating your brand as your own…

 I thank you again and look forward to the next opportunity to meet some more great people!” 

Amanda Wernick

@FUNomenalRealtr

“Eric, thank you so much for sponsoring the VREBC meetup Monday.  It was very well organized and very informative.  My head is spinning with all the information and suggestions provided by the “presenters”, Stacy Harmon, Mike Mueller, Reel Productions, Nicolays, Brad Inman,etc. The list is too long to cover them all.  I’m looking forward to the next VREBC.  I will have progressed in my Social Media experience by then and will move up the knowledge ladder one more step.  Can’t wait!”

Maren Sutton

First Team Estates

www.LivinOnTheCoast.com

The next VREBC is slated for April of this year, and it is the hope of it’s organizers to have one quarterly. Start talking about the possibility of hosting your own Meetup, in your area or office. I promise you, it will be the best day of learning you have had in a long time. For more info on this, visit http://VirtualBarCamp.com for all the news, or become a fan of VREBC on Facebook!

If you would like help setting one up, we have been through it now, and have learned a great deal about how to do it. We are happy to share it wiith you, eager to lend a hand. Please send me an email at EBryant@PangoGroup.com and I will walk you through it….And Yes, you better believe we will be having another Meetup in Orange County in April, as well as a few others throughout California, hosted by other members of The Pango Group Business Development team! Watch our Blog http://PangoGroup.com for deatils, or again, send me an email and I will put you on the VREBC Distribution List!

Thanks as always…and a very Happy New Year!

The Coach