February 2009 Archives

President Barack Obama made headlines this month as he signed into law a $787 billion stimulus bill that aims to prop up the economy by cutting taxes, creating jobs and investing in the nation's infrastructure. The bill also contains several housing stimulus provisions that, in combination with low interest rates and rock-bottom pricing, may encourage buyers to take advantage of this unique market:

One of the curious things about the comment form is a request for your Website URL. Providing it is completely optional. So, why even have it? Here's why:

1. It provides readers a link to you website (we hope you have one). The reader might even be a consumer which has the potential of being good for your business.
2. It becomes an outgoing link to you for search engines. The DAAR Website enjoys a relatively high Google rank and, when we link to you Google will add a bit of importance to your website for ranking purposes. Who would not want that? It gets even better when your Website is a Blog.

Conversely, do you have a link to DAAR from your Website or Blog? We are not talking "link farms" here. Search engines will tend to ignore those. What we do mean is a place on your Website (maybe a page) where you discuss the association you belong to and the benefits of membership with a link to DAAR. That link becomes more relevant BECAUSE it has context (the real estate related words and sentences around the link).

So, the next time you leave a comment, insert your URL into the space provided and click the "remember ..." box so it gets filled in automatically the next time you want to leave a comment.

IMPORTANT: The URL needs to be complete with the http:// so it might look like this using DAAR as an example:

Each year, DAAR's Honor Society and REALTOR® of the Year awards publicly recognize the high professional achievement of members who seek excellence through education, rise to the top in sales production and voluntarily contribute their expertise, time and skills to the association and their community.  Honor Society members and DAAR's REALTOR of the Year award recipient represent the best of the best in real estate professionalism.

If you use Internet Explorer upgrade to Version 7. Why?

• It is safer. Older versions of Internet Explorer were full of bugs and contained numerous security issues.
• It is more compatible with web standards. Microsoft is notorious for creating it's own proprietary standards that are not compatible with the rest of the world. IE 7 is the best effort to adhere to web standards. What this means to you is almost all websites will be presented to you correctly.
• Supports tabbed browsing.
• Supports RSS feeds.
  

Don't know what version you have? Click Help on the Menu Bar then select About Internet Explorer. If it is Version 6. or less, I highly recommend upgrading.

Upgrading is relatively easy. Just go to the IE7 Upgrade Page.

Is there an alternative to Microsoft Internet Explorer? Yes ...
Firefox is rapidly gaining ground on Microsoft as the browser of choice. Why?

• Firefox is faster. It is not bloated with unnecessary progreaming code.
• Firefox is safer. Although not perfect, Firefox has far fewer security issues. And, when they are found, they are fixed faster.
• Firefox was built supporting web standards.
• Firefox invented tabbed browsing.
• Firefox was among the first to support RSS feeds.

The best part? You can have Firefox on your PC right along side Internet Explorer.

To download and install Firefox, go to the Mozilla Website.