COMPUTER TIPS FEBRUARY 1995
Ron Sodos
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In the last few years Realtors have been introduced to software that allow
us to give wonderful graphics presentations to buyers and sellers. Stellar
Vision was introduced to us a couple of years ago and I am aware that only
a few of us were using it. Altaira presently offers an incredible graphics
display and an ability to manipulate and export these graphics that is
second to none. Real estate professionals while in the field can sit with
people and preview color pictures in order to get a feel for what they might
be looking for, as well as for sellers when doing a CMA. The benefits of
this type of time saver are tremendous. One thing we can do with these
pictures that I find truly delightful as well as being one of the most
advanced tools is the ability to send these pictures across Email systems.
A picture can easily be taken from Altaira and converted to a compatible
format. After doing so, the picture file can be sent in an instant as Email
across information sysyems like CompuServe to any location in the world
Best of all this is done with a local phone call. The benefits are unlimited
for communicating with out of town buyers, as you can imagine. I am hoping
that in time to come the RIN (Realtors R Information Network), that we
have been reading about in the national newspaper and magazine lately,
will offer us national MLS services as well as Email and file transfers.
This way we can offer many other services to our customers and clients.
Here is a graphic image that was taken directly from Altaira. After
I converted it to a compatible file format and with a little help from
a photo editing software I was easily able to install it into this
newsletter. Of course the final product is only as good as the original
picture taken. Some of the pictures are wonderful and some are not.
The example here is a listing of mine in Bosque Farms and it seems to
have been taken when the sun was a little behind the house. I had to use
my photo editing software to lighten the image or it would only seem
like a shadow.
Some of these graphics procedures are not at all new to us.
StellarVision has been available for a couple of years and already
has some of these functions. Windows allows a "Drag & Drop" feature
that makes working with graphics a bit easier. However, Windows requires
more memory and a bigger hard drive. For those of you that do not feel
like spending the extra money to set up a Windows environment these
graphics capabilities are available to you as well.
I have mentioned this concept in every newsletter I have written.
I want to spend a little more time on this because as I make my rounds
in the Albuquerque area I realize it is not being understood. Whenever
you work in a program, whether it is a word processor, spread sheet or
database the information (data) you enter is saved in a particular file
format. This can be observed in DOS or in Windows file manager. If you
ever wondered what you were looking at when you saw lists of characters
with EXE, or COM or DAT at the end this is what you were looking at.
There are many different types of files. A file is given a particular
extension in order so the computer knows what the file is. For example
an *.exe file means executable(does something). A *.dat file is a data
file. A *.dbt file is a database file and so on. There are different
graphics files like *.bmp(bitmap) etc. The reason this is significant
is because the extension of a file is where the determination is made
whether a program will read the file. Database files like *.dbf can be
read by many different programs. Graphics images like *.bmp and *.tif
can be read by many programs. If you spend $300 or more on a particular
program and find out it does not read other programs files it is not an
acceptable program in my opinion. Before you purchase software educate
yourself on the types of file extensions the program will import.
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