Computer Tips March 1995
Ron Sodos
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In the last few years Realtors have been introduced to software that
allows us to give wonderful graphics presentations to buyers and sellers.
StellarVision 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
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. It depends on how the picture was
originally taken. 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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