Real Estate Technology (Experiments & Expressions)

Death By Random Blogging

Jason Ungos — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 03:08:07 +0000

Hats off to the non-professional bloggers out there that keep their blogs fresh and alive! For me, it’s yet another day night to resuscitate this blog with some of the hidden gems in my dusty drafts trove. But I won’t venture there quite yet. For this post, the question to answer is, "What have I been up to?"

Let’s see…

Coding Wordpress and Wordpress, and using Wordpress
Silverlight, C#, and .NET experimentation
Map mashing and AJAXifying
Prettying people up and just making them look good (Photoshopping and Marketing)
Wondering if I’ll ever be able to backup 20GB worth of data online, and
Entertaining some new business partnerships
Lots of fun traveling

Stay tuned for more!

New Subversion (SVN) Setup

Jason Ungos — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:29:23 +0000

There’s been a lot of interest in the One Search plugin I recently released. To allow people to play a little and see where things are at, I setup subversion and a way to browse the code. So far only one project is up there, but I’ll probably be adding more.

Subversion is a development tool to manage changes in code. Unless you’re a developer, or just generally curious, it’s not going to be all that interesting to you. If you do check things out, don’t forget to give some feedback.

One Search WPMU Plugin Available For Download

Jason Ungos — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 05:56:17 +0000

Version 0.1 of the One Search WPMU Plugin is now available for download. I’m making it available so you can use and abuse it. Try it out and let me know how it goes for you.

Remember, this is beta (uh, more like alpha) software and has been barely tested. It works with:

WPMU 1.3.3
MySQL 5.0
PHP 5.2.5

As you use, it please let me know what version you’ve been able to get it running on. I appreciate any feedback that can improve the plugin.

Multi-Blog Search Plugin

Jason Ungos — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 08:09:06 +0000

I’ll be releasing a search plugin for WordPress MU. It’s doing the job, but I would love a few others to test it. If you’re interested, leave me a comment or email me.

Why another search plugin?

Well, this one is written specifically for the WPMU. There are a few plugins that already do this, but they all require some kind of core file hacking, running some back-end cron job, or modifying the default templates. I wanted something that was completely plug-n-play.

If you had an ideal global WPMU search plugin, what would be on your wishlist?

Updated: No Feed Plugin

Jason Ungos — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 02:55:32 +0000

I updated the No Feed WordPress plugin this week. It now accurately issues a “404 Error Not Found” for disabled feeds. It will also correctly display your default 404 template.

Get the update.

Attachment Category Updater WordPress Plugin

Jason Ungos — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:39:07 +0000

When you add an attachment to a WordPress post, the attachment inherits the post’s categories. However, future changes to a post’s categories are not reflected in the attachment. The Attachment Category Updater WordPress plugin fixes that.

This can be beneficial for tag or category searches, and even for custom attachment archives.

If you use it, let me know!

Download page: Attachment Category Updater WordPres Plugin

No Feed WordPress Plugin

Jason Ungos — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I came across a thread in WordPress support about someone needing to remove all feeds. There was no need for password protection or limited access. They just needed the feeds deleted. Download the plugin that will remove all feeds.

I’d agree that simply deleting the feed-* files would be sufficient and acceptable. However, whenever I hack (or remove) core files, I add extra work for myself when it comes time to upgrade. The added work comes in remembering to delete those files with every upgrade.

The solution? A plugin. WordPress has a great framework for plugins. And that’s why there are so many great ones. So here it is… The No Feed WordPress Plugin.

If you use it, let me know!

Download page: No Feed WordPress Plugin

Walk Score, Real Estate Ratings

Jason Ungos — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 00:22:00 +0000

Buyers are typically need to be sold on a neighborhood before they can be sold on house. If you have a great walkable neighborhood, you might want to flaunt your Walk Score™.

How To Sync Everything With Everywhere

Jason Ungos — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 17:28:00 +0000

If you’re anything like me (which I don’t think anyone would want to admit!), you have data all over the place. And that’s even considering the highly organized systems that you’ve put in place such as using Outlook and/or Google Apps. The main reason isn’t lack of organization. It’s lack of synchronization. But there’s a solution!

ScheduleWorld, an online app, can help bring you back to bliss by synchronizing your calendars, tasks, and even contacts. It can do this for multiple computers, across multiple operating systems, and even different applications. ScheduleWorld leverages open protocols to talk with services such as Google Calendar and your desktop software.

Here’s what I’m doing. I’m just starting the testing process, but so far so good. I manage my calendar in Outlook 2003 on a WinXP box, Thunderbird (via Lightning and Provider) on Ubuntu and Google when I’m somewhere else. I also manage tasks and contacts (not syncing yet with Google Apps) using the same software. * Yes, I realize I could use Thunderbird on Windows, but I thought having more applications would make for a better experiment.

I signed up for a ScheduleWorld account and am now on my way to syncing everything with everywhere. Pretty slick, but not quite perfect yet.

Are you using ScheduleWorld or think you might? Share your experience.

Best Free Solution: Blog, Website, Email, More

Jason Ungos — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 18:54:00 +0000

I got into a conversation with someone (NB) who was looking for a free way to host their blog. I suggested Blogger, but was immediately shotgunned with:

It’s not secure.
I want my own domain.
It’s not flexible enough.
I can’t upload documents.

In the end, he needed much more than a blog. Here’s our conversation (roughly)…

Me: It’s not secure?

NB: No, I want to require people to login to see my blog. I don’t want it available for the whole world to see.

Me: Blogger has a privatize feature that does just that.

NB: It’s still inflexible. I can’t have normal web pages (non-blog posts). That’s why I use Google Pages. But I don’t really like that either, I’d rather have my own domain [instead of nb.googlepages.com or nb.blogspot.com].

Me: Blogger let’s you have a custom domain. I actually use that on my site. But for your needs you want something a little more than just a private blog. You should take a look at Google Apps. By signing up for their free service, you can use your domain with Google Pages. You’ll also be able to use your own domain for Gmail.

I know that you distribute documents through your website, too. With Google Docs (part of Google Apps), you can have your documents published to your blog, while adding the ability to collaborate with other users.

Whether or not its security is ready for the enterprise, Google Apps can play a powerful role for mobile users, families, non-profits, and small businesses. You get email, document management, shared calendars, and more.

Give Google Apps a try and share your experience here! Would you use it?