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Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Major Thing #2: The Little House That Could (Sell?)
As some of you know, our house has been on and off the market since last August. Back in November we re-listed the house after firing our old real estate agent for being a pervert. Yes, really.
We went to Mexico a day or three after we listed the house, and let the real estate agents bring as many people through as they liked. As we were sipping mojitos in the pool bar, they held a few open houses and caravans, but there were no bites despite the house being listed a lot more reasonably dollar-wise than it had been with the previous agent. Yes, he was not only a pervert, he was a crappy real estate agent.
Christmas obviously put a dent in the number of people wanting to see the house (which really, was a relief), but come January, interest picked up again and finally we have interested buyers! There is currently a conditional offer on the house that is a solid one, but all hinges on if the buyers sell their house.
The home inspection is tonight and I’m having mild heart attacks all day worrying about it.
The thing about these buyers is that they want to move in the end of February. Their house has a 30 day close and subsequently they want our house FAST when theirs sells. Every day I pack a little more into boxes, and stack them neatly in the basement. Every day I panic about where we are going to live at the end of February which would be our closing date. Obviously we will have to rent a townhouse and we plan on doing that near Dylan’s school because the new house won’t be ready until summer (as long as everything with this house goes smoothly).
I really can’t set anything into motion because if their house doesn’t sell by February 8th (the deadline on the offer), we won’t have to move. Yet, anyway.
I’m also under the impression that this couple is quite um, meticulous. As they should be of course, it’s a huge investment. We’re provided full disclosure on everything so there are no surprises, but the age of the furnace is the biggest worry. Daren has prevented the death stabilized the health of the furnace 4-5 times with heavy petting and sweet talk the help of a friend in the business and we’re just hoping it holds out long enough for us to get the hell out of here.
We’ve picked the lot for the new house and we are looking at floor plans. I have dreams of main level laundry, a bigger kitchen and the dream neighbourhood. We also have enough in the budget to replace all our our furniture and buy me a used SUV. Hello Stepford, Goodbye Sickly Geriatric Furnace!
Honestly, we just want to get ON with our lives. We aren’t as stressed out as we were in the beginning - at least, we weren’t until this couple put an offer on the house. Now I keep imagining the home inspection going horribly wrong and they back out.
Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go scrub the inside of all my appliances for the 5th time and wipe down every surface in the house with pink glittery luck.
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Dopplr makes blip on Facebook
Dopplr: Where Next?
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
I have a confession to make: I’m fascinated by geographically oriented Web apps. When Flickr came out with photo maps, I spent hours and hours browsing aimlessly. For awhile, I was wasting almost as much time there as I do on Wikipedia.
Now there is no shortage of locational services available. Some are better than others, but I make it a point to try every one I stumble across.
My most recent fascination is the site Dopplr. It’s a social travel site that allows users to log and share trips with friends and others who have similar travel habits. Dopplr also provides travel journals for jotting down travel notes.
Like many startups Dopplr has decided to cash in on the Facebook horde with the launch of an app dubbed “Where Next?” Dopplr’s Facebook presence is as simple as they come. It binds to a user’s Dopplr account and feeds a list of the next few trips into the user’s profile.
The functionality is sparse, but I find a subtle elegance in its simplicity. It doesn’t raise any question or cause any confusion, it completes the simple task of meshing Dopplr with Facebook and for that I commend it.
Technorati Tags: dopplr, where next? facebook, facebook platform, travel
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Facebook Extented Profiles is Live
Facebook Extented Profiles is Live: We had blogged about this upcoming profile page change previously. As a way to help people remove the application clutter on their profile pages facebook has implemented extended profiles and the associated clean up tool.
Basically it moves other facebook applications that you select to an extended secondary page very easily. The link to the extended page now will sit at the bottom of your profile page. While this might look like a nice housekeeping tool; it is effectively like sweeping the dirt under the carpet instead of a full spring cleaning. 
Facebook implemented Extended Profiles for 2 reasons:
1. To keep the user experience clean and show a less cluttered profile page. (not like Myspace)
2. To speed up page delivery. Lots of applications on your profile page increased load times and burdens their servers significantly.
I can see all the facebook app developers watch their engagement rates take a dip starting today. The competition for applications to make it onto facebook users main profile page puts the onus on designing and building a more engaging application that users feel is worthy of their valuable profile page real estate.
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