According to a NAR Tech survey report Mac OSX was being used by on;y by 4% of the total Realtor workforce in 2007.  Surely that number has increased in 2008, and surely that number is greater in the Bay Area.   However, there is no doubt a vast majority of Real Estate agents use Windows-based machines, at work and at home.

Its just a fact that I find curious.  Sales people, the majority of the good ones, are first and foremost relationship people, and often the character traits of a people-person often conflicts with being “tech-savvy”.    Solving tech problems, tweaking hours upon hours to make machines and software work as geeks love to do…is not what people-savvy people do.

Now Real Estate sales people are the extreme example of this.  I mean yes, a whole flock of tech savvy marketing people went into real estate after the internet bubble pop, but most are out of it by now.   Some are successful, over the internet, I suppose.  But I still maintain the best agents are the face-to-face experts, the small talking, listening, caring, social extroverts that tech people often are not.  Tech savvy people usually don’t talk or listen to their computers (unless in expletives), they focus and solve, alone.

Now the  PC is a relationship tool, a communications tool, and a very necessary tool mostly for when not face to face.   The thing is the people savvy people are told by the tech savvy people they need to use Windows.  Yes they are…either directly, or by de facto, because of the usual MLS or web site dependency on Microsoft products.  Like this interesting advice:

Is an Apple Smart Real Estate Technology?

By using Fusion (or Parallels) with Windows XP there is no reason to give up the reliability and easibilty of a Mac.  So I don’t get it, other than yeah, someone will have to set it up for the non tech savvy person.  Hmmm, but then there is a lot more tech support cost (er job security?)  by supporting only Windows machines…

From Silicon Alley_insider

Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone and iPod touch customers have downloaded some 300 million software apps since Apple started selling them in July. We estimate that Apple has booked $50 million to $100 million in revenue so from those sales.

So my comment is one way or the other its a growing number. Think of “Touch” as an evolving platform for many products now. Not just for iPods, or iPhones, but hand held gaming, netbooks, etc…its the iTunes model gone bonkers…it’s possible when all this recession smoke clears Apple will own the internet device world.

yes I am.

I don’t know if anyone else has this problem, couldn’t find it on google.  But sometimes when I import files, after converting from flv to mp3, (say from youtube) itunes gets confused on the stop time.  For a  2 minute song for example, its says Stop Time 23:33:09 or something riduculous.  The song still plays fine.  But if you want to do something that depends on it, like cut a regular CD, iTunes figures it in on calculating space….so basically the song takes up the whole CD.  Arg..Can’t fix it in Get Info.  So I am looking for reset or recalculate tool, there isn’t one…What does work is simply “Create WAV version” under the tab setting, simple as that, delete the original mp3.  Convert back to mp3 later if I have time.

Apple Selling during the Depression

Well, the media is all gloom and doom, and it is even hitting the Apple sellers…er, I mean Apple.  Yeah, here is a company that has increased its profit and market share by unbelievable amounts, major cash on hand, (yeah, forget the credit crunch) and has established platform for the next decade that will enable it to enter consumer market areas and cause havoc for competitors like a bull in a china shop.  And Steve Jobs hasn’t even died yet despite the rumors.  Something, somebody somewhere is playing games…the stock is down down down…the negative media is all over the place twisting it, like the mercury news headline “Apple profits beat estimates, but sales disappoint”…huh?  This is a distortion at best, the s Sales as Jobs (as energetic as ever) explained, were the most remarkable in the companies’ history.

I wrote about it here…and I am no apple fanboy.  Well, now I am I guess.  I am wondering, is it politics? Or are we truly entering into a depression.  Well one way or another I think one could do worse than getting into the apple business.