- VIEWING WEB PAGES OFFLINE

Over the last few months, it has become obvious that most people attending my seminars are quite impressed with my ability to "surf the web" without actually being online.

Typically, what intrigues agents the most is the idea of being able to show off their own personal web sites to buyers and sellers during open houses and listing presentations, respectively.

What a great idea!

While I use several different tools to achieve this result, the most effective is also the cheapest - free!

The latest version of Internet Explorer (5.x) offers quite a few new functional enhancements (more on these in future issues) but the most impressive is the ability to capture web pages for viewing offline.

How it works is simple. Whenever you choose to add a website to your "favorites" there's now a checkbox for "Make available offline" and selecting this option is all you have to do!

After that, any pages you visit from links on that site will be stored to your local hard drive for viewing offline in the future.

Thus, if you want to display a website (yours or anyone else's) offline, you simply need to be online once, in order to visit all of the links you'll want to present later. If your site has 10 pages, just follow links to load each one once, and that's it!

Now, when you're in front of your client, customer or an audience, all you need to do is start IE and choose the saved site from you "favorites." If you're offline, the browser will ask if you would like to view "offline" or if you want to "connect." Choose "offline" and you'll now be able to display all of the pages you had previously visited!

NOTE: You perform also this magic with existing "favorites" by editing their "properties" and selecting the "make available offline" checkbox from there.

ADVANCED USER TIP: There's just one limitation, you can't save pages that are accessed through a search function, only by following links. So, if your site has a "link" to your listings, you're all set. But, if instead, you have a search script to access your listings, then you'll simply need to save each listing as a separate link.

For this reason, and quite a few others, if you're still working with an older version of IE, it's time to upgrade. And, yes, it's still free.

Simply go to: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/ and get the latest version for yourself!

- EFAX UPS THE ANTE AGAIN

Efax.com has once again upped the Internet fax ante! Latest upgrades to the service now include the ability to:

• Convert faxes to text
• Store your faxes on their server
• Send faxes via the Internet for .05 cents a page
• Have your own 800 fax number
• Preview faxes before downloading
• Forward electronic faxes to others
• Create Internet fax distribution lists.

To review the prices, which range from free to dirt cheap, just visit: http://www.efax.com/

- REALTOR.COM UNVEILS ILEAD WEBSITES

If you haven't looked at REALTOR.com in the last few days, now is the time to do so. Homestore.com has unveiled full- featured personal websites to replace the simple webpage advertisements of the past.

The new program is called iLead and is truly an amazing implementation of the latest Internet technology!

The personal web sites now come in two service levels: silver and platinum.

ILead Silver contains a:

• Personal homepage
• Contact page
• Link to your listings
• Link to your agents (for office sites only)

• Online mortgage calculator
• Neighborhood Information
• CMA Request
• Mortgage pre-qualification request
• Find a home assistance
• A list of your favorite real estate links

Best of all, existing REALTOR.com customers can (for a limited time) upgrade the old version of the product to iLead Silver for free; and can upgrade to Platinum for just $249.

- ANOTHER TOOL FOR CLEARING OUT JUNK EMAIL

As mass marketers continue to ramp up their "junk email" capabilities, it's not uncommon to spend half of your email downloading time waiting for messages you don't even want to receive!

While there are many ways to minimize the great inconveniences caused by junk email, one of the latest is a simple new program: Email Remover

I've been using this tool for a few months now, and what it does is so brilliant, I just wish I'd thought of it first!

First, visit http://eremover.bizhosting.com/ to download the software. Then install the program and give it your existing email account information.

Once you've done that, you can now use Email Remover to check you email and delete the junk BEFORE downloading it to your computer!

How it works is simple:

1. You start Email Remover before checking your email and it goes to the Internet and checks your account.
2. Email Remover retrieves just the "headers" of waiting messages and lets you select those you wish to delete
3. After removing the junk mail, Email Remover then will start your regular email program (Eudora, in my case) for you and allow it to download just the messages you really wanted in the first place!

It's fast, easy and FREE!