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(This is an HTML version of the LangaList. The
content is identical The LangaListA free email newsletter about A Personal Issue Other times, personal matters occupy the time I normally use to write and distribute this newsletter. That's what happened this week. Normally, I do the LangaLetter on Sundays, but this past weekend we were in New Hampshire negotiating on a new house. My wife and I moved to New York 6+ years ago when CMP hunted my head and asked me to leave Byte Magazine to help start Windows Magazine. When I left CMP to resume freelancing late last year, we started looking to move back to New Hampshire, and this weekend, we were doing the final negotiations on a great house we found: It's on a hill overlooking Great Bay; a tidal creek forms one boundary of the property. the current owners have let the house and grounds go a bit, but when we've spruced things up and cleared some brush, we should have a nice house with a great view. We'll be knocking down some walls to create an office space for me; I'm looking forward to working in the new space. But there's more to this than just telling you why the LangaList is late this week. You see, we found the house on the Internet. Actually, my wife did most of the research. She used Homescout (http://www.homescout.com), HomeListings (http://www.homelistings.com) and the Real Estate Book Online (http://www.treb.com) to identify houses with the features we wanted in the region of interest. She also used the Web to research the towns in the area---she got information on local schools, taxes, recreational opportunities, environmental issues and so on. Before ever leaving our current home, she was able to winnow out hundreds of homes that failed one or more of our requirements and to zero in on 20 or so that looked promising. I created a web page of web pages and we had a family meeting to look at the photos and comparison shop, all online. We further winnowed the list. The last steps did take on-site work--there was no way we'd base a purchase decision as large as a house on just a photo and a glowing description. But the use of the web probably cut the home-search time by 75% or more. My wife is starting a new job in New Hampshire. On her first trip, she took my digital camera and visited the semi-finalist houses we'd selected. She documented every room and every exterior, from every angle. When she returned home, I made more local web pages so we could again compare the houses. We narrowed the search to two finalists. Last weekend---instead of doing the newsletter 8-)---we packed the kids in the car and drove to see the houses in detail and to have formal home inspections done. We made our choice and signed an offer. Today, as I was writing the paragraph that begins "My wife..." the fax machine came to life and spat out a final contract for our initials. It's already sent back---we're committed! On this end, we're working with a real estate agency that will put our home on their web site. I prepared a "highlights sheet" with specs and some digital photos I'd taken of our house last Summer. I printed out the highlight sheet on an Epson Stylus 600 color printer, using 1440 DPI resolution on photo-quality inkjet printer; the photos came out crisp and the printing looks like letterpress quality. The broker was impressed enough to use it as-is instead of using stuff from the local print shop. I also created a simple "house for sale" web page we've been pointing people to on our own (http://www.langa.com/house4sale/) . Our house officially went on the market at noon today with a luncheon/open house for real estate brokers. We had 80 agents come through the house, and by 2:30 had our first offer. Our broker thinks we'll sell within a week or two! So now you know two things--- why the LangaList is late, and what you can do using the internet and your PC to take charge of the usually ugly, almost-out-of-control process of buying and selling a house. 8-) Final Days of the Sneak Preview---just for
LangaList subscribers! Meanwhile, the same stuff is available in a private preview at Langa.Com. Since last week, I've further refined the links between sections and have a new, faster-loading logo for the HotSpots page and section. Take a look! All-New HotSpot "Hall Of Fame" Archives: http:/browsertune/archives/ I'm getting some great suggestions for DHTML pages--- thanks to all who've responded! Most of these use Microsoft's version of DHTML. While I'd love to see any and all cool examples of any flavor of DHTML, I'd especially appreciate pointers to pages using Netscape's version. There don't seem to be a lot of those out there. Hmmm. If you've seen or have built web pages using Layers, DHTML, great scripting or whatever, please drop me a note (at fred@langa.com) with a pointer to the page, or attach a sample page to the email. If I can use your page as the basis of a test or example, I'll give you credit, on-screen, in the final version of BrowserTune98---millions of people will see your work! 8-) And to those of you who have sent in samples and URLs---thanks! Keep 'em coming! WINDOWS Magazine Online Forums What's your take on channels? Do you find Web
channel-hopping almost as lackluster as the television variety? Or have you
found great ones that you subscribe to and recommend? I'd love to hear of some
great Web channels! Come join the discussion at http://content.techweb.com/winmag//bbs/columns/archives/011898/tuesday/column.htm?frames=yes. Online news ought to be great in content and delivery. Whether text, audio, or video, online news should be able to marry all we’ve learned over the years with newspapers, radio, and TV to produce something that’s the best of all those media. But instead, we often get the worst. I'll give you examples of good, bad, and awful online news services. Please come share (at http://www.langa.com/badlink.htm) your favorite news site---and warn us away from the really bad ones! Back to Normal Next Week! See you next week!
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