. . .

for breaking into his own house?!?

I don’t know much about the incident itself, nor does anyone else at this point. But years ago, Dr. Gates spoke at my college commencement ceremony (Jesus, I am old). I had the opportunity to speak with him briefly after the ceremony. He was charming, incredibly sharp and, as I recall, impeccably dressed.

I would believe his version of events more than the police, but time will tell. Sad that this can happen in this day and age. . .

I wish him well.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Here is the link to Low’s 5th album, “Things We Lost in The Fire”

Get it now, the link won’t last long. I don’t know who posted it. . . just got it via email.

If you like it, buy the albums. All are masterpieces to my ear.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Five Great Tools for Intermediate Web Design

I have been doing a bit of code writing and experimenting with cascading style sheets. Here are five tools I have been utilizing frequently:

1.  I have been using the Firefox Add-on Firebug.  Once installed, Firebug allows you to see the HTML and CSS code that generates the elements you find on other pages.  It is a great learning tool.

2.  I have also been using pixlr to edit and create backgrounds.  It is a great online editor for those like me without a decent editor on the hard drive.

3.  If you need a title image, or just cool fonts, go to File Cart.  They have more than 10,000 fonts.  If you take the time to search, you will certainly find one that suits your site for a banner image.  Hint: just click on “details” and type in the text you want, copy the image, and you have a 800×90 banner.  If you want it small go to #2 above.

4.  For real tutorials and great examples of best practices go to W3Schools.  They have solved most of the problems I have run into so far.

5.  Finally, Fireshot is what I have been using for screen shots of web pages that I like.  It works like a charm.

Bonus Tip. . . Use Picnik to easily crop and resize photos (like I did on the screenshot from W3Schools above).

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Beginning in April 2007, I started researching and crunching data related to foreclosures in Los Angeles County.  Back in 2007, the idea was to buy homes at auction to fix and flip.  Happily, I avoided buying any homes at that time because I was outbid on every home I was interested in.  But my experience over the last 22 months has allowed me to compile a solid list of resources for finding and analyzing foreclosures in California.

My research led me to several data providers and to several websites that provide better data and more information than others.  Below, I describe my usual method for analyzing an opportunity, and include the sites I utilized regularly.

Basic Principles

I highly recommend Ward’s site, ForeclosureForum, for getting a basic understanding (or even a more advanced education) of the foreclosure process and the various stages of foreclosure.  This is where I started learning.

From there, I began to explore the sites providing data.

Data Providers

There are several data providers for foreclosure data in California.  The best one by far is ForeclosureRadar.com.  It is a web 2.0 site with an easy interface and timely data (updated daily).  My search criteria included zip codes, type of property, auction/reo, lot size, square feet, date of loan, amount of published bid, etc.  The variables searchable are many, and you must find what works for you.  But FR is a great value at roughly $50/month.

Other data providers include:

County Records Research – A solid provider, but more  expensive and less useful interface. One option to improve this source is to use CRRPro software, but the end result is still inferior in my opinin to FR.

RETRAN – I used this site prior to finding FR.  It has good data, but is less user-friendly.  Still, it is a good option, albeit a bit pricey.

I do not recommend (and will not link to) realtytrac.com or foreclosure.com, or any of the other sites that seem to rank well in google.  I don’t know why anyone would find these sites useful, especially considering that they are (probably) getting their data from one of the above sites, and generally are inferior in every way to the sites linked above.

Researching a Property

There are many sites that provide details about a specific property when you type in an address.  I have used Trulia, LALife, Zillow and Movoto to start my quest for more details.  I prefer LALife because I could get APN numbers, detailed information on square footage, lot size, comps in the neighborhood, sales history, and the birdseye view showing me the neighborhood and the state of the house as of the date on the satellite photo.

I also usually pull up the address on Google, and see what the first few listings are.  If there is anything about the home, the owner, or any other related information, I pull it up.  Otherwise, Iclick through to the map on Google Maps.

You may have your own preference for those sites.  But I do recommend LALife, especially if you haven’t seen it before AND you are interested in property in LA County.

Once I have seen the detailed information, I then go to government sites.  The links here are particular to LA County, but you can probably find similar links for your county.  For parcel information, go here.  For property tax information, go here (accept the terms and search using the APN).

After verifying that you are interested in the property, you can contact a title company to get a report verifying lien priority and title information, or you can research it yourself.  I went to the county building in Norwalk to do the research myself when I started.  But that was time consuming and tedious.  However, I highly recommend that you do this at first AND pay for a title report from a reputable title company.  By researching the title by hand (searching by name(s)), you learn a great deal about the foreclosure process that you really should know!

At this stage, you know enough about the property that it looks promising.  But now you need to put eyes on it.  Did it burn down?  Is it a crack house?  Is it well-maintained?  Is it occupied?

Go see the place and find out.  There is no excuse for not looking.  It is amazing what you will learn by going out and looking at the property.  If you plan to buy at auction, you have to go see the property before you go to bid.  Period.

[. . . to be continued in part II. .  .]

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

As I am reorganizing my life to accommodate a full time job, taking care of my son (and myself), and working on my new business ventures, I am coming across interesting stashes of information. Some of the stashes–like notes from great seminars and lists made while bored at the other ones–are full of arcane super specific information.

But the most interesting thing I have found so far are collections of links that relate to specific ideas.  One example is a group of links related to a water bottling idea I had a few years ago.  I won’t go into details, since I still think I might want to attempt to make a business around the idea at some point.  But the links included really specific details:  i.e. (1) a company selling inline filling assembly lines (I love the schematics), and (2) a link to a trade show related to the industry.

But the sheer randomness of other stashes of links is what is most intriguing.  So, for your entertainment and edification (and my convenience), I am listing below the contents of my google bookmarks before I clean it out.

(1) From Geekpreneur, an article regarding minimizing failure in a new business.

(2) a list of 50 sites to assist you in finding information on anyone, anywhere.

(3) Bizben, a site with a huge number of listings of businesses for sale in California.

(4) CookingForEngineers, a fabulous site for finding recipes that are logical and easy to follow for beginning cooks.  I love food, and I found a kick-ass ratatouille recipe there.

(5) A faxing site that allows a free fax online (I used it while in the Cayman Islands to avoid paying several dollars for each page of a 30 page real estate agreement).

(6) The Ubiquity Tutorial.  If you are not using Firefox AND Ubiquity, you are missing out.

(7) A tool to convert youTube videos to other formats.

(8) Online machine shop – allows you to design and spec just about anything and then have it made for a very reasonable price.  I truly believe that this is one of the harbingers of things to come.  Genius!

(9) Ever need a stop watch?

(10) 100 free podcasts to expand your horizons.

(11) Free summaries of business books.  They do a great job for the most part.

(12) Sun Run Solar, a different model for implementation of solar panel  technology.

(13) TED – Ideas Worth Spreading indeed.

(14) Searchengineguide.com’s web marketing guide.  Worth your time to read.

(15) TransitionCulture – a great little site about sustainability and self-reliance.

(16) Urban Permaculture Guild is a wonderful site related to permaculture, which has interested me since I lived in Taos in 1995-1996.  Beware the autoplay audio (player is in top right corner if you want to pause it).

(17) Wufoo for Forms.

Enjoy and share it if you like.  I hope this list doesn’t reveal too much about me. . .

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!