talkingDigital

If all you are using your smartphone for is talk and text, you are really missing the point of the high tech device. Seriously, it gets you into a whole new world and you’re just using it like any other phone? That’s crazy, and kind of wasteful.

If you have a smartphone it’s pretty likely you are paying for some sort of digital package, or getting one for free, that gives you at least a certain amount of browsing time online and such. No matter what your digital plan is, you should be doing more with your phone if you are investing in the cost of a smartphone.

Use The GPS

One of the greatest benefits for people with smartphones that spend a lot of time in their vehicles is the fact that most of them come with GPS, so you don’t need a second device taking up space in your vehicle.

GPS isn’t just a way to help you get from point A to point B, but it also lets you check-in on your social media sites when you are visiting places or people. It’s also a great way to find what you need when you are in a strange area, since it allows you to search for nearby restaurants, stores, and more.

Do Some Browsing Or Shopping

Having a smartphone is a great way to stay connected to everything, even when you are nowhere near your computer. Sitting at the doctor’s office in the waiting room, bored, shop on Amazon right from your phone. Don’t want to haul your whole computer into the kitchen to use a recipe, search it on your phone and use that.

It streamlines your ability to browse and shop, and lets you do it from anywhere without the need to haul around your laptop. You can also spend time on social media, from your phone.

Play A Game

It’s counterproductive when you are trying to work, but when you are in a line or in a waiting room, why not play a game on your phone. There are plenty of mindless games that don’t take a lot of time or concentration in order to play. Do a match 3 or play Angry Birds, and have some fun.

There are games that you can play with your friends on your phone as well, so you can stay connected and have some fun.

Don’t just use your personal phone to talk on anymore, use it for so much more. There are also a million business things to do with your smartphone, if you are so inclined. The point is, smartphones are more than just a phone, they are a lifeline. Use yours for everything you can, instead of wasting its abilities.

The real estate industry seemed to go an entire century with very little change to the way it fundamentally operated. If you wanted to get a new place, you found a real estate agent, drove to see apartments or houses, picked one, and sealed the deal.

If you wanted to sell that place later, the same agent helped you by putting it on a listing exchange. But times have changed … and they’re still changing.

Here are three technologies that are driving innovations that have occurred in the real estate industry, or are on their way here!

1. Smartphones

It would be hard to narrow down smartphone functions to one word, because the many ways that smartphones have disrupted the real estate market are vast. You can walk past a property, search for it with a mobile application, find photos of the interior, and dig up former sales prices, tax assessments, and sales contract status — all online.

You can call the agent as well, although in this app-crazed world, many people seem to have forgotten that functionality!

2. Digital signing

First there was the fax machine, which drastically reduced the time it took to conduct real-estate transactions. And though fax machines eventually achieved a network effect that drove high usage rates, they’re becoming obsolete, thanks to digitally signed documents.

Now it’s as easy as signing the screen of your smartphone to buy, sell, or lease a property.

3. Blogs and content

Blogs are hugely abundant and constantly growing, so content is becoming more focused. Thanks to blog frameworks that are easy to replicate, the time it takes to set up a blog has diminished to the point where it can be done in five minutes.

Content creation, as a result, has exploded. And when there’s more content, the nature of competition dictates that consumers will expect a higher quality and more relevant content from the blogs they choose to follow.

A great example of this can be found in the Clinton Hell’s Kitchen real estate website that’s operated by a local office of Keller Williams. On this site, you’ll find not only real estate listings for the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, but all kinds of specialized content that should be helpful to consumers who are considering a move to that neighborhood.

When websites were harder to build and information was less connected online, this type of content would be fairly rare. But today and tomorrow, we should expect this type of excellence in every real estate market in the developed world!

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If you are a Sprint iPhone 5 user and you are experiencing data connection problems (slow data, no connection to 3G, difficulty connecting to WiFi, etc.) your are not alone.

By not alone we mean that EVERY iphone 5 user on Sprint and possibly other networks is having the same problems.

Over the past few weeks both Sprint and Apple have acknowledged the problems in message boards on their respective websites. However, they have not made any official announcement to the media about the problem. Rather than post dozens of links to these message boards, we invite the reader to simply do a Google search for “iPhone 5 Sprint data problems” or “Sprint iPhone 5 connection problems.”

The problem affects texting as well as all forms of data usage. We have read most of the messages on the boards and here’s what we found.

1. Resetting the network settings via the fancy code that Sprint gives you for tower updates will not work.

2. Resetting the network setting on the iPhone itself often works temporarily. Heavy data users will have to do this 5-10 times per day.

3. Sprint and Apple are both aware of the problem and they claim that they are working on a fix.

4. Apple blames Sprint and Sprint blames Apple.

5. Both seem to agree that the problem has something to do with LTE even though the problem is worse in areas without LTE. However, they aren’t sure about this because LTE is so spotty in the few areas that do have it.

6. Our interpretation of things is that Apple really wants to resolve this problem but they are waiting on Sprint to provide something (maybe testing results, maybe confidential radio information) and Sprint is dragging its feet.

7. Sprint seems pretty sure that the problem will go away when they do some sort of planned LTE update in or around 2013.

8. Nobody in a Sprint store has access to any information that gives them the ability to predict a timeline for a fix.

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• iPhone 5 problems: What users complain about the most