I have been a Firefox and Thunderbird fan for a little over 3 years now and, ok asides from the odd deviance to IE, I will never use Outlook again!

Mozilla’s open source projects have helped a great many of us in a big way – their technologies aided the development of other Web 2.0 technologies.

This week the browser turned 5 years old!

See this great video by a fan on youtube:

So in short – Happy Birthday to Firefox! (I even tweeted them a Happy Birthday!)

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I just completed my registration!  I am now officially attending Wordcamp Orlando!

If you are unsure on what the event is…here is some more information:

WordCamp Orlando is happening December 5, at Rollins College, in Orlando, Florida. We’re bringing together a collection of developers and publishers from around the country to share in their love of words and WordPress. Follow us on Twitter, visit our Facebook page, and Register (it’s only $15 bucks and includes a snazzy after party).

WordPress has taken the the web to the next level and is here to stay. This site is powered by wordpress and it offers a great stable platform for content in a package which is user friendly and very customizable.

So I will see you there…be there or be square!

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Recently I read what I call my best quote of the month - “There is no future for online services aimed at domestic computer users” – Michael Collins, the department head of Prestel/Telecom Gold Business Services, stated in a meeting with Paul Needs. This was referenced in the Wikipedia article for the Micronet800, which was what we may call a very early internet-esque platform.

This quote, of course is one of those which will perpetually haunt its speaker for life as no one could have predicted the growth of technology and online services which has, for want of a better word, been a revolution.

There is a great Brad Paisley song which has the line: “…welcome to the future” while referencing the leap from Pac Man to Youtube! Even a not so subtle smart phone reference (a la my iPhone!) as well as a Video Chat reference – a la Skype! Everyone should listen to this song – regardless of their feelings for country music. It really sums up what alot of us forget! See below:

Sometimes we need to sit back and look at what has changed in the last 25 years. From Pong we now have all these high tech games, from MS DOS to now Windows 7.  Even the Wide World Web, which has been with us for a relatively short time has changed every part of our lives! Now our TV’s are linked in, our phones, fridges and everything in between! With careful planning you can have a high tech home which is future proof!

Despite the lightness of this blog post it discusses a serious point – slowly we are becoming a more online economy and it is very easy for us now to not be able to avoid being online. So, in short, be part of the revolution!

Speaking of where we are going and Microsoft – I have just ordered my free Window 7 Upgrade..I will keep you posted on when I receive it and how the upgrade goes.

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With the news outlets constantly pumping out a huge volume of reports excitedly noting that the US economy is no longer in Recession, the UK Bank of England has pumped an extra £25 billion in to the economy as part of its quantative easing programme. Interest rates were kept at 0.5%.

The bank has already spent £175 billion on the programme.

“A number of indicators of spending and confidence, however, suggest that a pickup in economic activity may soon be evident.” Mervyn King, Govenor of the Bank has said.

The Federal Reserve Board here in the US has decided to leave rates untouched an has hinted that they will remain steady for a long time. The idea of course is to foster economic growth and help the economy to remain back on track until it is more solid.

What is interesting is that having clients on both sides of the pond, I can see both points of view – the US has always been a more optimistic nation, therefore the economic climate is more upbeat, that things are changing. Whereas the UK is wallowing in self pity, convinced that nothing is going to happen any time soon. However the mood need not be that bad there. One only has to look at how other countries have suffered from the downturn to realize that the UK has held up well.

I am reminded of a famous quote by Margaret Thatcher:

“It is not easy, but then our forebears who created the industrial revolution did not have it easy either. But they did not say we must wait for the upturn to come. They went out and created the upturn. And so prosperity spread. And the standard of living rose. Even though Departments of Industry didn’t exist.” (1983)

In short – things can only get better! (excuse the reference to the New Labour 1997 Election motto!)

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It seems like the technology world is buzzing today with the details of the new Droid phone – a potentially huge rival to the iPhone and its dominance. I even tweeted about it.

The Droid is marketing itself towards business users who are used to their Blackberry and who are not ready to compromise with getting an iphone.

I wonder what other iPhone users like myself think of this – have we done the right thing by having an iphone and using it for business? After all the Safari browser is second to none for a mobile device.

Additionally, in the technology news today there were further grumblings about net neutrality - which makes interesting reading. Many like myself are firm believers that the net should stay neutral and its success and or failure should be at the hands of the consumer and what they choose.

With Web 2.0 technologies growing all the time, it is not the time for strangling the enterprising spirit of these emerging companies and technologies.

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Connecting with people is how the world works.

Years ago if you wanted to research a company and its services you would have to rely on the phone book, business pages, word of mouth and their own advertising. Today, you can ‘Google‘ them, read reviews and connect with friends, not just locally, but globally.

Social networking has changed the way business is transacted. Before it would take days to get that invoice to a client in Taiwan, today it takes seconds. You can share data quicker than ever before.

Similarly, as discussed, VOIP technology such as Skype has cut costs of communicating with the world down to virtually nothing.

Take my own example, before attending a meeting last night I grabbed coffee at Panera (free wifi). I proceeded to take part in a Go To Meeting conference call (dialled into the audio using Skype) with a company who was hosting the meeting in New Jersey, then I followed up with a call to a PR Consultant in Serbia – (who has his own blog, the RSS feed is published on the right hand side). All in the comfort of a leather chair and a warm coffee.

Years ago the prospect of conducting business with such technology and in such surroundings, for such low cost and at such speed would have been unthinkable. It helps SME’s conduct business on a global scale by using social networks to connect with professionals worldwide. (Services such as LinkedIn come to mind) The mortgage business is an example where professionals have realised the power of such tools.

As they say, embrace Web 2.0. It is the future.

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I do like to keep tabs on the market and the industry, that way when people ask my opinion on what the market is doing I am well informed. Today I read this news -

Marketwatch has this to say:

Mortgage applications fell a seasonally adjusted 1.8% last week, compared with the week before, as mortgage rates rose, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported Wednesday.

This week-to-week drop follows a 16.4% week-to-week gain for the week ended Oct. 2. Rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 5.02% last week, up from 4.89% the previous week. The average rate on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages was 4.44%, up from 4.32%.

With prices for real estate rising in certain parts of the country, now really is the last best chance to buy.

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Business blogging tends to be a serious issue, so it is nice to brighten up the odd post with something funny.

Yes I tweeted about it but I had to share a picture…

AT&T graced me with their usual monthly offering, the delightful monthly cell phone bill.

As I have an iPhone (which is an invaluable business tool in today’s economy) those who are in technology circles will remember when Apple first released the phone and AT&T first started billing people, there were stories of people with 200-300 page bills detailing every KB of data transfer made!

In response to this AT&T said they restructured their billing process so that this would not happen again as it was grossly inefficient and wasteful to be providing such detail.

Why then, this month do I have a behemoth 47 page bill? Which details every KB of transfer made and what time it was made!

Let’s hope that with the amount of data travelling down the information superhighway today, it does not happen again…

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Blogged with my iPhone

As a licensed Florida Mortgage Broker, I was asked to comment on the potential changes to online marketing that blogging could have to the mortgage industry.

The changes that blogging has caused to the Real Estate industry as a whole are well documented.

However the focus tends to be just on Real Estate and not to the backbone of the sale, the mortgage.

The type of mortgage and its flexibility and features is what makes a deal go through smoothly and quickly and results in happy clients all round. The catalyst in ensuring that this occurs is through effective communication – blogging offers this to all industries.

It also has the added SEO benefits for those wishing to rise in the search engines.

Stay tuned for more!

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Most people who take even a passing interest in using social networks to contact friends, family or even business associates will have come across the term “VOIP” – “Voice Over Internet Protocol”. This technology has telephone companies quaking in their boots.

Providers such as Skype (www.skype.com) offer this technology in a fairly easy and painless, consumer friendly way.

Apart from fantastic cost savings, Skype and other similar service providers offer great flexibility for workers in small businesses like mortgage brokerages to communicate cheaply – or in alot of cases, for free!

For Mortgage professionals the ability to offer local numbers to clients in different parts of the country and world is an added marketing tool – “always in your neighborhood, understanding your needs” – for instance! It also translates into savings and helps your bottom line, which in turn of course helps the consumer.

With the traditional telephone companies concerned about the growth of VOIP and how it could effect their business it looks like we are in for a real battle between a slowdown in traditional PSTN technology and the growth of VOIP. Look out for more changes in the industry!

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