It's is a great day here in Orem, Utah. I am so glad that last week is over. Talk about a whirlwind week. I accomplished so much, yet there is so much that I have yet to accomplish. The inspection schedule was very packed and not all of the phone calls were returned. This is bad for business, but sometimes it is the best way to chase away the Price Shoppers. This is just one of the many marketing tips that I will be sharing later this week in Portland at the AII™ Northwest Conference...... "How to kill your business in 5 easy steps".... Don't miss it!!!
This week will bring about the realization of the AII™ Portland Northwest Conference. I am looking forward to once again rubbing shoulders with some of the finest Inspectors in the industry. As I look over the Portland Conference schedule, I just wish that there was more time to spend jabbering in the halls. I am also looking forward to presenting two seminars at the event.
The first seminar that I will be facilitating is a marketing presentation that will be very interactive. This will allow fielding questions from newer Inspectors and experienced answers from the seasoned Inspectors. If you are planning on attending, I would recommend that you study up on your current market so that you can intelligently answer some questions about your area, your current home sales statistics, your clients, your agents, as well as who you are currently gearing your efforts towards. You should be able to pick up several tips that will help you to better focus your efforts for marketing success.
The second seminar that I will be presenting deals with modern-day technology and how it can help increase our efficiency and productivity. Those that shun the invitation to get on board the technology bandwagon will quickly find themselves out of a career. AII™ Inspectors are rapidly developing the reputation for being leaders of the pack. Find out how you can best make the technology transition.
For those of you who cannot attend this conference in Portland, we will miss your presence. If you are still waivering as to whether or not to make the journey, I encourage you to not only make the trip, but I encourage you to show up Friday afternoon. Shelly and I will be flying in early Friday afternoon and will be looking forward to socializing. Ron Cloyd will already have many of you in a great Pest & Dry Rot training before our arrival. Ron's course is very eye-opening and those of you attending it will not be disappointed. I took Ron's course a few years ago before I started performing WDI inspections and I previously had no clue how to identify subterranean termites. Ron's informative training has saved me literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawsuits and I thank him for that.
Some of you will be eagerly looking forward to getting me up to your rooms for some private computer sessions. My fees will be very reasonable and those of you that show up with a CE machine and want to have 3D loaded onto it, I will have the software ready to load and we can upgrade you and get your software ordered directly from 3D. If you think that you want my private time, please let me know beforehand or you may be disappointed....... Don't wait until the last day to ask me your questions..... In fact, don't let any time pass in an unproductive fashion while visiting Portland. AII™ Inspectors are very open and willing to help others, all you have to do is ask..... This is a very unique environment and I encourage everybody to take advantage of the event.
The big computer day will be next Monday as I will be putting on a 3D Inspection Systen proficiency training. This will include 7.5 hours of interactive 3D excercises. The participants will be bringing their own machines and they will be doing everything that I show them on the big screen. If you have ever considered making the computerized transition, I would encourage you to contact me for enrollment into this special training. This training will not include CE training, but the information shared will transition directly into the 3D for CE software. CE questions will be addressed since I know that is where most of you are heading. Participating in this training will provide you with a working understanding of the major features of the 3D Report Writer software....... If you are enrolled in the training and you have some specific questions, please bring them written down to Portland and share them with me before Monday so that I can make sure that they are answered completely during the training.
As for my attendance at the Conference, I am really looking forward to learning more about Log Homes. I feel pretty well versed in this type of construction, yet each time I listen to a Log Home presentation I have learned a golden nugget of information that has saved my hide. The legal advice from the Lawyer is once again going to make me cringe that I don't get a pre-signed Service Agreement before each and every inspection. The siding specialist should also help keep my tush out of the courtroom as I better learn to accurately identify and describe the needed reportable conditions. The last exterior cladding training I attended I walked away thinking..... "Wow!!! I wish that I could go back to the dozens of situations that I had previously encountered that situation and I didn't know that it was even a Reportable Condition."
If you are waivering on your attendance in Portland, pull out your checkbook and go......... He who hesitates is lost!!! We look forward to seeing you there!=:}
Last week I shared an in-depth, step by step process on how to utilize the Adobe Acrobat software to create PDF files and send your inspection reports via e-mail. I challenged each of you to visit the Adobe website and download the Adobe Acrobat Reader program yourself so that you could better understand what struggles that your clients may have.
WARNING!!! Roy Brown did as I suggested and in the process created his very own configuration nightmare. The warning is very simple.... If you have Adobe Acrobat installed DO NOT install the abbreviated Adobe Acrobat Reader onto your system after the Adobe Acrobat program was already installed. Installing the Reader program after Acrobat makes the Reader program overwrite all of the default settings to make the Reader program the winner.
Let me re-phrase this scenario.... If you install the Adobe Acrobat Reader after the Adobe Acrobat program here is what you have to do to get things to work again..... Uninstall both programs and then freshly install the Adobe Acrobat program. If Acrobat is installed then there is no need for the abbreviated Reader program.
April 19, 2000, brought the huge announcement from the biggest Windows CE Pocket PC makers as to what their new machines would actually look like and do. Pocket PC is the new platform in the Windows arsenal to describe the machines that fit snugly into the palm of your hand. I was holding my breath as to whether or not my current investment in the Casio E-100 was going to become a new door stop in an attempt to stay on the cutting edge, or whether or not I was still going to be okay.....
In a nutshell, as far as I can tell I will not be needing to immediately run out and re-invest in more CE hardware although the future upgrades are inevitable. My opinion is based on the fact that the CE manufacturers need to provide the rest of the world with tons of little pocket applications in order to get them interested in purchasing CE Pocket machines. Home Inspectors are a different breed. In general we could care less about Pocket versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, etc.,......What we want is a Home Inspection specific machine. We don't care about the other programs.... We have big machines to take advantage of them. We want a small machine that will capture the inspection data.... Period.
All of these newer machines that boast the higher RAM have to have more RAM to hold all of the mini Pocket applications. The Casio E-100 runs at the same speed as the newer machines, it just has less memory storage. Here is a review from PC Magazine of some of the hot new Casio CE machines. It can be found on the net at: http://www.zdnet.com/products/stories/pipreviews/0,8827,249731,00.html
From PC Magazine / April 19, 2000, By Bruce and Marge Brown
The Casio Cassiopeia has been one of the more successful Palm-size PCs-in fact, one of the company's biggest problems was meeting demand. So we were hardly surprised that Casio chose not to break the mold with its first Pocket PC-based device. The Cassiopeia E-115 ($600 street) uses the same CPU, display, and case as the highly regarded E-100 and E-105 Palm-size PC models, which were the first to offer 64,000-color displays and stereo audio output. Aside from the new OS, the only major difference in the Cassiopeia E-115 is its two-tone gray color (previous models were silver). In other words, if you like the Cassiopeia E-100 or the E-105, you'll love this new device.
With previous generation devices, Casio started off with a low-priced model, the E-100 ($500 street) with 16MB of memory; later the company introduced the Cassiopeia E-105 ($600 street) with twice the memory. This time, Casio is leading with the higher powered of two announced products. A lower-cost product, the EM-500 ($500), which should ship in early summer, will come with 16MB of RAM, standard USB synchronization, and an MMC slot for copyright-protected media.
The product that we reviewed, the Cassiopeia E-115, which weighs 9.2 ounces with battery installed and measures 5.1 by 3.3 by 0.8 inches (HWD), has a 131-MHz, 64-bit NEC VR4121 processor, and a 3.0-by-2.3-inch (HW) color display with a resolution of 320 by 240 pixels. As with previous models,the Cassiopeia E-115 has a Type II CompactFlash slot (including the same easily misplaced slot cover), infrared and serial ports, an internal microphone, and a stereo headphone jack. An internal, monaural speaker is fine for very limited multimedia playback and application sound effects, but you'll want to plug in headphones or powered external speakers for a quality listening experience. The Cassiopeia E-115 ships with a serial synchronization cradle, an AC adapter/battery charger, and a slipcase (which is recommended to protect the screen). The unit's lithium ion battery is rated for 6 hours of continuous use.
The unit's TFT screen is noticeably brighter inside than the HP Jornada 545's screen. But as with the HP Jornada 545 and just about every device with an LCD, the Cassiopeia E-115 has a difficult time in sunlight: The screen display all but disappears from sight.
The Cassiopeia E-115 has the same button layout as previous models. The device comes with a total of eight buttons-including the power, start, action roller, and record buttons-plus a navigation cursor and three programmable launch buttons. The cursor button provides a convenient way to move around the screen and acts as a joystick with game software.
In addition to the standard Pocket PC software in ROM and on the Microsoft CD, the Cassiopeia E-115 ships with an AOL Mail Dialup client, Casio CF Backup, Casio Menu, Casio Mobile Address Book, Casio Mobile Calendar, and Casio E-Mail Set-up Tool in ROM. Casio's supplementary CD includes Button Assignment, Casio Audible, Casio Mobile Camera, Casio Mobile Video Converter, Casio Mobile Video Player, and Mobile Video Player for PC. Enterprise Harmony '99 (for converting data from Palm organizers) and ZIO Interactives ZIO Golf 1.2 demo version are also included on the supplementary CD.
The Cassiopeia E-115 offers no real surprises. Instead, Casio is staking its success on the strength of the existing Cassiopeia design and the greatly improved Pocket PC operating system. All in all, this is not a bad strategy, and even if the unit won't turn heads as the HP Jornada 545 or the forthcoming Compaq iPAQ Pocket PC do, the Casio Cassiopeia E-115 is a versatile personal companion.
HOT TIP: Now with my previous testimonial of my relief that I will not quickly have to upgrade my hardware I will share with you a little secret. There is a machine out there that I may have high hopes for. By the spec sheet and the preliminary reports I think that there may be a new superstar on the horizon that may blow my Casio E-100 out of the water in the same way that the Casio E-100 totally outclasses the Compaq Aero 1500 and 2100 machines. Oddly enough, this potential superstar is being made by Compaq. It may very well be that Casio has been resting on its laurels instead of pressing forward with technology.
The new machine by Compaq is reportedly named the iPAQ. Here is the promotional teaser....
Not much larger than a calculator, the iPAQ Pocket PC comes standard with applications like Pocket Word, Pocket Excel, and Internet Explorer in addition to all the familiar PIM application you've come to rely on like Contacts, Calendar, and Inbox (e-mail). You'll be dazzled by its ultra-bright color TFT screen and amazed by the speed generated by the 206 MHz Intel processor. What makes the iPAQ Pocket PC unique is its ingenious modular concept called the Expansion Pack System. An Expansion Pack is a slide-on module that allows you to add functionality to your device. Want to check e-mail from the car? Simply slide on a PC Card Expansion Pack outfitted with a CDPD wireless PC Card and you're connected.
Product Specifications
Reading this may not send off bells and whistles to you, but there are some important features that jump off the page to me. I am not the least bit impressed with the plug-in module feature that is catering so strongly to the normal individual. I was impressed with the operating speed of the new machine. The older Compaqs (Areo 1500's & 2100's) ran at 70 MHz. The Casio E-100 runs at 131 MHz. The new iPAQ runs a 206 MHz. If this is true, then we just may have a speed machine that will refresh extremely quickly. If this is true, then the extra money may be worth it. If this is true, then I may just be forking out more money for CE hardware..... I still have a Compaq Aero 1530 for sale.
The second high point of the iPAQ is the synchronizing cable which is USB instead of the more traditional serial cable connector. USB provides a much quicker synchronization process. At this point it is important to remember that speed is the major area of needed improvement in these machines. My Casio unit is much quicker than my Compaq. This is true when inputing data and when synchronizing. I think that the USB connection is the way all CE machines will eventually connect to the full running machines.
NOTE: The amount of RAM does not affect the operating speed of the handheld unit like it does with full running Windows machines. 32 meg models are not faster than 16 meg machines.
"So how much is this new machine going to cost?" The new iPAQ is listed for sale at $499.00. This is a great price considering the added features. It can be found at: http://www.mobileplanet.com/product.asp?dept%5Fid=2621&pf%5Fid=MP965150 and is reportedly available on May 5, 2000.
If I was going to buy an exisitng CE machine I would not settle for anything less than the Casio E-100 or E-105. If I was looking to invest a little more moolah I would wait for the above-described Compaq. I would not recommend taking advantage of any of the other blow-out sales of existing Compaqs, HPs, Phillip Ninos or any other existing architecture...... In my opinion, they are too slow and not worth your frustration.
Last week's Photo Challenge #9 shared a scary subpanel photo. Jim Corbin from Bow, WA, responded with....
Hi Michael, I see unsecured breaker panel box; Electrical panel boxes inside a wall; easily exposed wiring; it appears that the boxes are ungrounded and probably no bond; it appears like white/red/black wires are intermixed, but can't see that clearly; Definitely this is a "less than professional installation by Harvey Homeowner"; It looks like the "switched" circuits are #10 wire (?) with a lesser size (#12) connected also; not sure if the "switches" in the left box are actually switches or breakers??. For sure a recommendation for a licensed electrician to review. Hazard and fire waiting to happen. Jim Corbin - Bow, WA
Steve Dansby was very direct and to the point in his response.....
Hazardous and careless installation noted at (identify location). We strongly recommend further evaluation by a qualified licensed electrical contractor. Steve E. Dansby
Mark Daughtry shared.....
Hi Michael: I think this is a scary situation, but there are many more of this type of nightmares out there than anyone wants to think about, let alone have to inspect it. Use Extreme Caution: Harvey Homeowner has worked here! I recommend a Licensed electrician for further evaluation/repair of the entire electrical system.
I look forward to meeting all in Portland next week!! Mark S. Daughtry - WA
This week's AII™ Photo Challenge is a very special photo. Although not verified, it is rumored that this photo quite possibly was taken in the Lake Tahoe, California area. The photo may have been taken at the supposedly classy mountain getaway of the current American Institute of Inspector's™ President 2000,Mr. Scott Merritt. If so, what do you think of the plumbing DWV setup. The photo was snapped from the top of the stairs looking into a game closet in the now completed attic. This place must smell very rosey.
If this photo is reflective of the DWV system as a whole, I guess it is one step up from a privy.... but that is it. Is there anybody out there that can accurately confirm or deny where this photo was taken??? Can you identify what the Reportable Condition actually is??? Maybe those of us in Portland this coming weekend can confront Mr. Scott Merritt about the low bid plumbing installation at his cabin.
"What do ya think?"
Your Name:
Next week's issue of the Monday Morning Messenger will be delayed until Tuesday because of the Portland Conference. Don't be upset, just be patient. I will include highlights from the Portland Conference and I will still be looking forward to your feedback from this week's MMM.
DATES: APRIL 28-30, 2000
PLACE: AIRPORT HOLIDAY INN - PORTLAND, OREGON
SPOUSES: We also encourage you to bring your spouse. We have a policy that spouses may attend at no additional fee - just let us know when you register if your spouse is going to join you.
GET YOUR CREDITS ! - Attendance at the presentations qualifies for Continuing Education Credits with the State of Oregon, A.I.I.™, and other home inspection associations.
SCHEDULE: Go to the AII™ website for details and schedule.
REGISTRATION: Don't delay.... Go to the AII™ website for details.
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