apple & real estate?

dramsey76,

IT guy who stated that I would need Windows XP and that it is not compatible with the MAC OS platform

Please, don't get me started on some so-called IT guys. The sad part is that most of these guys that call themselves IT guys are trained at Microsoft technical schools. Many don't understand what they are doing and they memorize certain tasks on specific platforms. In this case MS. So are they IT guys or glorified MS sales reps? You be the judge.

Bottom line is that it depends what your office setup looks like. What type of a network is it? and what is running off of the XP server? Are you running any specific server software that require XP clients? Rest assured that in almost all cases, there is no reason to exclude the Mac other than because of ignorance. The more you can understand the network the better people around here can advise you on how to go about a solution. Let me know.

I was able to obtain a passkey to get internet access

Can you explain that a little further. Were you able to access the Internet on your Mac laptop's browser via the office network?

Does anyone know of any good Real Estate software for managing scheduling and contact information or do you all find iCal and Mail suitable enough?

iCal and Mail are great but can be limited depending on your needs. Thad's post #4 has a great link to real estate software resources. There is a Contact Manager software program that I tested on the Mac called DayLite This program is phenomenal on any platform and integrates well with Mail and address book and syncs with Palm. The company that created it is thirsty for getting better and are very open to feedback and suggestions. Lastly go to Apple's Made4Mac and type in a keyword or select Business and Vertical market and you'll find other programs out there.

Let me know how it goes.

Patrick

Daniel,

Apparently there is a plug-in for the Windows Firefox but not for the Mac version. Its not clear however how good that plugin is anyway. That's not necessarily a bad thing, ActiveX is a security risk!

Patrick

Daniel,

Sorry to hear about you local MLS. Still though, don't give up. Be sure that the reason for having to use VPC is the ActiveX and not some other lame reason. For example, some websites will run a script that identifies your browser and if it isn't one of the ones they want you to use, it will return an invalid entry or no access. But you can trick these sites by telling Safari to identify itself as IE 6, mozilla or Netscape. Is your MLS provided by Interrealty by any chance? They use ActiveX and have so far refused to allow third party developers in on their site.

You could also consider buying a cheap PC and use it only for MLS. And if you think you may need to access the MLS elsewhere, you can now download and view listings on a portable phone like the Treo.

Some general info on the Virtual PC I have never used it so I can't tell you more about it or which version to buy.

Remember that your local realty board is intrumental in assigning the rights of the mls to software developers like Interrealty can develop it. And you pay your dues as a memeber and should therefore make your dissatisfaction to them clear. There are absolutely no advantages to the ActiveX other than a way to lock out non-MS competitors. And ActiveX is a central figure in the security vulnerability of IE.

Patrick

Daniel,

I'll send you the script to activate the Safari Debug menu as soon as I get power back up in my office. All I was able to find out about Paragon is that it is .Net, don't know much more and don't know if diguising Safari as IE would help either.

Please share your experience with VPC, the Mac and real estate after you've figured your way around it for a while.

Patrick

As promised, to turn on the debug menu, open a Terminal window and type:

defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1

Then Open Safari. You'll notice a new menu choice called "Debug", here you should be able to select a different agent (IE, Netscape, etc).

I want to bring your attention to this Apple Developer documet about .Net and ASPX sites: http://developer.apple.com/internet/safari/faq.html#anchor23 So assuming Paragon does not use Active X, you should be fine with any browser on your Mac. You could also try accessing with IE 5 on your Mac.

Patrick

Hello there;

To Daneil and Pat,
I have been working on this problem for about a month and I am making head way. Give me about another week and I should have something for all use Realtors.
Pat thanks for all your input and you are the one that has given me the idea. I am about 80% sure it will work. THKS....as it goes for the MLS most that I see you need IE 5.5 or higher and that is it. Easy right..LOL..Ok I will post here within one week or less to let you know if I got it going 🙂 everyone have a great hoilday!

Charles Denney

wow im glad to see such a good response from everybody. this is daniel by the way i had to change my apple id. anyways look foward to a resolution. hang in there yall. peace, and thanks

ok so i had a chance to try running safari masquerated as IE and still no luck. sorry fellas it looks like il be running vpc just so i can run my MLS. im not crying to hard about it. but let me know if you make any major breakthroughs on this topic seeing as i wont be getting my power book till maybe mid this month. anyways thanks for everything.

well same thing here, I am an agent in NJ and they have converted and no luck on my mac. they said not compatable, even with explorer. it says you ie 5 or greater which we do, but that it will not work because of the way the program was written. Believe me I have tried for over a year. windows must be used. I also now have an issue where our company has converted over to web based outlook, so needless to say I have no clue what they have done, but that mail site can not even be accssed in my windows. I had everything running through entourage in my mac, ok it was pop3. Now I think something else was done, and also I have no clue what this now means, I have had no mail through my company account since yesterday, we all logged on at the office using their t1 lines, we could not log on at home. Now I wonder about e-mail forwarding, which I did not do. Just had my outgoing set as my ip comcast, incoming was from an intranet-company etc..so if this is outlook web based what does this mean as the outlook for mac, was the old express. The admin said I can use my software based app. of outlook by just changing a setting, nothing. Is anyone else familiar with the outlook exchange server, and how it effects, us mac users or any for that matter. From what I have read it seems that our company can access and administer our account from their end without our knowledge. is this true, and how can we get around it. I have rambled, but am so annoyed that i am loosing my mind

Has anyone figured out a work around to our inability to access mls sites with a mac?? (besides VPC)

to my knowledge no. saddly. i even tried masking safari but no sucess.

Have any of you tried Opera with those MLS sites? I've found it to be workable on many sites that Safari had difficulties with.