Huiting Zhuang,Sell your business overseas

I recently read quite a few articles on Fengshui and home staging. I think many people think they are the samething. One especially claims that Fengshui will help people sell a house faster due to the fact that the house looks better.

I want to write this article to clarify that they are different things. Anybody claims that Fengshui and Home staging are the same should be classified as non-Fengshui expert.

Fengshui is: (straightly from Wikipedia)

an ancient Chinese practice believed to utilize the Laws of both heaven (astronomy) and earth (geography) to help one improve life by receiving positive Qi.

Ancient Chinese people think that the world is surround by Qi and when we are surrounded by positive Qi, we will have good luck, good health, good fortune, etc.

I do not want to go further explaining about Fengshui. You can read the the wikipedia article to know more.

What I want to emphasize is that Fengshui is very difficult to master. There are many Ph.D level researchers that study it for many many years. Still they think they have more to learn. Fengshui itself is very complex and the elements that affect fengshui are all interconnected. It is hard to simplify Fengshui to a definite rule.

Remember, those books that those Fengshui researchers read and study are all written in ancient Chinese scripts and even fen native Chinese can understand.

So when I saw somebody claim that she/he is an expert and writes some definite rules, I laughed.

That said, there are some hard rules that Fengshui practitioners would defintely avoid but I see few so called "experts" here mention those:

1. It is not a good idea to build a house on un-even plane, especially that the front is higher than the backyard.
2. Avoid building a house that is at the heart of the Y-shaped road. Just like the following building.
3. Fengshui classify people into 8 basic kinds. Same for houses. Each kind of life should live in the same kind of house. Otherwise, Qi might work against who ever lives there. (I will write seperately on this).
4. It is a very bad idea if you open the front door and see your stair or kitchen.
5. Kitchen and bathroom should never stay in the center in a house.

There are more hard rules but I will stop here today as I may have to write a book if I were to list all of them.

I list the above to show people that Fengshui is not home staging. and it most likely will not help people sell faster. However, if a buyer knows that this house is right for him/her, it might help the buyer make a decision faster.

This article is written to classify some misunderstanding among many realtors and some so-called "fengshui Expert". It is not meant to be an all-inclusive article about what Fengshui is. You should either consult a real Fengshui expert, ideally those who understand ancient Chinese and have stuied Fengshui for at least 5 years and have studied from a REAL native Chinese expert.

This is really a killer software. Below is the author's website.

http://www.den4b.com/downloads.php?project=ReNamer

I have been using this software ever since the author publishes version 3.

What this softwware does:

1. Mass rename many files, especially digital pictures.
2. It supports regular expression. For those who do not understand this term, it basically means you can rename your files based upon the patterns of your file names.
3. You can delete the names of all your files and add prefix or suffix, and then add some numbers so that all files are named in a pattern.

I use this software to:

1. I use it rename all digital pictures so that each picture begins with a date and brief desription about what these pictures about.
2. I use it to rename a group of files that my friends to me based on the date that each file was created.
3. I use it to rename a bunch of files that have the wrong extension.
4. I use it to rename all the mp3 files that I back from my CD to some names that are meaningful to me.

This softare is free and free from any spyware (at least at this moment when I am writing this article).

Displaimer: I do not know the author at least for now. I am not getting paid for writing this article. I am not responsible for damages to your car due to usage of this software.

This might be a controversial topic but do you think a majority of the realtors are worth the commision?

I joined this industry because I hate this industry. I joined this industry because I love this industry.

I hate it because when I need something. few agents understand/care about my needs. What they do is just to show me something that does not meet my needs or simply try to screw me out because I was a first time buyer. Do not ask me I didnot meet the right one. I met over 11 agents. All are like these.

I love this industry because I think this industry got lots of potential.

Now, the question is, I think many agents are simply not worth the commission they earn. This might mean they are not good people. They might be good people but might not be qualified for a good agent. of course, some of them are just not good people.

Well, I do not mean that this industry should not exist. I think those qualified agents, they should actually get more commison and those unqualified, they should get less or nothing.

What do you guys think?

I know this has been discussed many times. But here is my version about this free software. For me, I think most realtors should use it.

First, links to openoffice:

1. Home page:
2. download page: for downloading, OpenOffice.org does not host it now. So we have to download from other pages. This link is from Download.com

Now. A brief induction:

Openoffice is very similar to Microsoft Office suite. The big difference is OpenOffice is free and MS Office is charging your arms and legs.

Here is a table comparing MS office to Open :

Now Advantages and advantages of OpenOffice vs MS Office.
Advantages:
1, free.
2, pretty can do almost everything that MS Office can do. And even more.
3, You can even save some files in MS Office format (not the newest one though as of now).

Disadvantages;
1, It is powered by Java. From my personal experience. It is kind of slow to boot and a little bit slow in performance. But if you have modern machine, it should not a big problem.
2, You may not be able to open your friends' newest MS Office files. you have to ask them to send you a PDF or convert the files to a lower Office version. This may be a challenging task for many.
3, This looks like a different software for many people. So it takes a while to get used to it.

But in all, I think it is worth it.

I am pretty tech savvy. If anybody needs some help on Openoffice, I will be glad to offer my help.

By the way, for very simple word file, I would suggest use a plain text editor. I will write a seperate blog on that.

Another alternative is google docs. I use it very often. A few of my clients are also using it.

Displaimer: I do not know the author at least for now. I am not getting paid for writing this article. I am not responsible for damages to your car due to usage of this software.

Realtors have a bad reputation for time management. Do not ask me. I heard this all the time but I do not have any research to backup this claim.

I myself use computer to manage everything but there is one time management feature most of my softwares either cannot offer or cannot offer it in a effective way. That is a timer.

Yes, a timer is very cheap but it is still very convenient to have one in our own own computer. I have using this software for over two years and I love it so much. It is called Ytimer.

http://www.spacejock.com/yTimer.html

Features that I like about this software:

1, it is free, small, simple and fast.

2, many usages: I use it to alarm me for important calls, important meetings, etc. Especially for calls that I need to return within 30 minutes or something similar, for example, baking.

3, I can use a specific music as the alarm sound.

4, I can have over 50 alarms setup. Tell me which physical alarm gadget can do this.

5, I use it to alarm me when I need to find excuse to leave a conversation that is boring.

Check it out, I am sure you will like.

Displaimer: I do not know the author at least for now. I am not getting paid for writing this article. I am not responsible for damages to your car due to usage of this software.