Dear George: "There is a web site that will check your server every hour. It gives you a report showing the percentage of time the server is down. This is done for a cost of about $10 a month. Considering how much time and money I have spent on our web site, this sounds like a bargain. I read about it in an article but now I can't find the article. Can you help me? -- North Carolina

Dear North Carolina: A search of "ISP Monitoring" on Yahoo.com returned 89 services under the products classification. You may need to do a bit of "wading" through the list to locate the service you want. WYZ Computer Consultants, Inc., for example, claims it offers the type of service you describe. It checks your ISP every 15 minutes for $25 per year according to its rate sheet. However, it apparently no longer offers its ISP Monitoring service. Web Site Check does offer the type of service you describe, but the fees for a standard package begin at $19.95 per month according to the site.

Dear George: "Thank you so much for your help in locating my Office Tool Bar. I followed your instructions and 'voila!' My Tool Bar returned. It's so handy to have it on the desktop again. I always enjoy your column, as you give us helpful advice. -- (No longer) Reluctant Hostess

Dear No Longer Reluctant: Thanks for your kind words.

Dear George: "Is there a web site that I can access in a different state from mine that would provide sold comparables? This is to help out my clients who will be relocating. They are interested in home prices in particular neighborhoods -- Helpful Broker

Dear Helpful: Check out Realtor.com. Select "Check Home Sale Prices." It's located under the "Features & Tools" section. Another site to check out is HomeAdvisor.com. Are your clients moving to a state where the sales prices are not public records? If so, you might not be able to obtain reliable sold information from public websites. You would need to establish a relationship with a local Realtor if that is the situation. I'd recommend you do that anyway in order to best serve your clients. Do some searches, communicate via e-mail, ask questions then provide an outgoing referral to the Realtor your clients select.

Dear George: "I work for Oceanlake Commerce, a software company that enables companies to present their web content on any handheld mobile device. I wonder if you think the real estate industry would use a technology like this. If you do, do you see real estate brokerages wanting to offer their content over browser enabled cell phones or "pda's?" -- Wondering

Dear Wondering: I cannot speak for the real estate industry. However, I strongly believe that full time real estate professionals are primarily interested in delivering, through an ongoing relationship, that which the consumers they serve want or need. In that regard, wireless delivery of content is as useful as it is "two-way." It is used to the degree that it is "affordable." The price-point where it becomes "affordable" is determined by the degree of consumer benefit it delivers.

Dear George: "I have a small town client who desires to add her listings to the Internet. She wants to have full control over her listings without using a second party listing service. Can you recommend a good cgi based software for Internet realty listing management? -- Service Provider

Dear Service Provider: My search of Yahoo returned 19 matches for "real estate listing software." I'm not sure if any of them are cgi-based but a few appear they might be. To which Internet site(s) does your client wish to add her listings?

For more articles by George Stephens, please press here.

George Stephens welcomes your tech questions by e-mail. Because of the volume of mail received, questions cannot be answered individually.

Published: July 13, 2001

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

George C. Stephens, CRB is the Broker of deRaat Stephens, Inc. dba ERA Stephens Properties and the Director of Compliance for eRealty, Inc. Stephens served as 1998 Chairman of the 13,000+ member Houston Association of REALTORS® and is the Vice Chairman of HAR’s wholly owned subsidiary, e-Har, Inc. He is the 2001 Secretary/Treasurer of the 50,000+ member Texas Association of REALTORS® and TAR’s 2002 Chairman-Elect. Stephens holds a Texas Real Estate Broker license as well as a Texas Mortgage Broker License.