Feb.
1, 2007: RECS Cybertips for February 2007
Joe
Zlomek is a member of the Real
Estate Cyberspace Society (RECS). It provides these tips in a monthly
newsletter.
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Lock out laptop data thieves
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If your laptop gets stolen, the least of your worries is the computer itself. It can be replaced. However,
having your personal and business data fall into the wrong hands can be devastating.
The Laptop Lock is a service (now in beta testing, although its the developers claim it production-ready) that allows you to protect your data in these perilous times.
How it works: If your computer is stolen, you simply log in to your Laptop Lock account and mark the computer status as stolen. As soon as your missing machine connects to the Internet, tasks you set up in advance will execute. Depending on your choices,
Laptop Lock can remotely encrypt or delete pre-selected files, display a message, or begin custom instructions (such as sounding an alarm).
In addition, once connected to the Internet, the stolen computer's information can be traced and used to help in its recovery.
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| Learning to defease with
ease |
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Let's say a third party makes a very favorable offer to purchase your investment property. Unfortunately, you learn that in order to payoff your loan you must provide the lender with replacement collateral sufficient to pay off the debt and maintain the yield being experienced on the current obligation. Meeting the lender's demand is called "defeasing" the loan.
A website operated by Commercial Defeasance LLC provides a
calculator to help estimate the total cost to defease a loan. The total cost includes the cost to purchase defeasance collateral (usually government securities) and associated transaction costs.
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| Tap into the world's
biggest Answer Line |
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Search engine giant Google once offered a service where -- for a pre-agreed price -- you could ask any question you wished, get a pool of experts to research the answer, and have it e-mailed to you. Sadly, it's been discontinued. But as with many things on the Web, an interesting replacement wasn't far behind.
Answers.Yahoo.com has popped up with what may be an even better service. Now you can ask questions and get real answers from real people who are willing to share their expertise. For free.
Be careful, though. You never know who may be posing as an expert that's not.
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