Shareware Super Platinum 8

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Text File | 1992-11-09 | 14.9 KB | 305 lines

REALTY SHOWCASE …ÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕª ∫ P.O. Box 155 ∫ ∫ Clarklake, MI 49234 ∫ ∫ Ph: (517) 529-4701 ∫ »ÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕÕº REALTY SHOWCASE is a small company specializing in a new and unique way in using "State of the Art" computer equipment, to advertise your home around the entire country. Our business involves advertising exclusive homes (from $150,000+) around the nation, using only two of many varied features of computers currently on the market including upgrades: the ability to display high quality photo images & the ability to communicate most anywhere around the globe. With today's technology, one can actually display and even capture television pictures on their computer. So, what we our offering simply uses these abilities among others, in an orderly fashion to effectively market exclusive homes. If you're a home owner or someone with several homes for sale and you would like to use this service to advertise your property in.... you're most welcome. You may distribute this program to anyone whom you feel may have an interest or need for our service. All files though, must remain intact and unaltered. No fee may be charged other than for normal distribution costs. We do not ask for any donations. This entire software package is FREEWARE- it is not a PUBLIC DOMAIN or SHAREWARE product. The homes that we are currently offering this service to, are homes that are in the $150,000+ price range. We have restricted this service in this price range to begin with, for a few reasons. The first reason, is in the anticipation of possibly being inundated with all types of real estate for sale, from all over the country. If that were to happen, we would not be able to provide this service on an effective level, if at all. A second reason is really an extension of the first, in that we want to provide the best service that we can for our subscribers. The last reason is that since we are using bulletin board services as a media to advertise real estate in, there is a practical limit as to the size of the files (monthly basis) that most people will usually download. These factors are variables depending on such things as the speed of their modem, the distance the call is and probably the size of last month's phone bill. I think my phone bill just about covers my phone company's monthly payroll. Therefore, for our purpose anyway, compromise is the rule rather than the exception. We are letting you know this in the beginning because to do so other- wise, would not be fair to you, or to us. If in the future we can offer our service to everyone, then we will let it be known. We would love to be able to do this. Only time will tell. FOR THE HOMEOWNER: (important note) To protect you from undisirable contact from the general public, we are using an Ad code feature. By using three letters (initials maybe?) and your five (5) digit Zip code, an interested party can only contact REALTY SHOWCASE. REALTY SHOWCASE can then contact you. You then, can contact the interested party. By using this method, you are protected. This will be stipulated again, in the service text file. If by some rare chance that an Ad code is duplicated, we will contact whomever sends in the duplicate, for a different set of letters. FOR THE PROSPECTIVE BUYER: Call [517] 529-4701 or write and give your name, phone number and the Ad code of the home of interest. The only way REALTY SHOWCASE will bring buyer and seller together, is by the owner contacting YOU and IN NO OTHER WAY. This phone number cannot be used to place an Ad. In the future if business permits, an 800 (toll free) number will be included. HOW YOUR AD IS DISTRIBUTED: Our monthly service follows conventions used in distributing what is known as "shareware" software. That is, for people who like to "try" a program, before purchasing it. Let's take a minute to explain what the term "shareware" means, so that you can relate the distribution method used for shareware, to our services provided. Shareware is software generally written by independent programmers, who ask only for a donation for their efforts. Many software companies also offer their programs under this concept. The difference between commercial software and shareware, is that in most cases, shareware programs generally cost a great deal less. There are many shareware authors out there that design and write professional programs. In general, when a donation is made (a suggested price is usually stated) the author will send a fully operable, updated program and/or documentation by return mail. Shareware authors do enjoy the fact that people are using their program(s) & when they receive their donations, it encourages the programmers to continue adding new features to their program or write new ones. The fact that there are millions of people out there that enjoy the shareware concept, is an extremely important point! The reason is this: people involved in shareware usually have the equipment necessary to communicate with the many hundreds of Bulletin Board Services (BBS) available around the country for "uploading" (sending) & "downloading" (receiving) software, in a matter of minutes. This fact is very important!! Why? Well... many of these people will upload software to other BBS's around the country on their own if they feel that the software will help someone else. So, this is a second way for your home to become known to people. Also, many shareware distribution houses will scan bulletin boards looking for programs that they can add to their catalogs, after they contact the authors for permission, of course. This is a third way. By the way, if you are someone who enjoys the concept of trying out software before buying it, please support the shareware concept way of obtaining professional quality software, by honoring the author's requests for donations, if you use it in your daily routine. Who would be interested in looking for a home from one coastal side of the country to the other? People who have been transferred, people who desire to move elsewhere, or for medical reasons and people who may have lost employment and are seeking employment in another state, maybe a second home, a chalet somewhere for a vacation spot or people looking for rental homes, to name only a few. Also, keep in mind that people in all areas of the country have homes for sale or are looking to buy. Someone in a neighboring state or even in your own state or city, could be looking to move into your area. We are set up just as if you were to open the real estate pages of your local paper, where you're looking for a home. Only in our case, it is a nationwide real estate classified Ads section and the owner will contact you through us, if you're a buyer. One statistic I heard from our main library, was that 17.6% of our country's population (that's about 43,750,000 people) moved about in our country in 1988! No doubt that figure has increased since then. And about one in three have or can have access to a computer capable of displaying our real estate files. Do you see the potential for this kind of advertising? It is immense! The shareware concept (by way of the BBS's) is the method that REALTY SHOWCASE uses to distribute your home Ad, around the entire country. ON USING THE PROGRAM: Use of the arrow keys and cursor bar If you're like me, you probably poked around with this program until you came to this section of how to use the menu system. As you probably know by now, it's easy to use. But, let's review it for a minute. First, you can use your mouse with this program and/or your cursor control keys (arrows) after the initial screen presentation to navigate around the main menu and/or the city submenus. Only places on the -MAIN- menu ABOVE the listed states showing the greater than sign or > arrow, will display its contents when you place your cursor bar over it and press <Enter>. The other choices on the main menu as you know are: the services that we offer, a standard Ad layout with a scanned image, a custom Ad layout with scanned a image and an Ad copy form that can be printed and filled out to be mailed with your photo, Ad copy and payment. When you want to select an area of interest for homes to actually see use the arrow keys to move the cursor bar within the -main- menu to the state that you want & then press <Enter>. Each state has a photo count column to the right of it. This will save you time. If there are no photos then, there are no photos. The photo count will be updated right along with everything else on a monthly basis. The next display you'll see, will be the selected state's submenu of cities. The next step, is to place the cursor bar over the city of interest & press <Enter>. If the selected city has available homes in its file, you will see the first home displayed, and then any other homes (in price ascending order) following it, as you continue pressing the <Enter> key. The following homes will pop up much faster, because of the design of the graphics display engine (software) and how it is utilized. If your selected city does not have any available homes in its file, then you will briefly see the DOS error message (bad command or file name) in the upper left corner of your screen, before your selected city submenu reappears. This is quite normal. Each city also has a photo count in the photo count column to the right of it, for the same reason as mentioned for each state. Each city will have its photo count updated on a monthly basis. You can stop the process of viewing a picture file by pressing the <Esc> key. You will be brought back to the city menu that you selected. When you reach the end of the selected city's file, pressing <Enter> will revert you back to your selected city menu. From there, you can select another city, go back to the main menu and select a new state, or quit the program. To print out the Ad copy form: simply turn on your printer, place the cursor bar over the (AD FORM TO PRINT OUT) label (5) using the arrow keys and press <Enter>. You will see the same type of display that is being used to read this file right now. To print out the Ad copy form, just press the letter "P" (for print) and follow the prompts. If you don't have a printer, take this program to a friend, your office or to a computer store that has a printer connected to a system. Since the print engine (software) in this program is basically generic (quite compatible with most systems) you do not have to have a computer capable of displaying our homes, to print the Ad copy form out. You can also print out all or part of either text files (introduction and our services that we offer) on your printer by using the same exact method described above. Keep this program. We will be updating the photo files & the control modules on a monthly basis and by keeping this program, you will have a convenient way to view the updated files. We are NOT asking for any donation for this program- our revenue will come from selling Ad space (hopefully anyway). Selecting SERVICES THAT WE OFFER YOU, will describe in detail what we do, how we do it, your options and our reasonable fee. We may be the first to offer this type of service, we can't say for sure. What we can say is that, we haven't located anyone else to date, that provides this kind of market coverage for your home. The future (business permitting) will show many changes to this soft- ware package. A totally different package is planned that can run in DOS and/or Windows and possibly OS/2. It's all up to you folks! We think you will be impressed! ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: We are totally grateful to Mr. Harry Gensler for his "MOO" menuing program allowing the initial menu setup. Mr. Gensler can be reached at the: Philosophy Department Loyola University 6525 North Sheridan Chicago, IL 60626 We are also grateful to Mr. Colin J. Stearman for his utility XEQ.COM program. Very helpful in routing sequences. Mr. Stearman can be reached at the: Hardwood Software Associate Senior Associate [71036,256] 143 Ash Street Hopkinton, MA 01748 Gratitude is also given to John Bridges's PICEM .GIF, .PCX and .PIC file viewer. This is a very fast displaying FREEWARE file viewer that we assume, can be found on several BBS's such as, RUSTY-N-EDIE's BBS in Ohio. Gratitude is also given to PINNACLE SOFTWARE's "SEE" text file viewer and printer program. Not only can you view text files, but you can also print all or just a portion of it. Very handy program. PINNACLE SOFTWARE can be reached at: PINNACLE SOFTWARE BOX 714 Airport Road Swanton, Vermont 05488 IBM is the trade mark of International Business Machines Windows is a GUI (Graphical Users Interface) produced by Microsoft. OS/2 is a new operating system produced by IBM. .GIF images stands for Graphic Interchange Format and was created by Compuserve that has one of the finest selection of graphic files. .PCX images are used by PC Paintbrush produced by Z-Soft. .PIC images are used by PC Paint (PICTOR images) produced by MSC TECH.