We previewed House Hunter back in August on Tech Savvy Agent and received some great feedback about the app.  However, we heard over and over again that agents wished they could have a branded version of the app.  Jay at Crea8tive Apps took that feedback and ran with it!

Introducing House Hunter MA!  Watch the video and let me know what you think!

Give it out to unlimited prospects and keep your branding front and center as well as the lines of communication open between you and your prospects.

Because of this, it is becoming increasingly important to offer this same experience of your content to consumers visiting your website. Magazine style sites for the iPad are one of the more popular ways that readers enjoy consuming content on the device. The quick loading images that you can scroll through and click on to get more content is much more appealing than just reading a bunch of links and clicking on the one you want.

Recently I found a great way to create your own magazine style version of your Custom WordPress Site called Onswipe.  It allows you to bring in your content from not only your WordPress site, but also from other social media sources like Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, and many more.

The setup can be a little tricky if you don’t know how to insert code into your site or set up a subdomain, but if you do, you can have everything running without much hassle.  If you are not comfortable with doing those types of things, I’d recommend either contact your webhost, or paying someone who understands this to do it for you.

Once you install the code and follow the steps to pull in your feeds, it takes all the content of your WordPress site and other sources and delivers it to consumers in a very unique magazine style layout. You instantly have a dynamic presentation of your content for consumers viewing on an iPad that gives them a memorable experience of your site. The plugin creates a visually appealing version of your site with large images, colorful titles & brief descriptions.

Here is a quick demo of Onswipe:

There are however some down sides to Onswipe. First, the customizations are somewhat limited right now. They allow you to pick from a few styles and change your title background color and font and that is about it for now.  I also ran into a small issue if you try to use the feedburner feed for your posts.  It doesn’t seem to like it, so you will need your WordPress feed which is normally something like http://mysite.com/feed.

Overall, I’d highly recommend checking out Onswipe and setting one up for your site. If you want help with setup, feel free to contact me for details.  Also, grab your iPad and check out my site at http://210consulting.com

If you are familiar with Flipboard for the iPad, then you will understand the concept of Google Currents.  From “leading publications, to blogs you follow, you can browse, read, and share favorite content, presented in a swipable magazine format.”  There are a few differences between the apps, but a major one is the ability to build your own “edition” or content provider in the app and Tech Savvy Agent did just that.

This is an extremely easy way to get your Tech Savvy fix on your mobile device!  Check out the video below for a demo of how the app works.

Having trouble finding Tech Savvy in the app?  Go here on your device 

To get Tech Savvy Agent on Google Currents, just go to the “library” button and search for “Tech Savvy”!

I have to admit I have never been good at budgeting.  I have always had a sales job so whenever I spent more than I should have, I worked harder to sell more.  Not a good strategy for a Dad with a family of four, even though it worked ok in my twenties.

Knowing that I am not proficient at tracking my income and spending, I begrudgingly looked for an app to help.  Apps get me to do things that I normally wouldn’t do because they usually have a “gameification” aspect to them.  The motivation for a higher score, goal, badge, or some type of visual indicator usually keeps me going.  Well, I found a amazingly simple app that already has helped me become more organized.  You can set up your entire financial world in less than 5 minutes and it works automatically….. right up my alley!  Also, stick around for the end for my bonus app that you will love too!

So… Google Calendars Set, I went on a journey of discovery to figure out how I could get my Google Calendars (all of them) to sync with my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Pro, all with out the help of anything like MobileMe. (I am not a huge MobileMe fan but thats a blog post for a different day)

Step One: Relieving all of your devices of their native calendars.  In order to have everything play nicely together you must pick one platform…Google Calendars it is.  I am a huge fan of Google’s calendar capabilities anyway so this wasn’t too big of a jump for me.  Once you make sure all of your data is migrated onto a Google Calendar (herein referred to as gCal) you are ready to start.  (Note: it is much easier to create several calendars for types of events rather than trying to squeeze everything onto one)

Step Two: Go into the Mail, Contacts, and Calendars settings on your mobile devices.  Make sure to turn off other calendars if you plan to use a gCal for everything. Once that is complete, delete your gmail account from your phone and iPad.  (I know this sounds scary, but dont worry, everything is backed up online)

Step Three: Go to m.google.com/sync on your computer and follow the directions on setting up Gmail using Google Sync. This may take some time, however the directions are super easy to follow. Essentially, you are creating an exchange account for Gmail.   (Hint: When setting up the Google Sync your phone and iPad will more than likely name this account Exchange. If you are super picky how things appear on your phone like I am, make sure to change this to Gmail.)

Step Four: Go to m.google.com/sync on your mobile device. You will be prompted to login using your Google sign in.  From here select the device you are working on.  You will be presented with a list of all of the calendars you own and have access to in your gCal account. Simply select the ones you would like to work with on your device, and just like magic they will appear.

Step Five: Open iCal.  Go to preference and delete your previous gmail account and set up a new gCal using CalDav. Once you have the account set up, click the third tab in the preferences named “Delegation”.  If you have this account properly set up you will see all of the available calendars. Select all of the gCal’s you would like to manage and have synced with your other mobile devices.

COMPLETE!

Make sure to run a few tests and check when adding new calendar entries that they update across all of your devices.  The easiest way to do this is to create a new event in iCal, check and amend it on your iPhone, and finally delete it on your iPad.  Then log in to your gCal online and make sure its gone.  Make sure to check the update/sync times on your devices.  I originally thought I had messed up, however I had the auto-refresh times set to long and as such didn’t get the updates immediately.  This is easily changed in the preferences.

Finally: Enjoy knowing when and where you need to be.  No matter what device you happen to be in front of, you can schedule your time away and know you will have total access when ever and where ever.

Guest Post by Greg Grospitch @greggrospitch.

Note: I originally wrote this post for my other blog, but I wanted to repost on TSA. I hope it makes your life a little bit easier!