Adobe Edge Pros and Cons

Where does Adobe Edge fit? It is still in Preview phase but will be released soon. After some research, this is where I see its current state. Correct me if I missed anything.

What it is currently good for:
Creating banner ads for phone browsers.
Opening your html pages and adding sweet little animations. (HTML opens right up as a regular css webpage and you can add flash like effects to any div on your page)
Preparing for the future.

Pros:
It is compatible will all new browsers without any plugin conflicts, like apple has with Flash.
It is based on HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript so it is easy to work with other developers without them having to know Adobe Edge.

Cons:
It cannot be used in older browsers which right now is roughly 40% of the population*
Some advanced programming features are still much faster in Flash.

I would bet my savings that HTML will eventually take over Flash applications, so now is the time to start learning jquery and html5.

*css3 compatibility
*ie6-7 and 8 reach

House Foreclosed on after the Short Sale

I just received a call from my realtor saying that he wanted to let me know that the home we just purchased through foreclosure 5 days ago was sold today on the court house steps.

He knew this because the listing agent was called by the winning bidder and wanted access to the house.

Needless to say, I am a little worried even though we have all the paperwork showing we purchased the home fair and square. But we do not have the title in hand yet.

I wonder how much he paid.

I wonder if he has any right.

 

We have already invested several thousands of dollars… I am worried.

 

He is supposed to call me back and let me know what happens.

 

It sounds like Flagstar’s short sale department did not speak to Flagstars foreclosure department.

Does anyone know anything about what could happen. My brother found this article but it did not help much.
Short sale mistake

 

 

U P D A T E :

 

Start Reading here>

1/4/12 – Email from Title company to Flagstar:

” xxxx,

Please be advised, the listing agent for the above referenced transaction, xxxx, received a call earlier today from xxxx (757-xxx-xxxx) who stated he purchased this property at the court steps via foreclosure today. See attached trustees sale print that was provided to us.

However, this transaction closed 01-30 per your company’s approval of the final lender approved HUD (see email below). Due to the court’s holiday schedule the documents could not be recorded until Tuesday 01-03.  The transaction was disbursed according to the buyer’s closing agency and the documents were overnighted to you per the shortsale approval letter yesterday 01-03..

I have attached all seller executed documents (shortsale documents and final HUD) for your reference.

The UPS package for the shortsale package sent from the buyers closing agent, Advance Title, with the proceeds check for Flagstar’s Proceeds was delivered as per the shortsale instructions at 10:09am today 10-04 and signed for by “xxxx” according to UPS. The tracking number for your reference is # xxxx

The call from xxxx has caused all parties to the transaction to become alarmed.  We ask that you address this matter immediately so all parties may be further assured your shortsale agreement was in good faith.  Please advise our office how you intend to proceed as soon as possible.”

 

1/4/12 – Email from Loss Mitigation /Flagstar to Title Company

“Good afternoon.  I am currently working on this with the attorney.  It appears that today when the request was made to close the file with our attorney that the request occurred minutes after the sale took place.  The reason that the sale was not place on hold sooner was that the documents for the closing package were not received prior to the sale which caused a delay in the request.

I am currently working with the attorney in determining the process to rescind the sale.

I will have an update by tomorrow morning at the latest.”

 

1/6/12 – Email from Loss Mitigation /Flagstar to Title Company

I am currently working with the foreclosure attorney in rescinding the sale.  The third party buyer has been exceptional in assisting us with this as the purchase was valid.  At this time I am working on getting the deposit made back to the other individual, and actively seeking assistance from our attorneys to determine if the process can be sped up.

Unfortunately, this has never occurred before, especially with a third party buyer so I cannot provide a time line.  Our attorney has advised me that given the cooperation of the other buyer, this will be a quick and clean process.  

Any updates I receive I will forward.”

 

 

———

Geez.

It looks like everything is going to work out just fine. That was scary for a couple days. Hard to sleep, we already have enough going on with our jobs, fixing up the house and moving without worrying about if we really own the house.

 

 

Flagstar Short Sale – The wait is over

Nov 29th > from my Realtor

“Just got a call back from the agent for xxxx.  Still no news.  She and the seller have both been calling Flagstar and are not getting calls or emails returned.  She emailed last week to point out to them the 11/30 deadline and reiterated to Flagstar that it is your intent to pull out after that date as soon as you find the property of your choice.  I reminded her that this was ratified back on 9/2 and that Flagstar has had almost 90 days to get this approved.  I also let her know that you’ve identified 7 properties that you would like to view this weekend.

She said that early part of last week that xxxx at Flagstar said he had all the info he needed and that the value was in line, so she was hopeful for approval.

My guess is that it met their guidelines and has been referred to the investor who has bought the pool of mortgages that this one is in for their approval.

I’ve asked xxxx to update me as soon as she hears something.”

 

Nov 30th > from my Realtor YES!

“Actually was just drafting email.  xxxx and I have talked & emailed this afternoon trying to get this tied down.

Seller has agreed.  Looks like we are moving forward!  She will let me know as soon as they receive the approval letter from Flagstar.  I am assuming we will receive this afternoon.

I will be going over there this afternoon to verify breakers.  Will txt you when done.  Please call VA Power after that for hookup.

Please also call City of Chesapeake Public Utilities for Water/sewer at 382-6368.  Please let me know when they will go.  Make sure you let them know it is a vacant property and that someone will need to meet there so if they can tighten up an appointment window to an hour instead of 4 hrs it would be greatly appreciated!

Finally, please call Virginia Natural gas at 877-572-3342 to set up.  Please explain vacant property as above.

Once all utilities are on, we can do the inspection.  Have you decided who you will be using?
I want to be there for all inspections.  My calendar can be switched around except for Noon to 3 on Saturday when I will be at another inspection on one of my listings.  Just let me know….”

Dec 1 – We received the Flagstar Approval Letter

Flagstar Approval Letter

 

Dec 5th – We paid for an inspection

From this point on we worked with our Mortgage Company and turned on all the utilities. The va appraisal came in at 310,000 even though the house has a zestimate of 330,000. and the property assessment is 345k. It has been a happy month. (needs new carpet, touchup paint and a few doors and overall cleanup)

Dec 12/29 – email from realtor

Congratulations!

Below is our final approval from Flagstar.(HUD settlement letter, I did not include it here) We are good for closing tomorrow.  See you at 3:00
We get the keys tomorrow!!!!!!!!  Thank goodness.
 
U P D A T E
1/4/11 - Our house was sold again! Flagstar Foreclosure

Samsung Galaxy Nexus Panoramic Sample

Just got this phone from Verizon today. It is a humongous upgrade from the Droid X (original).

First things I noticed is that it is much like my sons Google Nexus but faster. Quickness is its best feature if you ask me, it grunts out any task with its snappy dual-core 1.2GHz . Perhaps if I had another dual core phone before this one I would feel different, but this thing is a beast.

My second favorite feature is the smooth interface. Everything feels so fluent. Android 4 is well thought out. Annoying repetitive tasks have been ironed out in this release.

I took some photos of a co-workers Galaxy Nexus and some other phones with my Galaxy Nexus as seen above. The camera has a great deal to be desired in the quality department but it is astonishingly quick. Camera comes up in less than 3 seconds and it takes snaps in 1 second and is ready for another. It has a pretty cool panoramic feature as you can see below. I have shaky hands so I am guessing it had a hard time stitching with my panoramic 10 second swivel. This phone is FAST, if you are deciding on whether you should get it, you should, its speed is unbelievable!

Panoramic Nexus Galaxy

Brammo Empulse Nov Update

Everyone has been waiting patiently (some pre-orders were over a year ago) for the Brammo Empulse to be released.

I recently spoke with Adrian Stewart via email and he sounded very confident that the Brammo Empulse has enough pre-orders that their major concern is more on the side of production. They want to be able to produce them fast enough if they get large orders. As he stated in his email “As a result we are not doing too much promotion right now….lead times are a delicate balance of delayed gratification which can then tip into frustration” So it sounds like they are working hard on how to streamline production.

I also recently received an email (Oct 12 2011) that cleared up the Gearbox misconceptions:

“Thank you for placing a pre-order for the Brammo Empulse motorcycle.  All Empulse pre-orders are processed in the order in which they are received.  Once your pre-order is within 90 days of manufacture, a Brammo dealer will contact you to request a non-refundable deposit of $1000. Empulse deliveries are expected to commence during the 2012 riding season.   Exactly when will depend on your position in the pre-order queue, and your location.
After much deliberation we have decided to integrate the new six speed gearbox into the bike to give higher performance and longer range.  This decision pushed back deliveries into 2012. Obviously, that is a huge financial decision for Brammo to defer all that revenue.  However, in the final analysis we felt the responsibility to build the best bike we could.  Consequently, the Empulse is in the engineering phase.
Thank you once again for choosing Brammo and the Empulse. We truly appreciate your business and we will keep you informed of developments through our Empulse newsletter”

 

Overall it looks like everything is going well for Brammo, between the recent fact that Hong Kong selected Brammo to supply their Electric Police Motorcycles and Polaris believes so much in the electric future that it has invested over 20 Million in series b funding for Brammo. (Polaris must popularly known for its 4 wheelers perhaps, is also known for its Victory motorcycles)

A passenger seat and pillions to be included on the Brammo Empulse release. Supposedly Brammo ‘slipped’ on their facebook page according to plugbike. I am one of the peple pushing for the 2 seater on the brammo forums!

Yesterday, asphalt and rubber released an article conveying that the other electric motorcycle company, Zero plans to beat the Brammo Empulse availability date of sometime during the 2012 riding season. Jensen tells the public that Zero will have a 95+ mph 100+ mile range model ready to ride sometime in January and have a smaller price tag to boot.  Lets hope that it looks good, even if it is ugly we are headed in the right direction with 100% electric motorcycles.

 

Adobe Edge Photo Gallery

This Photo Gallery made in Adobe Edge is very simplistic mainly because Adobe has not released all the features yet.  This Gallery uses edge actions to swap out the jpgs from the images folder. No cool transitions, just plain old image swapping. But this gives you a good idea on how to use global JavaScript variables inside of Adobe Edge using actions.

EXAMPLE Simple Adobe Edge Photo Gallery
There are 3 things on the stage, a jpg we want to switch out, and two buttons that are just transparent png arrows that take up half the screen.

There are also three Edge actions that make the photo gallery work. Click on the little actions icon to open up actions for a specific element.

 

STAGE> defining Global Variables
These variables will be used so the gallery knows which image to start with and how many total jpgs there are in the images folder.

//Start at .jpg number
this.i = 1;

// Set the total number of jpgs in the images folder
this.t =5;

 

BUTTON_NEXT> replacing the photo on stage with the next jpg from the images folder

// insert code for mouse clicks here

if (this.i > this.t-1)
{
this.i=0
}

 this.i = this.i+1;
$(this.lookupSelector("photo")).attr("src","images/"+this.i+".jpg");

 

BUTTON_BACK> replacing the photo on stage with the previous jpg from the images folder

// insert code for mouse clicks here

 this.i = this.i-1;
if (this.i == 0)
{
this.i=this.t
}
$(this.lookupSelector("photo")).attr("src","images/"+this.i+".jpg");

 

Adobe Edge Simple Photo Gallery Source (just swap out the jpgs in the images folder, make sure they are 800×450 or you will have to change the buttons and stage size)

Download Source File

Flagstar Short Sale – Feels like forever

We knew bidding on a short sale was going to take awhile but it is starting to feel like we will never get the home, not sure if this is a personal feeling about Flagstar or not. Since a home is quite possibly one of the largest purchases you will ever make, well it makes me pretty anxious. We finally found a home that we like, in a good school district, a nice neighborhood in a good area. But it has been sitting for over 6 months so it needs a good amount of TLC. New carpets, some wall painting, 5 door replacements, power washing, yard work. But nothing major.So we started working with our realtor to put a bid in on the home.

2011 City Property Assesment is at $350,000 – Home was listed at $315,000 – We are offering $295,000 (last sold in 2006 for $420,000)

We started the short sale process late August 2011.

August 25 – We learned that flagstar was the bank and our realtor hadnever worked with them before

Sept 8 – Ratified Contract (current home owner signed off on everything)

Sept 29 – We received news that Flagstar ordered the BPO and that we would here back in 1 week (Broker Price opinion where someone comes out and puts a vaule on the home based on ALL factors)

Oct 19 – Email from my realtor>

“I spoke to the listing agent today for an update.  Apparently Flagstar must not have liked the results of the BPO and hired an appraiser as well.  The listing agent met the appraiser on Wednesday, 10/12.  She said she was very thorough, especially when it came to documenting the condition of the home.  I have asked her to follow up again next week with the bank to make sure they have the appraisal and if there is anything else that they need to approve the sale.

The listing agent said that the bank’s primary concern was the size of the write off that they will end up taking.  I asked her to remind them that the market value is what it is, and that having an offer in hand is far better for them than to incur the expenses and delay associated with going through a foreclosure.”

I will add an update as soon as I get one. My realtor recenlty told me that he had another client ratify a contract 1 week after us and he received his keys last week.  That was a wells fargo short sale. Overall I don’t feel like it is taking that long, I am just anxious. I have read some horror stories online about Flagstar taking over 6 months, especially if the home is not close to foreclosure. Unfortuntely I have no idea when the home owner missed his 1st payment, but I do know the home has been on Zillow for 171 days now.

Nov 4th email from my Realtor:

“>Finally got an update from the listing agent for xxxx.  The bank has
>reorganized how they are handling short sales and have dedicated more people
>towards processing short sales, and our file has been assigned to a
>negotiator.  That is good.  We’ve got past the paper pushers and now having
>a negotiator assigned, we should be able to get some answers.
>
>
>
>The seller’s have received the demand notice and have been told that it has
>been referred to an attorney for foreclosure; however, they have chosen not
>to set a date yet.  What this means is that they are doing all the
>background and legal paperwork, but not taking the final step of the
>foreclosure.  Banks do this so that if they cannot get a short sale closed
>they have not lost time and can foreclose quickly.  Basically, the
>foreclosure is traveling on a parallel path.
>
>
>
>While a foreclosure referral is bad news, one of the results is that is good
>is that we have now been bumped up to the top of the stack.  William, I know
>that you mentioned that you had read earlier about other short sales with
>Flagstar Bank that it took them moving to foreclosure status for the
>approval to get done.  Well, it looks like we are there.  Let’s keep our
>fingers crossed that this pushes the deal over the hump and not over the
>edge!
>
>
>
>I have reiterated to the agent and asked that she remind the negotiator that
>the sunset date on our contract is November 30, and that if the deal is not
>approved by the bank by then, we have the right to walk away.  Now that the
>deadline is in site ahead and the foreclosure is coming up from behind, they
>will have to make a decision.  Gut feel is that we should have an answer in
>the next 2 weeks.
>
>
>
>At this point, I suggest that we hold tight for another few weeks.
>Hopefully, a decision will come in the next couple weeks.  Legally, you
>still are obligated under the contract until the 30th.  At that point in
>time, it is your OPTION to pull out without penalty.  So, I would suggest
>that the plan continue to be to hold tight with the current contract and if
>we do not have approval by the last week of the month, then let’s start
>looking.  By that time, xxxx will be back from Texas and we can search in
>earnest.  We can keep the contract on xxxx in place until we find
>something you like.  At that time, you can terminate the xxxx contract
>and get a release and move on.  We cannot put a new contract in place until
>we have the old one released.
>
>
>
>I will continue to follow up.  Hopefully, we’ll get approval in the next
>couple weeks and move on to closing.”

Nov 4th Reply from Realtor:

“We don’t know exact numbers, but the mortgage that is outstanding now was originally in the amount of $364,240 back in June of 2007.  IF it was a normal, amortizing mortgage, then it would be somewhere in the range of $348,000.  It shows as a conventional mortgage, so there is no way to know if it was amortizing or if it was interest-only, or even a “pay-option” arm.

Overall, the mortgage balance should not have an effect on their decision.  The value is the value, regardless of what is owed.

Hope that answers your questions.”

 

Nov 16 Email from my Realtor:

“Here is the latest update.  Hope we get a decision this week.”

From the seller’s Realtor:”Just wanted to let you know that the sellers emailed Flagstar the updated financial documentation they were requesting yesterday. I followed up with the short sale specialist also. Hopefully, we will know something soon.”

 

Nov 22nd Email from Realtor:

“I spoke to xxxx and got the latest update from the bank.  She got an email over the weekend from the processor at the bank saying that they had not provide pay stubs for the husband and that they could not process the short sale without them.  xxxx called them on Monday to remind the processor that he has been unemployed since April and that was the reason for pursuing the short sale in the first place.  He saw that it was noted in the file & apologized and said the file was complete and
a decision would come shortly.

I know it is frustrating when we hear things like this, but I understand that a processor has hundreds of active files, so I’m not surprised that they forget that someone is unemployed or don’t look through the file in enough detail.  Hopefully we’ll get an answer soon.

I reminded xxxx and asked that she also remind the bank that November 30 is an out date you and that if a decision has not been made by then you will likely move on to something else.  I want to make sure we keep the pressure on so that they understand that they have a deadline and that deadline is a week from tomorrow.

I’ll keep calling and let you know the results.”

 Flagstar Short Sale – Results <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Reverse Osmosis Tank Pressure

We installed a simple whirlpool reverse osmosis system to replace an inline water filter outside of our companies industrial size ice machine. This took about an hour to install. But we had a problem. NO WATER PRESSURE. We waited for 2 hours, still no water pressure, just a small drip. So we installed an inline water pump since our water pressure is already low on the third floor. Maybe the low water pressure did mnot allow the RO system to work properly.
Commercial RO System

STILL JUST DRIPPING! It took employees 5 minutes to fill up a glass of water.

SO we installed a larger pump, pressure tank and commercial quality Reverse Osmosis System. And Still no Water pressure.

So I finally stuck my finger over the output hose and low and behold, when I let go, there was water pressure. So to make a long story short, it ended up being the Ice Machine.

We just moved in this building and did not expect the 20,000 ice machine to have an issue. The solenoid that stops water flow in the top of the machine was faulty and never shut the water off, so the water kept draining out of the system.  We replaced the solenoid valve and we have unbelievable pressure now.

Adobe Edge – HTML 5 WYSIWYG

When I first previewed Adobe Edge I thought it was going to be the new Dreamweaver but  It turns out that it is a future replacement for flash.  Even though flash and silverlight are widely adopted, HTML5 is compatible with ALL modern browsers. The only issue is slightly older browsers wont display HTML.

Currently HTML5 is not easy for a regular designer to program or make interseting effects with. Adobe Edge will make all the required javascript files for you so you can focus on how you want it to work and look. They adobted a Flash interface type atmosphere so it is easy for us Flash enthusiasts but with subtle difference that are seen in the silverlight world.

It looks like they currently spit out jquery type javascript files for the final web ready product. It looks pretty heavy if you want to do something simple but soon enough all websites will require most of these js files so web devlopers better hop on the HTML5 train quick to stay competitive.

One other attractive feature HTML 5 has going for it is that it is more SEO friendly meaning that work done in flash or silverlight might not get indexed by search engines as well as work you perform in a program like Adobe Edge.

asp .net url variable select dropdown list

You would think it would be easy fro a Novice programmer to pre-select a dropdownlist with C# in ASP .Net from a url variable.

Well after an hour of fumbling around I was able to do it.

Page Code:

    
            Customer Assistance
            Client Assistance
            Aquisition and Sales
            Investor Relations
            Business Development

        

Page onLoad Code:

       string Department = Request.QueryString["dep"];
            if (!IsPostBack)
            {
                try
                {
                    txtDepartment.Items.FindByValue(Department).Selected = true;
                }
                catch
                {
                    txtDepartment.Items.FindByValue("custlistitemomerservice").Selected = true;
                }
            }

Example URL Request:

contact.aspx?dep=b2b