Technology is helpful if you use it.

Would you agree? Is that true for you?


We recently spent two days in South Georgia reviewing a market and taking photographs of land sales all over a county. In the interest of getting the 'best' pictures, we used a nice digital camera.


Arriving back at the office in Chattanooga, we began the task of matching the photos to the sale information. I opened iPhoto and got to work, but alas, there was no map showing the picture's location. I mentally reviewed my potential errors and found to my surprise, I had been using my iPhone or iPad to take photos at the end of the previous project for clean up because it was easier (the camera you have is the one you use) and those devices (iPhone/iPad) both take great pictures. They also have 'geolocational' feature which means they 'tag' every photograph with its location within about 10 meters.
Alas, the "better" photos were NOT better because they were missing what for me has become a key ingredient in my picture taking, geolocational tagging.


Guess I will be giving my 'camera' to my daughter Katherine. For me from now on, I plan to exclusively use my iPhone and iPad for work photographs.


(and plan for my next trip to Italy so I'll have a map on iPhoto that looks like this one . . .)

under all is the land

It is always exciting to me and fun to explore and evaluate new aresa. We recently were approved for a right of way appraisal project in south Georgia and found that those folks are outstandingly nice and helpful. Our first step is always understanding the market, intitially as evidenced by area overview and land sales. Most things are tied to that underlying land and in today's world of technology (as I write this on my iPad on the way to another bid meeting), we STILL do the same things, only faster. First to the Tax Assessor's office online, great source of subject and comparable property data through qPublic.net. Then, in person to the Assessor's office to look at the 'real' property record cards - which are now, too, online in WinGap - even in their office. The office staff and appraisers were VERY helpful and knowledgeable - they will certainly get a prize from us at the end of the project. These experts can describe and discuss the data in real terms of who is buying and why, who is selling and why, and what trends are showing in the data. We wish them all expedience with the annual digest - which they are working on now. More later about the Clerk of Superior Court - repository of actual deeds (and yes they are available online too).