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Wednesday, February 29, 2012

How to Use WEBForms on a Macintosh MacBook Pro or MacBook Air

Categories:Technology
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My Trusty MacBook Pro that I use in my real estate business.This blog post is for the agents that freqent my blog... so if you're a consumer, please bear with me.

Quite some time ago, I posted about using my MacBook Pro in Real Estate...

Based on the number of hits the post gets each week about using a Macintosh computer in real estate, I thought I should post an update to it.
 
My comments at the time of the post were, "You cannot access WEBForms on RealtorLink via Safari." Well that's correct, and it's not quite so true at the same time.
 
Based on the current operating system OS X 10.7.3 (also known as Lion) the system comes complete with a most advanced web browser - Safari. The current version is 5.1.3. Unfortunately, the required Adobe Acrobat Reader Plugin (or the Adobe Acrobat Plugin) does not work with this browser - STILL - eventhough Adobe promised an upgrade to their plug-in for 2011. In fact, the web browser has been automatically downloaded to users of the last operating system OS X Snow Leopard (10.6). The issue was two-fold: a) Safari 5.1 is a 64-bit program that was designed to work with 64-bit operating systems (which OS 10.7 is), and b) Safari 5.1 changed the way certain protocols were handled.

WEBForms Do Work with Safari 4.0.5 (Multi-Browser verison) on OS X Snow Leopard and OS X Lion.

Here are the steps:
  1. Download a special version of Safari 4.0.5 that allows more than one version of Safari to be installed onto your computer. The link to this file is at http://webforms.realtorlink.ca/webforms/documentation/MultiSafari405.zip
  2. Once downloaded, extract the file. The zip file should be in your Downloads folder by default.
  3. Move the extracted file to your Applications folder. Then drag this application to your dock if you wish quick access. Notice it looks slightly different than the current version of Safari.
  4. If you have not done so yet, download and install the newest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader and/or Adobe Acrobat. This will install the plug-in in case you have never installed it before. If you have already installed the program, then it would already have already installed the plug-in in the correct directory.
  5. Only run Safari 4.0.5 when you wish to access WebForms.
  6. All Done! Now try to open WEBForms in Safari 4.0.5.
 [Originally posted February 25th and updated February 29th with the easier to find realtorlink.ca link.]

 

Real Estate Pro - Tom BusheyAbout Real Estate Professional Tom Bushey:
Tom Bushey is an experienced Associate Broker and REALTOR® with Real Estate Professionals Inc. in Calgary, Alberta. He's passionate about family, friends, technology and specializes in northwest Calgary condos and prestige homes. He welcomes the opportunity to earn the business of you, your friends, neighbours and associates for buying or selling real estate in the Calgary area.

Comments

by Janine on Tue, Mar, 20, 2012 11:30 PM
Hi there,
Just wondering if you know if there are any tricks to downloading multi safari405 on the new iPad?
Thanks!
Janine
by Janine on Tue, Mar, 20, 2012 11:30 PM
Hi there,
Just wondering if you know if there are any tricks to downloading multi safari405 on the new iPad?
Thanks!
Janine
by Tom Bushey on Wed, Mar, 21, 2012 03:21 PM
Hi Janine,

Thanks for visiting!

Great question. No this version of Safari won't work on the iPad. Even though it is called Safari on the iPad, it is significantly different. I believe that there is significant differences between the operating systems of the Mac PC and the iPad (which runs the same operating system as the iPhone/iPad) so programs (aka apps) are required to be completely rewritten to work on the different platform. At this point, I haven't come across anything that works yet to load the PDF directly from WebForms.

What I use is PDF Expert (for filling out the forms on the iPad, adding signatures and initials, flattening the forms and then faxing or emailing them) and SugarSync (for the cloud/online storage box for the master forms and transaction kits). I believe PDF Expert is the product that most agents are using now with the iPad because it gives all the tools we needs. (With the exception of automatically updating new forms from WebForms or capturing information from one form to another within a transaction "kit").

How I handle WebForms is if I am creating a new transaction kit for a client file on my Mac PC, I create it and save it to my desktop. Then I move these documents into a folder that is synched automatically with my iPad. This works exactly the same if you're using a Windows PC. I also have all the blank forms being synched from on file folder similarly (my contact & brokerage info is already filled in the forms in the appropriate spots). Then, if I have an urgent need to write a contract from scratch at a Starbucks or in a home, it's available to fill it in right there on the iPad.

The one piece that we're always missing is access to Alberta Land Titles to get the property owners' legal names and the property restrictions. For that, we still need Internet Explorer until they upgrade their servers.

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