It looks like the girls are back in town as well, thanks to our beloved Turtle! Should be an action-packed episode so check back for my review.

The last few years, I saw the lending mess we are in now happening in slow motion. . .knowing that two pals of mine both with graduate degrees and high level white collar jobs had to obtain an interest only loan in the Northern Virginia area just to get into a small three bedroom two bath home in a safe neighborhood. . .something was seriously wrong, a hugely false real estate economy where the true supply and demand rates were hidden by the public's ability to qualify for significantly more loan in a short term investment. . .but a few years down the road when that balloon payment is due and that promotion didn't come, where does that land us? In markets other than ours, you can see the aftermath.

I know I have stood on my little blog soapbox before extolling the beauty of our simple market here in Eastern North Carolina. I refuse to say that our market is a "sure thing", those days are essentially gone, there are too many variables and I would be more than happy to do the market research for you on a case by case basis given your specific circumstances. . .there ARE ways to invest but, generally, think more buy and hold rather than flip and run.

Here in Eastern NC our major employer is the US Government. . .who garuntees employees a 3% or more pay raise a year. . .not to mention deployments of family separation pay, tax free zones, imminent danger pay and more. . .and don't even start me on the support staff and contractors who aren't counted as "military" in our area. . .we never had a "sexy" market here, no bubble, no 200% PLUS profits here. . .but like a mutual fun or bond. . .slowly and safely we have been plugging along.

Between January and this October, the average number of days a single family home sits on the market, 45 (not too shabby) and the percent sold was 58% with an average list price of 171,676 and average sales price of 167,853 with a price/list price ratio of 97.77%. In short, slower surely than in the last few years, however, still stable and a smart investment. I'll have more in the days to come but wanted to share the information snack with you.

Have a great Sunday, I am off to pretend to watch football, which, generally, I see the season as an excuse to not drink light beer and eat wings. . .I get told every Sunday who I am supposed to be rooting for because I generally spend my weekends working or writing things like this and not watching highlight reels or Madden talk about his turduckin.

The basic mechanism to asynchronous upload is to submit the form to a 'hidden' iframe:

[sourcecode language='html']

[/sourcecode]

In this example, I have declared the <iframe> in the mark-up, and set the form target to the <iframe>.  On clicking the upload button, you should see a "blank" page in the <iframe>.  This example works in all major browsers.

Since my goal is to create an extender, I need to create the <iframe> and hook up the form taget programmatically using DOM scripting:

[sourcecode language='html']

[/sourcecode]

This example worked in all major browsers except Internet Explorer! With IE, the form is submitted to a new page/tab instead of the <iframe> as specified in the target attribute.

Suspecting that may be the id and name attributes hadn't been set correctly, I added Sys.Debug.trace(document.getElementById("winUpload")) and Sys.Debug.trace(document.getElementsByName("winUpload") and the console output shows the <iframe> element, suggesting that the <iframe> was created, attributes set and added to the DOM.

So why can't the form find its target window? I looked up this problem in a search engine and found a handful of posts:

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms536389.aspx
• http://www.quirksmode.org/js/iframe.html
• http://terminalapp.net/submitting-a-form-with-target-set-to-a-script-generated-iframe-on-ie/
• http://news.hping.org/comp.lang.javascript.archive/0959.html
• http://developer.apple.com/internet/webcontent/iframe.html
• http://readystate4.com/2008/05/13/dynamically-creating-an-iframe-for-internet-explorer/

Using the suggestions from these posts, here is the updated example:

[sourcecode language='html']

[/sourcecode]

B.t.w. If you are not using ASP.NET AJAX, why not take a look at YUI's Connection Manager which implements asynchronous file uploads.

Para iniciar este blog, achei um artigo muito interessante sobre a criatividade. Supondo que a maioria das pessoas que irão ler o blog, são pessoas ligadas a arte, design, literatura, quadrinhos, música, ou outras áreas criativas, achei legal começar com um artigo sobre o ponto de vista psicológico da criatividade.

Criatividade... é a capacidade de criar ou produzir novas e valiosas coisas, é a habilidade do cérebro de chegar a novas conclusões e resolver problemas de modo original.

Você é Criativo?

Confira o perfil psicológico de pessoas criativas:

Características Cognitivas:
- Percepção Refinada
- Capacidade de Intuição
- Imaginação.
- Capacidade Crítica
- Curiosidade Intelectual.

Características Afetivas:
- Graça e Liberdade
- Entusiasmo.
- Profundidade / Perspicácia.
- Perseverança / Afinco.

Liberdade? O interessante é que, de acordo com esse perfil, o melhor design, ou a  coisa mais criativa, viria de artistas freelancers, supondo que eles tem uma vida mais livre e original, ao contrário do usual. Já a capacidade crítica, a perspicácia e a curiosidade intelectual podem ser adquiridas com aperfeiçoamento e treino.

Quebrando o Mito:

Não acreditamos em dons. Ponto. Acreditamos na perseverança e preparação.
Se tivéssemos dons ou talentos, porque compramos livros, frequentamos aulas, gastamos horas treinando para sermos melhores versões de nós mesmos?
Por isso ponham um fim nos mitos de inspirações divinas, talentos natos, ou idéias espontâneas. A Criatividade, como tudo na vida, pode ser treinada, o sucesso depende de nosso aperfeiçoamento.

Acredite em Você:

Quem acredita em si mesmo, está certo que sua missão será bem sucedida e sabe como focar produtivamente no aprendizado. Quando erram, consideram isso como um meio de melhorar, e não se desistir.

Se você que se tornar um bom designer, só tente não cometer os mesmo erros, seja confiante que com o passar do tempo você vai melhorar. Nosso objetivo não é ser O MELHOR, mas sim melhorar cada vez mais.

Estude as regras... e depois, quebre-as.

Criatividade não é nada mais do que quebrar regras, mas para faze-las, primeiro você deve conhece-las. Por isso é sempre importante estudar o "clássico" seja você um pintor, escritor ou um designer. Se você quer ser um bom pintor surrealista, primeiro estude o realismo.

Designers sempre pegam esse ponto no processo de desenvolvimento. Primeiro eles estudam o cliente (entendem suas regras), para depois esticar, quebrar, forçar...

O desenho é demostrado desenhando...

Não conheço um designer ou desenhista, que começa trabalhar sabendo exatamente o que vai criar. Claro que a primeira coisa a se fazer, é entender o trabalho, elaborar as informações, assimila-las e então... descançar, desconectar e relaxar. As boas idéias aparecem quando você está fazendo outra coisa.

Quando você voltar a sua mesa, sempre, comece a rascunhar no papel (ou photoshop). A idéia é sempre encarar o papel branco quando se está relaxado, deste modo você está desconectado de seu cérebro racional e ativa áreas menos conscientes, onde as idéias não são gerenciadas pela lógica, e sim vão tomando forma naturalmente.

Se você puder fazer isso em algum lugar ou com alguém que te faça sentir bem, melhor ainda.
Superando o bloqueio criativo.

Quando ele vem, a solução sempre é dificil. Tente relaxar, caminhar, ler uma revista, sair com os amigos... é melhor perder 2 horas deste modo, a passar o dia inteiro na frente de uma tela em branco.

Mas você pode evitar os bloqueios, organizando sua vida pra que ela não vire um pesadelo.

- Não aceite trabalhos com pouco prazo, ou muito trabalho.
- Não trabalhe para pessoas que não concordam com sua maneira de entender o design/arte.
- Planeje o trabalho, para que você tenha tempo para relaxar.
- Faça uma pausa a cada 1 ou 2 horas.
- Começe o dia com a coisas rotineiras, pra ir aquecendo. Depois, inicie suas tarefas criativas.
- Tente ter trabalhos variados: ilustraçoes, websites, logos...
- Tire uma soneca de vez em quando, muitas idéias vem quando você está entre o estado sonolento e acordado.

Claro, que infelizmente, não é possível realmente praticar isso sempre. Mas eu acho que controlar o estresse é outra maneira de um bom designer/ilustrador.

Alimente sua Mente

Muita gente acha que somos malucos, quando estamos lendo quadrinhos ou jogando video-games. Mas para cultivar nossa cultura visual, é parte de nosso trabalho, irmos ao cinema, jogar video-games, ler quadrinhos, visitar exibições ou parques... isso é trabalhar. Tudo o que nos rodeia pode nos inspirar no próximo projeto.

Preocupe-se com seu corpo

Nosso grande problema, geralmente, é o sedentarismo. Nem preciso dizer que é impossível ser criativo quando as costas doem.

Por isso é extremamente recomendado praticar algum esporte, ir na academia... tente ficar em forma.

A mesma coisa com a dieta, coma coisas variadas, muitas frutas e vegetais. Se você está acima do peso, tente perder alguns quilos.

Para ser criativo, você precisar estar feliz, e isso acontece quando você também está bem fisicamente.

Aprecia seu trabalho!

É muito importante saber apreciar seu trabalho, se envolver emocionalmente, gostar dele, ama-lo, torna-lo um modo de vida.

Se você não for criativo em sua vida pessoal, as chances de ser criativo no trabalho serão poucas.

No final, tudo é resumido em: seja feliz com seu trabalho, se você gosta do que faz, continue fazendo!

Estude, leia, busque inspirações, conheça novos artistas, novas pessoas, mantenha-se atualizado, aprenda coisas... Existem infinidades de artigos na internet sobre isso. Nosso blog vai ser uma grande referência pra buscar inspiração, então fique ligado.

"SHITCHYEAH!" Yesterday some exciting news made its way to the internet. Gears of War 2 was said to FINALLY gone gold. Yes thats right, the sequel is now complete/manufacturing and will soon ship to stores. Isn't it torture every time a game goes gold. Its so close, yet so far away. Gears of War 2 drops on November 7, 2008. Pre-order now through Amazon and receive a bonus 10 Dollar Gift Certificate.

The Story: Taking place roughly two months after the end of the first Gears of War game, hero Marcus Fenix and a new recruit, Jace, are out on patrol searching for any survivors of a brutal Locust attack. They find a few, one a familiar face, and kill quite a few Locusts along the way.

What's Good: How well the creative team nails the feel of the Xbox 360 game. The art, dialogue, and story all do a wonderful job of using the atmosphere and characters to great effect. If you're looking for a story about tough guys killing monsters using excessive violence, you can't do much better than this. As a fan of the game, I couldn't be more satisfied.

What's Not So Good: As you probably guessed, this isn't exactly the deepest comic on the stands. The characters are your generic military tough guys, the violence may be too much for some to handle, and the comic never really rises above its videogame roots. Also, the storyline is written assuming that you have played the game at some point, so those unfamiliar with Gears may find themselves wondering about certain references.

On the technical side, the dark coloring muddies up and confuses a scene or two, but this is only a slight annoyance in an otherwise good looking book.

Conclusion: Action junkies and Gears fans should really take the time to check out this comic. It faithfully translates everything that made the game such a success into an enjoyable, visually impressive book. A mindless, yet pleasant surprise in every way.

Grade: B

-Kyle Posluszny

View Larger Map

As of 10/10/2008 here are the stats for the Walnut Grove Neighborhood.

Click here to view the last few weekly reports and the averages since I started keeping stats

For a complete list of homes for sale in the Mountainview Neighborhood, please call or Click here, to request an update.

If you are interested in selling your home for top dollar in the quickest amount of time, please contact me anytime at 503-524-9494 or Click here to send me an e-mail requesting further information.

Todd Clark - broker
Kastings & Associates
Phone: (503)524-9494
Fax: (503)622-8739

View Larger Map

As of 10/10/2008 here are the stats for the Tigard Neighborhood. This week I’ve changed the stats to only count the sales from the last 7 days to give a better reflection of what is going on in the neighborhood during any given week.

Click here to view the last few weekly reports and the averages since I started keeping stats

For a complete list of homes for sale in the Mountainview Neighborhood, please call or Click here, to request an update.

If you are interested in selling your home for top dollar in the quickest amount of time, please contact me anytime at 503-524-9494 or Click here to send me an e-mail requesting further information.

Todd Clark - broker
Kastings & Associates
Phone: (503)524-9494
Fax: (503)622-8739

View Larger Map

As of 10/10/2008 here are the stats for the Summerfield Neighborhood. This week I’ve changed the stats to only count the sales from the last 7 days to give a better reflection of what is going on in the neighborhood during any given week.

Click here to view the last few weekly reports and the averages since I started keeping stats

For a complete list of homes for sale in the Mountainview neighborhood, please call or Click here, to request an
update.

If you are interested in selling your home for top dollar in the quickest amount of time, please contact me anytime at 503-524-9494 or Click here to send me an e-mail requesting further information.

Todd Clark - broker
Kastings & Associates
Phone: (503)524-9494
Fax: (503)622-8739

View Larger Map

As of 10/10/2008 here are the stats for the Greenburg Neighborhood. This week I’ve changed the stats to only count the sales from the last 7 days to give a better reflection of what is going on in the neighborhood during any given week.

Click here to view the last few weekly reports and the averages since I started keeping stats

For a complete list of homes for sale in the Summer Lake Neighborhood, please call or click here, to request an update.

If you are interested in selling your home for top dollar in the quickest amount of time, please contact me anytime at 503-524-9494 or click here to send me an e-mail requesting further information.

Todd Clark - broker
Kastings & Associates
Phone: (503)524-9494
Fax: (503)622-8739

View Larger Map

As of 10/10/2008 here are the stats for the Sorrento Ridge Neighborhood. This week I’ve changed the stats to only count the sales from the last 7 days to give a better reflection of what is going on in the neighborhood during any given week.

Click here to view the last few weekly reports and the averages since I started keeping stats

For a complete list of homes for sale in the Sorrento Ridge Neighborhood, please call or Click here, to request an update.

If you are interested in selling your home for top dollar in the quickest amount of time, please contact me anytime at 503-524-9494 or Click here to send me an e-mail requesting further information.

Todd Clark - broker
Kastings & Associates
Phone: (503)524-9494
Fax: (503)622-8739

View Larger Map

As of 10/10/2008 here are the stats for the Sexton Mountain Neighborhood. This week I’ve changed the stats to only count the sales from the last 7 days to give a better reflection of what is going on in the neighborhood during any given week.

Click here to view the last few weekly reports and the averages since I started keeping stats

For a complete list of homes for sale in the Sexton Mountain Neighborhood, please call or Click Here, to request an update.

If you are interested in selling your home for top dollar in the quickest amount of time, please contact me anytime at 503-524-9494 or Click Here to send me an e-mail requesting further information.

Todd Clark - broker
Kastings & Associates
Phone: (503)524-9494
Fax: (503)622-8739

View Larger Map

As of 10/10/2008 here are the stats for the Murrayhill Neighborhood. This week I’ve changed the stats to only count the sales from the last 7 days to give a better reflection of what is going on in the neighborhood during any given week.

<td align="right"104

Click here to view the last few weekly reports and the averages since I started keeping stats

For a complete list of homes for sale in the Murrayhill neighborhood, please call or click here, to request an update.

If you are interested in selling your home for top dollar in the quickest amount of time, please contact me anytime at 503-524-9494 or click here to send me an e-mail requesting further information.

Todd Clark - broker
Kastings & Associates
Phone: (503)524-9494
Fax: (503)622-8739

View larger map

As of 10/10/2008 here are the stats for the Mountainview Neighborhood

Click here to view the last few weekly reports and the averages since I started keeping stats

For a complete list of homes for sale in the Mountainview Neighborhood, please call or Click here, to request an update.

If you are interested in selling your home for top dollar in the quickest amount of time, please contact me anytime at 503-524-9494 or Click here to send me an e-mail requesting further information.

Todd Clark - broker
Kastings & Associates
Phone: (503)524-9494
Fax: (503)622-8739

View Larger Map

As of 10/10/2008 here are the stats for the Lexington Neighborhood. This week I’ve changed the stats to only count the sales from the last 7 days to give a better reflection of what is going on in the neighborhood during any given week.

Click here to view the last few weekly reports and the averages since I started keeping stats

For a complete list of homes for sale in the Lexington Neighborhood, please call or Click here, to request an update.

If you are interested in selling your home for top dollar in the quickest amount of time, please contact me anytime at 503-524-9494 or Click here to send me an e-mail requesting further information.

Todd Clark - broker
Kastings & Associates
Phone: (503)524-9494
Fax: (503)622-8739

View Larger Map

As of 10/10/2008 here are the stats for the Highland Hills Neighborhood. This week I’ve changed the stats to only count the sales from the last 7 days to give a better reflection of what is going on in the neighborhood during any given week.

Click here to view the last few weekly reports and the averages since I started keeping stats

For a complete list of homes for sale in the Highland Hills Neighborhood, please call or Click here, to request an update.

If you are interested in selling your home for top dollar in the quickest amount of time, please contact me anytime at 503-524-9494 or Click here to send me an e-mail requesting further information.

Todd Clark - broker
Kastings & Associates
Phone: (503)524-9494
Fax: (503)622-8739

View Larger Map

As of 10/10/2008 here are the stats for the Hart Neighborhood. This week I’ve changed the stats to only count the sales from the last 7 days to give a better reflection of what is going on in the neighborhood during any given week.

Click here to view the last few weekly reports and the averages since I started keeping stats

For a complete list of homes for sale in the Mountainview Neighborhood, please call or Click here, to request an update.

If you are interested in selling your home for top dollar in the quickest amount of time, please contact me anytime at 503-524-9494 or Click here to send me an e-mail requesting further information.

Todd Clark - broker
Kastings & Associates
Phone: (503)524-9494
Fax: (503)622-8739

Click here to go to Google Maps to get point to point directions

As of 10/10/2008 here are the stats for the Greenway Neighborhood. This week I’ve changed the stats to only count the sales from the last 7 days to give a better reflection of what is going on in the neighborhood during any given week.

Click here to view the last few weekly reports and the averages since I started keeping stats

For a complete list of homes for sale in the Greenway Neighborhood please call or click here to request a update of homes in the Greenway Neighborhood of Beaverton, Oregon.

If you are interested in selling your home for top dollar in the quickest amount of time, please contact me anytime at 503-524-9494 or click here to send me an e-mail requesting further information.

Todd Clark - broker
Kastings & Associates
Phone: (503)524-9494
Fax: (503)622-8739

View Larger Map

As of 10/10/2008 here are the stats for the Greenburg Neighborhood. This week I’ve changed the stats to only count the sales from the last 7 days to give a better reflection of what is going on in the neighborhood during any given week.

Click here to view the last few weekly reports and the averages since I started keeping stats

For a complete list of homes for sale in the Greenburg Neighborhood, please call or click here, to request an update.

If you are interested in selling your home for top dollar in the quickest amount of time, please contact me anytime at 503-524-9494 or click here to send me an e-mail requesting further information.

Todd Clark - broker
Kastings & Associates
Phone: (503)524-9494
Fax: (503)622-8739

]]> http://yourlifetimeagent.wordpress.com/?p=785 Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:32:30 +0000 yourlifetimeagent http://yourlifetimeagent.da.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/beaverton-oregon-home-sales-cooper-mountain-neighborhood-10102008/ The Cooper Mountain neighborhood of Beaverton, Oregon goes east from Grabhorn Rd to 175th Ave, then north from Kemmer Rd to Farmington Road. The two parks in the area are Burnsridge Park and Granada
park.

View Larger Map

As of 10/10/2008 here are the stats for the Cooper Mountain Neighborhood. This week I’ve changed the stats to only count the sales from the last 7 days to give a better reflection of what is going on in the neighborhood during any given week.

Click here to view the last few weekly reports and the averages since I started keeping stats

For a complete list of homes for sale in the Cooper Mountain Neighborhood, please call or Click here, to request an update.

If you are interest in the featured home below, located in the Granada Park neighborhood of Cooper Mountain, just click on the picture and you will be taken to the listings website.

If you are interested in selling your home for top dollar in the quickest amount of time, please contact me anytime at 503-524-9494 or Click here to send me an e-mail requesting further information.

Todd Clark - broker
Kastings & Associates
Phone: (503)524-9494
Fax: (503)622-8739

View Larger Map

As of 10/10/2008 here are the stats for the Bull Mountain South Neighborhood. I’ve changed the stats to only count the sales from the last 7 days to give a better reflection of what is going on in the neighborhood during any given week.

Click here to view the last few weekly reports and the averages since I started keeping stats

For a complete list of homes for sale in the Bull Mountain South Neighborhood, please call or Click Here, to request an update.

If you are interested in selling your home for top dollar in the quickest amount of time, please contact me anytime at 503-524-9494 or Click Here to send me an e-mail requesting further information.

Todd Clark - broker
Kastings & Associates
Phone: (503)524-9494
Fax: (503)622-8739

• CSS 2.1 DOM selection with support for native querySelector APIs.
• Chainable DOM generation and manipulation APIs.
• CSS selector-based event sink so that it becomes possible to set-up an event for all elements that satisfy a given selector at the time when the sink is created and later. 

Now, where have I used those features before?  I wondered why Microsoft didn't just include jQuery instead of reinventing the wheel.

So I was pleasantly surprised that Microsoft announced that they are going to include and support jQuery afterall.

jQuery plays well with MicrosoftAjaxLibrary (actually it should be the other way round since jQuery precedes MicrosoftAjaxLibrary).  MicrosoftAjaxLibrary offers great component building, extensibility and interoperability with ASP.NET web services. jQuery offers simple yet powerful DOM selection and manipulation APIs.