October Training Schedule

Below is the schedule of upcoming online training classes for the month of October. If you’re new to REsearch, we strongly encourage you to attend the “Orientation” session on Oct. 18. You may also be interested in our “Cloud CMA” session on Oct. 19.

Even if you’ve participated in a session before, it’s often a good idea to get a refresher. Our live trainers can answer your questions and help you get the most out of REsearch. Descriptions of each HIS webinar can be found here.

 

To sign up immediately, simply click on the links below. Space is limited so please RSVP soon! If you are going to participate/watch online classes as a group, only one person needs to sign up.

October 8-12, 2012

The Basics
Oct. 9, 2012 from 9:30 AM to 11:00 AM
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/823619782

How to Enter & Manage Listings
Oct. 9, 2012 from 2:30 PM to 4:00 PM
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/362081918

Basics to Formats
Oct. 11, 2012 from 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/655024790

zipforms & Downloading the Roster
Oct. 11, 2012 from 3:00 PM to 4:30 PM
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/526815438

Basics to Searching
Oct. 12, 2012 from 8:00 AM to 9:30 AM
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/894632326

Advanced Search Techniques
Oct. 12, 2012 from 10:30 AM to 12:00 PM
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/496886918

October 15-19, 2012

The Calendar
Oct. 16, 2012 from 9:30 AM to 11:00 AM
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/813028790

Prospecting & Contacts
Oct. 16, 2012 from 2:30 PM to 4:00 PM
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/433347558

Orientation
Oct. 18, 2012 from 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/137974454

Farming & Labels
Oct. 18, 2012 from 3:00 PM to 4:30 PM
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/395978142

Update & CMA Features
Oct. 19, 2012 from 9:30 AM to 11:00 AM
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/335771886

Cloud CMA
Oct. 19, 2012 from 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/374695702

October 22-26, 2012

Maps I
Oct. 23, 2012 from 9:30 AM to 11:00 AM
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/839801758

Maps II
Oct. 23, 2012 from 2:30 PM to 4:00 PM
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/350761950

How to Enter & Manage Listings
Oct. 25, 2012 from 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/360456614

The Basics
Oct. 25, 2012 from 3:00 PM to 4:30 PM
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/336385006

Customizing
Oct. 26, 2012 from 9:30 AM to 11:00 AM
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/316506718

Downloading
Oct. 26, 2012 from 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/631578102

In-Person Training

TMK Essentials

Oct. 12, 2012 from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM

680 Iwilei Rd., Suite 777, Honolulu, HI 96817 [Map]

http://www.hawaiiinformation.com/REsearch/IDX/mlshawaii/TrainingSubmit.asp?ACT=0

Instructions on how to register for online classes:

• To register, please click on the applicable link located below the class. The link will then take you to the registration site.
• Please complete all the required fields marked by a red asterisks (First Name, Last Name, Email Address, Phone, Organization AKA Office Name).
• Click “Register Now” to complete the registration process. Once registered a confirmation email will be sent to your email address to confirm your registration along with a unique web ID number and instructions on how to login to the session on that day.
• If you need login assistance, please feel free to contact our Customer/Technical Support team at 800-628-3121, press # and then 457.

Remember, after you have participated, please make sure to fill out the survey or e-mail me your feedback so we can continue to improve upon our training efforts! Mahalo. 

System Requirements for Online Classes

• PC-based attendees – Required: Windows® 2000, XP, Vista, Windows 7
• Macintosh®-based attendees – Required: Mac OS® X 10.4 (Tiger®) or newer

System requirements apply only to the GoToMeeting webinar service, not to the REsearch system.

Questions? Comments? Please feel free to contact us via

support@hawaiiinformation.com or call (808) 599-4224 or (800) 628-3121

Meet the Team: Victor Gumiel

VICTOR GUMIEL traveled over 14,000 miles to land at Hawaii Information Service. The company’s Director of Network Operations was born and raised in Bolivia, and attended college in Switzerland, before declaring, “Enough of the cold, I’m going to Hawaii.”

The youngest of three brothers, Victor lived in South America until he was 20 years old. His father was a public employee, and his mother’s family ran a convenience store that’s still in the family today. He was fortunate enough to land a scholarship to study in Geneva.

Though he says his family had a natural talent for math (a brother and his wife are both math teachers), Victor chose to study computer science. Still, at the time, computers were the domain of the mathematics department.

“One of my frustrations at the time was that everything was based on math,” he recalls. “I thought I was good at math until I got to university and found my place in the universe.”

That place did not include regularly attending classes, and when he’d show up for exams, his instructors often doubted that he was one of their students. But it did include a lot of sports (including swimming, basketball, and soccer), a lot of music (including playing the zampoña, a traditional Andean pan flute), and discovering a passion for photography.

“We had a darkroom and I got interested in developing film that I had from my family, so I spent hours in the darkroom figuring out how things worked,” Victor says. “But I did a lot of stuff. I had a lot of free time.”

Fortunately, he did pick up the skills he needed to get his degree, and with his training in programming and modular languages, he got his first job doing email security, developing privacy solutions for a United Nations office in Geneva.

But the weather was cold. And Hawaii, where his girlfriend at the time was headed to study at HPU, was warm. So it wasn’t long before he landed in Honolulu, and started hunting for a job.

“It was a really big change… Switzerland was nine months of gray and snow, and here I have nine months of sun and heat,” he says. “The first week I suffered, but then I discovered air conditioning.”

Victor also quickly discovered the language barrier.

“I didn’t know English when I arrived here, but since I was going to many interviews, I was learning English along the way,” Victor recalls. “By the time I got interviewed by HIS, my English got a little better… and I was a pretty cheap hire, most likely.”

And there was a lot more on-the-job training ahead. HIS was transitioning from VAX mainframes to modern servers, and from custom modem connections to Internet standards. In addition to helping to untangle hardware and software problems, Victor was doing his best to help customers learn the the system. And he vividly remembers the first public demonstration of the REsearch system.

“It was in Hilo and we did it over a 28.8 modem and it was hell,” he recalls. “Can you imagine trying to show pictures and maps over a slow modem that hangs up all the time? But even though it was kind of a disaster, it showed what REsearch could do.”

“I think it was just that period of time — nobody really understood how things worked, nobody understood the Internet,” he adds. “It was a time of change, and we were at the front of it.”

HIS filled in the gaps along the way, expanding the system from one server to seventeen, constantly upgrading hardware and software, and even selling Internet service for a time. But while DSL has been phased out of the product line, HIS still has customers that have been using its email system for fifteen years and counting. This as the company is entering yet another phase in its evolution, preparing to implement a new MLS and public records solution.

Today, Victor checks technology sites and reads security blogs to keep up with the latest, and is starting to dabble in programming again. But he says he’s also struck by how some things don’t really change.

“I am intrigued by how certain things are done, but as I keep learning, I start to get to a point where there’s not much mystery anymore,” he says. “Things might get smaller or faster, but in the end, it’s about getting information from Point A to Point B.”

His interest in photography has also been constant, especially thanks to the transition from the darkroom to digital processing. And while it is a creative outlet, he notes that it still has roots in math and computers.

“When you’re processing photos, that’s math — transforming photos, calculating points of a photo, and scaling them,” he says. “And on a computer, I can edit pixel by pixel to create something that I like.”

Reading is also a passion, along with music (“My favorites playlist in iTunes is about 16 gigabytes,” he notes). And after some time away from the gym, Victor is once again focused on getting fit, losing weight, working out, and starting to look at achieving one of his more athletic goals: learning to surf.

“I never went skiing in Switzerland, even though the chances were there, and even though it was cheap,” he says. “Now living here, I know I’m missing something.”

He confesses to overreaching and heading out into the waves at Sandy Beach, only to fail badly, but he figures he’ll be pretty good in a couple of years. And Victor also has a lesser known talent, one he credits to his heritage.

“Being Latino, you have to be romantic, and to do that, you have to play soccer, or play guitar,” he says. “I can’t do those other things so I write poetry.”

He writes in Spanish, and while he’s found an audience online, he won’t say where, or under what name. He’s similarly guarded when it comes to his marriage of nearly six years to a Taiwanese girl that he met in the islands. While their nuptials prompted a 400-person celebration back in her home country, the wedding itself was a half-hour lunch break from work. It’s a milestone that most of his coworkers missed.

“I came back to the office and told them that I got married, and nobody believed me,” he laughs.

You can ask Victor about his favorite photography gear by emailing him at victor@hawaiiinformation.com. Next month, we’ll introduce you to Sam. Until then, make sure you didn’t miss our profiles of Jerry, Gay, or Novena!

REsearch 5.1 Brings New Formats, Fixes

While the Hawaii Information Services team is already beginning to lay the groundwork for next year’s planned transition to the Corelogic Matrix system, we have continued to work on improving the REsearch system you’re using today.

Earlier this year, we released an update to the prospect match e-mail notices. It was only an early taste of the REsearch design refresh we’ve been working on for some time. Next week, these look-and-feel improvements will be added to several more formats. You’ll see the same fields and general layouts, but in a much cleaner presentation. Of note are the updated MLS Mid, Brochure, and 1-Photo formats:

Beyond these popular formats, you’ll find upgrades to several others, including the MLS Full, MLS Quick, and Book, and tweaks to TMK formats as well.

We hope you like these improvements by our development and design team, and as always, we welcome feedback on these changes, as well as other enhancements that you’d like to see. Just emailsupport@hawaiiinformation.com, or call us at (808) 599-4224.

Additional Enhancements & Fixes

Next week’s release, REsearch 5.1, includes other improvements as well.

We’ve added a ‘pop out’ window button to the REsearch interface, located in the upper right of most windows. This allows you to easily launch a separate window for maps, for example, as well as make it easier to have several searches or functions open.

Here are a few additional tickets addressed in this release, including a number focused on our recently upgraded maps:

• Fixed an issue with the ruler function in the updated maps (17880).
• Added the ability to turn lot numbers on and off on maps (17535).
• Fixed an issue where Copy, Print and PDF on maps were not working for some users (17634).
• Co-Listors can now see listings in ‘Hold’ status (17871).
• Fixed an issue where selecting some different format combinations prevented results from appearing properly (17856 & 17893).
• Implemented a rule so that a photo is required before land can be reported as sold (17900).
• Fixed an issue that prevented customized screens from being reverted to the previous version (16843).