Appraisers have been on the leading edge of technology and change in valuation at least since a la mode founder and CEO Dave Biggers and his friends started writing DOS programs to automatically populate appraisal forms 20 years ago. Compare the last time you saw a URAR filled out by hand to the last time you saw paperwork from one of your clients filled out by hand, and tell us who's better at adapting to technological change.

We hear all the time that appraisers are "slow to embrace change," and it's beyond the point of being irritating, now it's just sad. You can (like we do) sit in lenders’ offices, sit in board rooms, and now, read valuation-themed e-mail newsletters, and constantly hear how appraisers are slow to change their technology or to adopt it. We will always counter that every time we hear it.

Have you ever walked into a loan officer’s office and seen technology that exceeds what you see at the typical appraiser’s office? Appraisers adopted digital cameras back when a loan officer was still asking, "what’s that?" Appraisers were getting into EDI before lenders knew what it was. Many appraisers had Pocket PCs before their clients had cell phones.

We are constantly dealing with the fact that our appraiser customers are having to educate their loan officers on things like, what are PDFs; how do you download the new version of Acrobat Reader; why can't I click this link and download my report even if I'm not connected to the Internet?

There are people in all walks of life who often mistrust technology on its face. It’s no different in the appraisal profession. But, we pride ourselves in the fact that for more than 19 years we have been the appraiser's advocate and chief cheerleader. We would surely never demean appraisers who want proof something works and lump them in with anyone who won’t buy our software and make fun of them and call them offensive names. Doing so defies logic and human dignity, but even if you don’t care about those things, we would think others would refrain from doing it simply because it's bad for their business. Perhaps that’s a step too far ahead.

Appraisers are essentially the engineers of the real estate sector. They’re not the salespeople, they're analysts who want to gather facts, form a supported opinion and move on to the next such assignment. Because of that inherent "techie" approach, appraisers tend to adopt new technology as they look at ways to lower their costs. It's self-interest. (Most of them like gadgets, for another thing.)

Are you still reading this e-newsletter on a Windows 95 or 98 machine? No need to rummage around for your installation CD, if you've forgotten: How long did it take for your computer to boot up this morning? If it took longer than about 10 seconds, you haven't yet upgraded to Windows XP. And you should.

Microsoft had previously announced it would discontinue phone support for Windows 98 altogether in January 2004, but then changed its mind when it found that users in "developing countries" hadn't had enough notice of the change, according to the company. It remains on Microsoft's front burner to phase out 98 in favor of XP, though. Microsoft support for Windows 95 ended on December 31, 2003. (We at a la mode provide our own fast, friendly, expert tech support for our products; we're talking here only about Microsoft itself supporting its operating systems.)

And there are excellent reasons beyond Microsoft support (we just heard hundreds of you make a wisecrack about "Microsoft support" when you read the previous paragraph; everybody's a comedian) to ditch Windows 95 and 98 in favor of XP.

Older operating systems are security problems waiting to happen. They weren't built when encryption of data was the kind of concern it is today. That means they transmit a lot of things you don't want captured and used for nefarious purposes, like passwords and other information, as clear text.

Microsoft's minimum requirements for Windows XP Professional are a 233-MHz Pentium II PC with 64 MB of RAM and 1.5 GB of free hard drive space. Those are minimum requirements to get the thing to boot up; for a useful XP system, you need about a 450-MHz processor with 256 MB of RAM. This practical minimum is puny compared to what's inside today's newest machines. And such performance costs a good deal less than it did when you bought that Windows 98 machine.

One of the many things that sets a la mode apart is our Hands On Training (HOT) sessions, held here in our Oklahoma City headquarters. We have a training room built with HOT in mind: 28 workstations with Dell Pentium 1.7 GHz PCs with XP Professional face a whiteboard/projection screen. Coffee, soda, water, lunch and a take-home 101-page outline are provided. WinTOTAL users to a man and woman will tell you they're the most valuable two day investments they've ever made in their careers.

We call it, officially, "Essential concepts for completing appraisal reports using a PC." And that's pretty much what we cover. They're two-day sessions with plenty of time allotted for questions, covering everything from formfilling and data entry, to digital photos and scanning, to EDI, report delivery and Mercury, to billing and order management. And much, much more.

The course is approved for CE in Oklahoma, but has not been submitted (by us) for CE outside the state. A lot of states do have reciprocity with Oklahoma, though, and similar material has been approved by other states in the past.

After an hour spent on comps management in Hands On Training, you will know how to import existing reports into your Comps Database; add new records to your Comps Database; work with date and age fields; search for and browse comps; print lists of comps; merge comps from old reports; swap and sort comps on forms; perform square footage adjustments with the Square Footage Adjustment tool; use the "=" command for copying comp entries; and print net and gross adjustments. And that's after an hour's worth of training.

What size (diagonally, in inches) and resolution (in pixels) monitor do you use? Are you part of the growing trend of "dual monitoring" — using more than one at the same time? Do you wait till your monitor finally fizzles out to replace it, or do you upgrade when you upgrade other hardware and operating systems?