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A chieving the top spot in a local market is a coup for any builder, even if it only translates into 4 percent or 5 percent market share, a pretty typical figure for the leading builder. But being king of the hill can provide more than a PR boost. It can get a company first crack at the precious...
The one- and two-bedroom units are selling from $130,000 to $180,000, undercutting the competition, which sells from $210,000 to $229,000. "We're finding that the magic number is under $200,000," says developer Kevin Moats of Moats and & Associates.
Our buyers here were not what we call 'traditional' home buyers," says Dana Craig, director of marketing for Colonnade Homes in Denver. The Primrose plan also includes an attached, two-car garage.
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The figures showed that by 2000, 66.2 percent of Americans owned their homes, the highest homeownership rate ever recorded. "That growth could continue apace if mortgage rates remain low and the economy keeps from falling off a cliff," says John Martin of Martin and Associates, a market analysis...
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Most of the permits issued within core cities were for single-family development. "But the demand does not seem to be for more rental housing, but, in fact, for more homes for sale," Lang says.
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The Age Factor: Shades of Gray
By Matthew Power and Daniel Walker Guido. "Today's senior wants a large airy home with high ceilings, upscale appliances, and a low-maintenance exterior," says Annie Gerard, vice president of senior housing for National Survey Systems. "We're looking at an aging boomer population of 78 million...
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Most (three-quarters) of the interior West of the United States, defined as 12 states east of the Sierras and west of the Great Plains, has a sparse population, with fewer than six people per square mile. But in about 10 percent of the 247 counties of the Old West, the New West has come calling.
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More than a half-million immigrants born in each of the following countries currently live in the United States: Cuba, India, El Salvador, Germany, Russia, Vietnam, and the Dominican Republic.
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Long before September 11, builders had begun to suspect that Hollywood's depiction of America might be a hoax. But as the latest U.S. census results come under closer scrutiny, it becomes clear that Hollywood assumptions range from the half-true (homes are getting larger, but the need for...
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Artistry and imagination of today's pool and spa professionals.Selected from more than 700 submissions, a record 191 projects -- including those by 27 first-time entrants -- received special recognition. Pool & Spa News features these works of art on the following pages.
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New GEM-36 and GEM-42 from Heat-N-Glo is Out of the Box Thinking at its absolute finest.The GEM gas fireplaces are made from Heat-N-Glo's patented Firebrick(TM) material. The GEM 36 and GEM-42 are also A.F.U.E. rated which means they are approved as wall heaters and can be used with a thermostat.
Hands-free faucets began showing up in personal bathrooms a couple of years ago for a number of reasons. The faucets offer sanitary touch-free operation while conserving water and energy (they only dispense water when the sensor picks up hand motions). They also regulate flow time and prevent...
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With her core group of builders trading at 6.4 times 2003 estimated earnings, Ivy Zelman, of Credit Suisse First Boston, caught more than a few people off guard when she downgraded several builder stocks. Summing up, she says, "Although we do not expect the housing market to collapse, the so-called...
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How are smart growth issues affecting builders in the top 10 markets? The locals explain.
In a state that hasn't updated its planning laws in 50 years, Illinois' new law is an example of what's right -- and what's still frustratingly wrong -- with smart growth planning in America today. And in Santa Cruz County, Calif., the second-least-affordable housing market in the country where the...
The biggest challenge multifamily rental housing faces today is a shortage of renters. Given tepid demand and unprecedented home buying, what frustrates me the most is market-rate multifamily housing's supply level.
If the U.S. Department of Labor projections hold true, the shortage of qualified workers soon to materialize may make the labor problems of the late 1990s look like a walk in the park. In addition to builders' own efforts to attract and retain help, NAHB economist Michael Carliner points to two...
According to Chinese tradition, 2003 will be the year of the sheep. In the home building business, it will more closely resemble the year of the tiger.
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Barring war or terrorist attack, the U.S. economy will climb back on its growth track in 2003. The Blue Chip consensus forecast of 50 leading economists for Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in 2003 is 3.2 percent.
Big builders' take on the year ahead.
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If passed, a single-family affordable housing tax credit -- the first of its kind -- could stimulate $256 billion of growth in the housing sector of the U.S. economy by adding 5.5 million minority homeowners. Proponents hope that in five year's time, the tax credit would generate 200,000 affordable...
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Among the 100 largest MSAs, Hispanic growth continues in the 16 established metro areas that have long attracted Latinos, including, New York, Chicago, and Houston. Topping the list of new gateways are Atlanta, North Carolina metros, and Washington, D.C.
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For builders who wonder whether their Web sites are keeping pace with consumer preferences, here's a chance to find out. The Boston-based Web Marketing Association (WMA) just completed its sixth annual Web site competition.
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Some 66 percent of Americans support requiring that all new housing developments include at least 15 percent of housing for moderate and low-income families, says a report by Smart Growth America, a nationwide coalition promoting a better way to grow.
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The increase in delinquencies of both conventional and FHA mortgages in the second half of 2002 has some industry-watchers concerned. In 2001, the FHA loans in that category accounted for 58 percent of total FHA loans compared with 43 percent in 1990.
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On the heels of its purchase of American Heritage Homes, in Orlando, KB Home has acquired the assets of Tucson-based New World Homes, a 10-year-old locally owned builder. Nobody is being left out in the cold," Klinger said.
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If Krugman's right, this one is far more on a par with the recession of the early '30s, and it will also be harder to fix.
A 20-year veteran of research on hydrogen as an alternative energy source, Raissi will continue his forward-thinking research, with a $5.4 million award from NASA.They recently assisted with an affordable housing project in New York where 30 new units will require 75 percent less energy than...
Already a top priority for single-women buyers in today's fear-fraught climate of terrorists, security is now top-of-mind for everyone. Whether it's a high-tech alarm system or a neighbor-friendly site plan, buyers want a secure environment.
This Schulte closet system from the January issue had readers begging for more, perhaps because good closet spaces are a huge hit with home buyers. Featured in the January issue, the Owens Corning Visionaire FX package stole readers' attention.
Given the choice, people will spend the money somewhere else," said Randall Lewis, then of Lewis Homes in California. That's what Village Homes in Fort Worth, Texas, does, using a cornerstone engraved with the builder's name and year of construction.
The World features 110 condominiums for affluent buyers who don't want a land-locked lifestyle.
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Concerned by the scarcity of affordable housing for single parents with children, this Catholic sister in 1985 started Cincinnati Housing Partners, a nonprofit housing group that rehabs rundown properties and builds new homes on vacant lots, selling them to working families for about $70,000. Those...
Every municipality in America has jumped onto the neo-traditional bandwagon, and many are starting to develop strict guidelines and pattern books for builders. Clean, modern, minimalist concepts from Japan and Scandinavia will continue to influence home furnishings, appliances, interior design, and...
While housing suffered in past recessions, this time home building has been the bulwark of the economy, contributing 4.1 percent to the GDP this year, according to the NAHB.What's the secret? With the S&P down 29 percent for the year as of September and existing home prices notching 7.3 percent...
Weyerhaeuser Co. acquired fellow Pacific Northwest forest company Willamette Industries through a hostile takeover in early 2002.
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How well did you follow trends and turnarounds in 2002?
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Porch lights on new houses--lots and lots of new houses--were one of the few beacons shining brightly in an otherwise difficult year. This was a tough year for many: Jangled by the primal pain of terrorism's aftereffects, the United States went to war.
Most housing surveys claim that more square footage is the No. 1-item on the wish lists of new-home buyers.After 25 years in real estate development, Soules formed The Cottage Co. to fill what he thought was a need for small, innovative projects.He teamed with architect Ross Chapin, built the...
"Green building has been slow to gain wide acceptance because of the perception that it is expensive," says Paul Bertram, president and CEO of Atlanta-based GreenZone, an online resource center dedicated to providing awareness of green-building concepts related to polyiso rigid board roof...
- Adequate land supply is one of the greatest challenges to successfully implementing Maryland's smart growth program.
- The NAHB urges regulators against adopting a competing code recently released by the National Fire Protection Association.
- California Governor Gray Davis signs landmark...
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Builder and developer LandMar Group, in Jacksonville, Fla., celebrated the "Season of Giving," from Saturday, Nov. 9 to Sunday, Nov. 24, by collecting food for needy families with children in cooperation with the Monique Burr Foundation for Children and the Children's Crisis Center. It also...
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Interest-rate developments during 2002 have been striking, and 2003 is likely to be an interest-rate adventure as well. The ARM share of the home mortgage market was languishing around 10 percent at the end of the third-quarter.
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People want, and need, housing just as much as good schools, reliable transportation, green space, and a healthy environment. In fact, the United States exports roughly 20 percent of its agricultural output and has the capacity to grow substantially more crops than at present.
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What do you tell a client who wants a home theater but doesn't have megabucks? We asked Dennis MacLeod of Home Systems Design, a Pembroke, Mass., company that specializes in high-end home theaters. A hybrid digital TV has the same aspect but you can sit close to the screen without seeing lines.
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Created on a kibbutz in Israel in 1967 and now available worldwide, Netafim products include a low-flow subterranean drip irrigation system. "We had it installed for our Parade of Homes house and after three weeks we had green grass and everyone else still had dirt," says the president of Tesoro...
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Just released: "Water Closet Performance Testing," an NAHB Research Center study on low-flow toilets. Although the study is loaded with disclaimers about the chaotic and unpredictable process of flushing toilets, the reality is that this is a well-orchestrated, long overdue, toe-to-toe comparison...
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For the best prices on building materials, go to bat for your contractors. "We went to the local suppliers and promised we'd be using this one kind of shingle" for the 250 homes Keystone expects to close this year, says Jim Hostetter, director of estimating and options for Keystone, a two-time...
Combine the art of the crop circle with the idea of a maze and what do you get? H-E-B, the largest grocery chain in Texas, for the major "corncoction," or "spooktacular."
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Alan Hill, like a lot of smart people, used to work for a big corporation--in this case BellSouth. When the company handed him his walking papers last year (at a time when BellSouth CEO Duane Ackerman raked in about $28 million in pay and stock options), Hill decided not to serve as anybody's...
Builder Kevin Kalman and his wife were vacationing in Barbados when the inspiration for the style struck them. It also allows clear views of holes six and 12 of the Daniel Island Club's private Tom Fazio-designed golf course.
It's hardly been green acres for the Remley family or the hundreds of other Erpenbeck buyers in Cincinnati and northern Kentucky. The builder they chose--The Erpenbeck Co. of Edgewood, Ky.
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Successfully selling a green, conservation community such as Prairie Crossing, in Grayslake, Ill., means thinking beyond traditional advertising. Prairie Crossing is unique among Chicago-area builders in that it sponsors programs on Chicago public radio, the station their environmentally minded...
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To encourage its members to enter the local SAM Awards (Sales and Marketing) and expand national recognition for the market, the Tulsa HBA paid for all of its local winners to enter the NAHB's National Sales and Marketing Awards. That's a great perk considering National entries are up to $250 this...
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At the NAHB fall board meeting in Alaska, NAHB economist Michael Carliner offered this tip: If housing starts are high relative to population, and employment growth is low, "that's a signal that things are getting soft."
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Popular sales trainer Bob Schultz of New Home Specialist Inc., in Boca Raton, Fla., reminded builders attending the Energy and Environmental Building Association conference in Phoenix last month that new-home sales are a retail not a real estate business. Builders need to sell what's really new...
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Buyers might fear that your homes are infested with slimy creatures when they hear this new acronym, FROG (Finished Room Over Garage).
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In Mountain View, Alaska, locals have some clearly defined problems with the half dozen or so Habitat for Humanity homes now being built there each year. Local Habitat officers have made some concessions--planting lawns in muddy yards, for example, but they're balking at requests that they add...
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Edward Carroll, a 71-year-old Vermont man, has been charged in New Haven, Conn., with environmental crimes involving asbestos. If he is convicted of the six counts against him, which include failure to properly dispose of the asbestos, he faces five years in prison on each count and up to a $250...
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The Home Depot wants home builders' business. Terms were not disclosed, but motivation was: The Home Depot wants a slice of the estimated $12 billion new-home flooring market.
It's that time of year again--not the holiday season but the 2003 International Builders' Show. Fifty Key Design Ideas and Details That Work--Back by popular demand this standing-room-only seminar helps builders stay on the cutting edge.Assembled here are 20 must-see new introductions from...
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Ask most contractors what they're actually using their hand-held computers for, and the answer will probably be "not much." Here are three applications for the Palm operating system that will transform your under-used PDA into a pocket workhorse.
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As a builder, the last thing you need hung around your neck is the label of hard to get reach or unreliable, but when you're in the heat of battle important calls and messages can fall through the cracks. The Web-based service is available in several plan levels, starting with free, which gives...
Best Buy unveiled its home networking system at this new home in Minneapolis. As it expands to other markets, it will compete with CompUSA for builders' business.
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Builder Homesite (BHS), a consortium of 31 of the nation's leading home builders, has named Chandler, Ariz.-based Sales Simplicity its preferred provider of customer relationship management software. BHS is working to integrate its own software products with SalesSimplicity.Net.
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Builders who want to market healthy homes might want to look at the American Lung Association's Health House standard. One new requirement is that all homes certified under the standard include a central vacuum system.
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Need to communicate a jobsite problem to a remote client or architect? Check out Olympus America's new W-10 digital voice recorder.
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American Home Guides, an Internet referral service for home builders, has added a job service to its online offerings. Participants can also choose to receive e-mail notices when a resume or job is posted that matches their profile.
I worked with a builder whose purchasing department manually edited over 200 purchase orders every time a home was sold, because sales and purchasing systems couldn't talk to each other. Another builder client wanted to use a popular Palm OS PDA system to let superintendents accept or decline...
"Everything out here [in Las Vegas] is engineered, even the way you spell your name," Blanchard says, only half joking. Only in Las Vegas would a builder--even a flamboyant one--take a $7 million (asking price) gamble on a spec home.
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When Meritage Homes, a national builder, purchased one of the last large pieces of land approved for building in Roseville, Calif.--not far from Sacramento--it had plenty of competition. In the past two years, the median sales price of homes in greater Sacramento has soared 32 percent, to a...
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The bad news just keeps coming for manufactured housing producers. "At 60 cents per share--and that's after a one-for-five reverse split to keep from being delisted from the NYSE--the former $245 stock (adjusted for the reverse split) looks like it's headed for oblivion."
In yet another accounting scheme exposed, three former Homestore senior executives pleaded guilty to criminal corporate fraud charges in October for illegally manipulating Homestore's revenues.According to government documents, Giesecke and Shew engaged in a complicated scheme called...
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In an issue dedicated to analyzing the trends of the last year, can there be any doubt about the biggest event of the year? Not bad for industry that went into the year on trembling ground due to the fallout following Sept. 11.
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Mr. Weiner, a 53-year veteran of the housing industry, was a hands-on executive who remained active in his business, Leon N. Weiner & Associates, Inc., of Wilmington, until becoming ill in late October.He was inducted into the National Association of Home Builders Housing Hall of Fame in 1979."Leon...
With closings of 3,200 units this year, Morrison Homes can't be counted in the ranks of mega builders. And when it comes to product purchasing, its size has not been a huge asset, acknowledges Morrison's head of purchasing and construction, Greg LorenzettiIncrease your purchasing power," Morrison...
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Manufacturers, builders, and supply chain analysts say production home building is on a direct course for buying materials, delivery, installation, and warranty services in separate pieces."The answer is unbundling, which he says takes the "smoke and mirrors out of what a supply chain does for a...
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When Meadowmont, a 1,200-unit master planned community in Chapel Hill, N.C., donated land for an elementary school four years ago, the community's children were supposed to be guaranteed access. Although no one interviewed for this article has opened his or her site to advertising, they've all left...
Finding good executives, particularly division presidents, has turned the business into a poach fest. Even the current economic downturn provides no protection against employee pilfering.
One of Tom Miller's precepts at Drees Company is that it never hurts to ask. And so he did. In early spring, he put to the city of Erlanger, Ky., a proposal. He suggested that two of home building's frequent adversaries embark on a joint effort to develop a park and open space system.A dual...
Paul Robertson, the CEO and president of Robertson Brothers Co., realized that a new business form offered his family-owned company a better way to structure its projects as well as manage outside and inside investors.The Bloomfield Hills-based firm was founded by Robertson's father and uncle in...
For years, the landowners of a California tract of land known as Northern Territories have watched Sacramento County grow around them. "There was a lot of discussion around where that line ought to go," says Robert Sherry, a principal planner for Sacramento County.
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Even though the market overall is heading downward, analysts continue to tout the stocks of the home builders. Why?
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At Murphy Farms, a master planned community in the Dallas suburbs, the upstairs master bedroom has become a thing of the past. "[These buyers] don't necessarily want to be segmented or categorized in how they live," says Jeff Kingsbury, vice president of sales and marketing at McStain Neighborhoods...
Successful home building is much more than just closing large numbers of units, yet volume remains a distraction in the industry.
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In the process of acquiring substantially all The Jones Company's home building operations in St. Louis and Indianapolis, Centex Homes will add approximately 800 units to its annual tally. Combining that with Centex Homes' financial strength, training and development resources, and national buying...
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A bill, recently passed by Calif. Gov. Gray Davis, mandates state-wide water-efficiency standards on all residential washing machines. Passage of the bill, AB1561, makes California the first state to adopt water-efficiency standards for residential clothes washers and is scheduled to take affect...
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The reverse mortgage industry, which had a robust year in 2001, is poised for record volume again this year. The most common type -- FHA Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECM) -- are on track to increase 64 percent in fiscal year 2002 over the previous fiscal year.
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The goal of creating abundant, clean energy came closer to fruition as several companies collaborated in the debut of a fuel cell used to power a $1.7M mansion at the Parade of Homes in Denver.
The Home Depot has been busy creating a space to sell lawn and garden products. Upon completion of the deal, The Depot will be among the largest turnkey suppliers of flooring to the residential construction market.
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By Jill Ralph. The results of J.D. Power and Associates' 6th annual home building survey are in. Among the findings: the top scores are higher than they were in 2001 in all but one market. Below is a listing of the top scoring builders in the 16 markets surveyed:[INSERT LIST]Published in BIG...
With its latest East Coast acquisition, KB Home has made its way into a third Florida market.
The Arizona-based company pushed its strategic growth plan forward a notch with its purchase last month of Perma-Bilt Homes. Before this deal, Meritage had a presence in three of the seven largest home building markets: Dallas, Phoenix, and Houston; this acquisition adds Las Vegas to the...
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Industry observers are fond of saying that the biggest builders wield unprecedented clout when it comes to buying products. That seems to make sense when you look at the enormous volume concentrated at the top.
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Site organizes tool information by tool type, with links to detailed product information.In addition, TOOLS OF THE TRADE Online readers will find the complete contents of the current issue of TOOLS OF THE TRADE magazine, subscription information, and links to contact the editors directly. A full...
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Small- and mid-cap builders have closed the valuation gap between themselves and the big-caps, but for how long? Historically, smaller public builders such as Ryland, Meritage, Standard Pacific, M.D.C., and Beazer have traded at lower valuations than their big-cap colleagues.
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Merloni also sells a Web pad that lets consumers download recipes for particular dishes to the oven. The homeowner downloads a recipe from the appliance company's Web site.
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Of course few builders can match Centex's deep pockets (rumor has it the company spent around a million dollars on the project), but anyone can profit from its research and reasoning that went into the site.To orchestrate the redesign, Centex hired Blair Kuhnen as vice president of Internet...
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For our task/time needs we use Microsoft Project, which works well for us. For now, we've defaulted to Microsoft Project and Excel, but as they are not integrated, we ran into trouble keeping them both current.
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If you saved the installation CDs, and if you've kept all your data files in a central folder like "My Documents," you can re-install your applications one-by-one, then move data over using your office network or a pile of disks. Bottom line, Alohabob still burned up a weekend, but was far less...