Staying one step ahead of the consumer technology bubble

"Everything you see here today will be totally obsolete in four years."

Those words of wisdom came from Bill Gates, spoken to Alberta-based technology commentator Steve Makris just before Gates stepped down as CEO of Microsoft.

"Count on everything changing every few years," said Makris, whose reviews and analysis of consumer technology can be found in Postmedia newspapers, on Global TV and at techuntangled.ca.

"The cycle of technology, even smart technology, arriving to consumers and disappearing altogether is getting shorter."

How a massive flood couldn't stop Brian Beck's vision of a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired inner-city home

Twelve years ago, Brian Beck, wife Lynne Rennie and two-and-a-half-year-old daughter Kate, jumped into their newly acquired airstream trailer and hit the road for three months.

With no real itinerary, only the desire to travel south in advance of winter, the family stopped at the Frank Lloyd Wright (FLW) Fallingwater house, built in the 1930s over a waterfall in southwest Pennsylvania.

That stop led the Calgary corporate lawyer – now president of Cococo Chocolatiers with Chocolaterie Bernard Callebaut stores across Canada – to nine other FLW sites during those travels.

This began a journey transforming the couple's original 1,340-square-foot, 1950s Bridgeland bungalow into an homage to the brilliant Wright, who designed more than 1,000 structures over a 70-year span.

Making the transition from renting to buying is a lot about finding the right location with inventory that fits your budget

As a single female with a career in the arts, Jamie Dunsdon wasn't sure she could even qualify for a mortgage to enter the property-purchasing arena.

"I was afraid the only thing I could afford was something terrible," said Dunsdon, who is the artistic director with Verb Theatre.

After nine years of renting in Calgary, Dunsdon says she had enough of renting at high prices and hopped in the market last summer. As with all folks who are looking to purchase a property, location and budget were a major part of her decision.

With a commanding view of the city, Joshua Pinter and Michelle Maguire are enjoying the high life

Thirty-somethings Joshua Pinter and Michelle Maguire made the leap into home ownership in November of 2016.

The couple purchased a two-bedroom home on the 26th floor of the second tower at the Guardian project in Victoria Park. The recently married and energetic duo have busy careers: Joshua is a product manager for a software company and Michelle works in business development. The couple says they both have the downtown mentality so they kept their home search to a small radius around the core. They both loved the view from the Guardian with its floor-to-ceiling glazing and vistas of both the mountains and the downtown's high rises.

Many Albertans are looking close to home when it comes to buying a vacation property 

Calgary residents Nora and Norval Horner recall many summer vacations spent along Alberta's Gull Lake.

"Nora's family had a cottage on Gull Lake, and we used that cottage a lot while our kids were growing up. We'd come up the end of June and stay 'til Labour Day," recalled Norval.

They loved cottage life so much that when an opportunity arose to purchase 210 acres of land along the northeast corner of Gull Lake, the Horners bought it and started their own cottage development – Meridian Beach.

There is no need to leave town with a garden retreat in your back yard

Together with her husband Bruce, Linda converted a back yard shed into a retreat – a cabin retreat.

"You gotta have a cabin in the back yard," said Linda, my neighbour.

Devices that allow you to monitor everything, from cooking progress in your Crock-Pot down to the forkful of food you just ate

Chances are at some point in the past five or six years you've heard the phrase, "the Internet of things." In some industrial tech circles it's even being shortened to "IoT" these days.

Sounds cool and acronym-y, right? And like a lot of the buzzwords that propagate online today, you have to wonder sometimes if the people using it even know what it means.

I'm going to talk about kitchen appliances in a minute here, but because connected appliances are prime examples of the Internet of things in action, let's get clear on the term first.

Do your homework to ensure your fixer-upper home purchase is a success

Turn on your TV and there are shows aplenty with always-eager renovation crews turning a run-down house into something out of a show-home showcase.

Browse the Internet and you can find real estate websites devoted to fixer-upper properties that just need a little "TLC" to become your dream home.

There's even an offering from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) and Genworth Canada called Purchase Plus Improvements, allowing you to finance some future renovations into the cost of purchasing a home.

But buying a fixer upper is not for everyone, and requires due diligence just like any other real estate purchase, starting with a home inspection.

No longer "throwing away" money on rent, local yoga and fitness instructor purchased a condo in historic Inglewood

Spring is all about new beginnings and for yoga and fitness instructor, Lana McGillivray, the adage couldn't be more true.

This hip and vibrant 34-year-old recently took possession of her new one-bedroom condo at i.D. Inglewood, and started a new job as manager of a new fitness studio in the East Village.

Home buyers from different generations share a connection due to oversupply in the apartment sector

It's the kind of thing that plays out in movies. A connection develops between the younger and older generations — think Matt Damon and Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting.

And while that fictional relationship was initially fraught with tension, the bond they developed benefitted both parties. It's a storyline not unlike the scene playing out right here in the local real estate market.