Dianne Goode's Blog

     You have probably heard of The Motley Fool (www.Fool.com), an investment advice website.  Mostly they focus on the stock market, but homes are investments, too, and in a recent article Editorial Director Anand Chokkavelu weighed in on the question of Rent vs. Buy. "Buying a house," according...

When a buyer signs a contract to purchase a presale, it's an act of faith. Think about it!  Here sits a little piece of dirt, and over here a line drawing of a floor plan. The buyer puts money down and signs a contract, with hope and faith that in the fullness of time a house just like the drawi...

The annual Festival for the Eno is sponsored by the Eno River Association to raise funds for and promote its purpose: The preservation of the Eno River Basin.  The Eno is the river that runs through Durham, NC, and the Festival happens on the 4th of July weekend on the Eno, for the Eno. Music, m...

PopClip is a humble little app that quite simply makes working on the computer easier. Install PopClip and it runs continually in the background. Then whenever you highlight text, you get a whole list of action choices: Cut, Copy, Paste, Email, Capitalize first letters of all words, small cap al...

What's wrong with this picture?  Those pull-down stairs are missing, like THREE STEPS!  My investor-client lept and/or levitated himself up there somehow, while I'm watching with my mouth open and  wondering if I'm liable if he injures himself.  Liable or not, an injured client would not be a go...

  A seller recently asked me, "If we move out before our home is sold, should we leave some furniture behind?  Does a house sell better furnished or empty?"   I replied, "Homes are more attractive to buyers when they're furnished.  That's why subdivisions spend big bucks on their model homes." I...

My cousin in Florida  is writing about eating wonderful strawberries, so I stopped by the State Farmers Market here in Raleigh to get me some.  Alas, the cold weather in March means no strawberries yet in North Carolina.  I was sad, but on the plus side, the vegetables were surprisingly chatty!

  A Fitbit is a little cough-drop-shaped device, about 2 inches long.  It's like an overachieving pedometer.  You carry it with you all day and it counts your steps.  It also counts how many flights of stairs you've climbed, how active you've been, and how many calories you've burned.  Then, whe...

 An article in The New Yorker made me realize how little I know about dragonflies. "The dragonfly is an exceptionally beautiful insect and a fierce carnivore."  (Who knew?)  "It has four wings that beat independently." (That sounds tricky!)  "This gives it an ability to maneuver in the air with ...

PHOTO COURTESY OF GOODNIGHTRALEIGH.COM In February 2012, Dice.com ranked Raleigh among its "Top 20 Metro Areas for Tech Jobs." Okay, Raleigh came in at #19, but we made the list. Now, a year later, CIO.com has ranked Raleigh as #10 on its list of "11 Best Cities to Find an IT Job." Apparently "Ra...