We just couldn’t resist sharing these with you.

What if you really like your site, but the people who sold it to you used a proprietary program to build it.  Since they don’t own the program, you can’t leave them and take your site with you.

You go to the folks who do own the program.

What if those people are in another country and the only way they’ll let you use their program is if you buy their services?

You mutter some choice words, but then buy their services because it’s got to be less expensive than starting over.

What if they start penalizing you for buying only the services you want and need and not the ones that have good margins for the vendor?

You ask your geeky friends who they know that can help you.

We hear stories like this more often than we’d like. Ours isn’t the only industry where snake oil salesmen thrive, but it is definitely one that profits on the ignorance of its victims.

Small business owners, mom and pop entrepreneurs, good people living the American Dream are some of the hardest working people on the planet.  You’re stretched too thin.  You’re where the buck stops.  You are, quite literally, chief cook and bottle washer, CEO, CFO, janitor, accountant and Director of Marketing.  And all you wanted to do was enjoy making a widget and sell it to support your family.

Technology moves at the speed of light and you feel pretty darned good about getting your computer turned on and the email answered.  Heck, you’re feeling pretty good that you know what email is and how to answer it.  Unless you’re a geek freak (and we say that with love), you probably don’t know how to sync your cell and office phones, your personal and business computers while having your mobile tweets post to your FaceBook Business Fan Page while discussing ‘best of the industry ideas’ on your LinkedIn forum.  You sure don’t know how to research the latest trends in color and shape or the emotional impact these things might have on your customers’ buying decisions.  You barely recognize the term “web 2.0″, let alone know what it is or how to use it.  You want to hire an expert to take care of that stuff, just like you hire an accountant to do your taxes, right?

And then in comes the slick packaging, the promises of profits with little-to-no work on your part, the super-shiny, glossy sales pitches that deliver a product which doesn’t quite live up to expectations, fine print that disappoints, web developers that disappear, domains that business owners don’t actually own… the list is far too long, and far too common.

Buyer beware, sure, but what if you don’t have time to find time to learn what questions to ask?

Of course, we’re here to tell you it’s okay, we’re not like that and we can help.  But how do you know we’re any different from your average smooth talkers?

1. Look at us.  Do we LOOK like polished snake oil salesmen?  (We’re having a good laugh at our staff meeting over that line!)
2. Talk to our clients.
3. Ask your geek-freak friends to look at our web work.  It speaks for itself.

Soon, we’ll give you a post on how to choose a web developer. Today’s story ends with the client that started the discussion.  We re-created their site so it looks just like it did in that proprietary software, but gave them full control and made some upgrades along the way.  The whole project took 5 business days from first contact to completion, and at a fraction of the cost of the original build.  No more pay-per-click they don’t need and that isn’t serving them.  No more contracts for unwanted services.  No more avoiding contacting the web developer for fear of being ‘sold’.

These are the kinds of projects that make us really proud of what we can do and, more importantly, how we choose to do it.  It’s good to be beachdog.

We’re delighted to see Scrapaccino is selling a LOT of Anna Lena’s fudge.  And yes, Roger, you can still get your favorite Cranberry-Walnut!  We did a new label for the fudge boxes and rushed it over to the shop just before the Independence Day weekend when we learned they had gone through the batch they were desktop publishing.

Here are a few questions to help you decide if you should order labels or print your own:

1. Do you need fewer than 250 labels?  PRINT THEM.
2. Do you need them faster than 3 days?  PRINT THEM.
3. Do you need a standard size, readily available in sheets to run through your printer?  PRINT THEM, unless…
4. Is it important that the labels look super-professional?  ORDER.
5. Will the labels need to stick in humid, wet, very hot or cold conditions?  ORDER.
6. Do you want to use “green” papers and inks? ORDER.
7. Do you want florescent, metallic or embossed labels?  ORDER.

You might notice that cost is not on the list.  That’s because it can be deceiving.  It seems less expensive to desktop publish because you’ve already got a printer and ink and you only need to buy some label stock.  And if you need just a few sheets, that’s absolutely the case.  But if you need at least 250, and definitely if you need 500 or 1,000 labels, it’s actually less expensive to order them–and you get a better looking product!

When you do decide to print labels yourself:

Don’t waste postage and materials costs when printing your own mailing labels:

• use a laser printer, or
• inks and paper designed not to run if exposed to moisture, or
• print on paper and then photocopy onto label stock.

The last thing you want is for your investment in a mailing piece to end up in the undeliverable bin at some post office because the ‘to’ and ‘from’ addresses became unreadable in our wet Washington sunshine (or some other place between you and the destination).

If you need a custom size or shape, but small quantities, or you simply want to print yourself, check out www.rippedsheets.com.  These good people will create sheets you can run through your printer in whatever cuts you need.   More than one of our clients use them to custom print labels for products they sell.  It allows them to print, for example, neck, bottle and cap labels on one sheet, a bottle or two at a time for private labeling projects such as wedding favors, hotel shampoos and the like.

For such a small spit of sand, we sure do have an abundance of quality music here on the Peninsula.  Seriously.  First, there is the Water Music Festival, bringing world-class entertainers here in the fall for low-cost and free concerts, including school performances.  To fund the venture, they started Jazz & Oysters, a day of amazing music on the historic Oysterville School lawn each August.  And then, last year, the Ilwaco Merchants Association added a raucous party called Blues & Seafood, which is the Saturday before Jazz & Oysters‘ Sunday.

Dang!  That’s a gooood weekend!

In recent years, Water Music Festival has added Tuba Christmas, Music in the Gardens, and Poulshock Concerts to their already robust program.  All of these performances are complemented just about every week with outstanding performances at Ilwaco’s Raven & Finch Wine Bar & Café (You’ll find some notable fine and graphic artwork in that neighborhood, by the way, so go early).

Sabrina and Karl recently finished a complete overhaul of www.watermusicfestival.com.  Take a look:

It’s a sentimental project for Keleigh.  You see, www.watermusicfestival.com was the first commercial site she built under the flag of beachdog.com, back in 1997.   Actually, that was the second incarnation of the site; Keleigh built their first site for them back in 1995 when the ‘net itself was still wet behind the ears.  The site has undergone several complete overhauls in its decade and a half of life and, like the foundation itself, has enjoyed a variety of flavors of leadership along the way.  The result is an organization, and web site, of strength and character.

Ah, but we digress…

Wendi Peterson of the Wade Gallery did a fabulous poster for Blues & Seafood this year, and Sabrina had a blast converting her design concept into a site.  Now the events can each cross-sell combo tickets for the weekend, and Board members and other volunteers with the proper credentials, can update the areas of both sites for which they are responsible.  Nifty!

There are no big-dollar event organizers here, readers.  So give the folks working these events a hearty smile and a kind word.  It takes a lot of people and a lot of hours to pull off events like this and the people who do all that work do so for FREE.   The best thanks you can give them, however, is to come enjoy the party, so get your tickets now!

Back Country Wilderness Outfitters has been, er, chomping at the bit for a new site for some time now.  The family business is known in Long Beach for their guided horse rides on the beach but there’s so much more to the Haug’s endeavor!

The Ribeye ride is a big favorite of locals and visitors alike.  Ride down the beach on horseback or in the horse-drawn wagon and enjoy a steak BBQ dinner at Beard’s Hollow at sunset before returning.  If you’re lucky, “Grandpa Rick” will share his cowboy poetry on the ride back.

Wagon Rides have become a staple of SummerFest, the City of Long Beach’s summer-long series of free entertainment downtown.  Carriage rides through Long Beach, or the historic architecture of Seaview are also available…and a very romantic way to head to dinner.   The family also conducts back country trips, perhaps one of their favorite offerings.

Keleigh, as usual, worked up the design for this site and Karl worked with JP Haug on the content and layout.  Kathy is finishing up the search engine optimization now; watch for both backcountryoutfit.com and longbeachhorserides.com to show up in your favorite search engine soon.  We all agree that the slideshows are our favorite part of the site.  Click on that adorable mug of a horse (Achmed) to meet each of the equines in the Back Country harem, then click the Trips and Family tabs for even more photos.

The site also features the ability to bookmark, FaceBook, Digg or Stumble the site if you like it, something their  younger demographic should appreciate.