Congratulations to all of our friends and customers who very deservedly made this year’s Best of the Peninsula list!

Read the full story on ChinookObserver.com

“…Best of the Discovery Coast results are just for local people, identifying our favorite teachers, doctors, mechanics and other individuals who play key roles every day in making this an exceptional place to live.”

“Greatest community volunteers:

1. Shelly Pollock of Grass Roots Garbage Gang

2. Eileen Wirkkala of Friends of Chinook School

3. Martha Murfin of F.I.S.H.

Most beloved doctor (an enthusiastic majority): Dr. Albert Fabiano

Most gentle dentist (an enthusiastic majority): Dr. Jason Tynkila

Best veterinarians (a very enthusiastic majority): Drs. Katherine and Ed Ketel

Most respected real estate person (two-way tie): Cheri Diehl of Discovery Coast Real Estate and Char Wolters of Lighthouse Realty

Most trusted mechanic: Al Hilderman

Favorite postal worker: Post Master Karen Harrell of the Long Beach Post Office

Favorite policeman, deputy or emergency responder (two-way tie): Long Beach Police Chief Flint Wright and Pacific County Fire District No. 1 EMT Dave. (The returned ballots didn’t specify Dave’s last name and since several PCFD1’s responders go by that name, they all can consider themselves winners!)

Favorite Ocean Park teacher (an enthusiastic majority): Martha Williams

Favorite Long Beach teachers (three-way tie): Joe Doupe, Jessica Miller and Michelle Marshman

Favorite Ilwaco teacher: Dan Schenk

Favorite Naselle teacher: Marina Smith

Favorite coach: Sara Taylor

Friendliest waitress: Laura Gilgore at The Depot

Most understanding bartender: Gini Chin at Raven & Finch

Favorite contractor: Don Anderson of Peninsula Plumbing

Best pet groomer: Lucy Dreyer of Happy Tails

Congratulations to one and all.”

Read the full story on ChinookObserver.com

This 5-part post is a primer on QR Codes:

• Page 1: What are QR codes? What do they do?
• Page 2: How does QR codes work?
• Page 3: QR codes in action
• Page 4: Why QR codes are here to stay
• Page 5: Why do I need QR codes?

Page 1 of 5: What are QR codes? What do they do?

“Think of QR codes as a right mouse button to anything physical. Anything you want ‘more information about’ just click. So every movie poster, every advertisement shown on tv, every compact disc label in a retail store should have a QR code on it.”

–Dean Collins of Cognation (New York, London & Sydney)

QR codes look like this:

They come to us from Japan where they are very common and have been in use since 1994. QR is short for Quick Response (because the codes can be read quickly by a smart phone). They essentially hold information that dumps to your phone when you scan them. Scanning a code might take you to a mobile-friendly website. It might give you someone’s contact information. It might send you a text message with information.

QR Codes can…

• Display Text – for example, “20% off biz cards this Friday only – we’re at 1517 Pacific Av in Long Beach”
• Initiate Email Transaction – Scan the code to launch the mail program and open an email already addressed to you and with a pre-configured subject line.
• Start an SMS (send a text) – for example, your ad in the newspaper (for winter clothing) includes a code that, when scanned, sends the person a text message that says, “Free mittens if you tell our clerk you’ve never had so much fun shopping in your life.”
• Send to a web URL – Scanning the code takes the person to a web page designed specifically for the promotion. This is our favorite because it allows for analytics tracking of the ad’s success.
• Initiate Audio Stream – Scanning the code starts download an audio track. A sample of your new album? A radio-style spot recorded just for your QR customers?
• Initiate Video Stream – Any phone that allows video to be displayed can use QR codes to start a video playing.

This brief video shows how a code can be used on a business card:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEuX23iy2A4[/youtube]

BBC Click has an excellent, 3-minute overview that explains what these things are and how they work, but also answers the big question, “WHY?”:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBja1blJ3GU[/youtube]

If you’ve heard any of us talk about WordPress in the past year or so, you’ve likely either converted your site to this fabulous program or have plans to do so in the very near future.  If you haven’t, let us introduce you to Carmen.  If you’re not in love in 2 minutes,  we’ll meet you down the page a bit.

[wpvideo NBZ853Xn]

Reasons we LOVE WordPress:

• Visitors can interact with the site (happier customers spend more money)
• Makes it easy for the site owner to edit their own website (which means they will keep it current, which means it will pay for itself!)
• Makes it easy to grow a website by updating its own navigation on every single page when something is added (saves time and money)
• Makes it a lot easier to change look and feel of a site without having to move all the old information (saves time and money)
• Ongoing site maintenance is greatly reduced (saves time and money)
• Dynamic sites deliver information tailored to the visitor’s specifications (happier customers)
• Content is time-stamped, telling both visitors and search engines the site is current (more likely to trust means higher search rank and happier customers)
• Makes it easier to create a solid, organic search result both within the site and in the search engines (saves money, happier customers)
• Multiple users can collaborate to update the site (more and better content means better search results, happier customers)
• RSS feeds!
• Makes it easy to make the site mobile-friendly (more accessible, happier customers)
• Makes it easy to expand income opportunities through affiliate banners and teaser ads (saves time, generates money)
• Makes it easy to password-protect sections of the site (reward good customers with special features and they’ll spend more)
• Novice users can control image filesize without being exact in pre-sizing images for the site (fast loading means happier customers)

Reasons we love the Carmen release of WordPress even more:

• Image editing, cropping, flipping, rotating and scaling AFTER uploading!  This is huge!
• No more “are you sure?” messages because <ta da!> delete has been replaced with a trash feature.  When you move something to the trash, it sits there for a month where you can retrieve it, should you change your mind.
• Batch updating of plug-ins, which includes a compatibility check, means that site owners can update plug-ins themselves rather than putting it off until they want to spend the money for us to do it for them.
• Video embedding is even easier (and it was pretty darned easy before).  Support for YouTube, Daily Motion, Blip.tv, Flickr, Hulu, Viddler, Qik, Revision3, Scribd, Google Video, Photobucket, PollDaddy, and WordPress.tv are here now and more are planned for the next release.

There are about a thousand other reasons we LOVE WordPress, most especially now that she’s turned into a lolita named Carmen.  We’ll spare you the geeky rundown…for now.  As you work on your 2010 budgeting, please, please, please, consider upgrading your website to WordPress.  You won’t regret the decision*.

*Sorry, we aren’t living in a one-size-fits-all world.  If you have a custom, dynamic site or a fully-developed e-commerce site, this isn’t a good move for you.  We’re talking to the 90% of our readers who have personal, non-profit and business websites which showcase their offerings and maybe offer a little bit of e-commerce.  That said, you big site owners would almost without question benefit from ADDING a WordPress blog feature to your site…  Woof!

We’re told many of you don’t know you can order custom greeting cards through us.  You can!

We have catalogs of examples that can be customized with a selection of verses, or one of your own.  Optionally, choose to have your signatures printed, envelopes with return address, seals; you can even give us your list and have them pre-addressed, stamped and mailed.  Or, just order cards and take care of the rest on your own.  As always, we like to let you order ala carte, keeping you in control of budget.

[caption id="attachment_1785" align="aligncenter" width="525" caption="Recycled kraft card with embossing and foil stamping."][/caption]

 

You might be surprised to learn that it doesn’t have to be more expensive to have your own custom card developed and printed, as we do each year.  If you didn’t get one of our cards, and you’d like to receive one, just drop us a note.

We do note cards, greeting cards, postcards, thank-you cards, holiday, save the date, wedding, invitation and customer birthday & anniversary cards.  We’re happy to meet you where you want to be met, whether that means flipping through books, coming up with something for you, or turning your dreams into reality.  Depending on the print process, orders can start as small as 25 pieces.

Keep us in mind for your next project!

Instead of exchanging Christmas gifts this year, the beachdog crew decided to donate to the Rotary Christmas Angels, who provide gifts to disadvantaged youth in our community.  It sounds like a sweet and simple thing to do, doesn’t it?  It’s also a lot of work!  Our hats are off to the Rotary Club of SW Pacific County Peninsula for taking requests, doing all the shopping, the wrapping, the organizing and the distribution of thousands of dollars of gifts.

Angels were hung on Christmas trees in local banks, where angels of the community could adopt one and return it with a wrapped gift.  The angels not adopted were adopted by the Rotary club.

The Pacific County Fire District No 1 Cadets helped organize the wrapped gifts…as well as wrapping a few themselves!

The Long Beach Grange was filled with beautifully wrapped gifts for kids.  The Grange itself began this program and ran it until this year, one of the quiet things groups in this community selflessly do, without fanfare.  If you see a Grange member, give ‘em a hug, would you?

The Rotary club earned even more shine on their halos by donating funds to local food banks:

(L-R) Rotarian David George, Gil Baker of His Supper Table (Long Beach), Gail Moore of St Vincent DePaul Food Bank (Ilwaco), Genita Hansen of PACE (Pacific Aging Council Endeavors), Cookie Preston of the Reachout Food Bank (Ocean Park), Rotary Treasurer Bob Hamilton

Want to make a donation of your own?

• Reachout Food Bank | 1405 Bay Ave, Ocean Park, WA 98640 | (360) 665-6567
• His Supper Table | 1301 13th St, Long Beach, WA 98631 | (360) 642-4105
• St Vincent DePaul Food Bank | Open 1st & 3rd Fridays across the street from the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum on Lake Street in Ilwaco
• PACE: Pacific Aging Council Endeavors | PO Box 579 (Ilwaco Community Building), Ilwaco, WA 98624 | (360) 642-3378

Our apologies to Genita for the 2 out of 3 Great Dane greeting!