Since we posted information about our Dynamic Event Calendar, we’ve been receiving a lot of requests for a demo. So, we finally created a demo for all of you who want to check it out:

Dynamic Event Calendar Demo

There’s a link to the admin control panel, the login to use is:

Username: demo
Password: demo

Make sure you actually use the login for the calendar instead of the Client Login. We’ve had some people try to login at our Client Login area. It won’t work! Just in case you don’t see the calendar admin link, here’s a link to get to it:

Dynamic Event Calendar Admin Demo

Once again, if you think this just what you’ve been looking for, you can buy the package for only $50. Use our secure order form when you’re ready to purchase.

This may seem like a simple or even obvious post. But, I have friends who have recently switched to the Mac and they don’t always know what the icons represent in the menus for keyboard shortcuts. I did some searching and couldn’t really find anybody explaining what the icons represent. I thought that was a bit odd so I wanted to get something out there for those few Mac newbies (or maybe even the veterans that still don’t know).

The icons I’m talking about look like this:

Now, I’ll explain each quickly:
This is the Apple or Command key icon. It’s the only key that actually has the icon right on it (at least on newer Mac keyboards). It’s usually referred to as the Command key, or for short, “cmd”.

This is the Alt or Option key icon. Most keyboard shortcuts reference it as Option instead of Alt though. The common abbreviation is simply “opt”.

This is the Control key icon. This key is used widely on PC and Mac, so most people should know the key. It’s also the key that is used in most shortcuts on Windows computers in place of the Command key on the Mac (Control+C on Windows equals Command+C for copy on the Mac) . It’s common abbreviation is “ctl”.

And finally, the Shift key icon. Second to the Command key, this one is also pretty obvious. It’s rarely ever abbreviated in shortcuts.

Well, I apologize for posting such a simple “how-to” but I just can’t believe this information is not freely available out there somewhere. I know some new Mac users may want to use more keyboard shortcuts and see them throughout their menus, but have no clue what key to use for each. If only one person finds this useful, then it has served its purpose.

I’m sure if you own a business and have a web site, you’ve been approached by a SEO “expert” (Search Engine Optimization). I put the word expert in quotes because most of them are hardly experts at all.

Recently we’ve had the joy of working on a project where the client brought in a so called SEO expert. This person claimed to know things that virtually nobody else in the business knows, he actually called them “secrets” he was unable to disclose. I would be very wary of hiring any professional that makes this kind of statement. In other words, they ask you to do a lot of things to “optimize” your site but are not willing to back up any of it with a shred of proof that it will actually help boost your search engine rankings. I’m sure every profession has some true trade secrets but, once hired, any professional should be willing to share these with you.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there are true SEO experts out there and those people can really help your search engine efforts (although the investment can be very high). Also, we don’t claim to be experts ourselves either. However, we do know enough to know when the “expert” is trying to pull the wool over a client’s eyes.

We spend time on every site helping our clients follow the rules necessary to keep their site search-engine friendly. Some are willing to invest more time in this effort and some aren’t. However, many SEO experts (even the real experts) want you to invest a lot of money while throwing out good design and usability, disregarding the visitor in favor of the search engine web bots. In other words, if a web bot doesn’t like it, then you shouldn’t do it … that’s their mantra. Well, as with anything, there are extreme measures that may only minimally help boost your rankings but create a much larger negative impact on the usability and design of your site. Always weigh the impact of the “optimization” to the impact on the visitor.

Here’s my take … you can have the best rankings in every search engine, but when the visitor actually gets to your site, are they still going to find a user-friendly, well designed site? If not, then all the SEO in the world won’t help convert those visitors to customers and/or regular visitors to your site (whatever your goal may be).

In summary, SEO is a worthwhile effort, but be careful how far you take it. Make sure your efforts aren’t taking away from what every site owner’s focus should be, the visitor’s experience.