The Common Sense Internet Gazette
from Ozdachs Consulting
March 19, 2007
Greetings!
Web design and Internet Promotion by Ozdachs

This edition of The Common Sense Internet Gazette highlights the new look and tools we're used on recent websites. The latest features include scripts which protect you against spammers, software which empowers you to update your own pages without involving a web designer, and sharp-looking drop-down menus.

 
Click around and discover what features you want on your site!
In This Issue
CAPTCHA the Spammers
Go to the Right Page
Update Your Own Site
A Playwright and His Plays
Set the Stage
News from Our Clients
Quick Links
Don't Let Spammers Fill Out Your Forms

Tired of getting garbage sent in to your web forms? Are you getting so much spam from your forms that your in-box fills up?

A solution we've installed for the Metropolitan Community Church San Francisco is inclusion of a CAPTCHA to make sure real humans are sending in the information.

A CAPTCHA? Yep. It's a test that uses one of these: 

CAPTCHA image - click to see it in action 
Customizing off-the-shelf form code by Spamblocker Forms, we verify that humans, not spam programs, are filling in the forms.
 
Get Your Customers to the Information Faster!
Multi-Level Drop Down MenuVisitors to content-rich sites don't like to have to click from page to page to page to get at the information they want on a sub-sub-sub page.
 
A multi-level navigation menu that slides out when the cursor hovers over an item gets them to the right spot in one click!  The same menu appears on all pages, helping the site look professional and easy to navigate.
How to Update Your Website Without a Developer
Contribute 4Two Ozdachs sites designed to be maintained by their owners have gone live in 2007. (See the stories below which feature each site.)

How did we do it?
 
We created the sites using Dreamweaver and made areas on each page editable in Adobe's Contribute software.
 
Contribute is easy to use and costs much less than full web authoring software. 

You start it up, and go to the page in your site you want to change like you do when you use a web browser.
 
Once you're at the right page, you can add, modify, and delete text and pictures. You can add links and even new pages.  When you like the looks of the updated page, you tell Contribute to publish your work and it's live!
 

New Site for Playwright John Fisher
Playwright John Fisher
John Fisher, Artistic Director of Ozdachs client Theatre Rhinoceros, is a published playwright whose work has been produced by several professional companies.
 
John's new Ozdachs site was made with the idea that he would do ongoing updates with Contribute. 
New Site for a Seattle Home Staging Professional
Home Staging for Seattle Whoa!  Is this too purple?
 
Not when the logo is integrated into the Seattle Home Staging Site of Patty Bonnell! She knows better than to clash her colors with the red of this newsletter -- her design skills are excellent!
 
Patty is an Accredited Staging Professional who is helping homes sell 50% faster for $1,000's of dollars more. 
 
Her site has been up less than a month, but she's already used Contribute to make extensive changes to the pro forma text and photographs Ozdachs provided her.
 
We appreciate the chance to get Set the Stage on the Internet!
Quick Notes from our Clients
  • Congratulations to author Hans Camenzind whose Much Ado about Almost Nothing: Man's Encounter with the Electron was published earlier in March. 
    More details!
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  • San Francisco CPA's Sterck Kulik O'Neill are offering a Free Tax and Financial Planning Guide.  If you want ideas on how to pay less in taxes next year and how to better manage your money, go to their site and ask for a copy of this 32-page booklet.  (Normally they send the book only to San Francisco Bay Area residents, but if you're out of the area and want a guide, mention Ozdachs Consulting in the Comments section and they'll send you a copy no matter where you are.) 
    Ask for the Free Guide.