If you’ve never seen MOO Cards before, then you owe it to yourself to check them out. Basically they are really great custom business cards made using your own photographic images or graphic designs. They are a great way to show off your own product while also getting your contact details out into the wild.

The cards are produced on high quality stock that looks great and lasts a long time. You can choose from a range of sizes, including standard Business Cards, Mini Cards, or even Post Cards or folded Greeting Cards. The best part is that you can make several different designs using your best work, or every card can be different if you really want!

If you want to check them out before putting any money down, MOO offer a free Business Card Sample Pack. You get 10 full-color, double sided Cards, with your own photos, logo and text, shipped anywhere in the world, for free! That’s a pretty amazing offer.

Check them out at MOO.com. But wait! I have discount codes for you…

• Get 10% off any order using the code Q9JN53.
• Get Free Shipping on any order over $39 using the code 8AMX4Z.

Both of these offers expire on January 31st, 2010, so act quickly!

I’ve been asked several times recently to recommend a good website hosting provider. I’ve used quite a few hosts over the years, but I’ve never stayed with any of them for much more than a year. That changed when I found Dreamhost.

I moved all of my sites to Dreamhost a couple years ago and I’ve been very happy with the product they provide. I was looking for a faster and more reliable hosting package, but didn’t want to have to pay an exorbitant price. I got all of that with Dreamhost and I’ve been extremely happy with the fast response I always get when crap inevitably happens. Most importantly, they are readily available for communication, both through their website or on Twitter (@dhstatus).

If you are looking for a host for a new site or you just want a better service provider than you currently have, I can definitely recommend Dreamhost. The best part is that you can give Dreamhost a try with no risk; they offer a free trial with a 97-Day Money Back Guarantee! That’s a long time.

Promotion Code: OD25

Even better, if you sign up now using the promo code “OD25” you will get $25 off for any hosting package of one year or longer. What are you waiting for?

Full Disclosure: Dreamhost will pay me a referral credit if you use this code, which helps to support the site. Fortunately that makes this a win-win situation for both of us. I really appreciate your support, so thanks!

Coming up with a good domain name or URL for a new website can be exceedingly difficult these days.  There are so many webpages out there that it often seems like all the good names have already been taken.  Chances are that any combination of one, two, or even three words related to your intended website topic will already have been joined together to make up a website URL. 

When creating the URL (and therefore the brand itself) for this website I tested over two hundred potential URL’s before I found an address that I was happy with.  Don’t get me wrong, I found other available URL’s along the way, just not one that I really wanted to create  a brand around.  Here are a couple of tips that might help make your life easier when creating a new web address:

1. Try a random phrase generator to help with some words.  Ideally you could find one that would allow you to narrow down the range of words or concepts first before you start hitting the next button.  Unfortunately I can’t recommend anything like that because I simply couldn’t find one.  But I did find a few that helped to spark my creativity and they eventually led my to picking my URL.  Check out the tools from “Creativity Tools“, randomphrase.com, and the “Random Technology Phrase Generator“.
2. Use a good WHOIS tool to help you search to see if your word or phrase is available for registration as a domain name.  I really like Geektools and GoDaddy
3. Be prepared to buy your new domain name right away.  Maybe I’m just suspicious, but I’m always afraid that just using one of the WHOIS tools above might trigger someone else to register the domain that you were looking for.  So if you find something that looks like it will work, buy it!  Buy it now!
4. Don’t forget to use a coupon code to make your domain purchase cheaper.  Simply use Google to search for the a coupon or promo code for the domain registrar you plan to use.  Here’s a link to some codes for GoDaddy