A few interesting links about Photography, Technology, Social Media, and Gadgets that I’ve come across recently. Some are smart, some are funny, and some are just plain dumb, but they are all interesting for one reason or another. Have a look and let me know what you think:

• The picture of dishonesty: social media slaps down a wedding photo faker – Hartford online marketing | Examiner.com
  If you fake your entire career online, you're going to get caught. This article about a photographer who stole images from other photographers, including reposting images from entire weddings and claimed them as her own, recently found that out in a hurry.
• 4 Lessons Learned From Our Builder For Photographers
  Photographers need to be awesome to stand out. So do other service providers. It's not that hard, but you have to plan for it. You have to want to be awesome…
• Creative Collision: Branding is Everything
  You are your brand. You must own that. If your clients don't appreciate your brand, how can they see themselves in the photography that you might provide for them?
• Behind the scenes / Making of a QR code
  This photographer deserves a medal for the patience he displayed in creating his print promo piece. It's pretty incredible the lengths he went to to make something tactile for his promo piece. Of course he could have achieved the same look with about 5 minutes in Photoshop, but it's still pretty cool to see what he created.
• Enormous 6mm Nikon Fisheye Lens Up For Sale At £100,000 | Popular Photography
  I have some big lenses in my bag… I know because my photography clients comment all the time . But this one takes the cake. I'd love to see what the images that come out of this lens look like!

ProBlogger’s Guide to your First Week of Blogging

If you’re starting a blog, you might as well do it right and learn from the master: Darren Rowse aka Problogger. He has just released a brand new ebook that will guide you through all the important decisions that you have to make. From selecting the topic of your blog to figuring out exactly what to write and how to promote it.

I’ve been reading Darren’s blogs for years and I have learned so much from him over that time, but I can say without a doubt in my mind that what you will learn by reading this book will save you the years that it has taken me to pick up on his tricks and secrets. If you don’t feel the same way, no worries, Darren offers a money back guarantee on all of his ebooks…

The book is on sale for only $9.99 USD for a limited time. This is 50% off the regular price, so don’t wait! If you buy before May 17th you’ll also go into a draw to win a prize worth over $850!

Photoshelter Promo Code: SE5PH32Y9C

I’ve had an account at Photoshelter for many years that I use to sell stock photography images. If you’re interested you can check out my collection of Landscape and Wildlife Photos from the Canadian Rocky Mountains and Prairies at www.Sean-Phillips.com. PhotoShelter is a great service that handles online sales, advertising, and high resolution file distribution. It’s a great way to attract new clients and it throws lots of Google juice towards my photography collection.

I just realized that Photoshelter has a referral system, and that can help both of us! If you’re planning to sign up with Photoshelter you can save some money by using this referral code. I will get a small kickback too, but the important thing is that you can save $5 to $30 on your Photoshelter seller account.

http://www.photoshelter.com/referral/SE5PH32Y9C

You can also just enter code SE5PH32Y9C when you sign up.

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