All Posts, Blog, Photography
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We recently had a photo shoot with an amateur model, Danny. He just got a platinum hair style and wanted to show off his new look. This was a casual shoot with about 3 speed lights including one soft boxes.
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All Posts, Events, Featured, PRESS RELEASE, WordPress
This weekend is the first WordCamp happening in Jacksonville, FL. Tickets are just about sold out for this inaugural event, and that is saying a lot for a first time conference. We’ll be driving up from Orlando on Friday evening (hopefully will make it in time to catch some of the pre-conference festivities).
We are excited about it for a few reasons, but before I get into why, I wanted to take a moment and give you the details on the event. It is going to be held at the
Florida State College at Jacksonville
Advanced Technology Center
401 W State St
Jacksonville, FL 32202
The conference dates are April 16th and 17th (Saturday and Sunday) For tickets you can visit this link.
One of the first reasons why we are excited is that this will make the 4th WordCamp for the State of Florida. Miami being the biggest and I believe first. Then Orlando and Tampa, and now Jacksonville. It’s crazy for me to think that all of these are happening through the year in Florida, and at least for those of us living and working in the state, they’re all within driving distance. We attended WordCamp Miami this year and like ever year it was awesome. Our own Brand Strategist Nicole Perpillant was a speaker too! You can view her slides here.
Next reason why we’re hype is that, myself, Jean Perpillant will be speaking at this conference. I made a personal goal to speak at 4 different events this year and I’m nervous and honored to be chosen as one of the speakers for their first event. You can see my details as well as the other talented speakers by viewing this link. I’ll be speaking on Custom Themes vs Premium Themes; discussing the advantages and disadvantages to choosing either as well as key things you need to know.
Another WordCamp means another great opportunity to network with new people and grow your network. For me it’s one of the most fun parts about these conferences is the ability to meet new people, influencers, speakers, and sponsors. From being able to get a quick selfie with a speaker or sponsor, to asking the person sitting next to you what cool app their using, you’re pretty much guaranteed to be inspired just by attending.
So have you attended a WordCamp before? If so let us know some of your tips and feedback in the comments below. If you haven’t, I highly recommend you check to see if there is one coming up in your area.
All Posts, Domains, Web Design
I’ve been managing domains for over 9 years now. It’s not necessarily a hard job, even though hosting can be difficult. But for this article we’re going to stick to the business of domains. Acquiring a domain isn’t extremely challenging. There are apps from hosting providers you can use, or you can go the traditional route of creating an account with a hosting provider from your laptop 24/7 and buy domain names to your heart’s content.
Let’s Talk About Domain Registration
You can purchase a domain name anywhere from $5.99 to several thousand dollars. You scoff? Yes I typed that correct, several thousand. We’ll get to that in a just a few. The reason why you can purchase a domain for so cheap is usually because of the introductory prices offered when creating an account with a hosting provider. GoDaddy is probably the most well known, and at times infamous when it comes to domains.
Because the price of domains are so low for the most part, the recurring fee to renew your registration only happens on the anniversary of when your purchased it (or first registered it). Normally when it comes time to renew you’ll receive an email anywhere from 45 to the last few days leading up to your expiration. You may need to check your spam folder if you are missing these or if you previously opted out of receiving promotional emails from your provider.
Now on to the Good Part
When it’s time for your domain to renew, and you don’t renew it and it expires, it is released into the wild. Like the baby dolphin you helped raise from early childhood to an adult released back into the ocean. Because well, the internet is rather large like the ocean. I digress. So what happens when you want that domain back? Well if it is within the 30 days of expiration, your hosting provider still has it. They essentially “park” your domain hoping that you or your visitors will notice all the new banner ads that replaced your beautiful and well curated content and all your pages.
You can quickly contact your provider and pay the price for renewal (and possibly any lapse fees) and within moments your old website is back online and no more funky ads. But what do you do when it’s no longer in the hands of your provider? Well, you may be into some real trouble. There are people out there that scour the internet with apps and code waiting for domains to become newly available and buy them up for that same inexpensive low price like you did, but they place their own ads up along with a nice message on how if you’d like to purchase “this” domain you can have it for a price. In some cases the price is listed, and could be a couple hundred dollars. But if your website had high traffic, and continues to show a lot of visits from unsuspecting patrons, the resale value goes up. Oh and if you or other people submit that form to inquire about purchasing the domain, the price goes up. Almost like a catch-22 huh?
I’d like to say it’s not fair and there should be laws against this type of behavior in the market, but all of this could be avoided if hosting provider fees are taken care of on time.
This whole write up is to shed some light on a lesson for domain owners. It’s rather inexpensive to acquire and retain a domain name, or several of them at that. Think really hard if you no longer want to keep a domain. The headache of trying to get it back later could be way worse than just paying the $15 or $20 it is to renew it for the year.
Thoughts? Do you have a domain you’d like to get back from someone who bought it after it expired? Contact us and we’ll offer you some personal advice. Worse thing you can do is not to educate yourself on what options are available to you.
All Posts, Photography
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A month ago I visited the city of Richmond, VA and was able to spend a few hours doing a photo walk. Though the weather was really chilly and overcast, I was able to get creative with some great photos. Check them out!
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All Posts, Blab Video Replays, Marketing, Social Media
This week we’re back with another new Blab! This was such a good talk that I don’t even want to spend a lot of time explaining it, I really want you to just watch. In short we talk about how being a professional we don’t take out enough time to go back and inform our clients and audience that we actually have other skills, traits, or services that we can offer among our main ones that everyone knows us for.
We talk about ways to get the word out about the extra skills we have through means of email lists, videos, and social media. But not in a bragging way, but informative. Check it out and add your thoughts to us on Twitter or the comments below.
