I saw some great Japan images today, and thought you may enjoy them, too. The photo on that front page changes each time it’s loaded, so if you just go there, you will miss quite a bit. Check out the photo essay to see them all. I’m pointing them out directly because I had a hard time finding them, and I knew what I was looking for, since I’d had the site recommended to me. Not that all the other info isn’t good, but hey, this IS a photo blog, and we are all about the pictures here at DigiCass.

I just spent a few minutes at ABTelectronics.com looking at cameras. I still do that, because I haven’t bought (a new) one yet. Because I still haven’t found a wad of dough hidden in my undie drawer. Sigh. But enough about my drawers, let’s not get side-tracked here. I skipped right over the portable DVD players, and went right to the digital cameras. I just love their menu! As you make choices, it weeds down the cameras for you! I selected intermediate user, 8 megapixels and up, and was presented with a selection of 13 cams ranging in price from $360 to $1500. I ran and checked my sock drawer real quick at that point, but, alas, no. Nothing there either. Sigh. Look like I’ll be waiting a bit longer. But I know where to look when I’m ready.

Remember those silly assignments we had to do in school? Well, I have something much more interesting than that to tell you about tonight. In fact, if you have taken some vacation photos, I’m about to tell you how you can win a credit for a future vacation! You can get $1,000 applied to a Cape Cod vacation rental from WeNeedaVacation.com by entering and winning their vacation photo contest.

And not only could you win something cool for yourself, you can do a good thing for someone else at the same time. For every photo they accept, WeNeedaVacation.com will be donating $5 to the Association to Preserve Cape Cod (APCC), up to $1,000, so your entry could help ensure a great vacation spot remains great!

But, listen, you gotta hurry. I just found out about the contest today, and submissions close on September 3rd. Find your photo! Pull it out, dust it off and send it in! Good luck!

You guys know I take a lot of pictures, and that means I need a lot of storage space. Did you know I also have 7 other blogs? Yeah, I use some hosting, LOL. Sometimes, I would like to reach through the computer screen, and slap my hosting company, though. Sometimes my sites will be down, when I need them to be up. Umm, no, wait a minute, that’s not quite right. Sometimes they will be down and I need them to be up all the time.

I saw a hosting company today that guarantees 99.9% uptime. They also have 24/7 phone support. And easy installs. And traffic reports. And space. Lots and lots of space. 350GB of space. Now, that all sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? Almost, but not quite too good to be true? Let’s ramp it up a bit, shall we. What if it was FREE? Yeah, crazy huh? But it is true, you can get free web hosting for a year at easyCGI. There isn’t even a set up fee! Now, I don’t know about you, but free is like… my favorite price. Seriously, the only price I like better is the one where a company pays me to try their product.

Now, you know I’m not one to ask for a digg very often, but…you know, the button, there it is, right under the post, and this is a really hot deal, so you could, you know, click the digg button, and then click on over to easyCGI, right?

Let’s talk about hosting, shall we? Those of you who are regular readers here must know that I use up a fair amount of hosting resources. What some of you may not know (since I don’t know who all of you are [because you lurk {please come out and say hello}])is that this isn’t my only blog, and that I post pictures on most of my blogs, though this is the only one that has a PAD.

Choosing a host for your blog or website is the second most important internet decision you will make. The level of bandwidth transfer and storage you purchase directly determines what you can and cannot do with your site! When you make a decision about a Web Hosting plan, always, always allow room for growth. You need to be able to handle traffic spikes (read that photo memes) without your site going down or adding substantial extra costs to your monthly bill.

I like how Canadian Web Hosting lays everything out in chart form for you on the front page. I also like how their QandA explains exactly what the different types of accounts do. I still don’t understand the difference between Windows hosting and Linux hosting, but I appreciate that they at least made the effort, LOL! And I really like the Google Adwords credit they are offering just now, too. If you need hosting, I suggest you check them out. Nope, you don’t have to be in Canada to use them, and I even tracked down a currency converter for you.

Oh! I don’t want to leave you hanging: the most important internet decision is to just do it already

I was reading Lisa’s blog earlier this evening, and noticed she had posted about a photo contest. She has a new little one, and also a toddler, and plans to enter the baby competition. I keep thinking maybe I’ll do that, and then I chicken out.

I am adding new site to the blogroll tonight, and I guarantee it will blow you away. These are some of the awesomest nature photographs I have ever seen. Is awesomest a word? Well, it is now, and it applies to Mike Ash. No need to take my word for it, go see for yourself!

I want to show you something! Undersea photography is a simply amazing website, run by Andrej Belic, and you must see it to believe it. There is no need for more words.

Kids move fast, don’t they? I know when I was doing my the photo shoots, I missed some delightful shots, even thought I was standing right there with the camera in their face. My friend Ang. just reminded me that you can get stills off videos. I had forgotten that!

Now, I am looking at camcorder reviews on TestFreaks. You know I need small, lightweight and easy to use. I don’t want to be fumbling around setting up while the cuteness is happening, ykwim? The site already has a wealth of product information, and it’s not due to officially launch for another couple of months. That means that by the time I get the air conditioner and the laptop paid for, they’ll be ready for me to do more than read and dream.

And, yep, they have a nice section on digital cameras, too.

Technorati Tags: TestFreaks, digital cameras, camcorders

Have you guys moused over some of my photos lately? You know I don’t give them all names, and so they just have a number. I noticed yesterday that I am in the 980plus range on the Canon. Remember, I just got that camera at the end of December, so that’s just a touch over 4 months, so I am averaging close to 250 new photos a month, at 5MP each. That’s just staggering to me. And the photos are getting better, at least in my opinion. At some point, I am going to want to get a few of them published I think. It’s the digital age, so I’ll probably end up sending them by email, and I will want to do that securely, so this morning I downloaded my free copy of SecureZIP - The next generation of ZIP, from www.securezip.com.

This is a full version of the data security program, not a trial version. But the free download is a limited time offer. The program integrates with MicroSoft OE to automatically encrypt, digitally sign, and zip email messages and attachments, and it also works to secure files on your desktop and portable media. In truth it was the portable media part that got me thinking about how useful this program could be to the (professional) photographer. What a great way to send proofs! No worries about someone getting their hands on YOUR photos if they are encrypted and have a digital signature, because even if someone got the disk, they couldn’t do anything with the pictures.

Of course, it’s not just good for photos, it can handle all sorts of data, and it is in fact marketed for handling sensitive personal data such as tax records, bank statements, medical records, passwords. But digital data is digital data, right? And as a photographer, my most important digital data is pictures.

Here’s what you need to remember:
1)It’s Free
2)But only for a limited time
3)Download it from SecureZip.

Go now. Come back later for the PAD!