We’ve said before that coming up with an effective logo can go a long way in building up your brand and establishing a presence in the marketplace. While a good logo won’t make your company profitable in and of itself, a bad logo can wreak havoc and adversely affect your bottom line. That’s why, at some point in your company’s lifetime, you may consider changing the logo to provide fresh perspective and renew interest in your brand.

It seems that Best Buy is currently undergoing this kind of transition, because there are rumors that it is going to launch a new logo. You can click here to see the old and new logo. The old one is the yellow tag on the left and the new one is the logo with the blue background. There will certainly be different opinions on the matter, but let’s have a look at what Best Buy might be trying to achieve with this change.

The old logo, by most accounts, is meant to be fun and easygoing. This falls in line with the company image of non-commissioned sales staff and a no-pressure environment. Best Buy is also largely catering to the consumer end of the market, whereas stores like Staples and Office Depot lean more toward the corporate environment. With the new logo, it seems like Best Buy is trying to “grow up”, so to speak, and be more mature. The change in font is also more business-like in appearance, as is the choice of a navy blue background (not unlike a navy blue suit).

Is Best Buy shifting some of its focus to the corporate and enterprise markets? What do you think of the new logo and how do you think it will affect the public perception of the Best Buy brand?

The Asus Eee PC is immensely popular, largely because people are absolutely in love with its remarkable portability. The tiny laptop can fit just about anywhere and you barely notice it in your backpack or shoulder bag. Asus recognizes this, of course, so the Taiwanese company has worked hard to expand the Eee PC brand, cashing in on our fascination.

One of the newest additions to the Asus Eee PC line, ironically enough, is not a netbook at all. It’s not even meant to be portable. Instead, what you see here is a touchscreen-equipped Asus Eee PC and it is an all-in-one unit. Functioning in a similar way as a digital photo frame or a Tablet PC, the touchscreen Eee PC is very simple and very attractive. It gets pretty well the same specs as a regular Eee PC, including the Atom processor, 160GB HDD, 1GB RAM, Windows XP Home, webcam, and Wi-Fi.

Unlike other Eee PCs, though, the display here is a large 15.6-inches across the diagonal. It may not be particularly useful in your cubicle, but I think that it would be great for the reception area of an office. The pre-order price has been set at about $680.

Congratulations to this weeks geek Rinko. This weeks audio questions are…

1. Who owns this trademarked sound?

2. Who owns this trademarked sound?

3. Who owns this trademarked sound?

4. Who owns this trademarked sound?

5. Who owns this trademarked sound?

Last week we worked on setting up a streaming radio station. This week we will focus on the steps to setting up a shopping cart. With many software’s out there finding the right one might be difficult. I have had good success with osCommerce which has a strong community support system. If you get stuck there is a large forum to search for an answer or you can post and get help from other members. There is also many community built addons which enhance osCommerce which are also free.

To get started you will need to get your site online and then you can get started by doing the following…

• Install osCommerce through cPanel. This is a quick install through your Fantastico.
• Login to your admin area and modify your configurations of your Shopping Cart.
• Add your payment processor information.
• Insert your various products into the Shopping Cart.

This is the basic setup of a shopping cart. To customize your osCommerce setup you would edit…

• header.php – This page will allow you to change the top of the page where the menu and title is.
• left.php – This page will allow you to change the widgets on the left side of the cart.
• right.php – This page will allow you to change the widgets on the right side of the cart.
• footer.php - This page allows you to change what is displayed at the bottom of the page.

The above files are in the includes folder where you installed osCommerce. I suggest making a copy of them before making changes to them so you can restore back to them if needed. You can edit these files by removing what you do not want and add html to the pages that you do want.

If you are not comfortable with designing your osCommerce look there are pre done themes that you can buy that will add to your professional appearance. These themes contain the above php files that you can just replace.

If you get stuck let me know in the comments.

A cartoon created by artist Randy Glasbergen.

If you have an idea for a future comic or would like to submit your own BlueFur cartoon let us know in a comment.

As you may already know, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. That’s why you may have seem some charity runs in your area or people wearing pink ribbons on their lapels. In the spirit of this awareness, I’d like to dedicate this post to not only breast cancer awareness, but also to charitable acts in general. The holidays are right around the corner, so don’t forget to give back to your community.

Miss604 may know a lot about social media and the online environment, but she’s also very well grounded in the real world. Combining these passions, she helped to organize the Third Tuesday Food Drive and it was a resounding success. In her post, you can see 12 boxes filled with donated food. What you don’t see are two or three more cloth bags filled with canned goods. Great job, Rebecca.

Dr. Laura has a interesting story concerning breast cancer. There is a woman named Jessica Queller who decided to have a preventative double mastectomy. She was not diagnosed with cancer, but it runs in her family and she tested positive for the breast cancer mutation (BRCA1).

Hummingbird604 looks outside and sees a lot of trash. He reminds us that it is Waste Reduction Week in Canada, running from October 15th to October 25th. Waste Reduction Week may end tomorrow, but you should be looking at how you handle your garbage year-round.

DailyMuscle has put together a great list of things you should do to minimize your risk for breast cancer. The single best strategy, as with most medical conditions, is to focus on prevention. Get checked regularly!

Jeff Kee takes a rather controversial standpoint when it comes to charity, saying that he does not support handouts. When asked for spare change, he tells homeless people to get a job. Teach a man to fish and…. you know the rest.