A cartoon created by artist Pirillo & Fitz.

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

In recent years, you may have noticed a dramatic increase in the number of stores that offer gift cards. For the longest time, stores would make gift certificates available for purchase, but gift cards offer many advantages. For example, instead of giving the cash difference if the entirety of the face value of a gift certificate is not used, a gift card can carry a balance, ensuring that the entire amount will be spent at the store (eventually).

You may have received a few of these gift cards over the holiday season and you may already be preparing to spend them during the shopping frenzy known as Boxing Day. Yes, they work on Boxing Day. Because there are so many companies and stores that sell gift cards these days, many have started to working to brand their gift cards in such a way as to differentiate from the rest of the cards being sold by competitors. This could be as simple as a name change or it could be by offering additional benefits to gift card usage.

From a marketing perspective, is it any easier convincing a potential customer to buy a TimCard rather than a Tim Horton’s Gift Card? Over at Starbucks, they sell Starbucks Cards, not Starbucks Gift Cards. In marketing and advertising, you don’t want your company to blend into the crowd, because that’s not how you can attract potential customers. At the same time, some potential customers may be put off by the self-serving aspects of “branding” a gift card. Whether it’s called a TimCard, a Starbucks Card, or any other kind of card, it’s still a Gift Card.

What are your thoughts on this matter? Does it bother you when companies brand and market their gift cards almost as something completely different from regular gift cards, or do you take it all in stride and understand why they would want to brand their cards in such a way?

From all of our staff at BlueFur.com we wish you and your loved ones this holiday a Merry Christmas.

With blogging, you have the opportunity to share your thoughts and opinions through the written word. It’s a great way to express yourself if you have a personal blog and it’s also a great way to expand your business community and contacts if you have a corporate blog. Moving forward, there is a greater push toward multimedia integration these days. That’s why sites and services like YouTube are so popular.

What if you want to share an audio or video file through your website? Under normal circumstances, a person would need to download that multimedia file and then play it through his or her own media player on the computer. This can be an added hassle that some visitors may not want to bother with. That’s why streaming audio and video are so popular as well.

One way to achieve this kind of user experience is with the Anarchy Media Player, which is really just a WordPress plug-in. Instead of a simple link to your audio or video file, this plug-in can convert it into something that can be played directly in the browser. It’s all handled through the Javascript. Better still, it handles a huge range of multimedia formats including MP3, FLV, MOV, MP4, M4V, M4A, M4B, 3GP, WMV, AVI, and ASF.

For more information, check out the official Anarchy Media Player page at An-Archos.com.

You’ve surely heard this saying before, but it holds just as much weight today as it did when it was first uttered. If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail. As we wind down the last few days of 2008, have you started putting together your business plans for 2009?

Given the current economic situation in the markets, your business may have a very difficult time securing a loan, so have you considered other strategies and sources of funding if you need it? Have you already secured a line of credit as an emergency fund?

Similarly, taking a look at your upcoming marketing efforts, have you considered how the market will react to upcoming products and services? Many people are holding onto their wallets more tightly than ever, so have you thought about how you are going to market your company is such a way to still be profitable under these market conditions?

Have you addressed any potential cash flow problems? What are your plans for growing or advancing your business, taking it to the next level? These are all questions you should be asking yourself in the next few days, putting together a suitable business plan for the year ahead while revisiting your goals from 2008 as well.

As a business professional on the go, it is important to have a cellular phone that can do more than just accept voice calls and send text messages with sideways smiley faces. In many ways, the mobile phone has become a portable computer that connects you back to the office.

The Nokia E71 is a powerful Symbian-powered smartphone that comes with a long list of great features, but what if you want something slightly less robust (and less expensive)? The recently announced Nokia E63 fits this bill to a tee.

The form factor is very similar to the E71 and many BlackBerry-type devices, but a few features have been dialed down to make it slightly more attractive and less expensive. For example, the 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera has been swapped for a 2.0 megapixel fixed-focus camera. Thankfully, the Wi-Fi and 3G are left intact, as are the QWERTY keyboard and suite of Office applications.

Right now, some online retailers have the phone in the $500 range, but this should come down when a North American model is released.