We carry a lot of different electronic devices with us, but we’re not always next to a power outlet. When you’re busy making phone calls, checking email, taking pictures, streaming video, and so much more, it’s not surprising that your smartphone runs out of juice a lot sooner than you’d expect. What can you do?

There are some great portable battery pack options out there, but one of the greener solution has got to be the Freeloader Pico Solar Charger. You simply connect this pocket-friendly device to your GPS navigator, smartphone, or other similar products and it will draw in the power of the sun, channeling that electricity so you can keep going.

This can be particularly handy if you find yourself out in the wilderness or away from other power sources. This compact and lightweight solar charger can top up your battery in about half an hour. If you don’t have much in terms of sun, the Freeloader Pico Solar Charger has an internal battery that can be charged via USB as well. The product comes bundled with adapters for Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and mini-USB, but it’ll work with any USB device too.

The Freeloader Pico Solar Charger can be found on ThinkGeek for $40.

An avid fan of BlueFur since 2004, entrepreneur Jeannette Duguay (“Jen” to friends) wears a variety of hats.

For starters, she is the owner of JenTekk Web Solutions, a website design and development company. Based out of Richmond, JenTekk has been helping small to medium-sized business in the Vancouver area realize their online marketing dreams since 2001. The client list includes everyone from Pat Anderson Insurance Group and the BC Library Association to Pajo’s Fish & Chips and the VCC School of Music.

Jeannette is also the Director of Communications and Co-Founder of Tazzu Business Networking Ltd. Recognizing the value of word of mouth referrals, the local online networking community helps to organize such events as WordCamp Vancouver and Joomla DemoCamp.

Whether you need a website built from the ground up or assistance with your existing website, Jen is happy to offer you a complimentary one hour consultation with no obligation – usually over a cup of coffee! You can follow her on Twitter, become a Facebook fan, or connect with her on LinkedIn too.

Want to be featured as the next BlueFur customer of the week? Send a brief message to blogfeature@bluefur.com with your bio and any other info you’d like to have included!

Do you like the light and airy feel associated with the standard Twitter layout? Do you want to have the same kind of look for your personal blog or website? It seems that you’re not the only one, so there is a great WordPresss theme that you can download for free!

The TweetPress WordPress theme is not only inspired by Twitter; it actually mirrors the layout of the popular microblogging website. You get the blue “cloud” background image, a right-aligned sidebar, and a menu bar in the top-right corner that looks just like the one on Twitter. If you didn’t know any better, you’d swear you were on the actual Twitter site.

TweetPress has recently been upgraded to version 2 beta. This version has cleaner code, has far fewer service calls to Twitter, and direct posting access to your Twitter account. It is also integrated with the bit.ly API, generating a shortened URL for every new blog post. This allows for one-click retweets.

Other features include the “reply” link at the top (which sends users to the comment form), dynamic Twitter follower/following counts, and automatic excerpt generation for articles to mimic the look of 140-character tweets.

Go to GabrielJones.com for more information, a live demo, and the download link for TweetPress 2 Beta.

In case you haven’t noticed, the 2010 Winter Olympics are going on in Vancouver and Whistler. There’s a lot going on in the city above and beyond the athletic events, so it’s good to see that the blogosphere has been covering these interesting stories too. Here are a few that caught my eye.

Ed Lau went downtown looking to take some pictures and attend a few parties, but he somehow found himself in the middle of an anti-war protest instead. Many people are using the Olympics as a platform to voice their opinions and the anti-war demographic is no exception.

Rebecca Bollwitt had the opportunity to speak with some people at CBC about how they are covering the Games. For years, CBC was the official broadcaster of the Olympics, but that switched to CTV for 2010. CBC is still providing coverage, but they’ve certainly shifted their vantage point.

John Chow discovered social media and social networking at its finest. Organized on Facebook was a massive dancing flash mob on Robson Street. Can you tell that Downtown Vancouver has become one gigantic party?

Schema Mag recognizes that the Olympics are inherently international, but there are still legacy prejudices in place. It’s great to see these boundaries being broken with the first black couple in figure skating, representing Team France. It’s amazing that it has taken this long, don’t you think?

Jake Tobin Garrett responds to complaints coming from some downtown Vancouver residents. They’re upset about the loud parties near their condos, saying that they can’t sleep when people are still hooting and hollering at 3am. What Jake says is that these people have to realize that downtown is not a (primarily) residential neighborhood.

The strategy that you choose to use to market your business will vary based on a number of different factors. For most companies, you’ll want to have a good website at the very least and it can be well-supported with properly managed Twitter and Facebook accounts. These are great for getting the word out, but what about the words that need come back in?

I’ve come across a few smaller businesses who do not want to invest in the extra cost that may come with managing their own website. As a result, they rely more heavily on their presence on places like Twitter and Facebook. The former can allow for more direct communication from customers and business partners, but what about Facebook? You need to make sure that you establish a way of accepting contact from the outside world.

This is particularly problematic when the Faceobok fan pages are locked, only allowing administrators to post content, and then there is no specific mention of a phone number or an email address. When this is the case, customers and other interested parties really have no way to establish contact. Be sure to put something on that page, telling people where to go if they want more information.

The best thing you can do is to have a well-designed website with a good contact page, offering different email addresses for the different departments in your company. This way, people can get in touch in the easiest way possible.

Social networking and social bookmarking can be fantastic sources of traffic for your website. You’ll notice that many blogs take advantage of various plug-ins and design customizations that capitalize on Facebook, StumbleUpon, Twitter, and countless other services. One of the newest social services to hit the Internet, as you know, is Google Buzz.

Not surprisingly, the first of many WordPress plug-ins has been developed to connect your blog to Google Buzz. Called WP Google-buzz, this plug-in comes from the same developer who created Twitter Goodies, All in One Webmaster, and WP Archive-Sitemap Generator. That’s a pretty strong pedigree, wouldn’t you say?

With this Google Buzz plug-in, you can choose from a variety of Buzz-related icons to embed in each of your blog posts. Some of these are just the Buzz logo, whereas others can have a blue text box that reads “Buzz this.” You can choose to have this icon displayed at the beginning of the post, at the end of a post, or with a manual insertion code to use with your theme files.

Among the features that may appear in future releases of WP Google-buzz are nofollow attribution, pop-up window options, and new Buzz buttons. More information can be found at Arpit Shah’s site and the free download can be found in the official plugin directory on WordPress.org.