BlueFur recently launched a brand new Facebook Fan Page for for the fans of BlueFur hosting! If you are a big time Facebook user, this is one place you just have to like.  Inside our fan page you will find tons of great web hosting tutorials, webmaster resources, fun websites to check out and one on one communication with the rest of the great BlueFur hosting community.

How can you get started?  Here is all you need to do:

1. Visit the official BlueFur Facebook Fan Page…
2. Click the “Like” button at the top of the screen…
3. Go check out the wall, and let us know what you think!

We are really looking forward to seeing you there soon! Feel free to use this resource however you see fit.  We would love to see your questions, your reviews of our hosting services or anything else you would like to share.  Over the next few months, keep your eye on the BlueFur Facebook Fan Page for the first word on BlueFur special deals, contests, coupons and promotions!

Do you use WordPress to power a site other than a blog? Perhaps you use WordPress as the content management system behind the website for your brick-and-mortar retail store and you’d like a better way for customers to know how to find you.

If that’s the case, you will likely be interested in the Google Maps Store Locator for WordPress. This simple plugin gives you the ability to effectively show important locations in an easy-to-navigate manner. If you have multiple stores, for instance, people can search for the location nearest to them.

The great thing about this plugin is that it is compatible with a huge database of countries. Not only will it work in Canada and the United States, but it also support Austria, Brazil, Finland, Japan, Taiwan, India, Hungary, Kenya, Chile, Singapore, and more. You will need a (free) Google account in order to use the API, but that’s easy enough to acquire if you don’t already have one.

For even more branding, you can even take advantage of custom map icons to show your various points of interest. You can also define the zoom level, map type, units of measure, cities listed, and so forth.

More information can be found at WordPress.org.

Let’s stop for a moment and consider the disparate strategies of Apple and Google when it comes to the smartphone market. On the one hand, Google has opted for a more open platform. Many manufacturers make Android phones and they can all be quite different.

On the other hand, Apple has opted for a more closed platform. Only one manufacturer (Apple) makes the iPhone and there is very little in terms of choice as to which model you want. The biggest advantage with a closed ecosystem like this, though, is the greater sense of control.

Apple controls not only the software, but also the hardware involved. They only have to send updates to a single series of devices. They only have to troubleshoot and offer technical support on a single platform on, essentially, a single piece of hardware.

With Google, the opposite is true. There are many different kinds of hardware, all running various versions of the same software. This can be much more challenging in terms of logistics and customer service, but it also offers more choice and paves the way for more innovation.

Which strategy is better? It’s hard to say for sure, as both have their respective pros and cons. And this is a question that you’ll need to ask yourself if you enter any kind of related business. Are you better off capitalizing on an existing platform, say like Facebook, or are you better off creating your own separate platform for full control?

As China’s role in the global economy continues to rise, so does the need to understand Chinese text. Even if you are not involved in international business, it helps when you have the right tools to understand foreign languages.

One of the more interesting tools in this regard is the Penpower Chinese Expert pen scanner. The mini ScaneEYE pen scanner is held just like a pen as you run it over the Chinese document that you would like to have translated. The device is connected to your computer with a standard USB cable.

The provided software includes three main user interfaces: Chinese-English Translation, Sentence Segmentation, and Phrase Database Management. Combined, the utility can recognize more than 13,000 traditional Chinese characters and 6,700 simplified Chinese characters. This provides not only for translation, but also correct pronunciation.

What’s great is that the software also serves as a learning tool, complete with quick quizzes. The Penpower Chinese Expert pen scanner is on sale for $194.95 and ships directly from Amazon Canada.

Have you started hitting up the mountains yet this winter? Did you want to scope out some of the local slopes before making the trek up the hill? If that’s the case, it could pay to check out some of the free 3D Ski Maps available on, you guessed it, 3dskimaps.com.

The website, which just so happens to be hosted on BlueFur, features a series of maps for the mountains, overlaid with color mapped steepness. This way, it is possible to tell at a glance which trails best match your current level of skiing skill and ability. The color coding shows the changes in elevation quite well and you can even “zero in on the perfect trails or pistes… no matter which ski resort you choose.”

3DSkiMaps.com is obviously not exhaustive in his offerings, but it is quite an impressive collection. Whether you’re looking at Whistler in British Columbia, Beaver Creek in Colorado, or even the Dizin Ski Area in Iran, this website has a colorized map of steepness with the trails clearly highlighted.

Do you use BlueFur to host your websites? Let us know and we can feature you in a future blog post. Send an email message to blogfeature@bluefur.com with your name, website URL, and a brief description of what you’d like to see highlighted.

Some people seem to assume that if a WordPress theme offers a myriad of options that it must be complicated and cluttered. Not so! There are actually quite a few free themes out there that are highly customizable, yet allow you to maintain a relatively clean and simple design for your blog. The Pilcrow Theme is one such example.

Interestingly enough, Pilcrow was developed by Automattic. There’s a reason why that name should sound familiar: it’s the team that happens to be behind WordPress, among several other Internet platforms and solutions. In this way, you can feel confident that you are getting a premium product at the ripe old price of free.

With Pilcrow theme, you gain access to no fewer than six different layouts. This is great for people who want to have a slightly different look for their blog from time to time, but don’t want to mess around having to reconfigure everything each time. The theme also includes multiple sidebar configurations, four different color schemes, customizable backgrounds, and custom header images.

Not surprisingly, the live preview of Pilcrow theme can be accessed through the WordPress Free Themes Directory. The download link can be found there as well.