I experience this all the time. I attend a trade show with media credentials, getting a press pass so that I can cover the event for a publication of some sort. I seek out the interesting products, services, and innovations that I feel are worth describing to the audience. You would think that companies would love to get whatever press they can get.

But that’s not always the case. More often than not, I will encounter at least one booth where they either a) question why I am taking pictures of products or b) tell me that I am not allowed to take photos. On the one hand, I understand that they are trying to minimize counterfeiting and other companies copying their products. On the other hand, you’re at a trade show to promote your products.

If someone really wanted to copy your product idea and you are actively selling these products at the trade show, what’s stopping them from buying the product and taking pictures when they get home? You will always run the risk of piracy and counterfeiting, but the whole point of having a booth at a trade show is to attract the attention of investors, wholesalers, and media outlets. You want them to know about what you have to offer.

So, here’s a word to the wise for any companies thinking of taking up booth space at a trade show: if you’re not ready for the public to take pictures of your products, for whatever reason, it’s probably not such a good idea to have those products on display at the show. It means you’re not ready yet.

It can be difficult to remember a long and complicated URL, and that’s part of the reason why QR codes are slowly rising in popularity. These Quick Response (QR) codes can come in very handy if you have an audience of smartphone users, but how can you capitalize on this trend in a simple and easy to implement way?

If you’re looking to use it for your WordPress blog, then you might want to look at the WCS QR Code Generator. This WordPress plugin is exactly what you think it is: it works with your WordPress installation to automatically generate a QR code for any post or page on your website. You can also adjust the attributes of the generated QR code image to suit your needs.

These attributes include the size, color, URL, tooltip, image format (PNG or JPG), and error correction level. The URL attribute can be for a conventional URL, like a blog post that you’re trying to promote, but it can also be used for an e-mail address, plain text, phone number, vcard, or other uses too. You can then display the QR code using the basic shortcode syntax as outlined on the plugin’s page.

More information, including a FAQ and screenshots, can be found at the WordPress Plugin Directory. The free download link, as always, can be found on that page as well.

Just as there are so many articles on how to start a business, how to set up a business, and how to run a business, there is the other part to the life cycle. It may not be a bridge that you want to cross for some time, but you may get there eventually.

When you do, you need to make sure that you go through the proper steps of closing a business. Remember that this is quite different from selling a business to another owner, resulting in a whole other set of official forms and documents.

For businesses based in the United States, the IRS website has a checklist for closing a business. This checklist not only includes some of the necessary steps, but it also has many of the government forms too. These include filing your final employment tax form, issuing final wage to employees, reporting your final capital gains or losses, and reporting your corporate dissolution or liquidation.

As always, it is best to consult with a professional if you have any questions whatsoever. You want to make sure that you do everything right so you don’t have something come back to bite you years down the line.

Technology is getting smaller, bigger, and less expensive all the time. All three of these trends is encompassed in a product like the Patriot Xporter XT Rage USB flash drive.

Yes, thumb drives may not be the most exciting products out there, but they’ve become such an integral part of doing business. In this case, you get a 16GB (or even bigger) flash drive for a fraction of the price of what these drives used to cost. The rubber coated housing also protects the drive against drops, spills, and daily abuse.

The quad channel technology in this drive also helps to provide for some of the fastest speeds found in USB 2.0 drives. You can achieve up to 27MB/s read speeds and 25MB/s write speeds. The retractable design also ensures that there are no caps to lose.

The Patriot Xporter XT Rage 16GB USB 2.0 flash drive is on sale for 57% off on Amazon. You can get it now for $25.48, down from the regular price of $58.83. Considering that the 8GB version is still selling for $44, this is a fantastic deal. Take advantage while you can.

All kinds of businesses and individuals use BlueFur for their web hosting needs, and many of these happen to be very proficient with social media and other forms of online marketing. One example of this is Rhetorica Consulting Inc. The firm specializes in “strategic communications for the public sector.”

Among the kinds of services that they provide are strategic communications planning and advice. They work together with companies to use rhetoric to their advantage (that’s not a bad thing!), implementing strategies for social media, internal communications, and opinions research. They’ll also work with you on graphic design and project management.

According to the company’s about page, the president of Rhetorica Consulting is Bridget Mallon. She has more than ten years of experience in the industry, working with the Government of Canada. Clients of Rhetorica include Environment Canada, Health Canada, and Northern Affairs Canada.

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.

At first glance, the Yoko WordPress theme may not look like anything particularly special, but behind that seemingly simple design is a very useful and interesting trick. And that’s why you might want to implement it on your blog too.

Let’s start with the basics. Yoko is a three-column theme. Above the large header image is the name of the site and some basic navigational links. Below that is the main content in the far left column with two right sidebars to accept your widgets and other customizations. This is where you can display your archive links, search bar, recent post listing, and so forth. Other features include different post formats, customized backgrounds, logos, and more.

But the most fascinating feature of Yoko is that it has a “responsive layout.” What this is means is that the theme will automatically optimize itself for devices of different sizes. View it on a regular computer and you get three columns. However, go down to the smaller display of a tablet or a smartphone, and the theme will switch to either a two-column or one-column layout. This makes for the best possible mobile experience.

Head on over to the WordPress Free Themes Directory to get a live preview of Yoko Theme. That is also where you can download the theme for free and implement it on your own site.