We here at BlueFur encourage a high level of creativity and we understand that inspiration can come from any number of different sources. That’s why we are proud to be the online home of the websites of so many talented artists, one of whom is Mark Margerison of Highlight Studio.

Currently based out of Terrace, British Columbia in Canada, Mark has been “holding a camera since the age of 9.” He has always been interested in capturing these moments in time and he has now developed that into a business. His photography services range from weddings to sports, scenery to picture framing.

If you take a moment to check out his photo galleries, you’ll get a good sense of the basic artistic style that Mark brings to the table (and to the lens). His portfolio includes many wildlife pictures, as well as people and stunning scenery.

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.

Don’t you wish you could have an easy way to have fundamentally the same design and layout for your WordPress theme, but to also have the ability to make huge aesthetic changes in the click of a mouse? The Brand New Day theme might be the ticket.

While this is a single theme that you only need to upload and install once, it comes in four different “flavors” depending on what you want to do. These include day, night, autumn and winter. You can see how this would be great for changing things up as the seasons progress throughout the year.

The theme will change some of its graphics and color scheme to go along with each of the flavors. You’ll also find lots of options for configuring your sidebar arrangements, as well as working out narrow and wide columns. The them is fun and whimsical, making it great for a lighter-hearted blog.

Check out the screenshots at CalobeeDoodles.com. There is also a live demo and the free download link at WordPress.org, as usual.

What’s going on with bloggers around the web? Let’s see what they have to say this week.

Tanya Davis starts out with her gratitude list. She is thankful for a supportive husband, her many new friends in Calgary, and the many opportunities she has to grow in her field. What are you grateful for?

Michael Kwan takes a look at how to know when to quit your day job. Many people want to pursue their own businesses, but they’re not quite sure when to take that leap of faith and abandon the usual 9-to-5 routine.

John Bardinelli chimes in with his two cents on Phone Story, the iPhone game that got pulled from the App Store due to “objectionable content.” He says that if the game was never pulled, it would not have received the attention that it did, even if it admonishes our love for the latest smartphone.

Neil Patel is a successful Internet entrepreneur, but he recognizes there’s more to success than good ideas and hard work. You have to dress the part too. He found that as he dressed better, he was better respected and better able to get a higher ROI on his fashion investments.

Amanda Hackwith finishes off this week’s collecting by approaching LinkedIn and assessing its value as a way to attract new clients. Of the 120 million members of LinkedIn, nearly one million use “freelance” in their job title and over 8 million cite themselves as an “owner” of their current business.

Semantics and rhetoric play integral parts of any marketing campaign, not surprisingly, so you’ll find that the careful choice of words is incredibly important in all your advertising and web copy.

Recently, I came across a “promise” from a certain corporate consulting business that really didn’t promise anything. The wording on the front page of the website read: “We guarantee we will increase your sales by up to 300% or more in the first month.”

That sounds like a bold claim, but think about what they are really saying. Your sales can be increased by up to 300%, which means it could be low as 0%. Your sales can also be increased by more than 300%, according to this claim. In effect, the guarantee is saying that your sales could increase by any amount between negative infinity and positive infinity, a promise that promises nothing.

Is this deceptive? Perhaps, but it goes to show you that careful wording of any and all of your marketing copy can not only attract new customers, but also protect you in case you don’t achieve the results that are desired.

In an effort to provide the best possible user experience on your blog, you may have added a series of widgets for more functionality and easier access. However, this may have had a significantly negative impact on the load times for your pages.

This is especially true when it comes to widgets that rely on external data sources, like an Amazon shopping widget or a Facebook page widget. To help improve the reader experience, you may want to consider adding the Lazy Widget Loader plugin for WordPress.

In short, this widget will “postpone loading the content of those widgets you choose, so that the their content is loaded after the main content of the page that is displayed.” By doing this, the main content is there and accessible, rather than being delayed behind the slower-loading widgets.

The mechanism allows the loading of any content only when needed, including the ability to “lazy-load” content anywhere on the page. Head on over to Itthinx.com for more information about the Lazy Widget Loader. It’s also there that you’ll find the FAQ, screenshots, demo, and download link.

When you first decide to go into business for yourself, you have to go through a lot of the initial setup. You’ll want to register your business name, for instance, and get all the permits that you’ll need to operate legally and effectively. You’ll also need to set up your books.

In general, there are two main styles for tracking your revenue and your expenses. One method isn’t necessarily superior to the other, but they each offer advantages and disadvantages over one another.

First, you can have cash-based accounting. This means that something doesn’t go “into the books” until actual money changes hands, either as revenue or as an expense. This means that if you receive a utility bill, for instance, the entry in your books won’t happen until you pay that bill.

Second, you can record the entries as they are earned or received. Using the same example of the utility bill, you would record the entry in your books on the date the invoice is received. Similarly, your revenue is recorded on the date you send out the invoice to your customer.

Which method do you prefer?