As a small business owner, you will likely find yourself in the situation where you need to hire an employee or two. The hiring process can seem fairly standard, but things have changed in the age of the Internet.

Yes, you will likely still want to go through the usual process of collecting a resume and a cover letter. Yes, you will likely also want to conduct an interview, ideally in person so that you can get a sense of their demeanor and manner of conducting themselves.

However, you will likely also want to conduct some background checks. Depending on the nature of the job, you may perform a criminal record check, for instance, but the Internet can be a wealth of other information about just about anyone. Do a Google search. Look for the profile on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

The personal decisions of the prospective employee should not carry too much weight, but they will still fall under your consideration. At the same time, be willing to cut some slack, as we all have our moments of indiscretion that inevitably find themselves into Facebook photo albums.

What do you do when you want to get DSLR-like image quality and interchangeable lenses, but you do not want to lug around a camera of that size? There are many more options in this niche with each passing day, from the Olympus E-PL1 and other PEN cameras to the NEX series from Sony. The latest name to join this realm is Nikon.

Nikon is already very well respected when it comes to DSLRs, but the recently announced Nikon V1 and Nikon J1 bring that down to a much smaller scale. The size of these new cameras is comparable to a Panasonic GF1, making them appear like compact point-and-shoots. However, much like the micro four-thirds system, the Nikon 1 Series is equally adaptable with a powerful 10.1-megapixel sensor, ESPEED 3 image processing engine, and interchangeable lenses.

The ISO can go up to 3200 for low-light shooting and there is the ability to add in a flash for even more light capture, in addition to the integrated pop-up flash. It’s also notable that the Nikon V1 is capable of shooting up to 60 images a second if the focus is locked. It will also shoot full HD video and can capture slow-motion at up to 1200fps too.

It has been announced that the Nikon J1 will ship on October 20th for $649.95. That includes the 10-30mm kit lens. The higher end Nikon V1 will ship in the same window with the same kit lens for $899.95.

The professional players in the NFL have hit the gridiron for another grueling season, but what about your own league? Or even if you don’t play in league, you want to get yourself into tip-top shape right?

For that, it might be useful to check out Pro Football Workout, a blog that focuses on improving your play with football workouts and conditioning. Some of the more recent posts cover such topics as preventing dehydration, improving your kicking ability, and choosing the right football equipment.

As you make your way through the extensive collection of posts and articles, you can learn about everything from speed workouts to supplements and nutrition. It’s important to approach your football training from a holistic perspective and that includes what goes into your body before you hit the field!

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.

The best option for your WordPress blog is to get a custom theme, but this may not always be practical or affordable. Thankfully, there are literally thousands of free themes for you to consider. Neo Theme is one of the newer ones to hit the block.

Released earlier this year, the Neo WordPress theme is quite clean in its layout, but is very robust in its feature set. Its basic color scheme is silver and grey, but there are some nice spots of light blue too. There is a featured post slider toward the top, as well as several custom social media icons embedded “behind” that.

Below that is the main content area where your blog posts will be shown. The date is highlighted to the left. Just below the post title are your categories and tags, as well as a space for an image or ad placement. The four 125×125 ad blocks in the sidebar provide good monetization opportunities too.

Check out the screenshot of Neo WordPress Theme on Web Design Lessons, which is also where you can find the links for a live demo and a free download.

What’s happening in the blogosphere this week?

The Simple Dollar discusses the concept of frugality and what it means to save money on your off-time. He equates saving a certain amount to earning a certain hourly wage, but shouldn’t that “extra” time be spent living and not “earning” more money?

Stacey Higginbotham of GigaOM continues along these lines by approaching how billable hours may not apply in the age of social media and multitasking. It’s much harder to break up your work day into distinctly separate hour-long chunks, so how do you bill your clients accordingly?

Laura Spencer of Freelance Folder reminds us of situations where attitude makes a difference. It’s all about how you think about the world and the circumstances that you encounter. Suddenly hit with a costly expense? Have you saved up an emergency fund? Can you work with your creditor?

Greg McFarlane of Control Your Cash has a guest post up on ProBlogger discussing the importance of proper, comprehensible English. It amazes him that in this day and age, there are so many people who don’t understand why plurals don’t need apostrophes. Correct English matters.

KISSmetrics marketing blog finishes off this week’s collection by providing seven tips for creating killer product pages. Each of the tips is accompanied by a screenshot to help illustrate the point, like clearing your calls to action and including concise copy with conviction. Are you doing it right?

There are more and more advertising opportunities on the Internet with each passing day. You can purchase advertising directly from a number of websites, just as you can advertise on Facebook and Twitter too. YouTube is another intriguing channel to consider.

There are two prominent video-based ad placements that could prove to be valuable parts of your overall marketing campaign. First, there is the pre-roll. Many popular videos on YouTube allow for a “pre-roll” video that is played before the main video. Some of these can be skipped after a few seconds, while others must be played through in their entirety.

The other big option is direct advertising with the content creators themselves. They can then promote your product or service in the middle of their own videos. You can see the Netflix interstitial in most of the newer videos from Epic Meal Time, for instance.

The question of which option is more effective is a tricky one. The pre-roll is played right away, but sometimes can be skipped. The interstitial can also be skipped by the very nature of fast-forwarding through that section. And both can be perceived as an annoyance by some viewers. What do you think? Which ad placement is more effective?