One of the bigger stories to emerge earlier this month involved two of the biggest companies in the world: Apple and Costco. For years, Apple products have been available for sale through Costco locations, but that relationship is coming to an end. Apple products are getting phased out.

Why? This comes from a clash of business philosophies. On the one hand, Apple wants to maintain strict control over its retail channels, ensuring that its products are always sold at the same price, no matter where the consumer chooses to buy them. This helps to maintain the “exclusive” or “premium” appeal of items like the MacBook and iPod. On the other hand, Costco prides itself in delivering good value to its customers and this usually comes in the form of significant discounts.

The clash came to a boiling point when Apple refused to include Costco as part of its initial launch partners for the Apple iPad tablet device. After much back-and-forth and negotiation, it has been concluded that Apple products will no longer be sold at Costco. This could represent a huge loss for both companies, both in terms of potential and opportunities.

So, what lessons can smaller businesses learn from the Costco-Apple situation? If you can’t come up with a mutually beneficial arrangement, sometimes it’s better for all parties involved just to walk away. It may not be ideal, but it could be better than setting yourself up for all sorts of future conflicts and resentment.

It’s not always convenient to deal with both an Ethernet cable connection and a power cord. This can make for quite a complicated rat’s nest of cables and wires, so there has to be a cleaner and simpler way, right? With the D-Link DWL-P50 Power over Ethernet (PoE) Adapter, you can deliver both power and network connectivity through a single cable.

The DWL-P50 is able to deliver power up to 328 feet away and it enables non-PoE network devices to be powered via a single Ethernet cable instead. This will work with a wide variety of access points, Internet cameras, and other network-connected devices on the market today and, better still, it offers plug-and-play installation.

One of the best applications would be installing an Internet camera as surveillance at your place of business (or even your home office). By using the D-Link DWL-P50, you can mount that camera just about anywhere and only run a single CAT5 Ethernet cable to it. This means that it does not need to be located close to a power outlet.

This device is currently on sale on Amazon.ca for $38.99, which is 17% off the regular price. Since it is over $25, the D-Link DWL-P50 Power over Ethernet Adapter also qualifies for free shipping.

Do you want to see Vancouver from a slightly different perspective? Perhaps you’re interested in making a unique corporate event for your employees and partners? If that’s the case, you may want to check out Fairweather Cruises, which happens to be the BlueFur Customer of the Week.

Fairweather Cruises and Events provides all kinds of boat cruises in and around the Vancouver area, offering access to luxury yacht charters for a range of different occasions. From birthdays to barmitzvahs, anniversaries to graduations, Fairweather offers boats that are large enough to accommodate crowds of up to one thousand people! They also have some small enough for more intimate occasions, suiting a range of budgets and personal preferences. Check out the full list of the Vancouver boats for more information.

Around this time of year, the Carol Ships are particularly popular. Running until December 23, the Carol Ship Parade of Lights itinerary will take you from Canada Place to the North Shore to the Second Narrow’s Bridge and back to the Lions Gate Bridge.

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 holidays are here. The stockings have been hung by the chimney with chair and visions of sugar plums (or maybe iPads) are dancing around in the heads of children. With that in mind, you may be considering a particularly festive theme for your WordPress blog. Thankfully, there is no shortage in that department.

One of the more interesting offerings is the This Christmas WordPress theme designed by author grx3 (Hawk Enterprises). Featuring plenty of Christmas trim all around the borders, this theme supports two sidebars that are fully customizable to suit your particular needs and preferences. Along the top of the page are spaces for up to three featured posts, each of which can have its own thumbnail image too.

As can be expected, the theme is quite heavy on the green-and-red color scheme, but it maintains a simple white background. Among the included imagery are wrapped presents, gift bows, holly leaves (with berries), and maybe even a little mistletoe for good measure. Other highlights include threaded comments, sticky posts, and support for translations if you need them.

Check out the live preview at WordPress.org, which is also where you can find the free download link for the This Christmas WordPress theme.

This week’s speedlink surrounds the world of work, particularly for work-from-home entrepreneurs. Do you have tips to share too?

Neil Patel tells it straight. As much fun as it may be to pursue a myriad of interests, he recommends that you focus on what you’re good at and nothing else. The grass may always look greener on the other side, but you’re probably better off sticking to what you do best and doing that even better. This will provide you with the best chance at success.

Susan Johnston brands herself as the Urban Muse. One of her readers recently asked her about finding the balance between blogging and freelancing. On the one hand, it’s important to focus on your own interests (blogging), because they can pay off in the long run. On the other hand, it’s important to focus on freelancing too, since paid assignments are what pay the bills. Finding that balance can be tough!

John O’Nolan recognizes that working with clients is one of the most difficult parts of being a web designer. That’s why he speaks from experience when he tells us about the seven red flags to watch out for in new clients. If they start out arguing on price and they need the project done yesterday, it might be in your best interest to walk away early. It also doesn’t help if they want constant meetings either.

Misti Sandefur offers us a glimpse into her world by describing where she’s at now with her writing career. She started out writing professionally way back in 1999 and only now has she been able to earn more than $1000 a month writing from home. It’s been a tough road, but she’s learned many lessons along the way. She now shares those lessons with you, like sticking to your guns and not relying on content mills for steady income.

Claudia and Sergio Olivos live, breathe, eat, and sleep with art. So, in one of the more recent blog posts, they discuss a fairy and ginger tea. What does that mean? Well, first they’ve created a new painting called “Fairy in the Flowers,” which is quite gorgeous. Second, there’s a recipe for some rejuvenating ginger and cinnamon tea. We could all use a warm cup around this time of year.

There’s something to be said about being enthusiastic with your social media endeavors. It’s great when companies embrace this relatively new form of marketing, because so many companies have yet to realize the true value that such channels are able to provide. However, there are also many companies that are not quite going about it in the right way.

Take Tassimo Canada as a prime example. They appear to be perfectly well-intentioned with their marketing efforts, reaching out to Canadians to help promote the new home-based coffee brewing system. In fact, they’re so enthusiastic that the company is literally giving out hundreds of machines for free. That’s the good news and it flexes a lot of marketing muscle.

The bad news is how they’re doing it. Take a look at this screenshot. What’s wrong with that image? Even though this appears to the legitimate Twitter profile for Tassimo Canada, there is a sea of messages to specific Twitter users that is literally a copy-and-paste affair. It looks like spam. It looks like a junk account. At the end of the day, it looks illegitimate and Tassimo Canada runs the risk of being flagged as spam.

Why would they reach out to all these Twitter users in this fashion? They’re trying to get them to follow the Tassimo Canada Twitter account so they can send a direct message, asking if the Twitter user would like to receive a complimentary coffee machine. It started out with good intentions, but the end result could be counterproductive. Be careful with how you use social media.