Fire-Wired Blog

This article was first published by  iowabusinessjournals.com There is a long list of must-haves in business and technology is becoming an ever-expanding portion of that list. While computers, printers, phones, websites, online advertising, and business software may be the basics, the “extras” are starting to blur the line between luxury and necessity. One seemingly simple digital resource customers expect and many businesses seem to overlook is an e-commerce portal. If you work in an industry that provides a service and not a product, you may feel online sales are not important; however customers are carrying less and less forms of payment. In the near future if you do not have an online means to process transactions you will officially be losing business. Paypal, Stripe, Amazon Pay, Fast Spring, Google Pay… the list of portals lining up to process your online transactions is seemingly endless. First off, yes every single reputable vendor will take a processing cut.  A common 3%

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Christmas gifts are a tricky thing. For the most creative, romantic, or codependent amongst us the “thoughtful” gift is probably the gold standard; for example a trinket that symbolize or commemorates an important event or experience you share with someone. Second best is the expensive gift which basically says “I have a lot of money and rather than putting actual thought into the gift I just bought the highest priced item on your Amazon Wish List.” Third there is the exactly what they asked for gift, which isn’t necessarily expensive or thoughtful, but the recipient will be happy. There are a dozens of other gift giving strata in the spectrum of thoughtful-to-revenge gift, but exactly in the middle is an era I have dubbed “cold technology gifts.” Now we all know what a piece of “hot technology” is; the latest and greatest phone, a video game system that always seems to be sold out in stores, a top of the line camera, et cetera. O

This article was first published by  iowabusinessjournals.com If there is one technology cost saver you could embrace immediately it is cutting ties with your traditional phone service, replacing it with a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Plain and simple, VoIP business plans are drastically cheaper than signing up for multiple phone lines. Now that you know the basics, learning the details will make the decision for you Firat, the expense; VoIP demands you upgrade your internet speed. Why? Well since your moving all your phone traffic to an internet based connection you're bandwidth needs will go through the roof. However, the increased speed won't only benefit your new phone service. All of your web business dealings will speed up, including media downloads and video conferencing. Plus the nominal increase in your internet bill will still be far below what you're used to paying for phone service. Now the good part, VoIP comes with all the benefits of your tradit

This article was first published by  iowabusinessjournals.com If you employ millennials it is a near certainty they are using their personal smart devices to conduct business. It is likely the case with most generations, but our youngest professionals use every shortcut and tool available to do what needs to be done. As a liability minded entrepreneur chances are this situation concerns you, but without the resources to handout company devices (a practice with an entirely different set of headaches) there are few roadblocks you can erect to halt it. The best practice is to side step it with portable hotspots. People do stupid things to establish a data signal. Besides hoisting devices into the sky, we rountinely walk into windows, crash our cars, and of course drop and break our devices all in the name of connection. Investing in a handful of wireless hotspots immediately eliminates this foolishness but it is so much than that. At a few hundred dollars initial investment for the

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Manuals are the bane of nearly every man’s existence. Doesn’t matter if you’ve purchase a “some assembly required” set of shelves, a brand new computer, or a car; reading a manual is about the dullest thing in the world. Plus manufacturers don’t make it any easier. For instance if you buy a top shelf, professional mirrorless from sony, the A7R III, finding online support for the device means you need to know the production name of the device as well; i.e. ILCE-7RM3. Reading the manual for that camera isn’t bad enough, just reading that production name out loud will put you to sleep. I wish this were a column about the end of manuals and all knowledge were ready to be consumed in pill form, alas that is not meant to be for some time. But if there is one small piece of relief to share in this arena, it is that one of the most egregious production naming fiends on the planet has decided to make the marketplace just a bit more friendly

This article was first published by  iowabusinessjournals.com In the world of small business management the one budget that lives up to the moniker is in IT. As imperative as technology is do modern business, day-to-day operations and providing actual services requires a great deal of capital. Sure you'd like to give every employee brand new iPhones, laptops, and unlimited cloud storage but being an entrepreneur means being thrifty and prudent with every dollar. However if I may play devil's advocate, if there's one IT area you might want to spend a little extra on it's email. As counterintuitive as it sounds, investing in email early can be one of the smartest decisions you can make. I know, you probably remember one of the perks of your website was something like 25-100 included email accounts. That is a great deal, but who owns those emails? Are they stored on some unaccounted server your service provider leases space from? If they suffer a breach or data loss, w

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Everyone has that awfully frustrating experience of sitting close to someone with awful headphones. Not headphones that are unstylish but an set of stone-age ear covering headphones that seem to send audio in all directions. This encounter always seems to happen during inescapable situations such as on a packed plane or on a family vacation. Addressing the offender can result in hours of tension, so if you truly can't escape there is only one surefire remedy; noise cancelling. All kinds of headphones claim to be “noise cancelling,” but few truly neutralize the world at large. Since the technology entered the consumer market in the mid-1990s, the company synonymous with noise cancelling has been Bose. At a premium cost, audiophiles could pickup a set of Bose over-the-ear headphones and hear practically nothing but the music they were hoping for. The word “practically” is key. See while the first few generations of technology

And thus the sunset has set on Palle Amorevoli 's time on the screen. That's right, the Des Moines 48 Hour Film Project season has come to a close for 2018, and our latest and zaniest film is officially out in the wild for general audiences to enjoy. Each year is a roller coaster. Some years you know you have some special, some years are a little more shaky. This year I knew we had some thing... special*. Yes you're reading that right; italics and an asterisk. If you have yet to see the film, Palle Amorevoli is a romantic musical set inside a bitter bowling anti-romantic comedy. The quick synopsis is "A delusionally romantic bowling alley chef falls for his musical whims and discovers two of his alley's balls have found love; however, just as their romance buds, bitter bowling rivals threaten to end it." I'll save the musical portion of it for you to discover inside the film. Once again, we didn't win any judges awards. Instead we walked away

This article was first published by  iowabusinessjournals.com If you are privy to the sways of pop culture and technology, you are probably aware of how uncool LinkedIn is. Don't buy into that. Yes, LinkedIn isn't “cool,” but when it comes to business cool is only a priority in marketing. While LinkedIn is part of the social media marketing universe, it is in very far off galaxy from the cool social networks. Your business use for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and potentially even YouTube is all about marketing your business as something to admire, envy, or desire. LinkedIn is only about that for one reason, attracting talented job seekers. Now if you're hoping to attract in demand creatives who could possibly rebrand your company as culturally cool, chances are you wont be finding them on LinkedIn; however, LinkedIn does have its role and never in the history of the website was it worried with what TMZ or any late night hosts said about it. The reason you s

This article was first published by  iowabusinessjournals.com If there is one piece of technology your office needs to invest in as soon as possible it is a document scanner. Unless your business is super ahead of the curve, you undoubtedly have piles, drawers, and cabinets full of old documents. It doesn’t matter if you’re a 100 year-old business or a 1 year-old business, the paper storage and paper waste struggle is real. Thankfully there is very few instances where you need to keep hard copies of anything. Of course if you’re a lawyer or immigration official you might say otherwise, but on the whole 95% of the paper sitting around our offices is superfluous. Now you might be thinking “we have a copy machine with built in scanning functionality, why do I need a dedicated, uni-tasker piece of technology.” See all-in one machines are fantastic; they allow for more floor space, fewer places to go if you need to print, scan, or fax, but that all demands getting up and going somewhere

Tonight marks the 29th episode of Iowa Outdoors for which I have been a producer; and yes, do I ever wish that was a beautifully round 30, but as Mick said 'you can't always get what you want." As of 6:57pm tonight, Iowa Outdoors has aired eight full seasons of programming. While I only started at IPTV in November 2014, I've been a fan of the show since it's second season. I love the outdoors and from the moment I saw a producer position for Iowa Outdoors was open I knew I was gonna get that job. Maybe that's arrogant but I prefer to think of it as star-crossed confidence. I'm a former boy scout, I love all outdoors experiences, and I make sure to include outdoor adventures in every vacation I take. So yeah, I had the skill and the drive so I was bound and determined to get the gig. Four years and three full seasons in, Iowa Outdoors has been everything I hoped it would be and more. I've covered fishing stories, hiking stories, conservation

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com In the season two South Park episode “Prehistoric Ice Man” a guy named Larry is found frozen in ice and thawed, wherein they find he was frozen for three years. The locals react as if this ice man is truly prehistoric due to his dress and pop culture references being so dated. After some shenanigans the solution to send Larry to Des Moines as we are always behind the times culturally. As old as this joke is to Central Iowans, the creators of South Park deemed it worthy of a 20 minute build-up on their -at the time- red hot TV show. 20 years later, we here in the heartland like to think this joke no longer carries any weight; however, there are some definite examples of how Iowa is still waiting ever patiently for the coasts to tell us what’s next. A small, and seemingly odd example is the tech craze of motorized scooters. Have you seen a motorized scooter recently? Definitely not around Des Moines or within the state’s borders, bu

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Few things are as fulfilling as going on vacation. Leaving your cares, deadlines, awkward relationships, and everything else at home and travelling to a exciting or relaxing place. As perfect as getting away from it all can be, the gatekeeper to these experiences can be unbelievably frustrating. No, this gauntlet of grief has nothing to do with asking for the time off from work or setting your affairs in order so your time away doesn’t end with a surprise catastrophe at home. The real pain before pleasure comes in the form of booking your travel. You’d think living post-phone vacation booking would be an era of sweet relief; no more calling airline after airline, hotel after hotel, rental car company after rental car company. Thankfully we’ve traded that torture but for something that is an entirely different painful experience. There is no silver bullet in the digital age for booking travel accommodations. The first savior came

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com The mechanically captured still image has been around for over 150 years. In the mid 1840s, the Daguerreotype process was invented whereby a specially conditioned silver-plated copper would lock in an image when exposed to light and shadow. Silver and copper being two rather expensive metals you shouldn’t be surprised to learn the process died out quickly when film based photography started to develop. Jump to today and the pervasive nature of cameras has pushed the artform into what is unquestionably it’s platinum age. To be clear the golden age is considered the midnight 20th century when film cameras were still considered a luxury for everyone to own, and were mostly owned or operated by professionals and artists. I consider today to be the platinum age because the technology and the know-how are nearly neck-and-neck as far as progress goes. More than any feature or function digital cameras provide, the ability to take virtua

This article was first published by  iowabusinessjournals.com If you operate a small business in Iowa, chances are good your customers Iowans. However if you business has a public website or any online space your business administers, according to the European Union, you are part of the global marketplace thereby subject to EU laws. Setting aside any political outrage you have with this issue, know that your legal culpability is not too great. Of course for complete legal advice consult with a lawyer but the general concern should be; if European citizens are visiting your website how are you tracking them? Second, if you are tracking them how are you collecting and maintaining their data? Online privacy and personal information is among the hottest issues in tech today. In Europe is has surpassed “third rail” status and become the hangman's noose. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) basically says citizens have the right to digital anonymity unless they explicitly

Excited to share my latest multimedia endeavor, Audiography. A few feet beyond what I would define as a hobby, Audiography is a new nature sound recording effort mixed with personal storytelling. If that's enough for you, here's the soundcloud. As you may know I am a podcasting fanatic . I first started listening to podcasts in 2007 when I discovered Filmspotting , and in 2012 my good friend Jacob Rosdail and I set behind the mics ourselves to create our own podcast " Filmcast Without a Cause ." Well Audiography is something new. Part podcast, part storytelling, and a large dose of natural sounds. Roughly two weeks ago I drove up to Okoboji's Iowa Lakeside Lab to spend a day filming Alex Braidwood 's Acoustic Ecology course. For two weeks, Alex takes college students, artists, and creatively inclined individuals out into the world to record nature sounds and examine the world of acoustic ecology. At the end of the experience the crew produces a set o

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Every tech-enabled marketplace celebrates a new, industry-darling each year. Whether it’s movies, social media, podcasting, transportation, applications, music, or any other silo of technologically enhanced goods creation, some unforeseen innovation captures all the industry eyes. But every once in a while, something rises above their intended producer/consumer ecosystem to grab headlines across society as a whole. These red-hot crossovers inspire superlatives such as “gamechanger” or “revolutionary.” Well just starting to boil over is a cartoonishly violent, freemium videogame ‘Fortnite.’ Videogame megahits are not new. There are decades of examples to site where men, women, and children were all captivated by pixelized, remote-controlled entertainment. Fortnite is the semi-annual superhit that is inching its way into zeitgeist-wide. As is generally the case with super power videogames, Fortnite is a massive multiplayer game that

This article was first published by  iowabusinessjournals.com Travel is a silent budget killer. Nevermind hoarding receipts for meals on the road and hotel stays, the real iron maiden of expense is mileage. If you’re using a personal vehicle to travel near and far for your business you’re no doubt burning an ocean of gasoline, and even worse shortening the life expectancy of your ride through wear-and-tear. Now if you’re part of a larger corporation or franchised medium-sized business this may be reimbursed directly through your employer; however for small business owners mileage tracking and tax write-offs is an absolute must. Thankfully your smartphone offers dozens of options to track your mileage. Of course you could take diligent notes in whatever application you prefer to do such things (Google Drive, Notes, Keep, Evernote, etc.). But for piece of mind, and better records for confidant tax deduction, there are a few applications you should really consider. First, there are

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com 95% of the world has no idea how the internet works. Security breaches, data leaks, identity theft- these are life altering events that the internet has inflicted on millions of people (probably billions at this point). So why did every media outlet cover the recent Facebook-Cambridge Analytica story as if national security was at stake? The immediate, half answer is the sour state of American politics where everyone still trying to figure out the narrative for the past presidential election. If a foreign outfit nefariously uses US citizens “private data” to help swing an election, the harvester of that data should explain how that happened. But of course it's not that simple. “Private data” does not exist when it comes to the internet, and anyone who says otherwise is selling you something. Seriously, when you sign up for any “free” service online what you actually doing is turning yourself into a renewable commodity that i

This article was first published by  iowabusinessjournals.com Drone videography is becoming ubiquitous in our world. For stunningly low investment you can fly a small helicopter or quadcopter with a high definition camera. What started as an expensive filmmaking tool has trickled through the market and commoditized into an accessible tool for any enterprise. Business Commercials, City Services, Landscaping, Real Estate, Agriculture; basically you think of the business it is very likely that someone is out there sending a drone into the sky to film something for it. The problem is you should not be doing this yourself. No one needs to remind you how resources for a small businesses are limited, but the itch to fly your own remote controlled helicopter is pretty enticing. But before we get to the budget breaking potential of even consumer grade drones, there is a dirty little word you have to deal with: regulations, as in Federal Aviation Authority. If you are flying a drone, or “u

This article was first published by  iowabusinessjournals.com You know your job. You pretty much have to in the world of entrepreneurship. Beyond your speciality, small business ownership also demands you learn a few things about accounting, marketing, as well as a healthy dose of the laws pertaining to your line of work. Of course there are some things you don’t know, and given how precious time is in your life you are not prepared to learn. For many people –inside and out of the small business world– creative or artistic pursuits is a black hole. Personally dipping your toe in the worlds of graphic design, video production, or even professional photography is an endeavor you may waste weeks, if not months of your time and come out the other end less than satisfied with the result. Thankfully some people live in this world and are a few keyboard taps away from covering your creative needs. Now just like you, there are tons of local freelance graphic designers and small creative sh

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com With a high probability of certainty I can say that you have fallen for gimmick technology. Maybe you bought a mini-disc player or digital picture frame. You were stuck on a plane and after four hours of turbulence your brain was shook just right to convince yourself of the genius of a couch mixed with a refrigerator or a wireless text scanning pen. See all that junk seems like obvious gimmicks, but at some point a whole lot of people thought they were must haves or “the wave of the future.” Well sadly, gimmick tech is not in our rear-view mirror. Example A; 360 cameras. Not sure what 360 camera is? Have you opened up your facebook timeline and seen a video or picture that seemed to move the contents of it's frame with the movement of your device? That content was 360 degrees of fun. That might sound facetious but there are practical applications for displaying 360 environments for users to interact with… the problem is users

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com If you figured it out by now, nothing in tech ever lasts. Fading into obscurity almost as fast as and season fashion trend, technology producers and consumers jump from innovation to innovation, from platform to platform, and hardware to hardware without even a glimpse to the past. Whether it's iPods, flip phones, VHS, or even desk tops, technology not only advances but doesn't even hold a public funeral for the gadgets that once ruled our lives. The next former king of the technology empire to sail quietly into the night is CDs, or compact discs. While today CDs are mainly found in libraries and truck-stop bargain bins, the high fidelity compact disc was once a revelation. First unveiled in the early 80s, by the mid 1990s CDs had completely eclipsed all consumer audio technology. Vinyl LPs were holding on for dear life, audio cassettes were virtually erased from existence, and reports of new release compact disc sales jum

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com Cutting corners has a rather negative connotation; if you can’t do something correctly, cut a few corners and live with the diminished result. While generally true, there exceptions to all adages and for small businesses cutting some corners can offer avenues to serious cost savings. One particularly costly expenditure for businesses is technology, particularly software. With many popular software companies transitioning from single pricey purchases to on-going software subscriptions turning one time buys into never ending cash drains. Luckily there is a small glint of hope in the expensive software barrage; an altruistic technology solutions movement called “Open Source.” Before you start screaming how you can’t give up your Mircosoft, Quicken, SalesForce, or Oracle take a deep breath and consider the word ‘free.’ Open Source only works because a swarm of programmers and engineers understand many people out there can’t afford sof

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com In the 1990s Microsoft was the indomitable force hovering over the tech industry. The internet had started to emerge but wouldn’t start changing the world until a couple years into the new millennium. No, Microsoft had full run of the court and no matter who tried to defend, Bill Gates’ company was going to win. This was so much the case that the U.S. government and courts in the EU held antitrust hearings, with the initial 1999 U.S. judgement being Microsoft was a monopoly. Now under appeal a federal court overturned that ruling, staving off court mandated separation. In the moment that must have seemed crazy to the tech world; I mean articles were being written about Microsoft being king of the hill for as long as it was interested. But once the 90s ended, the internet exploded, start-up tech firms reshaped the software market, and  over the course of a decade Apple released the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad. Microsoft’s reign of

This article was first published by  iowabusinessjournals.com With information security breaches a regular thing, hopefully you’ve done th basics to protect your business, Have you installed a powerful firewall to hold off web based attacks? Nice start. You’ve instituted a routine and mandatory email password reset system for employees? Excellent second step. Backed up, and encrypted your website? Smart. Your staff has been educated on common email phishing practices, including never opening attachments from external emails? Now your cooking. What about protecting your voicemail systems? Before you ask, voicemail hacking is a thing. Is there valuable information in your, or your employees, voicemail inboxes? Sure, but rarely is that what voicemail hackers are looking for. The real moneymaker is hijacking a voicemail account and tricking calling services into connecting collect calls running up a hefty tab on the hijacked business account. This is a real threat that could end up cos

This article was first published by  dmcityview.com So the holidays have come and gone and as expected your gifts were nothing too exciting. No big deal. It’s a new year, a blank slate with all kinds of possibilities. In fact, you’re so pumped maybe it’s time to buy yourself a gift. Maybe pool whatevers left of the gift money you didn’t spend, and get something you’ll actually use and cherish. Not a computer, too boring. Not a phone, too common. I got it, a really nice camera. You’ve always loved taking pictures and have been looking for a good excuse to get back into it. After a quick google search you can’t find any reason not select one of the top rated cameras of last year. A few thousand dollars seems reasonable if you’re gonna use it as much as you’re considering, also this thing might actually make you money if this passion turns into a side gig. With potential and adrenaline flooding your brain you’re ready to click proceed to purcha-WAIT! Are you really about to buy the to

This article was first published by  iowabusinessjournals.com Social media is the siren song for small businesses. It seems so egalitarian; put a post on any platform and all your followers see it (and if you’re lucky that post will recruit many new followers). Well the truth is every social platform has its advertising downfalls and as they all transition to publicly traded companies, their mission turns from connecting users to turning profits; i.e. businesses must pay for views. Case in point; Facebook just publicly announced it's plan to alter the master algorithm that populates users news feeds so they see more posts from their friends and fewer posts from pages or businesses. For years Facebook has had an algorithmic governor on page views. It didn’t matter if a person liked your business on the service, more likely than not your posts reached a mysteriously calculated few of your supporters. This new corporate shift away from page content seems great for friends and fami