Fire-Wired Blog

Last Friday I had the unexpected pleasure of taking pictures for the Iowa State University Greenlee School of Journalism's Future's Forum. A couple week's earlier I was given the photog assignment, but few details except for a handful of choice people to photograph. It wasn't until I showed up that I found out it was a Greenlee event (a school I have a little history with). It turns out the "Futures Forum" is a chance for current journalism students to hear from industry execs, ISU grads in the field and  current  students with unique intern experience. This year's panel was made of a senior editor at Better Homes & Gardens, an Ag magazine exec, an graduate who now works at ESPN and a student who recently interned for Rolling Stone and Maxim. For the majority of the forum I was looking for different photography angles, but after the M.C. held a cheer for the recently deceased and beloved professor, Barbara Mack, and announced the topic, my interes...

A year ago my favorite web property was Foursquare, this year it's Kickstarter . What is Kickstarter? Well in its own words... Kickstarter is a funding platform for creative projects. Everything from films, games, and music to art, design, and technology. Kickstarter is full of ambitious, innovative, and imaginative projects that are brought to life through the direct support of others. Basically if you have a passion project, and don't have the capitol, Kickstarter gives you the platform to crowd-source the dough. Recently Bridget Gongol, the sister of one of my best friends, used the site to raise funds for her children's book shown above. Like most of the projects on Kickstarter, she only needed a small amount of money to get her project off the ground. Bridget's book is quite fun and very colorful, I highly recommend you pick up a copy of "Crocodile Life is Hard ...and Other Observations"  and follow her blog for r...

Last night my 48 Hour Film Project team, Tiny Explosions, had it's short film screened at the fleur cinema in Des Moines (trailer below). Not only was this the first time I've lead a 48 Hour Film team, it was the first time a film project that I've Directed/Produced was shown on the big screen, I was all kinds of excited to see how it would play out and how the crowd would react. Needless to say my stomach was full of butterflies. They ate it up. Seriously, we could not have received a better crowd reaction. There was so much laughter some jokes were drowned out because the audience was too loud. It was amazing.  While I was pleasantly surprised with the audience, I was not surprised with the product. As you may know, I am currently in grad school for Software Design and Programming, and a good portion of my classes have dealt with project management and project architecture/framework. As it turns out Information and Communication Tec...

I am an ardent supporter of what many people find to be menace, web advertisements. CNET.com's YouTube channel starts all of their videos with 30 second Ads and without fail one of their top comments is always someone complaining about sitting through an Ad. Get over it people , those ads are what make that content possible and keep the web free, and for minuscule content creators such as myself, these ads are a minor way to receive some form of payback from projects we've worked hard on.  For web-viewers there is no easier way to support a page you receive free content form than by clicking on an ad.  For instance, one local blogger I really enjoy is Barefoot Angie Bee , in a recent post she opened up about her struggle with Multiple Sclerosis . Her post was well written, heartfelt and inspiring... and I could have done the easy thing and left a supportive comment, but instead I clicked on every sidebar graphic/link on her page. See many content providers get pai...

Today the second issue of the Forward Magazine mailed, the magazine produced by the Iowa State University Foundation which focuses on philanthropy's impact on the University. I've mentioned the magazine in a previous post , but considering this magazine prints only three issues a year, I thought I might share some of my work.  If you look real close, squint your eyes and tilt your head back at a 57˚ angle you can see my credit on the back page of the magazine. Beyond my usual video work, I also snapped a couple photos for this issue. That interesting piece of art on the back page was photographed by yours truly. Magazines are an interesting bird. Just as newspapers are slowly dying, magazines are as well. Forward, I believe, flys in the face of that trend. No one is purchasing this magazine, it goes specifically to donors and is meant to give much wanted insight into ways private donations impact the facilities, faculty and students of the University. I a...

Today I decided there was no way around it, I had to advertise my distaste for Facebook, on Facebook. I've mentioned in the past my feelings about the king of social networks, but after getting a slew of non-family friend requests I did decided the best way to keep from hurting peoples feelings was to lay it all on the line. Facebook is a HUGE "time suck." Before I laid 300 friends to waste last fall I was just as bad as your average tween, checking my phone every couple hours for what's happening in the socialsphere. I guess it's good for brands, organizations, businesses and what not, but it's not for me. This company wants all your private information and they want to flip it for a buck. I don't want my face showing up in the sidebar ads, I don't care about edgerank, beacon, socially crafted advertising, sketchy t.o.s. and I don't want to give you something without getting something in return -not unless I can interact with you in the rea...

If Apple is truly the lion of the computing industry right now, than it seems only fitting that its most recent iteration of OS X is the thorn in its paw. Thanks to less-than-stellar reviews, one going so far as to claim OS X 10.7.3 was " Apple's Vista Moment ," I held out as long as I could to upgrade my MacBook Pro . And if it wasn't for new software requiring the operating albatross, our laptop would be roaming the computer jungle issue free as a graceful snow leopard. Everything I was worried about is true ; Preview windows takes 5+ seconds to buffer files. Finder searches, formally instantaneous, seem to have been refashioned in an homage to Microsoft. Pointless screen animations abound for fullscreens Launchpad and Dashboard continue to be a waste of computing power. Quicktime video playback is choppy. Upon upload, Preferences are rewired for no reason what-so-ever. There's plenty more to list -I could write 500 words on Finder windows alone- ...