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 ...

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 ceter...

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 ...

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 frien...

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 ...