IT in the D

Another week, another really fun episode with some great guests.

Thanks to our guests Major General Amy Courter of Youngsoft, Hans Erickson of New Mind, and Katrina and Mark from our newest sponsor, W3R, for joining us in-studio tonight.

We talked about the state of the industry here in the metro Detroit area, a little about our upcoming events, some cool new software out on the market and more...

As per usual, we started off with the latest stories that have caught our eyes in the past week.  This time around, it seemed like everything's making us feel old.  The 40th anniversary of Saturday Night Live.  The 35th anniversary of the Miracle on Ice.  The 30th anniversary of The Breakfast Club.

In our second segment, we talked with Major General Amy Courter about her work both in and out of the military, transitioning between the two worlds, what Youngsoft has going on and more.

Youngsoft encourages students of IT and those technologists looking for their next opportunity to download and use the Liferay Community Edition Data Visualization / Portal software, and begin learning the Liferay skill set. Youngsoft has a Center of Excellence in Liferay and is a Liferay Platinum Partner - and Youngsoft is one of only two US-based organizations authorized to perform Level I support for customers. Check out these links for Liferay at:

Download Link

https://www.liferay.com/downloads/liferay-portal/available-releases

Learning Center

https://dev.liferay.com/

And please take a look at Youngsoft - we are hiring! If you don't see an open position there, please email [email protected] - and here is our URL: www.Youngsoft.com

Segment three had us chatting with Hans Erickson, who's had quite a career and is now off doing his own thing, including a pretty cool piece of software for anyone who happens to be a privacy and security freak like we tend to be.

For our final segment, we dove in with Katrina and Mark from W3R and talked about some of the things W3R is looking for these days, a little preview of our longer conversation with them that'll be taking place during next week's episode about an upcoming event, and their view on the market and how things are going for them.

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Youngsoft can be found at http://youngsoft.com/

New Mind can be found at http://newmindgroup.com

W3R can be found at http://www.w3r.com/

As always, we can be found:

On the web: http://www.ITinTheD.com

On Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/ITintheD/

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=91763

On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ITintheD 

On Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ITintheD

Another week, another really fun episode with some great guests. Thanks to our guests Major General Amy Courter of Youngsoft, Hans Erickson of New Mind, and Katrina and Mark from our newest sponsor, W3R, for joining us in-studio tonight. We talked about the state of the industry here in the metro Detroit area, a little […]

What a fun, fun night.

Thanks to our guests Scott and Nuri from Penguicon, Kelly O'Hara of Bebop Art and Kasey from Kosmic Kasey for joining us for just a great night of conversations, laughs, and we even managed to be a little informative...not to mention running a giveaway that you can still be a part of.

We talked conventions, comics, art, women at cons, and all sorts of really great topics...

As always though, our first segment kicked things off with the stories that have caught our eye over the past week.  Samsung's announcement that their smart televisions are recording everything you say.  Radio Shack filing bankruptcy.  The problems with state income tax returns via Turbo Tax, which actually likely had more to do with the Anthem hack that resulted in 80 million full identities being stolen than anything else.

In our second segment, we chatted with Kelly and Kasey about art, comics, and the female perspective on several of the conversations we've been having lately.  We met Kelly at Motor City Comic Con last year in Artist's Alley (you can catch that earlier conversation with her here: https://soundcloud.com/itinthed/motor-city-comic-con-2014-interview-kelly-ohara-bebop-art), and it was great to hear more about what she's got going on, the various shows that she's involved, her art, Kasey's writing, and their take on things.  Kelly is a Detroit-based portrait painter that has sold works internationally and shown work for over a decade from multiple galleries in and around the Detroit area, like the one taking place later this month that hit: https://www.facebook.com/events/922314677780270/.  Catch up with her at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bebop-Art/239939760127  Kasey Pierce is a writer, vidcast-host, and comic-con personality from the Metro Detroit area. She’s written pieces for AllThingsGeeks.com, AlmostNerdy.com, and quoted on the back of Dirk Manning’s graphic novel, Tales of Mr. Rhee (Procreation of the Wicked). Kasey is also in the works on a horror anthology for Rocket Ink Studios to be released early 2015.  Check her out at https://www.facebook.com/kosmickasey

Segment three focused in on Penguicon, a convention taking place at the end of April that's definitely different than a lot of cons in the area.  They describe themselves as a happy place where all geeky interests are represented, explored, and respected. A place with hackers, makers, foodies, open source software junkies, anime buffs, and science fiction fans of all ages and backgrounds come together in a hotel for a weekend and totally blow the roof off.  And nothing we've heard or read so far can dispute any of that - programming tracks for the hardcore geek to the casual cosplay enthusiast, events, panels and fun for just about everyone.  It's a safe bet that you're going to see us there.  Read more about them and get your tickets today at http://www.penguicon.org/

In our fourth segment, we continued learning a little more about Penguicon and then doubled back into our conversation with Kelly and Kasey...and then we made the decision to continue things even on out into a fifth segment, which went pretty much like those usually do.

That's all for this week's episode.

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Kelly O'Hara can be found at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bebop-Art/239939760127 or http://www.bebopart.webs.com/

Kasey can be found at https://www.facebook.com/kosmickasey or http://www.kosmickasey.com/

Penguicon can be found at http://www.penguicon.org/

As always, we can be found:

On the web: http://www.ITinTheD.com

On Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/ITintheD/

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=91763

On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ITintheD 

On Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ITintheD

What a fun, fun night. Thanks to our guests Scott and Nuri from Penguicon, Kelly O’Hara of Bebop Art and Kasey from Kosmic Kasey for joining us for just a great night of conversations, laughs, and we even managed to be a little informative…not to mention running a giveaway that you can still be a part […]

Episode 77.  We had a few Detroit-themed guests on the show tonight, as you can tell.

Thanks to our guests Courtney and Ian from Detroit Beer Press, Monica Wheat of Pipeline Fellowship Detroit, and repeat offender Daily Detroit for joining us for a night of laughs and fun conversations...

Of course we talked a little Super Bowl...well, we talked about the commercials.

Especially the Nationwide one.  Wow.  Nothing like dead kids to really kick the party up a notch...

We chatted about the naked guy in a cowboy hat wandering down I-75, the Star Wars comic "Into The Great Unknown", the amazing profit margin one company gets on high speed cable, and the usual smattering of stories and rants you've come to expect by now from us.

In our second segment, we dove in with Ian and Courtney from Detroit Beer Press. If you're not familiar with them by now, then you haven't been paying attention.  In addition to chatting about their upcoming issue coming out next week, we also chatted about Yelp reviews, their new Howler Membership program that can get you some sweet deals at some great locations, where you can find their publication, and everything else they've got going on currently.  Check them out at http://www.detroitbeerpress.com/

Our third segment brought Monica Wheat to the forefront to chat about Pipeline Fellowship Detroit, a new organization that's spinning up to change the face of angel investing.  Pipeline Fellowship is an angel investing bootcamp for women.  They work to increase diversity in the U.S. angel investing community and create capital for women social entrepreneurs. Pipeline Fellowship has opened a call for applications for its spring 2015 angel investing bootcamps in Ann Arbor, Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, DC, Detroit, Memphis, Miami, NYC, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis. Candidates are encouraged to apply by Friday, February 6, 2015.  For more information, please check them out at http://www.pipelinefellowship.com/, hit [email protected], or feel free to contact Monica directly at [email protected]

Our fourth and final segment had us chatting with Daily Detroit about Google Fiber, what's going on in the city, and we seriously questioned their selection of "10 awesome movies filmed in Detroit" because, well, because we're opinionated and it's fun to give him a hard time sometimes, that's why.  Really great conversation, as it always is.  If you're not checking Daily Detroit out on a regular basis, you're missing out.  See everything they've got going on at http://www.dailydetroit.com/

That's all for this week.  Tune in next week as we talk with the organizers of Penguicon, and we dive headfirst into the conversations and issues that have evolved surrounding the blog entry about a trip to the comic shop - from women attending cons to the comic book industry in general, it should be an excellent conversation as we're joined by two ladies who have a few things to say about it all...since they live it every day.

Detroit Beer Press can be found at http://www.detroitbeerpress.com/

Pipeline Fellowship can be found at http://www.pipelinefellowship.com/

Daily Detroit can be found at http://www.dailydetroit.com/

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As always, we can be found:

On the web: http://www.ITinTheD.com

On Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/ITintheD/

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=91763

On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ITintheD 

On Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ITintheD 

The stories we got to...and a lot we didn't:

Top 25 jobs: http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/jobs-america/

Youtube, Flash and HTML5: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Youtube-Says-Goodbye-to-Flash-HTML5-Is-Now-Default-471426.shtml

Guy acts as his own lawyer, gets his conviction overturned...because he acted as his own lawyer: http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/court-throws-out-oakland-county-conviction-in-case-of-man-who-insisted-on-acting-as-lawyer/30981558

Makes you wonder what's on your Comcast bill... http://elliott.org/is-this-enough-compensation/comcast-thinks-husband-ahole-put-writing/

45% of Americans think online privacy is more important than national security: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/45-percent-of-americans-think-online-privacy-is-more-important-than-national-security-300026808.html

Into the Great Unknown: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Into_the_Great_Unknown

The good and bad of social media marketing: http://www.marketingprofs.com/chirp/2015/26916/the-good-and-the-bad-of-social-media-marketing-infographic

School finds poop on gym floor, checks kids, parents outraged: http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/education/2015/01/27/elementary-students-in-gustine-texas-forced-to-lower-their-pants-for-inspection-after-feces-found-on-floor/22435367/

You can get Outlook for Android and iOs now: http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/29/microsoft-launches-outlook-for-ios-and-android/

There's a 50 Shades of Grey Vermont Teddy Bear. Of course there is. http://www.vermontteddybear.com/sellgroup/fifty-shades-of-grey-bear.aspx

Time Warner Cable's profit margins are insane: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-kushnick/time-warner-cables-97-pro_b_6591916.html

Nationwide's Super Bowl ad got memed. A lot. http://www.bustle.com/articles/61823-nationwides-dead-kid-super-bowl-ad-memes-were-inevitable-are-still-hilarious

The naked guy in a cowboy hat on I-75: http://www.wxyz.com/news/naked-man-with-cowboy-hat-walks-down-the-middle-of-i-75-in-auburn-hills

Music wasn't in the top 100 torrented downloads: http://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/music-doesnt-feature-in-the-pirate-bays-top-100-most-popular-torrents/

The DEA was planning to use license plate reading software at gun shows https://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty-national-security/dea-planned-monitor-gun-show-attendees-license-plate-r

Big Data is almost always wrong: http://www.computerworld.com/article/2878080/test-shows-big-data-text-analysis-inconsistent-inaccurate.html

Things the NFL would like you to believe are illegal...but aren't: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/01/the-nfl-wants-you-to-think-these-things-are-illegal/

Episode 77.  We had a few Detroit-themed guests on the show tonight, as you can tell. Thanks to our guests Courtney and Ian from Detroit Beer Press, Monica Wheat of Pipeline Fellowship Detroit, and repeat offender Daily Detroit for joining us for a night of laughs and fun conversations… Of course we talked a little Super […]

Episode 76, and yet another episode that's full of a lot of laughter and great conversations.

Thanks to our in-studio guests Anthony Tocco, Kyle Nelson, Andrew Mortemore, and Wade Kean, all from one of our sponsors - Quantum - for joining us...

From the Skymall bankruptcy to the measles outbreak at Disney, our first segment was all about the stories that caught our eye this past week.  How the FBI's trying to say that using a TOR or even a VPN connection constitutes probable cause.  A drone showing up on the White House lawn.  Disney rejecting Lucas' drafts for future Star Wars flicks and more.

After that, we dove right in with Quantum.

Quantum is one of our core sponsors, and so we're obviously more than happy to have them in-studio, but it wasn't a dry, boring commercial as one might expect.  Nope, we had a great and lively series of conversations about what they're doing in the industry with the NHL, GoPro, and several other seriously interesting applications of their technologies.

If you're not familiar with them, Quantum is a leading expert in scale-out storage, archive and data protection, providing intelligent solutions for capturing, sharing and preserving digital assets over the entire data lifecycle. We help customers maximize the value of these assets to achieve their goals, whether it’s top movie studios looking to create the next blockbuster, researchers working to accelerate scientific discovery, or small businesses trying to streamline their operations. With a comprehensive portfolio of best-in-class disk, tape and software solutions for physical, virtual and cloud environments, we enable customers to address their most demanding workflow challenges and opportunities.

In our final segment, we doubled back on a few earlier topics and wrapped things up for the week.

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Tune in next week as we're joined by the folks from Caliber Comics talking about their Nain Rouge comic with a Detroit flavor, our friends from Detroit Beer Press discussing their new issue, and Monica Wheat giving us some information about a new program in the city helping women develop and strengthen their skills.

Quantum can be found at http://www.quantum.com/

As always, we can be found:

On the web: http://www.ITinTheD.com

On Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/ITintheD/ 

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/IT-in-D-Read-Meet-91763 

On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ITintheD 

On Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ITintheD 

On Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/itinthed/

Episode 76, and yet another episode that’s full of a lot of laughter and great conversations. Thanks to our in-studio guests Anthony Tocco, Kyle Nelson, Andrew Mortemore, and Wade Kean, all from one of our sponsors – Quantum – for joining us… From the Skymall bankruptcy to the measles outbreak at Disney, our first segment was […]

Our 75th episode, and this one's full of rants, raves, laughter and great conversations.

Lots of rants.  Lots...and lots...of rants...

Thanks to our guests local entrepreneur Bradley Hoos, as well as Jimi Plouffe and Nick Daniels from Momentum for hanging out, hopping in on the rants, hanging for the laughs, and providing a lot of great information in between the outbursts, and we even had a voice from the past call in...

Our first segment was pretty much wholly occupied by our discussion of what happened when the internet went nuts over one of our posts.

Over the span of three days last week, our blog entry about taking my kids to a comic book shop took just under 250,000 unique page views.  To put that into perspective, we normally get about 100,000 per month...and we had a single day that did more than that.

If you haven't read it yet, you should, just to have the proper context for listening to our first segment if nothing else.  You can find that over at https://itinthed.com/16328/what-taking-my-daughter-to-a-comic-book-store-taught-me/

The internet is full of fascinating things and people, the vast majority of whom were outstanding and some really good conversations evolved...

...but then there are...the others.  The people who love to get offended about anything. The ones just looking to pick a fight.  The geniuses who don't have kids but think they know everything about being a parent.  The keyboard courage commandos who think being behind a screen means that they can say whatever they want.

We talked about them all, so enjoy the conversation and venting.

That took up the entire first segment, and so we didn't get a chance to talk about other events or items that caught our eye this past week, so if you're interested, you can catch the topics we were going to get to down at the bottom.

In our second segment, we started things off with a surprise phone call, prior guest Russ Dotson (he was on our first episode, as well as others) back stateside after a tour of duty overseas.

Then we dove in with Brad Hoos, also a repeat offender guest, to talk about the various things he has going on these days. We discussed Hacker Fellows, a program recruiting recent Michigan and national college graduates to participate in a one-year program. The Hacker Fellows lasts one year and you'll get to work at an amazing Michigan tech start-up. You'll start with 6 weeks of training with your cohorts and dive into the start-up world by getting matched with a Michigan start-up. In short, you'll learn with the best and brightest in Michigan as you start your career.   Pretty decent concept, and you can learn more at http://www.hackerfellows.com/

You can also learn more about Brad and his endeavors at http://disciplinedentrepreneur.com/

Our third segment was supposed to be a dive in with our other guests...but turned into a collection of rants about people trying to tell business owners what they can and cannot do with their own companies, and a few other fun topics.

So then our fourth segment we dove in with Jimi and Nick from Momentum.  Since Momentum was founded in 2010 by Jimi Plouffe and Adam Sgammotta, it has been our primary goal to deliver every client a digital strategy that will help them achieve their goals. We also maintain that our client remains our priority, and that we provide them with the education and solutions to move their business forward on the web.

Our first client, Michigan Head & Neck, remains a client today. We have since welcomed many new clients to the Momentum family who have partnered with us on their web design, development or internet marketing project and have recognized our passion, as well as our integrity. We never lose focus on what got us to where we are today, our clients.  Check them out at http://www.seekmomentum.com/

And then yes...another infamous fifth segment.  More ranting, more chaos, more mayhem, more fun and laughter.

Just such a fun night all around.

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Again...

Bradley Hoos can be found at http://disciplinedentrepreneur.com/

Hacker Fellows can be found at http://www.hackerfellows.com/

Momentum can be found at http://www.seekmomentum.com/

As always, we can be found:

On the web: http://www.ITinTheD.com

On Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/ITintheD/ 

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/IT-in-D-Read-Meet-91763 

On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ITintheD 

On Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ITintheD 

On Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/itinthed/ 

- This guy doesn't understand what renouncing your citizenship actually means: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/im-so-so-glad-this-guy-exists

- Car dealership sucks, screws over pizza delivery guy: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/car-dealerships-prank-pizza-delivery-boy-backfires-28268383

- Amazon has to collect sales tax in Michigan now: http://www.wxyz.com/news/michigan-to-force-amazon-other-stores-to-collect-sales-tax

- The new remake of Stephen King's "IT" is going to freak you out and be over the top: http://screencrush.com/cary-fukunaga-it-very-scary/

- The real lesson from the Sony hack? Delete your old stuff: http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/01/the-importance-of-deleting-old-stuff-another-lesson-from-the-sony-attack/

- It looks like a USB charger...but it's a keylogger. And it can capture local wireless keyboards, too... http://threatpost.com/how-a-10-usb-charger-can-record-your-keystrokes-over-the-air/110367

- The new H1-B bill will, quote, "destroy the US workforce" http://www.computerworld.com/article/2868428/new-h-1b-bill-will-help-destroy-us-tech-workforce.html

- Radio Shack is (finally) prepping for bankruptcy: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/01/15/radio-shack-bankruptcy-report/21799233/

- Maryland couple lets their parents walk one mile home alone from a local park...and are being investigated for child neglect over it http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jan/15/maryland-couple-investigated-for-letting-children-/

- Terrorists use/used spammy subject lines to avoid NSA detection of their emails: http://qz.com/326927/to-avoid-detection-terrorists-purposely-sent-emails-with-spammy-subject-lines/

- Dude merges XBox One and PS4 into "playbox" http://hothardware.com/news/insane-engineer-ends-console-war-combines-xbox-one-and-ps4-into-epic-playbox-laptop

- A drone...that hunts other drones... http://rapere.io/

- Cartman Brah is heading to the White House. I'm only mildly joking: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/01/15/state-younion-youtube-creators-interview-president-obama-live-white-house

- They 3d printed a six story apartment building. No, seriously: http://3dprint.com/38144/3d-printed-apartment-building/ http://www.3ders.org/articles/20150118-winsun-builds-world-first-3d-printed-villa-and-tallest-3d-printed-building-in-china.html

- Amazon's going to make and release 12 movies per year: http://venturebeat.com/2015/01/19/amazon-reveals-plans-to-produce-up-to-12-original-movies-a-year/

Our 75th episode, and this one’s full of rants, raves, laughter and great conversations. Lots of rants.  Lots…and lots…of rants… Thanks to our guests local entrepreneur Bradley Hoos, as well as Jimi Plouffe and Nick Daniels from Momentum for hanging out, hopping in on the rants, hanging for the laughs, and providing a lot of […]