Computer Support Blog

Large and medium-sized design teams have to communicate with each other constantly and this leads to enormous amounts of e-mail with design mock-ups and feedback attached.  Sorting through all of this e-mail can potentially be a Herculean task that takes significant amount of time from actual design work.  The problem only compounds itself when you consider that teams often also solicit feedback from investors and developers as well as other team members.  InVision is a cool product that looks to erase this time-sink and help design teams improve their productivity.  InVision provides users with a single environment based in the cloud that connects all the members of a design team.  Teams connected to InVision can upload mock-ups and design documents to the cloud and share them with either the entire team or specific members of it.  The rest of the team can then comment on a document and leave public feedback from which everyone can potentially benefit.  Along with cloud computer support service, this is one of the many applications that advances in cloud computing can provide workplaces.  Read more »

The Internet has severely changed the state of being for independent musicians and artists.  Having a web and social media presence is essential to maintaining your career as an artist if you want to stay independent.  Most successful musicians on the web stick to social media sites such as YouTube and BandCamp to promote and sell their music.  That was not enough for cool person in technology Jack Conte.  Conte worked for years as an independent musician with a heavy web presence, both with his solo projects and with his partner Nataly Dawn in the band Pomplamoose.  Conte has drawn a significant following of fans on the Internet thanks to his popular music videos on YouTube, which reveal how he creates the unique sounds in his music.  However, Conte was not satisfied with promoting his work on a social network while selling it elsewhere.  This is why he founded Patreon, a website that allows users to patronize specific artists and fund them for their continued work. Read more »

It is common for people to have an experience where they remember an item of clothing by its color or pattern, but cannot remember the brand or the store where they purchased it.  ASAP54 is a cool product that solves this conundrum by letting you search through fashion websites and online clothing stores by simply uploading a picture.  If an ASAP54 user wants to find a piece of clothing they see someone wearing, they can just snap a picture, upload it to the app and ASAP54 does all the work.  The app recognizes the image and scours the Internet trying to find visual matches for the item you photographed.  The app provides users with all the matches that it can find, and then lets the user filter further by looking for specific brands, types of clothing, and colors within their results.  Users who have difficulty operating the search filters can always call iPhone support for help navigating the app. Read more »

Compensation in any form is always a powerful motivator, and cool person in technology Jeremy Gelbart counts on that every day as he runs Ultrinsic.  Ultrinsic is a website that allows college students to put up their money for the chance to earn more through their grades.  Essentially, students deposit a certain amount of money to get access to the site.  Once a student has access, they can submit what courses they are taking in a semester and essentially place bets that they will receive A’s in those classes.  When a student comes through and makes the grade, they not only get their deposit back but also a monetary reward and their balance on the site increases.  When students fail to make the grade, Gelbart’s company takes their deposit and places it into a general fund.  Gelbart believes that students can use the site to motivate themselves to perform better and that an immediate monetary stake in their grades will give them a sense of urgency and drive that college students can sometimes lack.  Students that have trouble depositing to the site and submitting their courses should get access to PC tech support for help. Read more »

When Instagram launched in 2010, it changed the way many people approached mobile photography.  While anyone could snap pictures just for themselves and their close friends to see, Instagram offered users a simplified way to make artistic-looking photos that people wanted to share publicly.  Instagram’s filters gave people a sense of performance when taking and uploading their pictures and allowed many people without photo editing skills to feel like pros with their smartphone camera.  Magisto is a smartphone app that wants to recreate this experience on mobile, but this time for video rather than photography.  Magisto is a cool product that lets you upload your mobile videos to its app and choose a “theme” to apply to them.  Each theme dictates an automated editing process, which gives your video a more artistic look.  Themes add different visual filters to your video, not unlike Instagram does with photos, but also actually edits the video itself to make it more dynamic. Those who have have trouble recording videos with their mobile devices can get smartphone IT support to help them with their camera. Read more »

Many education-based tech startups are trying to offer online courses and content directly to students through their own brand and website.  While these companies do occasionally collaborate with certain universities for course content, 2U CEO Chip Paucek is a cool person in technology believes in a different path for online education. Paucek wants to provide universities the tools and resources they need to create their own online degree programs.  Rather than offer online education directly, 2U works with schools to help them provide online classes and degrees to their students through a university’s own site and with a school’s own branding.   Paucek and his company concern themselves with forming complete courses and programs that fit into a genuine degree track rather than offering piecemeal educational content or single classes.  Paucek wants to help colleges utilize online classes to increase their reach and produce substantive courses that are in line with a college’s traditional offerings.  Because of this, Paucek doesn’t market 2U towards the public or students, but rather at universities themselves.  2U provides both technology and consulting to help colleges integrate large-scale online programs into their infrastructure quickly and efficiently. Read more »