Computer Support Blog

Fitness apps and devices have become a major category of tech product in the consumer world in recent years.  Everything from iPhone apps that provide special workouts to wristbands that measure your daily fitness statistics have flooded the market.  However, most of these devices specifically aim to help users with weight loss and cardio-based exercise.  Statistics regarding calories and conditioning are easier to track numerically, so this focus is not really a surprise for most.  However, cool person in technology and Skulpt CEO Jose Bohorquez is releasing a product that will help men and women not just interested in losing weight, but also gaining muscle.  Measuring muscle quality and body fat percentage is key for those who are trying to add muscle to an athletic frame rather than just keep excess weight off their bodies.  That’s why Skulpt Aim, Bohorquez’s product, provides users with statistics about their muscle quality specifically rather than focus on calories burned.  Read more »

YouTube is no longer just an amateur video site.  Many people produce high quality content for the massive Internet video platform on a regular basis and even manage to earn a living purely from the advertisement money coming from their YouTube channels.  YouTube has gone from an interesting novelty to a major platform for many different types of media—from talk shows to independent dramatic web series.  However, for potential YouTube personalities, the task of building an audience large enough to sustain a regular show or popular channel can be daunting.  Cool product VidIQ wants to give users a better chance at getting enough regular viewers to make their YouTube videos profitable.  Building an audience takes far more work than just content creation and VidIQ is a platform that streamlines that work.  Read more »

People often look at social networking sites and public blogs as a way of journaling or recording one’s life online.  However, there is one inconsistency with the “journal” metaphor.  Most people have never posted the content of their physical journals or diaries in a public place for anyone to see and add comments whenever they want.  Meanwhile, social networks and blogging sites such as Facebook and Tumblr set everyone’s status updates and photos to public by default so that anyone can see or comment on them.  Cool person in technology Siqi Chen has created an app that seeks to address this inconsistency by giving users a truly private multimedia journaling experience.  Chen calls this new app “Heyday”.  While users can update their Heyday profiles the same way they would update their social network accounts and even set automatic updates, none of the information on Heyday appears to a public audience.  Chen wants Heyday to be a private experience, unlike so much of what social media is on the rest of the web.  Read more »

While many people consider reading books to be a solitary activity, that doesn’t always hold true in reality.  For lots of readers, books are as social of a hobby as anything else.  People create book clubs, use social media and engage in events such as author signings and Q&A sessions just to meet other avid readers and discuss the nature of their favorite texts.  Conversations range from speculation about character motivations to complex academic discussions about story themes.  Now, a cool product in technology wants to harness this social aspect of book reading for profit.  Bookmate lets readers take notes, leave questions, and copy quotes in every book that they read with the app and then share all their notations with all of their friends on social media.  Users can read their friends’ notations within a certain book as they read it on Bookmate and then engage those friends on social media to discuss how they felt about those notes.  Bookmate integrates with popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter so people can even share their notes with friends who don’t use Bookmate.  Anyone who cannot connect his or her Bookmate account to Twitter or Facebook should get help from a remote computer support provider. Read more »

Sports and athletic competition have been a pastime of choice for human beings for literally thousands of years. With all our technological advancements, people have never had more opportunity to improve their skills than they do today.  Competitors can track their health and fitness with countless mobile devices and smartphone apps.  They can also view HD video to study both their own performances and the performances of others on their phone, tablet, computer, or large screen TV almost any time they want.  Cool person in technology Chen Sachar has introduced yet another way that players can use technology to improve their game—real-time analytics and 3D visualizations.  Read more »

Mobile technology has changed the way musicians record their art in many ways.  It is now viable to use a smartphone or tablet to record multi-track performances as well as mix and edit the results.  Recording decent audio tracks used to be something limited to only a select few artists who could afford time in a professional studio.  New affordable music recording apps have revolutionized the state of professional music and made it possible for many amateur musicians to record high quality tracks without excessive resources.  Now, cool product in technology WholeWorldBand wants to take things another step forward by letting musicians not only record tracks on their mobile devices, but also collaborate with others on their works in progress.  Read more »

Using existing customers to create more business has always been a key aspect of marketing.  However, the introduction of social media to the equation has created even more potential for more business with each customer.  Previously, customers would refer others to a business purely through word-of-mouth, which has a somewhat limited reach.  With social networks allowing people to broadcast their actions and thoughts to large audiences, each existing customer can now promote a business to hundreds or even thousands of people instantly.  The difficulty in this process from the business side of the aisle is finding ways to encourage customers to promote their products and services online.  Cool person in technology Bob Whitson has founded a company called iSnap to give brick-and-mortar stores a new way to encourage customers to spread the word on social media. Read more »

Trying to react to how customers interact with and perceive a website is one of the most difficult challenges of modern marketing.  Companies devote extensive time and resources to constantly updating their websites in reaction to how visitors spend time on and engage with their sites.  Usually, companies perform long-term tests, which help them decide on new designs and content for their pages.  However, a new startup has released a product that can help businesses react even more quickly and dynamically to how people use their sites.  Cool person in technology Karl Wirth founded Evergage to create a system where companies can react to visitors on their site in real-time and provide specially tailored content to users depending on their behavior.  Read more »

Traveling with large groups of friends and family can be difficult for many reasons and finding convenient hotel reservations is chief among them.  When traveling as a group, specific amenities and features are necessary and finding accommodations that work well for the situation can be a pain.  To tackle this issue and help those who enjoy group vacations, cool product in technology Groupize helps people compare hotel packages that fit their specific needs and group size.  When users go on Groupize, they input their intended destination and the dates of travel.  Once the site has the information it needs, it returns a page of search results to the user.  Each result provides a significant amount of information about a group-friendly hotel in the specified area.  People can sift through the different options and what each one offers to groups traveling together.  Groupize specifically highlights what amenities each establishment has that would be beneficial for group travel.  This cool product even mentions what group sizes are best for each hotel.  Users who don’t get appropriate search results from the site will want to contact a computer tech support agent for help.
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Hiring in specialty industries such as computer repair or food service can be a tricky situation.  Finding the best employees in these fields doesn’t quite work the same way in other, as resumes and static lists of qualifications mean much less than demonstrable skill in a certain area.  When employers post specialized positions in these fields on public job boards online, they often end up with many applications from unqualified people who do not have the specific experience and skillset necessary for the job.  Cool person in technology Mike Wagner wants to make it easier for employers to find qualified applicants in one of these specialized industries—restaurants and food service. Read more »