Computer Support Blog

Helping people accomplish their goals is a difficult task.  Psychological barriers and stress often demotivate people from changing their lifestyles or going after things that they really want.  Frank Yu is a cool person in technology who wants to gamify people’s goals and motivate people to accomplish more.  Yu runs a startup and website called Kwestr.  On Kwestr, users add different Kwests to their profile from a list of available options.  Kwests lead to an ultimate goal, such as losing fifty pounds, running a marathon, or writing a book.  However, Kwestr has each Kwest split up into several smaller tasks and accomplishments.  This helps overcome users’ psychological barriers by taking a seemingly insurmountable goals and making them appear less intimidating.  Kwestr also rewards users with notifications and congratulations each time they complete a step of their Kwest.  These small reminders and pats on the back encourage users to push further on each Kwest.  When someone completes a Kwest completely and accomplishes a goal, they receive a badge to show off on their Kwestr profile.  These badges can act as social motivators for people as they can put their accomplishments in a public space online.  Users who encounter problems creating a Kwestr account or creating Kwests for themselves will need computer support services to help them.  Read more »

Internet security concerns seem to grow more and more problematic every year.  Many people find themselves deeply concerned about phishing attempts and hackers gaining unwanted access to their PC or service accounts.  This also means large amounts of people constantly worry about the quality and security of their passwords.  PixelPin is a cool product in technology that allows users to replace the password function on their PC with picture passwords.  A picture password forgoes the usual text-based procedure for an authentication system where users click on four “passpoints” within an image to gain access to their computer or digital service accounts.  Users choose a picture from their computer to use for authentication.  Leaving the picture choice in the hands of the user is deliberate.  It allows people to choose an image where they are most likely to remember the specific four passpoints that they need to click on to get by PixelPin’s protection.  Users can sign up for PixelPin directly.  Service providers and manufacturers do not have to partner with the company directly for someone to use PixelPin to access accounts or devices.  Read more »

CoachUp CEO Jordan Fliegal played basketball as a kid and while he loved the sport, he wasn’t very good at it—not at first anyway.  On the CoachUp website, Fliegal speaks about how he was lucky enough to find a personal coach to help him train in his favorite sport.  Through the private coach’s help, Fliegal managed to improve enough that many top colleges tried to recruit him.  He even went on to play professional basketball in overseas leagues.  Fliegal attributes his success to his private coach, and that’s why he founded tech startup CoachUp.  CoachUp is an online service that conveniently connects parents and kids with private trainers and coaches to help them with a sport or activity.  Fliegal attributes finding his private coach when he was a kid to pure luck.  It seems he wants to take luck out of the equation and make private coaching available to as many young people as possible with CoachUp.  This cool person in technology is using the connected world to try to help kids achieve more in their athletic activities. Read more »

Despite the thousands of SAT preparation books and college admissions guides available on the market, the most helpful information for high school students applying to college often comes from either former admissions officers or recently admitted students.  Getting help from a former admissions officer usually means hiring them as a college admissions coach.  This situation can get very expensive for parents and is therefore prohibitive for many students.  However, cool product AdmitSee wants to offer college applicants more affordable help by leveraging information from the profiles of recently accepted students.   AdmitSee obtains information from current university students and recent graduates and compiles that information into admissions profiles.  AdmitSee then stores that information on its site and gives access to those still in the college application process.  By viewing the profiles of successful graduates, high school students can find out what different schools are looking for specifically.  This information can then help AdmitSee members in forming their own successful applications.  This advantage will help kids get in to a great school for whatever career path they choose, whether they want to be a writer, aviation engineer, or even a cloud computer repair professional. Read more »

Being a professional artist is a struggle for many, as young and talented creators saturate the field in today’s art world, making it harder to acquire a fan base.  However, the Internet has become an incredibly valuable resource for artists to reach admirers and carve out their niche in the wider art loving populace.  Daniel Arroyo is a cool person in technology who has built a website that leverages the advantages of the Internet to help artists as they find their audience.  Artgonia acts as a platform for artists who want to share their work and build a network of fans.  Arroyo’s website utilizes social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus in order to help budding artists and photographers reach much wider audiences.  Artists can share their art through unique Artgonia profiles to try to make their work go viral on the web.  Any artist who is interested but doesn’t know how to create social network profiles that help them take full advantage of Arroyo’s site should seek out an online computer support provider. Read more »

Everyone knows that annoying feeling that comes with hearing about news weeks after they should have been aware of it.  Sometimes it’s about a friend, a boss, a business associate, or a celebrity they follow intensely, but it’s almost always something they wish they’d known sooner.  Cool person in technology Axel Hansen created Newsle specifically for people in this situation.  Newsle automatically finds news from hundreds of sources and matches it against each of its users’ specific follow lists to present them with news that only has to do with the people they care about the most. Hansen’s program starts out with users connecting to their Facebook or LinkedIn account and importing their friends or business colleagues onto their follow list first.  This process automatically sets up users so they see news about anyone in their social or business networks the minute it appears on the web. Newsle scours the Internet and finds out when a news outlet reports something about anyone in a user’s network.  Anyone who uses Newsle but can’t seem to connect it to any social networks properly can get assistance through phone tech support. Read more »

Anyone who has ever tried to plan a trip as part of a large group can tell you that the process becomes tedious and difficult.  Sending emails back and forth constantly amongst a large group of friends is not the most convenient way of making plans.  That’s why cool person in technology Paul Watts has built Gatherball.  Gatherball is a set of collaborative tools on the web for groups to use when planning either a long vacation or a short getaway.  Watts’s website works at every step of a trip-planning project—from concept to booking.  Users who want to plan a trip or have an idea can use Watts’s service to send invites to specific friends.  Those who receive an invite then read a pitch on the Gatherball about a getaway or vacation idea from the original user.  These new users then agree to join, opt out or send messages to the trip creator to iron out details.  Any user who has had trouble with websites like Gatherball linking with their Facebook account will want to have access to online tech support in case they run into problems. Read more »

Many of us have had our wallets filled passed capacity with a seemingly endless amount of customer loyalty and rewards cards from popular retailers.  Punchkeeper is a cool product that wants to make loyalty cards more convenient for both the companies that promote them and the customers that use them.  Punchkeeper uses a combination of mobile technology and QR code scanning so that businesses can easily set up a digital loyalty card system for their clients.  This service provides businesses with the tools to generate special QR codes that their customers can scan each time they use a service or buy a product.  Once customers scan a designated QR code with a mobile phone, the Punchkeeper mobile app recognizes the code and adds a “punch” to the appropriate digital loyalty card.  This solution prevents customers from having to fill their wallets with plastic cards that they almost never use.  Another advantage to turning loyalty cards digital is that retailers can avoid spending the resources to print thousands of cards or dealing with customers that lose or forget them when they come to shop.  Anyone who has issues downloading the Punchkeeper app or getting QR codes to scan properly can get help from a smartphone PC support company. Read more »

When most people talk about how difficult the hiring process is, they’re talking about the jobseeker’s half of the equation.  While it’s certainly true that job hunting is no easy task, many people don’t consider the difficulties that companies have when looking for the best candidates.  Combing through different sources to find strong applicants is difficult enough for many HR departments.  The process gets even harder when optimizing the applicant selection and interview process to identify the absolute best candidates.  Greenhouse is a cool product that offers a technological solution to the hiring process.  Greenhouse provides a connected set of tools that streamline the applicant screening and selection process. The product aims to help HR departments struggle less with their hiring decisions.  Businesses that use Greenhouse can keep application sourcing, interview strategies, and candidate review all in one centralized location.  Greenhouse aims to improve the hiring process by reducing wasted time and energy.  To accomplish this task, it keeps every step of the application process together in one piece of software while looking to focus and optimize each task for HR teams.  Companies that have robust business IT support will have a much easier time integrating Greenhouse into their current systems. Read more »

Amos Elliston is, first and foremost, a software engineer.  However, his career has grown significantly over the years and turned him into a highly successful leader as well.  Currently, Elliston is the Chief Technology Officer of PocketChange, a company that rewards users of specific mobile apps with loyalty points.  Elliston’s current position offers him a serious challenge, as he has to work to make the PocketChange loyalty rewards system integrate with hundreds of different mobile applications.  He also has to coordinate teams that work with two different mobile operating systems: Android and iOS.  Fortunately, Elliston has a significant amount of experience handling large engineering and software projects.  This cool person in technology has held upper management positions at two other major software startups besides PocketChange over the last seven years.  This is not a man who would ever need onsite computer support to solve his computer problems like most people.  The evidence heavily suggests that Elliston is a man who knows what it takes to succeed in the tech industry. Read more »