Computer Support Blog

Auto insurance claims are never fun or enjoyable experiences.  However, cool person Brad Weisberg has created a system that at least makes the process a lot more convenient and easier for auto insurance claimants.  Weisberg wanted to use technology to find a faster way for people to get quotes from auto body repair shops when they need to make an insurance claim.  Weisberg saw that opportunity when smartphones became ubiquitous devices in the public sphere.  With his service Snapsheet, Weisberg has made it so anyone with a smartphone can streamline the process of getting quotes for auto insurance claims by performing all of it directly through their mobile phone.  Users simply take pictures of the car or truck in need of repair and send it to body shops directly through the Snapsheet app.  The body shops then deliver a quote directly over the phone so users can make a claim with their auto insurance.  Users can even request direct deposit or check-by-mail from within the app when the insurance company settles their claim.  Users who have difficulty using Weisberg’s app to communicate with repair shops and insurance companies can get mobile PC support to find the source of the problem. Read more »

Job interviews can be harrowing experiences.  Nervousness can negatively affect people’s performances and cost them the job they want, but it’s almost impossible to avoid getting nervous for such an important event.  Job interviews require people to think fast when coming up with answers while also appearing confident.  In many ways, performing well in an interview is a skill in itself.  Prept is a cool product that lets people work on this skill by contacting professionals who will perform mock interviews with them.  Jobseekers can use Prept to get help from experienced pros that will evaluate users’ mock interviews and give helpful feedback on their performances.  On the website, jobseekers can search through the company’s database of interviewers and select one appropriate to their career field.  They can then schedule a specific time to do a mock interview online through video chat.  In theory, these interviews simulate the experience and pressure of an actual job interview so users can prepare themselves mentally for the real thing.  Users with broken webcams will not be able to take part in the online mock interviews unless they get onsite computer repair to fix their cameras. Read more »

It seems there are countless new messaging apps popping up every month for mobile devices.  Mobile chat is currently one of the most popular platforms in consumer technology and many different companies are trying to jump on the bandwagon.  However, most of these apps aren’t very different from each other.  Many use basic text, others use photos, and some even use videos.  However, with such an explosion of options becoming available, it is very difficult to find a messaging app that does something truly different or unique.  Cool product Pingtune is a messaging app that manages to stand out from its competition due to its creative medium for messaging: music.  Pingtune lets users send messages in the form of songs to their friends.  Pingtune users can take music available from SoundCloud and YouTube and embed them in special messages to send to others.  Users who have difficulty getting songs to embed correctly in their messages should seek help from a mobile IT support service. Read more »

It’s difficult for any small business to become profitable without taking credit cards as a form of payment.  So many people pay exclusively with their debit and credit cards that incorporating some sort of credit payment system is pretty much a requirement, even for one-person ventures.  Unfortunately, integrating credit card payments into a business can incur both extra costs and complications.  Flint is a cool product that takes the recent advances in mobile technology and uses them to make adding a credit card payment system to a small business model much easier.  Flint turns smartphones into credit card scanners with no extra attachments.  Rather than forcing salespeople to carry around a separate device for credit and debit payments, Flint simply uses a cell phone’s camera to scan cards visually.  Users simply act as if they’re taking a picture of the front of a card.  The app then scans for the credit card number.   All users have to do after that is input the verification code from the back of the card to complete the transaction.  This system could save many one and two employee businesses much of the hassle that comes with accepting credit cards.  Any users whose cameras are broken will need iPhone repair or Android repair services to use the Flint application. Read more »

Gift giving is often a stressful experience for the giver and disappointing for the person receiving the gift.  No matter how well someone knows a friend or family member, there will always be times when that person chooses an awkward, inappropriate or just plain bad gift.  Jifiti is a cool product that uses mobile technology to try to get rid of this problem.  Jifiti makes a mobile application that facilitates gift giving for both givers and receivers.  Jifiti works with Facebook to help friends give each other items that they actually want.  Users can add gifts from any store or vendor to their wish list.   They can add potential gifts either through e-commerce websites or by taking a picture of the gift in a physical store.  The Jifiti app will recognize the gift from the image and label it appropriately in the wish list.  Other users can then browse friends’ wish lists in order to find gifts that their friends actually want.  Then, when people find gifts they want to give, they can simply click the gifting button on Jifiti app.  Jifiti charges the giver and sends a voucher to the giftee immediately.  Each voucher is instantly retrievable through any online or in-store vendor with whom Jifiti partners.  This process removes a lot of hassle from gift giving experience and ensures that users receive items they actually desire.  If the Jifiti app doesn’t work properly, users can always contact smartphone tech support. Read more »

One of the most appealing aspects of professional sports is the feeling of community fans get when they all cheer for the same team or player.  Hardcore sports fans often tie their team loyalties heavily into their identities.  Because of this loyalty, sports fans can often develop deep and lasting bonds with the rest of a team’s community of fans.  John Wagner is a cool person in technology who is encouraging this bond between sports fans with his iPhone app FANCRU.  FANCRU acts as a hub for sports fans on gameday.  With his app, Wagner combines the features of social networking and a sports news app to keep fans up to date and connected. Wagner’s app both connects fans with up to date scores for their favorite teams, and lets them interact with other fans digitally on gameday.  FANCRU offers real-time scores for all major American professional sports leagues, as well as several international soccer leagues such as the English Premier League.  Each fan on the app also has their own profile where they choose which teams they support so they can proclaim their loyalties to other users.  Those who have trouble connecting the app to a wireless network should call a service for phone computer support. Read more »

Making one’s resume stand out amongst a sea of job applications is becoming more and more difficult as the national job market keeps recovering at a very slow pace.  One type of resume jobseekers are turning to in order to gain an edge over their competition is the visual resume.  Visual resumes forgo the usual long lists of past positions for more colorful charts and pictorial timelines of an applicant’s career.  In theory, this visual style stands out to hiring representatives in HR departments and makes it easier to encapsulate a long and varied career into a concise, one-page document.  However, the trouble with visual resumes is the extra time and difficulty required in creating them from scratch.  Cool product Pixsume reduces the time necessary to create a complete and appealing visual resume with their web-based resume creation tool.  Pixsume users connect their LinkedIn accounts to Pixsume’s web tool in order to import all their background information, including past jobs and education.  Pixsume also imports users’ skills and interests from their LinkedIn profile so that users can represent those skills in their visual resumes as well.  If someone’s LinkedIn profile won’t import information correctly into Pixsume, that user should get access to online tech support to help resolve the issue. Read more »

Cloud technology and wireless Internet have already given us the ability to do things like control our houses thermostat with our phones and perform remote tech support on computers thousands of miles away.  Every day it seems new ideas and products straight out of science fiction become reality.  Goldee is a cool product that may remind you of science fiction as well.  Goldee lets people control the lights in their household with their smartphones, tablets or other mobile devices.  Goldee makes light switches unnecessary and can automatically respond to someone’s movements through a house, adjusting the lighting accordingly.  If Goldee works as well as the company claims, worrying about leaving the lights on and managing their effect on the electricity bill become non-issues altogether.  With Goldee installed, people can adjust the lights in their home to match their specific habits.  The idea that your house can become smart enough to run on its own is that much closer to realization with this cool product on the market.  Read more »

Renting a room or an apartment, especially for short-term period, can lead to seriously stressful and uncomfortable situations for someone if there is an issue with the landlord.  Many renters feel more comfortable when staying in an apartment lent by their friend, or at least a friend of a friend.  Trusting a landlord before moving in can take a load off people’s minds.  Cool person in technology Nitzan Yudan wants to use his website FlatClub to help create more living situations where this trust between landlord and tenant exists.  FlatClub is part renter’s marketplace and part social networking site.  Yudan operates the site under the premise that people would be more willing to rent rooms to others if they knew that person on some level first.  To make this easier to achieve, FlatClub hosts several different “clubs” on its website.  Each club centers itself around an established community, such as a university or a place of work.  For example, there are clubs for London Business School students and alumni, Apple employees, and American Express employees.  FlatClub partners with a number of these companies to establish these online clubs. When a club verifies someone as a member, they can see flats posted within that club and can message landlords from the club who have posted a room on Yudan’s site.  Anyone who has trouble with club verification should call a tech support company to see what might be the problem. Read more »

Unless a member also happens to be a mobile software developer, most bands and musical artists on the independent scene don’t have the resources to make a dedicated mobile app for their music.  The money a band would need to spend in order to hire an app development service is just too much to justify when there are touring and studio costs.  However, the Internet music scene is very important in a band’s early stages since they are trying to get their name out as much as possible.  Cool person in technology Adam Perry wants to solve this catch-22 with his startup BandApp.  BandApp provides bands with an easy way to create a functioning mobile app from their template.  Bands can put photos, music, tour dates, and their biography on the app.  Artists who use the app can even link directly to their music on SoundCloud or iTunes.  Perry wants to give newer artists a way to promote themselves on the mobile web conveniently and easily with this new venture.  Any band that runs into technical difficulty while building their app on Perry’s platform should contact computer support for help. Read more »