Computer Support Blog

Before the Internet took over popular media, television was not only the dominant medium for entertainment, but in many ways was also a very social medium.  Groups of friends and families would often watch television together as a collective activity.  They would talk and interact while their favorite shows were running rather than sit in silence.  People would do this especially often during sports broadcasts, and in fact, many still do, as Super Bowl parties are part of a lot of people’s yearly social calendars.  However, for most situations, the social element of TV has transferred online.  Rather than talk about what’s happening on a show with friends that have come over for the night, people go on Twitter and Facebook to post status updates about it.  Cool product in technology Tok.tv is working to make the social aspect of watching television more interpersonal again and ironically, is doing so with the use of technology itself.  Tok.tv is a mobile app that combines a second screen experience for television with group voice chat over the Internet.  Users who have issues downloading the app can get help from an Android support or Apple support professional depending on the device that they own. Read more »

Television shows have always been a major piece of American pop culture and in recent years, there has even been increased media attention for popular shows on network and cable television.  Shows such as Game of Thrones, The Big Bang Theory and Mad Men have all garnered tremendous fan bases and mainstream media attention. Many online communities centered on different television shows sprout up consistently as well.  Die-hard television viewers who watch and follow several shows religiously now have a cool product that helps them stay up to date with each show they watch.  TeeVee is an iPhone app that contains a large database of many active and inactive television shows that still air regularly either in their main runs or through syndication.  The app gives users data about the next time a show is going to air, episode details and even connects people to preview trailers for new seasons and episodes of popular shows.  TeeVee is currently available as an app both for iPhone and iPad users. Apple support is available for those who experience issues trying to download TeeVee from the App Store. 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 »

The percentage of Internet traffic that comes from mobile users steadily increases every business quarter and every year.  People engage with the web on their phones and tablets just as much as they do through a standard desktop or laptop.  In many cases, people use their mobile devices even more than their PCs or Macs. Companies need to do as much as possible to accommodate the growing mobile marketplace if they want to advertise their products, services or content successfully.  While major corporations have the resources to develop mobile applications  for themselves and their subsidiaries, privately owned small businesses find themselves at a disadvantage in the age of mobile technology These smaller companies often don’t have the internal business computer services and resources to easily develop mobile versions of their website.  However, thanks to cool product PadSquad, these companies have another option. Read more »

For many years, independent business owners had to spend time learning how to use design tools such as Photoshop if they wanted to create their own business card or letterhead.  With modern mobile technology however, cool people like Ellen Johnston have made it much easier to create a design for a small business that is truly someone’s own.  Johnston founded a company called Makr that creates an iPad app, which provides small business owners with a simple design suite that lets them customize their own paper materials such as business cards, labels, letterhead or anything else.  Johnston works to ensure that the Makr design tools on the iPad app strike a good balance between being simple to use and capable of total customization.  She wants independent crafters and business owners to have no problem creating designs they can claim for themselves regardless of technical knowledge needed for programs like Photoshop.  According to Johnston, no one should ever have to call iPad tech support just to navigate the Makr app and start designing. Read more »

PowerPoint presentations, while useful for businesses and professional conferences, aren’t always ideal for educational situations. More often than not, students simply do not find themselves engaged while staring at static lists and bullet points.  Cool product bContext aims to help with this issue with their iPad app.  The application allows teachers to upload static file types such as PDFs and PowerPoint presentations and then transform those documents into interactive presentations.  When a user uploads a document onto their iPad to use it in the bContext app, the app lets teachers mark up the document with their own handwriting.  Rather than requiring expensive projector equipment or smart pen technology, bContext offers teachers a cheap solution for interacting with their presentations through markup and added notes.  Teachers can make notes on their PowerPoint presentation or PDF files as they discuss them in class, creating a more dynamic experience that teachers can use to get students interested.  Teachers who have problems transferring their documents to their tablet will need iPad support to get the app to work properly. Read more »

The standard phonetic method of teaching children to read, where kids learn the associated sounds with each letter individually before applying that knowledge to “sound out” the words they read on the page, can be a tedious and slow process for many children.  The makers of cool product WriteReader believe there is a better way to help children who are struggling with the phonetic method to learn to read.  WriteReader is an iPad app that engages kids in reading by teaching them to write simultaneously, intertwining the two learning processes more fluidly.  The developers based the app on research specifically done to find ways to decrease the time it takes for children to learn to read.  Researchers found great benefit in students learning to read and write concurrently.  This led the developers of WriteReader to take advantage of mobile and touch technology and create a tablet application that would give kids access to an alternative learning method.  If you have kids and want to download the application but struggle using your tablet, you should know that iPad support is always available.  Read more »

The print journalism and publishing industry is shrinking yearly as digital magazines and newspapers become the new standard.  This shift has created a new barrier for those who want to get their publications out to the majority of the market online.  Getting a magazine or newspaper to the widest possible audience now requires technical skills that one did not need in the print era.  However, cool product Prss takes down that barrier of difficulty for professional writers and publishers who want to release their work as high quality digital publications.  Prss is a web platform where users create, design, and fill their digital publications with content. It also includes a distribution service to release those publications globally via the Internet.  Prss gives publishers the tools to design and create their own mobile app for their digital magazine even without excessive technical knowledge or skill.  Readers can access the apps you publish via digital distribution services such as Apple’s Newsstand in iOS.  If you don’t understand what Newsstand is or how it works, an Apple tech support service will be able to help you. Read more »

Those who commute to and from work on public transit know how unpredictable and inconvenient it can be to use.  Trains, buses, and ferries often run off schedule due to delays.  Scott Kolber is a cool person in technology trying to tackle this problem as CEO of Roadify.  Roadify is a company that makes and distributes an iOS app of the same name, which feeds users information about public transit schedules, changes, and delays in real-time.  Kolber and his team aggregate all public transit information through the app in real time so users are up to date on what the fastest public transit routes to home and work are and what routes might slow them down or get them in trouble.  Kolber wants to offer users a comprehensive resource so they can avoid public transit disasters as they try to get around their hometown.  Users who believe their Roadify data isn’t updating properly can always contact smartphone tech support to find a solution. Read more »

The video entertainment industry has seen a massive shift in its business model over the last several years thanks to the success of subscription-based streaming sites like Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Amazon.  Following these changes, music-streaming services like Spotify and Rdio also grew rapidly and proved the subscription model works for music as well as video.  However, there is one form of entertainment that until recently was still untouched by the purely digital subscription model: books.  Cool product Oyster wants to change that with a monthly subscription model for eBooks.  The team at Oyster has seen that the market proves that subscription-based entertainment is a viable business model and they want to prove that eBooks are the next form of entertainment that can benefit from this system.  Currently, they offer a monthly subscription where users can access any of their library of 100,000 books on any iOS device as often as they want.  If you have concerns about using your Apple products to read books, find Apple tech support to learn more.  Read more »