Computer Support Blog

There is something awkward and fascinating about geniuses who peak at a young age.  While most people work for years to accomplish all that they want, many young geniuses achieve early and spend their adult years taking on projects they enjoy, more than working for money.  On the eve of his move out to San Francisco to start Posterous, co-founder Sachin Agarwal declared that he had accomplished everything he had dreamed of.  That’s not bad for a twenty-eight year old!  Now, four years later, Sachin Agarwal continues to redefine social media on the Internet. Read more »

There is nothing new about popular companies or brands merchandising their name well outside the product that initially made the company famous, even in the technology sector.  One need look no further than Apple’s early 1980s line of windbreakers and Swiss Army Knives to know that the tech sector, like the media and celebrities, has long tried to make money off baubles unrelated to their technological advances.  As one of the most popular video games on the market for the last few years, one of the biggest licenses to stem from the technology sector is Angry Birds. Read more »

Privacy rights are some of the most contentiously debated human rights.  Most people in the United States and other free societies treat privacy as an innate human right, a position which comes into conflict with the views of other governments, agencies within the United States government, and Constitutional literalists (there is no explicit Freedom of Privacy guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution).  As technology has improved, the debate over privacy rights has only become more divisive.  That debate was what inspired Phil Zimmermann to create Pretty Good Privacy. Read more »

Learning to speak a foreign language can be especially difficult for adults.  After all, adults have years, decades, of word associations to overcome when learning a foreign language.  With many other languages having different word orders and verb tenses that are not used in English, adult learners are not only tasked with learning a new language, but with thinking an entirely new way.  Fortunately, not every language is as difficult as learning Chinese and there are some great programs for those who want to rise to the challenge of learning a foreign language.  For learning German, there is arguably no better resource than Fluenz German 1+2+3. Read more »

Fans of digital photography – especially amateurs and those who do not have a lot of money for expensive, professional photo manipulation software – have been mourning the demise of Picnik.  Picnik is no longer an independent photo manipulation website, though its tools have been absorbed into Google+.  For those who might not want to join yet another social network, but enjoyed the look and feel of Picnik, there is now iPiccy. Read more »

With improvements to the Internet and the rise of Internet social networks, it is becoming easier than ever to connect and stay connected with members of your family.  At the same time, social mobility in the United States has made it commonplace for families to move around a lot and keeping track of how members of your family relate to one another can be a full time job.  To make genealogy simple, comprehensive and fun, Ancestry.com has now released Family Tree Maker Deluxe 2012. Read more »

No matter how good your product or service is, if you do not have the right team of people promoting it, the marketplace may never know the true genius of your work.  In the tech sector, especially on the Internet, this is especially true; the Internet is so cluttered with information and services, you need to make yours stand out.  Even an established and successful Internet-based company like Salesforce must continue to find new clients in order to keep growing.  For Salesforce, the person in charge of finding those new clients is Hilarie Koplow-McAdams!

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The rise of the Internet social network has happened with such a speed that it is often difficult to say what the real enduring impact of the Internet social network has been and will be.  To understand what Twitter is trying to convey, as far as what the service might mean to communications and history, a very specific analytic tool had to be built.  That tool was TagWalk and the inventor of TagWalk is Tim Hastings! Read more »

With identity theft remaining one of the enduring problems with modern communications, it is unsurprising how many products and services there are that offer to protect your data.  When it comes to data storage, there are several products that encrypt your files to protect them, like the industry-leading Ironkey Flash Drive that makes transporting your data incredibly risk-free.  It is hard to find an analogous product when it comes to communications technology, though.  That is about to change, thanks to Silent Circle. Read more »

When your company is a multinational operation with many different divisions, the human resources department faces several challenges not faced by smaller businesses.  In the tech sector, many companies have corporate structures that are specialized to each continent or part of the world.  While having mirrored operations throughout the world may allow the company to specialize to capitalize on the abilities of the facilities in each area, it can create a real human resources nightmare.  To keep a company like that growing, you need a human resources specialist who can hire the executives needed to manage all of the disparate operations of the corporation.  For Imation, that person is Patricia Hamm. Read more »