Computer Support Blog

The social network landscape continues to change.  With Facebook going public and changing their privacy policies and the rise of Google+, the media would almost have you forget there are any other social networks on the Internet!  Despite that perception, there are several other Internet social networks and many of them have benefits and intriguing aspects that the major social networks lack.  The differences in how the Internet social networks look, feel and operate are the result of each networks engineering department.  For Yammer, Kris Gale is the engineer in charge.

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What is one of the few online services that Google does not yet have? That may be a difficult question with the dozens of products and services Google offers, but the answer is a cloud drive. There are already ways to store information on some Google services, but comprehensive Google cloud storage may be available soon.

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Every great idea in the tech sector requires good people to execute.  No matter how clever or constructive a concept is, without the right technical people to execute the plan, a business or ambitious idea will fail.  So when a number of influential individuals in finance, education and business began departing their lucrative careers to form the Khan Academy, some of their most important hiring choices involved staffing their technical support positions.  That made Marcia Lee an important hire for the Khan Academy.

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If imitation is the highest form of flattery, then Pinterest has a lot to feel flattered about!  In addition to enjoying a lot of press in the online media, Pinterest is the concept that many new social networking sites appear to be trying to imitate.  Pinterest allows you to “pin” any image you find on the Internet to your bulletin board on Pinterest to share with your friends and followers.  You and your friends may comment on the pictures and the site inspires some very lively discussions.

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Anyone who has ever started working out after months or years of inactivity knows how difficult it can be to maintain the energy and determination needed to make that workout a habit. Once it becomes habit though, working out is far easier to continue.

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Wilmington, North Carolina is the first town in America to implement a newly approved method of wireless Internet access. The White Space network will eventually allow Internet access to be available everywhere, such as rural towns in which broadband Internet companies will not lay wire. Claudville, Virginia had a White Space network during an experimental phase of testing a few years ago, because no companies would provide the area with high-speed Internet, but the Wilmington network is the first to use the new FCC-approved devices after testing.

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In a world with rapidly changing technology, it is rare when one encounters a truly good idea anymore.  Indeed, many emerging technologies simply seek to improve upon already existing devices or technology.  So, when FXI Technologies virtually reinvented the computer with the Cotton Candy 3” computer device, it was newsworthy.  The brain behind Cotton Candy and FXI Technologies is Borgar Ljosland.

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We all hate Spam. Not the processed meat in a can, the email messages that we did not want to receive. Whether they appear as advertisements for products we do not want or emails for services we have no interest in, everyone has received spam at some point. Sometimes, though, spam emails can be far more dangerous than annoying ads – they can contain phishing links that appear to come from a legitimate source.

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Anyone who works with digital photographs knows that having great photographic equipment is only half of what one needs to create amazing digital images.  In many ways, the quality of your digital camera is not as important as the quality of your photo manipulation software.  Adobe has long been the leader in digital photograph manipulation software, with its Photoshop software becoming synonymous with photo manipulation.  Once again, Adobe is raising the bar with its Lightroom 4 software.

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For those who might not have heard of it yet, there is a social network challenging Facebook for supremacy on the Internet.  It’s not Google+, either!  The social network is called Diaspora and it is an open-source alternative to Facebook that was founded on the belief that users ought to control their information and social network experience.  Diaspora is a good idea that has been plagued by problems, not the least of which are a lack of name recognition (outside the hacker community) and the suicide last November of one of the company’s four co-founders, Ilya Zhitomirskiy.  Despite the setbacks, Diaspora is poised to break out into popular culture.  If it does, it will no doubt be in part because of Rosanna Yau.

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