Computer Support Blog

While the rise of the eBook market has made self-publishing a viable concept for new writers, the process of getting your eBook onto online retail stores can still be complicated and difficult.  However, a new company called Tablo is looking to change this aspect of the self-publishing process.  Tablo is a cloud-based company that offers authors tools to not only help format their novels and short stories, but also easily publish them to online retail stores with a click.  This attempt to disrupt the eBook industry could potentially save many writers hours of time and stress if it delivers on its promise of an easier solution.  Authors want to spend more time honing their craft and less time navigating the complicated route to getting their work online.  Tablo is a cool product that’s in a position to capitalize on this market. Read more »

Online services have helped empower content creators in several major industries.  The music industry has arguably seen the largest shift of all since the Internet became ubiquitous.  Software exists that can turn a home desktop computer into an adequate recording studio.  Online music services like iTunes, Spotify, and Amazon Music allow musicians to make their music globally available.  However, there are still difficulties getting your work onto those online music services. Philip Kaplan, founder of Distrokid, is a cool person trying to fix that problem.  Kaplan, a musician himself, has been successful building Internet businesses in the past and is now turning his attention towards helping musicians with his new service Distrokid. Read more »

Flipboard is a tablet application for iPad and Android that aims to improve the user experience for consuming social media and news.  Mike McCue, the CEO of the company, founded Flipboard in 2010 alongside iPhone engineer Evan Doll.  He branded the app as a “social magazine”, which collects information from a person’s many different social media accounts and specific news sources and places it into a magazine aesthetic for the user.  Users can then quickly flip through the digital pages of their personalized magazine to take in all the information from their media and news feeds in a single place.  This is opposed to the traditional web format of news and social media, which usually involves vertical scrolling and does not consolidate and organize your data the way Flipboard attempts to do. Those who have interest in Flipboard but are struggling with the app should find iPad support for help. McCue has lead Flipboard to great success since founding it.  He has helped to make the application one of the most featured and prominent on both Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS operating systems. Read more »

Information is everywhere with the Internet these days, but what if you don’t want to be exposed to some of that information while you’re online?  It may seem like an odd problem, but this issue has affected many people.  The most prominent example is encountering TV show or sports “spoilers” when people post a plot element or game outcome in your social media stream before you get a chance to see for yourself.  Zack Shapiro has created a Google Chrome browser plugin that attempts to solve this problem.  Named Silencer, Shapiro’s software actually blocks social media posts on websites like Twitter and Facebook that contain words or phrases that users want to filter out of their stream.  For example, if you recorded the World Series game on your DVR because you missed it while at work but still wanted to go online without learning the outcome, you could block phrases like “World Series” or the names of the teams on your Facebook and Twitter feeds.  This tool could possibly prove useful if one wanted to use social media without fear of ruining the outcome of a game or TV show. Read more »

It’s a common experience: you turn on your computer, go to Google, Bing or whatever search engine you prefer and you search for local restaurants.  You end up with countless choices to sift through and an immense amount of research to do before even leaving the house.  Tom Copeman, CEO and founder of Nara, is trying to eliminate this problem with his artificial intelligence based restaurant recommendation service.

The most common model for websites and apps that review and recommend restaurants is usually review-based.  There are common listings and individual customers can rate their experiences.  However, this leads to inconsistent data and often times, you’ll enjoy a restaurant that someone else will hate, making their review a hindrance more than a help. According to Copeman, Nara handles recommendations differently. Copeman informed Rescuecom that Nara uses artificial intelligence to mine the Internet for information and make more personalized recommendations for you based on its analysis of your preferences and larger trends.  Read more »

There have been reports in recent days that the National Security Agency is collecting data from multiple Internet communication giants in a broad surveillance measure where the government collects e-mails, social media data, and other communications.  The report has stemmed from a leak of an NSA employee’s internal presentation on the surveillance program, which the NSA named PRISM.  The leaked slides claim that the NSA was receiving data from the servers of Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Apple, Paltalk and others.  These companies have all publicly claimed that they the NSA does not have direct access to their servers.  They also claim only to provide customer data if presented with a court order.  However, if reports about the surveillance program are true, all of these companies would be legally required to deny knowledge of PRISM, as it is a classified program.  Read more »

Kickstarter, the website that popularized the crowdfunding model on the Internet, recently announced that it has surpassed 100,000 total launched projects.  This milestone indicates the effect Kickstarter has had on both today’s creative and startup cultures, as the website gives many would-be artists and entrepreneurs the chance to fund projects when more traditional means aren’t available.  The Kickstarter model is simple.  Someone launces a project in any number of fields that Kickstarter lists on its site, including music, film, technology, games, art, and so on.  Once a creator launches a project, other users pledge specific amounts of money in a fundraising effort so that through many donations, they completely fund the project.  Those who fund a successful project are rewarded by the creator with “perks” for their support, which are often early versions of a product.  Only completely funded projects receive pledged money and Kickstarter itself takes a small cut from those as well.  Of the 100,000 plus projects launched to date, roughly 43% have been successful, putting the odds for a new project to reach funding goals at a bit less than one in two. Read more »

Yahoo has been making big moves lately, possibly attempting to rejuvenate its image in the modern market by revitalizing some of its brands and acquiring new ones.  The first major move by the company was the acquisition of the social network and blogging site Tumblr.  Yahoo acquired the New York company for $1.1 billion dollars, which one could break down into roughly $3.67 per each of Tumblr’s 300 million unique visitors.   The two companies made the deal almost entirely in cash, with the exception of a small amount of Yahoo stock for Tumblr CEO David Karp.

What does this change for Tumblr users?  Not much will be different, according to official statements by Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer.  Mayer claimed on Yahoo’s own Tumblr page that her company is “delighted” about the acquisition of the social network and candidly promised “not to screw it up.”  She has also said that Tumblr will operate independently and the entire team will remain in place under their CEO David Karp.  However, Mayer has also publicly said that her company is committed to monetizing Tumblr, which means some changes, most likely in advertising, are bound to come eventually.  Read more »

Many entrepreneurs and innovators have tried to find ways to utilize social media to enhance the educational experience.  One such man is Michael Lucia, CEO and President of LanguageTwin, which is an online service that connects students from different countries so they can improve their conversational skills in foreign languages.  Lucia founded LanguageTwin because of his experiences studying abroad as a college student.  He found that despite his many years studying French at the college level, actual French conversation was still a struggle. “A lot of conversational exposure is needed for true proficiency,” Lucia told Rescuecom. With the rise of video conference technology, Lucia saw an opportunity to connect native speakers of different languages easily and use that connection in a classroom setting. Read more »

Social media is quickly becoming a bloated market these days.  It seems there are a million different social platforms all competing for your attention at any given moment. So how does Pheed, a new mobile-focused social network, intend to stand out from the pack in such a competitive space?   According to Chrysta Olson, the company’s Communications Director, Pheed offers an “all-in-one” solution to social networking and media sharing that the company believes will appeal to a large audience.  “People are getting overwhelmed managing so many separate accounts,” Olson told Rescuecom, explaining that Pheed intends to put all forms of social media—text, video,  music, voice recording, photos, and even live broadcasting—into one online space.  The concept is that rather than go through the tedious process of managing several different social media accounts such as Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube on a daily basis, Pheed users will be able to access all forms of media in one convenient space.  Read more »