Computer Support Blog

The 2015 Q1 RESCUECOM Computer Reliability Report has arrived, showing longstanding contenders in reliability battling for the top spot along with a surprising comeback in one manufacturer’s reliability.

The Computer Reliability Report takes a manufacturer’s market share of computers and tablets in the U.S. and compares it against the number of tech support calls RESCUECOM receives for that manufacturer’s products to determine a reliability score. Read more »

RESCUECOM has tallied up all the computer repair calls it received, including tablets, for the 2015 Q1 Computer Repair Report, showing a surprising leap in certain problem areas.

The Computer Repair Report is created by tallying the data from all calls RESCUECOM receives at its 1-800-RESCUE-PC call center to form a list of the most common computer and tablet problems. RESCUECOM ranks the top ten computer repair problems in order from most frequent to least and explains them by category, creating a useful tool to inform users about the threats their tech devices face.

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Everyone knows that annoying feeling that comes with hearing about news weeks after they should have been aware of it.  Sometimes it’s about a friend, a boss, a business associate, or a celebrity they follow intensely, but it’s almost always something they wish they’d known sooner.  Cool person in technology Axel Hansen created Newsle specifically for people in this situation.  Newsle automatically finds news from hundreds of sources and matches it against each of its users’ specific follow lists to present them with news that only has to do with the people they care about the most. Hansen’s program starts out with users connecting to their Facebook or LinkedIn account and importing their friends or business colleagues onto their follow list first.  This process automatically sets up users so they see news about anyone in their social or business networks the minute it appears on the web. Newsle scours the Internet and finds out when a news outlet reports something about anyone in a user’s network.  Anyone who uses Newsle but can’t seem to connect it to any social networks properly can get assistance through phone tech support. Read more »

How far has identity authentication come?  From formerly high tech methods such as face unlock to retinal scanners in action-packed spy movies, technology is moving toward a system that requires “putting your heart into it.”  Imagine coming home and, without any action on your part, pulling into an unlocked garage, entering your unlocked home, and entering a room where your music of choice and even your room temperature of choice welcome you home.  Add having your favorite dinner on the table and the candles lit and you’d have the perfect picture! 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 »

This week, the U.S. Department of Justice takes Apple to court.  The government claims that the computer technology giant was part of a conspiracy to fix prices in the eBook market along with five major publishing companies.  Allegedly, Apple worked with all of the major publishers to radically change the eBook market and enforce their preferred “agency” model as opposed to the standard wholesale model.  Amazon, the dominant retailer of eBooks before Apple entered the market in 2010, sold eBooks on a wholesale model.  This model involved paying publishers a fixed price for each eBook sold, and then reselling it to the consumer at whatever price a company chose.  The wholesale model allows retailers to choose their own profit margins on books they sell.  The government says that Apple tried to create a new standard by working with publishers to replace this wholesale model. Apple’s new agency model had publishers, not retailers, set a standard retail price for eBooks. Retailers then received a 30% cut of the price specified by the publisher.  Read more »

Research firm IDC made a recent forecast regarding wireless technologies in the PC marketplace.  The report opens with a rather dramatic statement about the traditional PC market’s recent struggles.  The document reads that the business for traditional computing experiences is currently “in the midst of an unprecedented slump.”  There is no question that the PC industry is in a transitional period.  Tablet and smartphone sales continue to rise while desktop and laptop sales have dropped significantly.  Rescuecom even added tablets to its reliability report recently to account for this shift in the industry.   What’s most interesting however, is the prediction that IDC makes regarding how manufacturers must adjust to this new paradigm.  IDC believes that the inclusion of new wireless technologies to promote interoperability with other devices will be important in the years to come. 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 »

The tech sector and the business world continue lack gender equality at the highest levels of the corporate ladder.  Many of the biggest tech sector companies – and some of the largest, most profitable, companies in the world – have upper management and/or Boards of Directors that have no women.  While change is coming slowly to the tech sector, some companies are moving at a more progressive pace.  A few companies, like Xerox, are able to proudly tout the fact that their Board of Directors and upper management are more diverse than others.  Ursula M. Burns makes that case easily for Xerox. Read more »

As businesses grow and more people discover that the Internet is not as daunting a tool as they might initially suspect, you might be inclined to build or maintain your own servers for your business.  While the initial set-up of your own server farm may be out of your league if you are not especially computer savvy, monitoring and maintaining your servers has become easier in recent years.  One element that may make it easier to maintain your servers in-house, without the need to hire a specialist, is server-monitoring technology.  Tripp Lite makes several pieces of server-related technology and the Minicom SmartRack 116 16-Port KVM may make monitoring your servers very easy. Read more »