Computer Support Blog

One does not have to look very hard at the managers of tech companies, small and large, to find a company that is run exclusively by men at the highest levels.  Apple Computers, the most profitable company on Earth, has only one woman on its Board of Directors and none of the executives at the Senior Vice President level or above are female!  In many ways, the tech sector remains a “boy’s club.”  Working very hard to change that is Shaherose Charania. Read more »

How would you feel if every time you made a telephone call, you had to listen to an advertisement?  What if, periodically, while you spoke on the telephone, your conversation was interrupted by advertisers trying to sell you on their products and services?  Would it be possible to feel anything but outrage if that sort of advertising not only occurred, but was based upon the topics of the private conversation you were having?  This sort of privacy violation seems utterly, almost indisputably, wrong when it comes to a hypothetical situation involving telecommunications, yet each and every day, Internet users accept that exact circumstance.  Why? Read more »

With the sheer volume of people who use the Internet to get their media – movies, music, television programs, etc. – it is unsurprising that various computer manufacturers are now designing PCs for interaction with your home theater.  These new computer models are stripped down, prioritize processing abilities that optimize rendering visual data, and connect to your high definition television and home theater sound system.  One of the premium models of computer for this purpose is the Shuttle XPC Barebone XS35GT V2. Read more »

Despite what all of the major computer and smartphone manufacturers might want you to believe about their products, there is one of the bestselling computer products in the world that they do not manufacture.  The computer device that is facing almost no competition from any of the major manufacturers is the LeapPad.  The LeapPad is an educational tool that LeapFrog designed to look like a tablet computer, but is programmed exclusively with educational software for children from ages 3 – 9.  This is a noble idea, but it is hard for educators not to be wary of it. Read more »

A few years ago, it probably seemed like a silly idea to license from popular franchises in order to produce flash drives.  The Boston-based Mimoco, however, did just that and they had a pretty impressive success with their Star Wars line of character USB flash drives.  Science fiction geeks can now be joined by comic book geeks as Mimoco’s popular MIMOBOT line includes an extensive selection of characters from DC Comics! Read more »

California is the home to so many tech sector jobs that it is almost hard to believe that anywhere else in the country would have any tech jobs that needed filling!  Part of the reason so many start-ups and enduring tech sector businesses take root in California is because of the colleges.  Some of the world’s most renowned universities for science and technology are located in California: UCLA, Stanford, and the University of California at Berkeley, to name a few.  Many businesses work to recruit ambitious, technical-minded employees right out of college.  That is what happened with Alicia Chen. Read more »

Earlier this year, earnings reports from 2011 revealed that Apple had become the world’s most profitable company.  Exceeding the profits from Exxon-Mobile, Apple Computers reached the zenith of both the tech sector and the business world.  Ever since, every major player in the tech industry has worked to chip away at the exceptional market dominance Apple possesses in almost every niche in which it competes.  While some manufacturers hope to sue Apple out of the number one spot, others are simply offering Apple more competition.  Part of Microsoft’s strategy is to more directly compete with Apple products in markets it had ceded.  With that, Microsoft is re-entering the tablet computer market! Read more »

Water is a resource many people take for granted.  After all, it is the exception to the rule when you turn the faucet on and nothing comes out.  Some of the neatest gadgets on the market – for scientific, municipal, and personal, use – pertain to monitoring various aspects of water.  From high tech gadgets like the YSI ProODO Dissolved Oxygen Sensor to the low-tech water filters many people use, water has inspired many useful products.  One of the neatest water-related products is the PR-32 Pressure Recorder. Read more »

Outside protecting business interests, there are remarkably few executives in the tech sector who make bold or frequent political statements.  In fact, the marketing gurus in the tech sector work very hard to make technology apolitical; the market should be everyone.  So, it is a rare thing when one’s personal politics overtly guide their corporate policy within the tech sector.  The fact that his loud dedication to free access to information clearly guides Wikipedia makes Jimmy Wales an exception to the status quo in the tech sector! Read more »

The technology sector is filled with people who appear to never have heard the adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”  In the case of websites, especially social networks, programmers who originally design the site tend to strive for functionality over style.  One need only recall the iconic scene from The Social Network wherein Sean Parker and Mark Zuckerberg discuss monetizing The Facebook and come to the conclusion that it was too soon for that.  Cool things aren’t about monetizing.  The people who use websites at their inception and stick with the site do so because there is something enduringly interesting about the site that they cannot find elsewhere on the Internet. Read more »