Computer Support Blog

It is developer’s conference time!  Following on the heels of Apple’s Developer’s Conference and the All Things D D10 Conference, where guests from all across the tech sector and media spoke, Google’s annual I/O Conference will start on June 27 in San Francisco, California.  The three day conference is sold-out and is expected to include a slew of new product releases that should reach the marketplace by the end of the year.  Rumored products being announced at the I/O Conference this year include: Read more »

With the rising need for storage space on computers, it is unsurprising that some of the hottest products this year are 1 TB storage products.  The Terabyte is one thousand Gigabytes and while 1 TB hard drives are not actually new to the marketplace, they are finally coming down in price to where those in the market for a new hard drive or new computer should seriously be considering it as the new baseline.  One of the hard drives that has some interesting features and the Terabyte capacity is the AcomData PureDrive 1TB Desktop External Hard Drive. Read more »

Computer programmers are essential to the tech sector, which is why many tech companies try to recruit talented programmers right out of college and many tech companies provide their programmers with uncommon perks (the legendary Google cafeteria, for example).  The life of a software programmer can be a series of odd contradictions: long solitary hours of working alone on coding paired with massive collaborative efforts where a single programmer’s work is buried, without credit, within a larger project.  Most programmers seem to accept that as the reality of the job, joining large firms for the job stability and regular paycheck, content with the tradeoff that their names are unlikely ever to be recognized, even in the software programming community.  That, however, is not the path that Thomas Tempelmann took! Read more »

While there are many companies in the tech sector whose names and products are easily recognizable – Microsoft, Google, and Apple, for example – there are other companies whose names are frequently mentioned, but their product lines remain a mystery to the general population.  For example, many Americans would probably say they have heard of Oracle and know that it is a big business within the tech sector.  The population would be dramatically smaller, though, of Americans who could identify a specific product from Oracle.  In a similar fashion, “Quest” often appears on technology and business updates, but what the multibillion dollar company produces is unclear to many who do not have direct dealings with the company. Read more »

With so many different forms of digital media and digital storage devices, it can be a real hassle to share or swap files between devices.  While USB flash drives can be very handy for solving problems associated with data storage or file sharing, sometimes there are an inordinate number of steps between the original storage device and the flash drive.  For those who have many different types of devices that use different card-based media – like digital cameras, digital camcorders, and memory sticks – the Dazzle Multimedia Dazzle 6-in-1 Reader may be a real asset! Read more »

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 »

Today’s software companies face a number of challenges that software companies did not have, or were not as extreme, thirty years ago.  Now, in addition to increased competition, software companies face licensing issues, increased piracy, and more intense marketing campaigns to remain commercially successful.  That is why software companies need corporate leadership from an individual who truly understands the complexities of international economics.  Software manufacturer Avanquest has Roger Bloxberg! 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 »