Computer Support Blog

Customer engagement is critical for website services and mobile applications.  Even if a website draws many unique visitors or app gets thousands of downloads, it doesn’t mean much if users don’t keep coming back for more.  Cool person in technology Robert Zepeda believes he has an answer to this dilemma with his gamification methods.  Zepeda founded Playbasis in 2011 in order to help both startups and established businesses use gamification to improve user engagement with their services.  Zepeda’s company believes that user engagement and behavior is key to providing a company with useful insights into their business practices.  Zepeda’s clients receive access to an online platform that allows them to set “rules” for their service or app.  These often come in the form of special badges or achievements that customers earn from their usage of a website or application.  For example, a business could award a “power user” badge to a site user who signs in to its service over five hundred times.  Playbasis offers a number of pre-created rule-sets for businesses to use, but also lets them create their own set based on how users interact with a product.  Companies that have trouble with getting badges to operate correctly on their apps or websites should contact office computer support for help. Read more »

Solar power can potentially save homeowners significant amounts of money on electricity every year.  However, installing solar panels into a home can be extremely costly.  It also requires significant amounts of time and effort many working people simply don’t have.  Cool product Sunrun is a service that makes these issues irrelevant by repackaging solar power as a cheap, fixed-rate service to consumers.  Rather than having to purchase solar panels for a high price and install the technology themselves, consumers who sign up for Sunrun receive free panels and installation in return for signing a contract that requires a monthly fee. Sunrun says on their site that they offer locked-in rates for twenty years, so a customer’s electric bill remains static over long periods of time.  Sunrun proposes that it can still save homeowners money with its solar power as a service model, while offering lower fixed rates compared to traditional electricity’s unstable month-to-month prices.  With Sunrun’s fixed monthly fees, consumers shouldn’t have to worry about electricity-hogging activity like air conditioning or keeping the computer on for long periods during remote computer support sessions. Read more »

Most travel or concierge style apps target the lower and middle market of consumers, as that’s where you find most mobile users.  However, cool person in tech Matthew Rowe founded iVIP to cater to a very specific, premium piece of the travel market—the very rich.  Rowe created his suite of iVIP apps as part of a service that gives targeted advice, information, privileges and special offers to individuals of high net worth who prefer luxury accommodations and services.  Rowe believes there that the upper tier of the market is looking for a mobile app that caters specifically to their taste and lifestyle.  The iVIP apps come with a service where luxury companies offer members exclusive upgrades, products, and services to members of the app.  Rowe’s iVIP apps connect users to these services based on their specific location, as the app’s offers vary from city to city.  If you were interested in checking out the iVIP app but have trouble with your mobile device, a mobile tech support service would be the best option for you. Read more »

Urban professionals often work sixty to eighty hour weeks if they’re part of a major industry.  That schedule leaves very little time for errands like housework, furniture assembly, and moving.  Cool product Handybook is using the Internet to try to make getting these services booked as faster and easier.  Handybook lets users book home services through their website by simply filling out a quick online form.  The site then connects its customers to one of their pre-screened home service providers.  The idea is to eliminate the time and hassles required to do proper research on home service providers, make several calls, get quotes, and choose a provider.  Read more »

The healthcare industry is constantly a controversial topic and many believe it is an industry ripe for disruption.  GoGoHealth is a cool product in tech that is trying to shift the way people think about healthcare and technology.  GoGoHealth targets individuals who have experienced and had to pay for unnecessary doctor visits.  Going to a doctor’s office for an appointment over a simple health issue can have serious costs attached to it.  Cancelling work costs you productivity and probably money as well.  You waste gas by having to drive yourself to the office, and the visit itself costs you a certain amount of money out of pocket depending on your insurance provider.  This may not seem worth it when all you have is an ear infection and all you need is a simple prescription.  Small health issues like these take up many people’s time and money and the company behind GoGoHealth wants to eliminate that from happening.  GoGoHealth provides consumers with an online connection to health professionals that they can consult over the Internet to determine whether it is worth it to pay an actual visit to the office.  If you have trouble connecting with GoGoHealth online, you should find a home tech support service that can help you connect once more. Read more »

The holiday season is only a few months away and for many people that will mean the buying and receiving of copious amounts of retail gift cards.  Thickening your wallet with these cards and even remembering to use them all can be inconvenient and troublesome—not the sort of experience you want to have associated with gift giving.  Cool person in technology Vinny Lingham founded his startup Gyft in 2012 to attack the problem of physical gift cards.  Gyft uses mobile technology to make storing, keeping track of, and using gift cards a seamless process for consumers.  Users download an app on their smartphone where they can enter the information from their physical gift cards.  Lingham’s app stores the information and lets users access it directly from their phone so they can toss all the plastic versions of their cards away.  Read more »

When one considers Facebook’s origins as a college-exclusive social network, one could say that the college environment is the birthplace of modern social networking and digital life.  Facebook leveraged college’s social scene to make mass communication easier.  What if an entrepreneur leveraged the social nature of college to help students with the real purpose of universities—education?  Entrepreneur and cool person in tech Jack Tai founded OneClass to attempt exactly that.  OneClass is an online resource for post-secondary school students that crowdsources study materials and class notes to form a large database of helpful tools for students.  OneClass sources course notes on a wide variety of subjects from students across North America.  It also stores organized study packets and video tutorials for many of those subjects.  OneClass focuses on offering study material provided by other students rather than formal textbook-style material provided by teachers or institutions.  In theory, this makes a lot of sense, as students would likely understand other students’ way of explaining things.  Anyone who has trouble accessing the notes or videos on OneClass should find remote tech support for help with a solution. Read more »

Startups often hit a snag when trying to find quality beta testers or early adopters to try their young products.  Cool product Erli Bird offers startups their services to help solve this problem.  Erli Bird uses their community of enthusiastic early adopters to give startups a pre-collected group of consumers to try early release and beta versions of their mobile apps and websites.  Erli Bird advertises startups that sign up on the front page of their website for a given period.  Users can sign up to test services and software that they find interesting and then give the startups direct, focused feedback.  This can save the startup time by preventing it from having to go out and look for quality groups of testers.  It can also potentially give startups a large dose of useful feedback for the next iteration of the product.  This process lets new companies find out which parts of their product require tech support to use and which parts work seamlessly.  Erli Bird wants to offer new companies an easier way to get customer feedback early on the product development process so startups can have a chance to optimize products before wide, public release.  Read more »

For many people, an office job, a five-day workweek and a typical urban environment can make for a very satisfying life.  However, cool person in tech Dominic Jackman believes there are many other professionals out there who feel unfulfilled by their current work.  That’s why he founded Escape the City, an organization dedicated to helping professionals leave standard office jobs for more exotic and adventurous opportunities.  Using a wide variety of features such as a job-posting site, an e-mail newsletter, and a social network, Jackman wants to ensure that professionals looking for something different have all the resources needed to find that opportunity.  Escape the City specifically aims to attract jobseekers who are trying to break convention.  For example, a high level IT support professional might use the site to leave a corporate position and head the IT department of a growing non-profit in Africa.  Not every job offered on the site is so exotic.  Many of the opportunities listed on Jackman’s site are merely positions at very young companies, which offer a very different culture for professionals looking to change their scenery.  Read more »

For star athletes in High School, recruitment for college sports can be an intimidating and overwhelming process.   Students often aren’t sure how to get their names or profiles recognized by different athletics departments and coaches.  Finding and contacting coaches can also be exhausting for athletes that have to scour the web for contact information.  BeRecruited is a social network and cool product that tries to make the recruitment process simpler for both student athletes and the programs that recruit them.  The site offers students and coaches the ability to create online profiles and connect through the site.  This keeps all recruiting information centralized and in one place for both students and coaches, which could potentially save everyone involved both time and stress.  Coaches or students who lack extensive experience with social networks will want to contact online tech support to get the proper assistance. Read more »