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 »

In the late 1980s, there was a popular game called Laser Tag.  Despite the controversies about it at the time, Laser Tag was remarkably popular with young adults who enjoyed the technology and the physical activity the game required.  As a precursor to paintball, Laser Tag was a safe way for young people to run around shooting one another for live-action play.  Players had a laser sensor and a laser gun.  The object of the game was to shoot your opponent three times (as registered by changing lights on their sensor each time they were “hit”) with the laser gun . . . before they shot you!  Young people played Laser Tag in buildings, woods, and fields, both during the day and at night.   Now, Metalcompass, Ltd. is updating Laser Tag with some new twists with their XAPPR Gun! Read more »

With the proliferation of digital photograph editing programs, a number of new companies have sprouted up.  In order to make these emerging businesses successful, most of the new companies are staffing from established, successful technology companies.  The opportunity to trade the steady, reliable position that a large company offers for the excitement of a small start-up is surprisingly appealing to a number of people in the tech sector.  One person who enthusiastically transitioned from a major firm to a small IT company was Paul Murphy. Read more »

Different corporate philosophies lead companies in different directions when it comes to growth.  In the tech sector, research and development has often been an important component of growth.  Even with cutting-edge tech companies, though, rather than invest in R&D, sometimes a bigger company will simply buy a successfully-developed product from the smaller company that innovated it.  Some of the companies that are cash-heavy, but development-light, have taken to buying up entire companies.  That is the tactic Groupon has been using and for the past four months, it has been rather aggressively buying up smaller businesses. Read more »

It is interesting to watch how the market reacts to a change.  Sometimes, the influence of a product or service is not realized until the product or service is removed from the marketplace.  Watching the market react to the shutdown of Picnik, a niche market online digital photo editing tool, has been a study in corporate loyalty and opportunism.  Fans of Picnik vociferously resisted the integration of the Picnik tools into Google+.  The market responded with the birth or promotion of several services similar to Picnik.  One of the frontrunners to replace Picnik in the Internet zeitgeist is Aviary. Read more »

Have you ever seen something legitimately newsworthy and wished there was a reporter around to get the facts correct? Do you wish there was a way you could give feedback to companies easily?  Do you love sharing great deals you find with your friends as soon as you encounter them?  Now, there is a smartphone app that meets all of those needs!  That app is Stringfly.

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Living in a city and owning a car can feel both frustrating and pointless sometimes. Most of the day your car sits in a parking space with no one using it. You have to have a car to get to work, get out of the city for vacation, or go across town to meet a friend, but while you are at work or staying home for the day, your car remains idle, doing nothing. What if your car could be making you money when you are not using it? What if the car could pay for its own monthly payments? Would you be willing to let strangers rent your car for a few hours when you do not need it?  If you answered “yes,” a car sharing service, like the ones offered by the Getaround, RelayRides and JustShareIt apps, might be for you. Read more »

Hasbro is planning a busy 2012. First, there is the partnership with Zynga, which emulates the Mattel-Angry Birds collaboration. The toy company will be able to bring online games to the real world as well as making toys and accessories based on popular Facebook games like Farmville and Mafia Wars. Now, Hasbro has announced that it is updating some of its classic board games. Read more »

Anyone who has visited a historical site or virtually any tourist destination has seen graffiti.  At many destinations, unsightly graffiti covers most available surface. Often, graffiti is just names and dates from former visitors, but it can be much more than that. Some people even write or carve poems or song lyrics into whatever space they find available. Usually there are several visible layers of the graffiti and more underneath. It can be very tempting to add your own mark to that wall, bench, or tree, but what if there was a better, legal, way to leave a piece of yourself behind? Read more »

Anyone who has ever started working out after months or years of inactivity knows how difficult it can be to maintain the energy and determination needed to make that workout a habit. Once it becomes habit though, working out is far easier to continue.

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