Computer Support Blog

Quite a few creative individuals find that the art they love and skills they develop through higher education are not immediately profitable.  As a result, the current generation of would-be playwrights, painters, and photographers have largely turned to the tech sector for income while they develop the craft they are passionate about in their spare time.  As such, they end up as bloggers, digital artists and software engineers while they work in their off-time toward their “big break.”  One such artist who is leading the dual life in the artistic and tech sectors is Michael Kaplan. Read more »

One of the most important aspects of a sales-driven business is the ability to reach out to your customers.  Having an interface for customers and vendors is especially important on Internet sales sites, notably online sites that are essentially a platform for vendors who are not directly connected to the site, like eBay and Amazon Stores.  For the art sales website Etsy, the community aspect is exceptionally important.  Artists and those who buy art tend to naturally form communities to discuss art – both the creation and acquisition of art.  That makes Vanessa Bertozzi’s role at Etsy a very important one. Read more »

If Myspace taught us anything, it was that if you give a teenage girl a cellphone with a camera, she will invariably hold it at arm’s length at a sixty five degree angle above her head, take a picture and post it as her profile photo.  That demographic of youth, with their oft-photographed cleavage, has since migrated to Facebook.  Before they can migrate further, many serious photographers are using the infancy of Google+ to jump ship from Facebook and establish a serious presence on Google+ that promotes art and adulthood. Read more »

Sometimes, the coolest places on the Internet are not the flashiest or the best known places.  When it comes to online shopping, most people look to eBay or Amazon or they log into specialized shops where they have specific products they are anticipating buying.  But the big online retailers are not the ideal place to buy art.  Art – fine art and homemade – has never had much traction on eBay.  There are some wonderful, specialized, websites and social networks for artwork online, like Art.net and Elftown.  But the place to buy and sell artwork on the Internet is Etsy. Read more »

Artists and designers, as a general rule, want to make an impact on the world around them.  Artists try to open the eyes and minds of their audience to a new way to see the world.  Designers try to reshape the world by pushing the limits of convention or creating styles that intrigue consumers in a way that resonates with all who experience their designs.  There are, arguably, no more effective artist/designers in the world today than Yves Behar.  Behar is not simply trying to change the world in an abstract way; he is using technology. Read more »

The relationship between art and commerce has only been made more complicated by the rise of the Internet.  On the one hand, artists now are able to present their works to a vastly broader audience and entire sites like Art.net have sprouted up to use the Internet to promote art in all of its forms.  On the flip side, with so many more people exploring and presenting artwork, the market has been flooded and many artist sites are choking with starving artists, none of whom are buying.  As well, the lack of real safeguards for images and representations of artwork on the Internet makes it much more difficult to protect the intellectual property of artists.  One artist who has effectively blended artwork and emerging Internet technologies is Tom Gerhardt.

Tom Gerhardt is one of the two co-founders of Studio Neat.  Studio Neat has a stated goal of designing simple accessories for popular technologies.  Lacking a corporate model or drive, Gerhardt is much more concerned with the artistic aspects of the products he designs.  Gerhardt is an idea man who makes interesting functional gadgets, but he does not prioritize selling them, which might be why you have not heard of Studio Neat.

Tom Gerhardt is a world-renowned artist, first and foremost.  Gerhardt pioneered the ring technology that makes the stone mouse work, which is very cool.  In addition to appreciating a strong sense of simplicity in design, Gerhardt is known for having a sense of whimsy.  One would have to be whimsical to design a mud-based interface for computers.  Yes, Gerhardt is spearheading the MudTub, a computer interface that works by having a computer user play in mud.  The MudTub might be for a niche audience of people who want to move around in wet dirt, but the fact that someone had the idea to manipulate computer devices using playing in mud is a remarkably clever one.

Gerhardt and his partner at Studio Neat, Dan Provost, recently designed the Glif.  The Glif is a mount and stand for use with the Apple iPhone 4 and 4S and Gerhardt appealed to Apple fans online to actually fund its production.  The Glif is a very simple black mount with a threaded screw hole that allows you to attach your Apple iPhone 4 to any standard camera mount!  The simplicity of the idea is incredible; Apple promoted the iPhone 4 on its photographic abilities without ever producing a device that would allow it to be attached to other, existing digital camera accessories!  Gerhardt saw the need and created an inexpensive, simple device that met the need in a stylish way.

With creations like the stone mouse, Glif, and MudTub under his belt or in development, artist Tom Gerhardt is someone to watch for the next great fusion of art and technology!

About RESCUECOM:

RESCUECOM provides computer repair and computer support, 24/7: Meeting every tech support need including data recovery, virus removal, networking, wireless services, and computer support for all brands of hardware and software. For computer support or information on products, services, or computer repair, visit https://www.rescuecom.com or call 1-800-RESCUE-PC.

For More Information, Contact:

David Milman, CEO

315-882-1100

david@rescuecom.com

The Internet is home to innumerable cool websites, most of which are free to use.  As the computer pervades almost every aspect of life in the United States, few off-line pursuits have been as threatened as the lifestyle of a visual artist.  Artists face an escalating threat from the Internet in that the rise of the computer has developed and propagated new forms of visual art, threatening to make traditional visual art obsolete.  While there are many websites for visual artists, including art-themed social networks, no site works as hard to present and develop art careers of contemporary artists like Art.net.

Art.net is a gallery for professional artists and it is entirely free to visit.  As a virtual gallery, Art.net has a distinctly anti-commercial feel to it.  The site won a lawsuit against the state of New York over freedom of speech issues in part because as a non-commercial website, it did not have a way to authenticate visitors’ ages!  The purpose of Art.net is not to sell artwork; it is to display artwork and provide a common platform for artists to share ideas as they improve their proficiency in their medium of choice.

Currently, there are over 450 artists who have virtual galleries on Art.net and just as humor is subjective, so too is art.  While many of the artists on Art.net have embraced some form of digital art, most use their virtual gallery space to present images of physical projects that exist in the real world.  Art.net is a great site to spend hours carefully combing through the works of artists that you might not have a chance to see elsewhere.  While many of the artists do have galleries or studios, most of the artists on Art.net do not have standing showings in the real world like they do on this site.  Browsing through the virtual galleries can open your mind and expose you to some great new artists.

Art.net is not preoccupied with any form of ecommerce, which sets it apart from sites like DeviantArt.  What Art.net offers art enthusiasts is incredible access to the artists you see when you visit the site.  Art.net provides each artist with a mailbox and most every artist’s gallery includes a direct link to e-mail them through the site.  Art.net in no way restricts its users from contacting artists to make offers on any pieces an artist has presented.

If you are on the other side of the creative process, Art.net offers a decent level of exposure to artists at a very reasonable price.  Because the site is entirely nonprofit, a $60/year membership fee is charged to keep the servers running.  In exchange, you get seemingly unending storage space for your art and a platform that has been running since 1994!

There are many individual artists’ websites, but there is no multi-artist platform on the Internet so concerned with the pure creation and presentation of art as Art.net.  That commitment makes Art.net exceptionally cool.

About RESCUECOM:

RESCUECOM provides computer repair and computer support, 24/7: Meeting every tech support need including data recovery, virus removal, networking, wireless services, and computer support for all brands of hardware and software. For computer support or information on products, services, or computer repair, visit https://www.rescuecom.com or call 1-800-RESCUE-PC.

For More Information, Contact:

David Milman, CEO

315-882-1100

david@rescuecom.com

Over the past few years, blogs have become a standard online entity. Thanks to a variety of free blogging interfaces, anyone with an interest in writing for the public may do so. People blog on everything from sports to technology to politics to cat grooming to education. For the average Internet user this probably marks a positive transformation towards a more egalitarian cyber landscape in which everyone has a chance to speak. Prior to the rise of Twitter “reporting,” blogs were the most significant outlet for i-reporting, news and event reporting done by the average, untrained individual. However, from the perspective of the media gatekeepers, those whom we used to entrust with filtering news as it passed through the gates of the media, the rise of the blogging culture marks a dangerous transformation in the public’s relationship to news.

First of all, because blogs vary so drastically in content and purpose, it is impossible to discuss the entire blogosphere as one giant lump. This is why it is important to make distinctions between problematic pseudo-news blogs and other, helpful, and entertaining, blogs. Perhaps the only problematic type of blog is the one that attempts to inform on public affairs and events, often trying to demand the same authority as news outlets. Other kinds like opinion, computer support, film, arts, and environment blogs are, for the most part, great.

Most blogging activity does in fact signify the proliferation of the public voice in previously elite areas. Now the casual citizen can talk about politics; the avid gardening fan can give soil advice; the ambitious cook can document her journey cooking through Julia Child’s recipes. The problem emerges when ordinary people try to cover serious, national, and world news in lieu of traditional news reporting. As people’s mistrust of large corporations expands to include news agencies, many look elsewhere for their news, which is one reason i-reporting is so appealing—it’s reporting from the people for the people. In truth though, this is an absurd dynamic. The “people” simply do not have the same training or resources as professional journalists.

To keep up with these trends in news blogging, traditional news reporters are often forced to maintain their own blogs. Though harmless on the surface, this phenomenon defies the traditionally staunch separation of news and opinion. In many ways, by opining on the same topics on which they report, journalists are committing the same industry faux pas as registering with a political party, something that is generally not permitted for reporters in order to ensure fair and unbiased reporting.

In the end, the dynamics of blogging are still emerging, so we have to carefully interact with this relatively modern aspect of the cyber world until it takes a stable form. When it comes to news, there’s still no alternative to real news sources like The New York Times, the BBC, or CNN. Simply put, these institutions spend lots of money covering the news accurately and efficiently. Bloggers have no primary contact with news, and don’t have the resources that newspapers and television reporters do.

About RESCUECOM:

RESCUECOM provides computer repair and computer support, 24/7: Meeting every tech support need including data recovery, virus removal, networking, wireless services, and computer support for all brands of hardware and software. For computer support or information on products, services, or computer repair, visit https://www.rescuecom.com or call 1-800-RESCUE-PC.

For More Information, Contact:

David Milman, CEO

315-882-1100

david@rescuecom.com