Computer Support Blog

Bre Pettis’s company MakerBot is a manufacturer of 3D printers.  3D Printers use three-dimensional product designs developed via computer software programs to “print” out an object made from plastic material.  Most 3D printer manufacturers cater to the industrial market and their products often cost tens of thousands of dollars.  However, Pettis wants MakerBot to buck that trend.  Founded in 2009, MakerBot focuses on developing and selling more affordable 3D Printers that hook up to regular desktop computers.  Pettis is working to make 3D printing a reality in an everyday home setting.  If Pettis fully realizes his dream, it is possible that people will someday be able to design physical objects and print them right at home using their computer.  In theory, this could affect heavily affect the larger manufacturing industry. Read more »

This week, the U.S. Department of Justice takes Apple to court.  The government claims that the computer technology giant was part of a conspiracy to fix prices in the eBook market along with five major publishing companies.  Allegedly, Apple worked with all of the major publishers to radically change the eBook market and enforce their preferred “agency” model as opposed to the standard wholesale model.  Amazon, the dominant retailer of eBooks before Apple entered the market in 2010, sold eBooks on a wholesale model.  This model involved paying publishers a fixed price for each eBook sold, and then reselling it to the consumer at whatever price a company chose.  The wholesale model allows retailers to choose their own profit margins on books they sell.  The government says that Apple tried to create a new standard by working with publishers to replace this wholesale model. Apple’s new agency model had publishers, not retailers, set a standard retail price for eBooks. Retailers then received a 30% cut of the price specified by the publisher.  Read more »

Kickstarter, the website that popularized the crowdfunding model on the Internet, recently announced that it has surpassed 100,000 total launched projects.  This milestone indicates the effect Kickstarter has had on both today’s creative and startup cultures, as the website gives many would-be artists and entrepreneurs the chance to fund projects when more traditional means aren’t available.  The Kickstarter model is simple.  Someone launces a project in any number of fields that Kickstarter lists on its site, including music, film, technology, games, art, and so on.  Once a creator launches a project, other users pledge specific amounts of money in a fundraising effort so that through many donations, they completely fund the project.  Those who fund a successful project are rewarded by the creator with “perks” for their support, which are often early versions of a product.  Only completely funded projects receive pledged money and Kickstarter itself takes a small cut from those as well.  Of the 100,000 plus projects launched to date, roughly 43% have been successful, putting the odds for a new project to reach funding goals at a bit less than one in two. Read more »

Yahoo has been making big moves lately, possibly attempting to rejuvenate its image in the modern market by revitalizing some of its brands and acquiring new ones.  The first major move by the company was the acquisition of the social network and blogging site Tumblr.  Yahoo acquired the New York company for $1.1 billion dollars, which one could break down into roughly $3.67 per each of Tumblr’s 300 million unique visitors.   The two companies made the deal almost entirely in cash, with the exception of a small amount of Yahoo stock for Tumblr CEO David Karp.

What does this change for Tumblr users?  Not much will be different, according to official statements by Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer.  Mayer claimed on Yahoo’s own Tumblr page that her company is “delighted” about the acquisition of the social network and candidly promised “not to screw it up.”  She has also said that Tumblr will operate independently and the entire team will remain in place under their CEO David Karp.  However, Mayer has also publicly said that her company is committed to monetizing Tumblr, which means some changes, most likely in advertising, are bound to come eventually.  Read more »

Most of us have experienced it at one point or another: you’ve finished your meal at a restaurant and its taking far too long for the servers simply to close out your bill.  Many have probably wondered if there was a way for recent advances in mobile technology, like smartphones and tablets, to improve this process.  TabbedOut sets out to do exactly that.  TabbedOut is an app found on both iOS and Android devices that allows patrons to check in to a restaurant and then pay their check when they are finished via their mobile device.  In theory, this could save both the customer and servers valuable time and improve the overall experience of eating out.  While there are many apps and services for purchasing take-out food, TabbedOut is unique in that it focuses on the experience of dining out.  However, if you have problems operating the mobile app, you should ask mobile support for help. Read more »

Many businesses use a number of online services in tandem for their operations.  However, a common problem many companies have encountered is the wasted time and productivity from having to input information into all of these services separately.  One example would be creating a lead in Salesforce manually for every HTML form filled out on Wufoo.  Even something as simple as manually uploading every e-mail attachment to a cloud service like Dropbox could become tedious for a small business after some time.  Wade Foster created Zapier as a solution for this dilemma.  Zapier is a tool that automatically integrates services together for you, taking tedious steps away from several processes.

Foster told Rescuecom that he came up with the concept for Zapier when he was working in marketing.  As he was working, he found himself repeatedly using the same integrations over and over again.  When he asked if there was a way to automate these processes, people told him to “go check out the API.”  Unfortunately, as a marketing employee, that was not very useful to Foster, who knew very little about programming code.  Foster then set out to hire his own coders and start Zapier in the hope of making service integrations easier for businesses. Read more »

The ability to video conference is a very modern one that was once the stuff of science fiction and spy shows. But now, the achieved technological level affords individuals and businesses the ability to actually teleconference from anywhere in the world. While there are many companies that manufacture and develop remote conferencing technology, Polycom continues to make some of the most innovative. One of their premiere devices is the Polycom HDX 4000 Series. Read more »

The tech sector finds many people with exceptional skills able to apply those skills in uncommon ways.  While many other industries are run in a way that is heavily dependent upon specific training and certifications, the tech sector abounds with success stories from people who have great ideas and strong business acumen who surround themselves with teams that make their visions possible.  While some executives in the tech sector have an amazing technical sense or idea, other companies spring up and find success out of applying a great business model to someone else’s innovation.  As CEO and Founder of Marin Software, Christopher Lien has found a way to make his business savvy profitable throughout the tech sector. Read more »

Managing a company in the tech sector can be extraordinarily difficult, even for a seasoned businessperson.  Given how many tech sector geniuses peak early with their industry-changing ideas, many CEOs in the tech sector rely upon the expertise of more established leaders in business.  Facebook, for example, was a great idea that did not begin to rise to its financial potential until Mark Zuckerberg hired Sheryl Sandberg.  But Sandberg is not the only financial expert using her talents in the tech sector.  Mark Rubash, for example, is an impressive voice for Heartflow, Inc. Read more »

The tech sector and the business world continue lack gender equality at the highest levels of the corporate ladder.  Many of the biggest tech sector companies – and some of the largest, most profitable, companies in the world – have upper management and/or Boards of Directors that have no women.  While change is coming slowly to the tech sector, some companies are moving at a more progressive pace.  A few companies, like Xerox, are able to proudly tout the fact that their Board of Directors and upper management are more diverse than others.  Ursula M. Burns makes that case easily for Xerox. Read more »