Computer Support Blog

While the Internet powers most everything we do on a day-to-day basis, it also makes it possible for a number of invasions of our privacy to occur on a regular basis. RESCUECOM is releasing a series of articles, of which this is the first, that will examine privacy issues people face online and demonstrate methods people can use to prevent invasions of their online privacy.  Read more »

People often look at social networking sites and public blogs as a way of journaling or recording one’s life online.  However, there is one inconsistency with the “journal” metaphor.  Most people have never posted the content of their physical journals or diaries in a public place for anyone to see and add comments whenever they want.  Meanwhile, social networks and blogging sites such as Facebook and Tumblr set everyone’s status updates and photos to public by default so that anyone can see or comment on them.  Cool person in technology Siqi Chen has created an app that seeks to address this inconsistency by giving users a truly private multimedia journaling experience.  Chen calls this new app “Heyday”.  While users can update their Heyday profiles the same way they would update their social network accounts and even set automatic updates, none of the information on Heyday appears to a public audience.  Chen wants Heyday to be a private experience, unlike so much of what social media is on the rest of the web.  Read more »

While many people consider reading books to be a solitary activity, that doesn’t always hold true in reality.  For lots of readers, books are as social of a hobby as anything else.  People create book clubs, use social media and engage in events such as author signings and Q&A sessions just to meet other avid readers and discuss the nature of their favorite texts.  Conversations range from speculation about character motivations to complex academic discussions about story themes.  Now, a cool product in technology wants to harness this social aspect of book reading for profit.  Bookmate lets readers take notes, leave questions, and copy quotes in every book that they read with the app and then share all their notations with all of their friends on social media.  Users can read their friends’ notations within a certain book as they read it on Bookmate and then engage those friends on social media to discuss how they felt about those notes.  Bookmate integrates with popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter so people can even share their notes with friends who don’t use Bookmate.  Anyone who cannot connect his or her Bookmate account to Twitter or Facebook should get help from a remote computer support provider. Read more »

Brands of all types have made social media marketing a priority in the last several years.  From large corporations to small mom-and-pop businesses, companies have turned to sites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram to promote their product and remain in the public eye.  Social networking has become an important part of strategy for many companies in the current environment of the business world.  However, social media presence works primarily as a way to remain in the public consciousness and less so as a direct route to sales or new customers.  Soldsie is cool product in technology that may start changing that situation for many businesses.  With Soldsie, companies can sell their items and services directly from their social media pages on Facebook and Instagram.  Rather than link to outside promotions or simply post marketing material, businesses can pull in new customers right on their social media pages and sell their products directly.  With Soldsie, brands can use Facebook not just as an avenue for advertising and branding, but potentially as a direct source for revenue as well.  Any companies unsure of how to manage their social media pages should make sure they have good business IT support before using this cool product. Read more »

Despite the sentiment involved in sending one, many greeting cards can feel impersonal.  When someone simply grabs a card from the Hallmark shelf at the drug store or picks a pre-formulated greeting from an e-card website, the feelings the care tries to represent often feel watered down and less impactful.  Choosing a card to send to someone does not have the impact that making a card does.  Kealan Lennon knows this fact, and that’s why this cool person in technology founded CleverCards in order to help people easily send personalized, thoughtful greetings with the help of social networking.  Read more »

One of the most common ways that people find new restaurants to frequent is through the recommendations of friends and other peers.  Whether it’s for a one-time event or for more regular visits, people trust the recommendations of people like them when it comes to food.  This fact is what has driven cool person in technology Shane Quigley to found his company Foddr.

Foddr is an online web tool that connects to social networking in order to provide users with restaurant recommendations based on where their friends and the friends of their friends are going to eat.  Through the use of algorithms and a connection to customers’ Facebook profiles, Quigley’s web tool scans different statuses and geotagged locations from a person’s social networking connections.  Foddr then uses this data to provide Quigley’s customers with recommendations for their next night out on the town.  Foddr currently requires a connection to Facebook in order to work properly.  Anyone whose Facebook profile does not properly connect to Foddr to give them recommendations can seek help from an online tech support professional.  Read more »

It’s easy for people to forget about where they have been and what they have done when people are so caught up in the now every day thanks to social networking.  Sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Vine constantly keep us up to date with the moments happening around us in the present.  However, Jonathan Wegener is a cool person who has created a product that lets people remember and reflect on their past through social networking.  Rather than only focus on the present, Wegener’s iOS app Timehop shows people their activity on social media from the past as well.  Timehop shows people what happened on someone’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts on the same date in previous years.  Essentially, Wegener has created a personal digital time capsule for people to take advantage of when they want to remember where they’ve been as much as where they are right now.  Wegener takes past information from multiple accounts and presents them all in the same app to give users a complete presentation of what their life was like at the same time in previous years.  Users who might be interested but have issues with the Apple App Store should get iPhone tech support to address the problems. Read more »

Helping people accomplish their goals is a difficult task.  Psychological barriers and stress often demotivate people from changing their lifestyles or going after things that they really want.  Frank Yu is a cool person in technology who wants to gamify people’s goals and motivate people to accomplish more.  Yu runs a startup and website called Kwestr.  On Kwestr, users add different Kwests to their profile from a list of available options.  Kwests lead to an ultimate goal, such as losing fifty pounds, running a marathon, or writing a book.  However, Kwestr has each Kwest split up into several smaller tasks and accomplishments.  This helps overcome users’ psychological barriers by taking a seemingly insurmountable goals and making them appear less intimidating.  Kwestr also rewards users with notifications and congratulations each time they complete a step of their Kwest.  These small reminders and pats on the back encourage users to push further on each Kwest.  When someone completes a Kwest completely and accomplishes a goal, they receive a badge to show off on their Kwestr profile.  These badges can act as social motivators for people as they can put their accomplishments in a public space online.  Users who encounter problems creating a Kwestr account or creating Kwests for themselves will need computer support services to help them.  Read more »

Finding new products, books, music, movies, or activities you want to try isn’t always easy, even with all the resources the Internet provides.  While sites like Amazon provide customer reviews, they are from strangers whose tastes and experiences may not be the same as your own.  This difficulty remains present even in places dedicated to reviews specifically such as Yelp!, TripAdvisor, and Google review pages.  While these reviews can give people general ideas about the quality of different media, products and activities, they don’t compare to recommendations from people whose opinion someone trusts the most, such as friends and family.  Qwinti is a cool product in technology that attempts to resolve this concern by giving people a social platform where they can review and recommend any experience they have, but keep those reviews within the confines of one’s social network.  Qwinti only works through Facebook.  This means that only friends and family see anyone’s review of a product or experience.  This strategy aims for people to get better recommendations that are more relevant to them by limiting the pool of potential reviewers to only the people that a consumer trusts.  Anyone who has problems installing Qwinti on Facebook will need online tech support to assist them with setup. Read more »

Everyone knows that annoying feeling that comes with hearing about news weeks after they should have been aware of it.  Sometimes it’s about a friend, a boss, a business associate, or a celebrity they follow intensely, but it’s almost always something they wish they’d known sooner.  Cool person in technology Axel Hansen created Newsle specifically for people in this situation.  Newsle automatically finds news from hundreds of sources and matches it against each of its users’ specific follow lists to present them with news that only has to do with the people they care about the most. Hansen’s program starts out with users connecting to their Facebook or LinkedIn account and importing their friends or business colleagues onto their follow list first.  This process automatically sets up users so they see news about anyone in their social or business networks the minute it appears on the web. Newsle scours the Internet and finds out when a news outlet reports something about anyone in a user’s network.  Anyone who uses Newsle but can’t seem to connect it to any social networks properly can get assistance through phone tech support. Read more »