Computer Support Blog

There are few phrases less applicable in the tech sector than “if a product is good, it will pretty much sell itself.”  If that were the case, the Microsoft Zune would have been phenomenally more successful and Apple would not even be considering a mini-iPad.  Instead, without great marketing, a good product can get buried by a competitor.  Conversely, with a crack marketing team, an unimpressive product can appear so vital to consumers that it will sell a million units.  So, in these times when energy efficiency is increasingly important and technology manufacturers scramble to build better batteries, a Vice President of Marketing for an alternative energy company might seem unnecessary.  Nothing could be further for the truth at Tremont Electric, though.  That is why Tremont Electric is thrilled to have Jill LeMieux.

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There are a number of ways to try to make money off the Internet.  However, the study of analytics is becoming a big business for those who want to generate revenue from their websites.  Analytics is a study of both website content and visitor traffic patterns.  The big analytic programs, like Google analytics and Gnip, rely upon vast amounts of data and trends to provide the content providers of websites with the tools they need to monetize their site most effectively.  One of the emerging analytics sites on the Internet is Yieldbot.  The daunting task of creating their analytical tools falls to Soren Macbeth.

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It was not too long ago that webcams were a novelty.  Well before they were made standard equipment on virtually every laptop computer, webcams were a separate peripheral that allowed computer users to stream record and transmit small movies.  Even now webcams are a fun accessory for PCs and having an external webcam may offer you more versatility than the one embedded in your monitor or laptop computer.  For those who want more webcam options, it is hard to do better than the new Hercules HD Twist!

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Given that the television has been available to consumers for almost a century now, it might seem odd to make the statement that there are very few people who “get” television.  As far as the tech sector and Internet businesses who are trying to exploit the classic medium, there are very few people who “get” television.  One need only look at how both Apple and Google have unsuccessfully attempted to market Smart TV products to know that the giants of the Internet simply do not understand how consumers use their televisions.  Ashwin Navin, on the other hand, completely gets the television audience and through his company, Flingo, he is enhancing the television-viewing experience.

Ashwin Navin is the co-founder and CEO of Flingo.  Flingo is virtually reinventing television . . . without trying to change the sloth-like way that most people view television.  While it might seem like a contradiction, Navin’s approach to Smart TV programming has been very different from the approach of his competitors.  Instead of trying to change television entirely, Navin and Flingo are working to enhance television.  Navin created Flingo to easily provide additional content related to television on smartphones, tablet computers and other mobile devices.  As well, Ashwin Navin realized that many people might enjoy seeing their YouTube and other videos on their big, expensive, sophisticated high-definition televisions.  A big initial application of Flingo was linking Internet videos to your television!

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Online gaming has taken a few major turns in recent years, especially in terms of type of players and company business models. Until recently, most games on the Internet were for hardcore gamers. Now, anyone can find a game online that he or she will enjoy playing.

Social networking games have created a window into the gaming world for casual players by creating thousands of games that are free and very easy to play. These games come with a revolutionary business model that other types of games are slowly adopting.

Massively Multiplayer Online games, known as MMOs, are a type of game in which players from all over the world can play the game together in an online world. MMOs can be any type of game, but Role Playing Games (or RPGs) are the most popular. These MMORPGs, like the well-known World of Warcraft game, are beginning to change.

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The popularity of Glee has made the music term “mash-up” a household phrase.  In case, however, you aren’t into that trend, a mash-up is when a music producer combines two songs that are not inherently alike, but share a similar characteristic either musically or thematically.  In the entertainment and corporate worlds, mergers often act like mash-ups and they have been occurring with increasing frequency over the last decade.  One of the most peculiar mergers came when Disney purchased Marvel Entertainment in 2009.  Marvel Entertainment is the parent company that oversees Marvel Comics, Marvel Studios and Marvel Digital Enterprises.  Since the buyout, Disney has been making a lot of money off Marvel, especially through summer blockbuster films like Iron Man 2 and Captain America: The First Avenger.

But fans of Marvel Entertainment’s projects have been waiting for something substantive and new to come out of the Disney buyout for years.  Marvel Studios, for example, had all subsequent projects through this summer’s The Avengers in pre-production when Disney bought Marvel Entertainment.  Finally, the results are evident and Avengers Alliance embodies just what the buyout might mean for Marvel fans.  Avengers Alliance is a new video game for Facebook produced by Playdom.

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The Internet has given rise to many phenomena in American culture.  Arguably the most significant lasting social change of the Internet comes in the form of people making statements.  In the inorganic medium of the Internet, anyone can rant about anything anytime they want to.  Between Tweets on Twitter, Facebook status updates and any number of message boards on any of a million websites, for the first time in the history of humanity, anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can feel like they have a voice that is being heard.

Not everything said on the Internet is a gem of human wisdom.

Just as in real life, where once you say something you cannot take it back, Internet users – thanks to things like the Facebook Timeline – are discovering that what they say lingers online, even for years.  But with all of the people posting very publicly about everything in the world, the Internet is now giving users the equivalent of leaving the room where you can hang out with a bunch of friends you actually like!  These new, limited, social networks, have the potential to restore actual family and friend interactions amid all of the noise of more popular Internet social networks.

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Apple Computers, employs an elegantly simple strategy to dominate the mobile computing marketplace.  Apple’s strategy is built largely on a hope that you will buy their entire product line, not just one or two of their devices.  That is to say, products from Apple, more than any other company in the technology sector, are designed to interact easily with one another.  For example, Apple makes it very easy to connect an iPad to an iTV or a MacBook Pro.  But, as many people have discovered, there are more affordable high definition televisions with more options than the iTV.  But why should you be inconvenienced for wanting a great HDTV and an iPhone and wanting them to interact?  Scosche does not think you should be inconvenienced!  That is why Scosche made the sneakPEAK HD Cable!

Scosche’s sneakPEAK High Definition Audio/Video Cable for iPad, iPhone & iPod is a fairly simple cable that allows you to connect virtually any Apple i-product that has a screen on it to a high definition television.  By connecting your Apple products’ output port to the HDTV’s input ports, you are transforming your Apple product into a media player, like a DVD or Blu-Ray player.  This will allow you to play media from your iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad on your high definition television, even if you are streaming it from the Cloud!

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If you check out the technical news sites regularly, you might well be baffled at the updates they frequently have about Legos.  Legos, for those not in the know, are small plastic building toys used to create buildings, vehicles and other structures and devices using standardized plugs and sockets.  Legos first hit the market in 1949 and have grown steadily over the decades since.  They are a children’s toy, one that many adults may not have considered for years.

Why, then, are Legos so prominently featured on so many of the technical sites?

In recent years, Legos have exploded with popularity again.  During the brand’s last major lull, the Lego Company expanded their influence by licensing Legos with major niche franchises.  As a result, Lego capitalized on the popularity of other brands, like Star Wars, Pirates Of The Caribbean, and Spider-man, by creating corresponding Lego sets of places, vehicles and characters from those franchises.  That gambit worked for the business model, but it also gave an entire subculture – the AFOLs – the opportunity to “come out.”  AFOLs are Adult Fans Of Legos and the largest AFOL site on the Internet has four thousand members!

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Have you ever watched a television show and thought an actor or actress looked familiar, but could not quite place them?  Have you ever watched an amazing movie and instantly wanted to watch everything else that director had ever filmed?  Have you ever needed to settle a bet involving the identity of an obscure character actor?  On the Internet, there is a single source for answers to all questions involving television and movies and that is the Internet Movie Database.

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is the world’s most comprehensive site for all things pertaining to film, television and (increasingly) video games, at least as it pertains to work done by legitimate actors, directors, producers and writers.  The IMDb is a powerful tool that contains both the latest legitimate news about all things in the filmed arts as well as massive archives of the body of work of everyone who has ever worked in film in the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom.  The IMDb has extensive reservoirs of information for Japanese, Chinese and Indian works as well.

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