Computer Support Blog

As the world moves away from print media and more toward the dominance of digital media, it is unsurprising that more products and services that we used to have printed now are easily available on the Internet.  Already, the rise of e-readers and tablet computers has made a significant impact on how people read and purchase books.  The greeting card industry has been scrambling to use the Internet to remain financially viable.  That might be a hard sell, though; like so many things on the Internet, there are some great free e-card sites.  One of them is 123greetings.com. Read more »

The challenge many advertisers and brands continue to have is connecting with customers, especially new customers, utilizing the Internet.  Many Internet-savvy potential customers already use ad blocking software or, because of the prevalence of ads around the Internet, mentally block out all but the most inspired Internet ads.  With social networking, the challenge of connecting advertisers and potential clients is still one that experts in the industry are figuring out.  Trying to crack the formula to utilize the power of social networking for business purposes is what Josh Emert is involved with now and with GoChime, he may be on the right track! Read more »

Do you remember when you could go on Facebook and connect with your friends and illustrate a sense of community over shared interests?  That function is still present on Facebook, but it is increasingly harder to find it with the sheer volume of advertisements on the once simple and cool social network.  With the revelation that five individuals suing Facebook for how “social advertising” was used without their consent or a way to opt out resulted in a $10,000,000 charity donation as settlement the reason you can now opt out of social advertising is pretty clear!  If every person who did not want their “likes” used to advertise products to their friends cost Facebook $2,000,000, Facebook would rapidly become unprofitable. Read more »

The Internet has gone from being a convenient communications tool to being virtually indispensible to many computer users.  No longer only a source of information or communications, the Internet is now a growing form of expression (through social networking) and entertainment (through Cloud-based media).  That makes it more and more important to be able to stay connected to the Internet.  One device that can help people who travel frequently access the Internet easier is the ZyXEL USB Powered Travel Router. Read more »

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 »

How would you feel if every time you made a telephone call, you had to listen to an advertisement?  What if, periodically, while you spoke on the telephone, your conversation was interrupted by advertisers trying to sell you on their products and services?  Would it be possible to feel anything but outrage if that sort of advertising not only occurred, but was based upon the topics of the private conversation you were having?  This sort of privacy violation seems utterly, almost indisputably, wrong when it comes to a hypothetical situation involving telecommunications, yet each and every day, Internet users accept that exact circumstance.  Why? Read more »

California is the home to so many tech sector jobs that it is almost hard to believe that anywhere else in the country would have any tech jobs that needed filling!  Part of the reason so many start-ups and enduring tech sector businesses take root in California is because of the colleges.  Some of the world’s most renowned universities for science and technology are located in California: UCLA, Stanford, and the University of California at Berkeley, to name a few.  Many businesses work to recruit ambitious, technical-minded employees right out of college.  That is what happened with Alicia Chen. Read more »

Outside protecting business interests, there are remarkably few executives in the tech sector who make bold or frequent political statements.  In fact, the marketing gurus in the tech sector work very hard to make technology apolitical; the market should be everyone.  So, it is a rare thing when one’s personal politics overtly guide their corporate policy within the tech sector.  The fact that his loud dedication to free access to information clearly guides Wikipedia makes Jimmy Wales an exception to the status quo in the tech sector! Read more »

The technology sector is filled with people who appear to never have heard the adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”  In the case of websites, especially social networks, programmers who originally design the site tend to strive for functionality over style.  One need only recall the iconic scene from The Social Network wherein Sean Parker and Mark Zuckerberg discuss monetizing The Facebook and come to the conclusion that it was too soon for that.  Cool things aren’t about monetizing.  The people who use websites at their inception and stick with the site do so because there is something enduringly interesting about the site that they cannot find elsewhere on the Internet. Read more »

Social networking is, truly, one of the benefits of the Internet that were not entirely conceived when the World Wide Web was first being conceived as a communications tool.  The reality, however, is that human beings are social animals and Internet social networking allows people to connect in ways they never were able to before.  The result is that the Internet is now home to massive social networks like Facebook, Myspace, and Google+, and obscure, theme-based social networks like the artist community Elftown.  What is fascinating to see is how sites that begin as one type of website, like a sale’s site, can quickly turn into a social networking hub.  That is what happened with Ju-Ju-Be.com. Read more »