Computer Support Blog

Following the rise of consumer and privacy activists to defeat the Stop Online Piracy Act earlier this year, the reaction to the defeat both online and in the tech sector has been interesting to watch.  Many of the leaders who organized the fight against SOPA have formed organizations, like the Internet Defense League, to create watchdog positions and communications networks to prevent future SOPA-like legislation from passing.  Many businesses decided to beef up their legal department so they could better understand the potential consequences of such legislation to their specific business.  Amazon.com hired Jamie Gorelick to its Board of Directors. Read more »

Even with the rise of the smartphone, the need for specialized personal safety devices persists.  For sure, a smartphone may be very helpful in a medical emergency or when there is a threat against your life.  However, with so many smartphones running sophisticated programs, one must often unlock their smartphone and wait for it to boot to a menu screen from which you select the applications you wish to use.  The time it takes to unlock your smartphone may be the moments – especially in a heart attack or assault situation – you need to actually be able to make an emergency call.  Fortunately, as communications devices have become more sophisticated, so too have the specialized emergency/personal safety devices.  One useful personal safety device is the ZOMM Wireless Leash Plus. Read more »

Connecting advertisers and potential customers through all of the digital devices the average person has today is a daunting task.  In fact, very few companies have effectively managed to exploit every possible device and network as a viable revenue stream.  Even sites traditionally known for their success using ad revenue on the Internet, like Facebook, have had some issues with monetizing on a mobile platform.  PubMatic is a company that, in 2006, saw how the Internet was branching into a multiplatform media no longer simply utilized on home computers and developed software that allows advertisers to spread their message effectively across every type of computing device.  Mukul Kumar is the software engineer who makes the PubMatic vision work! Read more »

The name Hallmark Cards is virtually synonymous with greeting cards, much the way people refer to MP3 players as iPods or inline skates as Rollerblades.  To its credit in the rapidly changing world, Hallmark Cards has worked very hard to keep with the times and it has a robust online presence.  The physical greeting card manufacturer effectively competes against many online digital greeting card sites and Hallmark Cards continues to innovate.  Seeing the intense interest in mobile computing among many of its fans, Hallmark Cards has released the Hallmark Go Cards application! Read more »

Online and mobile payments are a growing industry.  One of the most recognizable names in the virtual payment industry is PayPal.  PayPal rose to prominence as a spin-off of eBay and as eBay grew, PayPal synergized with it in such a way that it rapidly gained the dominant market share for online payments.  However, with the rise of the smartphone, new mobile services like Dwolla, are steadily eating into that market share.  While the Technical Officers at PayPal work to increase PayPal’s mobile influence, it is Ranjana Clark who is retaining and winning over new customers for the company. Read more »

The concept of a social network is actually a very simple one: you log into a network, provide information about yourself and develop a channel to share interests and information with other people in your life.  As well, you may use a social network to expand your circle of friends by starting conversations with likeminded people who share some of the same interests as you.  One of the coolest products on the Internet, is expanding the perception of what a social network can be by offering options that make for a very real photo network!  The service is the Ceiva PicturePlan Photo Delivery Service and it is innovative, fresh, and very cool. Read more »

The tech sector seems to embrace different roles played by different people based upon their interests and experiences.  Just as cops do not make for the best marriage counselors and poets are not traditionally called upon to rewire your house, many brilliant technical minds simply are not good at, or interested in, business.  Many of the biggest tech sector companies, like Facebook, only reached their business potential when the tech-focused creator hired a brilliant business-oriented individual (like Mark Zuckerberg did when he hired Sheryl Sandberg).  No other major industry seems to respect just how well specialized people may work when they are allowed to focus on their specialization (instead of treating all employees and executives as interchangeable) than the tech sector.  Ryan Rouland has long recognized the benefits of letting tech leaders focus on the ideas and products, while he has built many successful tech companies for those innovators! Read more »

As Cloud-based streaming services become more prevalent and popular, the major producers of movies, music, and television programming have become more anxious about the new services.  After early Internet sites like Napster gave away their content, major studios got wise (and litigious) and have been more vigorously fighting piracy.  The new strategy that both streaming services and the major studios have begun taking is creating alliances and agreements as Internet companies develop their platform.  That requires the streaming start-ups, or established sites that are looking to diversify into media distribution, to have great lawyers.  For Roku, the manufacturer of streaming media players, the legal team is headed by Kim Funk. Read more »

With so many digital photography services online, it can be very hard for a new, emerging, or revamped service to effectively sell itself to its target demographic.  Digital photographers have a lot of choices these days, but with the rapidly changing nature of the Internet, recently several online photo editors and storage sites have been shut down, while new ones have sprouted up.  Making your online digital photo service seem fresh, new, and vital can be as much a marketing challenge as it is an issue of programming your service the right way.  For Shutterfly, the challenge of marketing the website and its many services falls to Katelyn Watson. Read more »

The Internet is a spawning ground of great new ideas.  Many of those ideas, especially when they pertain to making the Internet run in a way that it has not before, have been very profitable for a number of entrepreneurs and investors.  As a result, a whole industry within the industry has developed that focuses on aiding creative minds and programmers to create new products, services, and applications for the Internet.  One of the most intriguing of such sites is Fireplace, a site designed to randomly generate start-up ideas.  One of its founders is the very cool Gilan Avidan. Read more »