Computer Support Blog

Flipboard is a tablet application for iPad and Android that aims to improve the user experience for consuming social media and news.  Mike McCue, the CEO of the company, founded Flipboard in 2010 alongside iPhone engineer Evan Doll.  He branded the app as a “social magazine”, which collects information from a person’s many different social media accounts and specific news sources and places it into a magazine aesthetic for the user.  Users can then quickly flip through the digital pages of their personalized magazine to take in all the information from their media and news feeds in a single place.  This is opposed to the traditional web format of news and social media, which usually involves vertical scrolling and does not consolidate and organize your data the way Flipboard attempts to do. Those who have interest in Flipboard but are struggling with the app should find iPad support for help. McCue has lead Flipboard to great success since founding it.  He has helped to make the application one of the most featured and prominent on both Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS operating systems. Read more »

It’s a common experience: you turn on your computer, go to Google, Bing or whatever search engine you prefer and you search for local restaurants.  You end up with countless choices to sift through and an immense amount of research to do before even leaving the house.  Tom Copeman, CEO and founder of Nara, is trying to eliminate this problem with his artificial intelligence based restaurant recommendation service.

The most common model for websites and apps that review and recommend restaurants is usually review-based.  There are common listings and individual customers can rate their experiences.  However, this leads to inconsistent data and often times, you’ll enjoy a restaurant that someone else will hate, making their review a hindrance more than a help. According to Copeman, Nara handles recommendations differently. Copeman informed Rescuecom that Nara uses artificial intelligence to mine the Internet for information and make more personalized recommendations for you based on its analysis of your preferences and larger trends.  Read more »

Busywork taking time away from productivity is a problem in many workspaces, but one of the most damaging places this issue pops up in is education.  Teachers waste many hours hand-grading quizzes and tests when they could spend those hours on lesson plans and finding better ways to engage students every semester, both in primary and secondary education settings.  However, the team at Design by Educators, Inc. has developed an iPhone app that they believe could help solve this problem for good.  Quick Key is an application that allows for quick, efficient grading and it only requires a smartphone to work.  In theory, this program could be able to save many teachers’ hours of time grading that they can put back into making the classroom a better space for learning.  Read more »

Social media is quickly becoming a bloated market these days.  It seems there are a million different social platforms all competing for your attention at any given moment. So how does Pheed, a new mobile-focused social network, intend to stand out from the pack in such a competitive space?   According to Chrysta Olson, the company’s Communications Director, Pheed offers an “all-in-one” solution to social networking and media sharing that the company believes will appeal to a large audience.  “People are getting overwhelmed managing so many separate accounts,” Olson told Rescuecom, explaining that Pheed intends to put all forms of social media—text, video,  music, voice recording, photos, and even live broadcasting—into one online space.  The concept is that rather than go through the tedious process of managing several different social media accounts such as Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube on a daily basis, Pheed users will be able to access all forms of media in one convenient space.  Read more »

Video conferencing and calls have become commonplace in the world today.  Video messenger services like Microsoft’s Skype, Apple’s Facetime and Google’s Hangouts have made what we used to see only in Science Fiction an everyday reality for consumers.  However, the developers of the Spreecast video Internet broadcasting service believe there is still untapped potential in the video conference concept.  With this service, users can make public “spreecasts” where other users can join in and drop out at any time.  Once in a spreecast, anyone can come in and interact via text chat while watching, but the host can approve any user to join through video as well.  Spreecast creates a public broadcasting forum where users can search for interactive video broadcasts the same way they access viral videos on Youtube.  If you have issues getting Spreecast to work on your browser, computer support is always available. Read more »

We all have stories to tell and many of us fear losing them to history, where at best they’ll become lists of facts stored in dusty file cabinets.  Personal histories, especially those passed on orally, are often lost this way.  Michael Davis believes StoryPress can help solve this problem.  StoryPress lets users document and record their personal stories orally using an iPad.  Each story is stored virtually on StoryPress’s cloud drive, where one can access it anytime.  StoryPress also organizes your stories and allows you to make them available for public viewing if you desire.

This is an elegant application of technology for recording and organizing family and personal histories.  Michael Davis, the CEO of StoryPress, had family histories in mind when he created the app, but other interesting uses have appeared. Read more »

Sometimes, you need a little help from your family and friends. The MediSafe Project calls itself the first cloud-synced mobile app that helps monitor if people take their medications when they should. The app lets users know when it is time for each medication.

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Given how very many companies now make docking stations for Apple mobile computing devices, it is fascinating to see how they try to differentiate their products from one another.  There is some irony in the fact that some of the most prominent brands to not capitalize on the most impressive aspect of their docking station.  Take, for example, the JBL OnTime Micro.  JBL’s main advertising campaign for the docking station focuses on the fact that is has an alarm clock built into it!  The JBL OnTime Micro is so much more than a glorified alarm clock, though. Read more »

Virtually every musical artist will tell you that when they created their music, they did not format it in such a way that the ideal presentation would come from a pair of ear buds.  Most musicians create music that resonates in the open air or rattles the wall from the depth of sound it produces.  An entire generation is being raised on digital music players where the priority is portability, not sound quality.  But that generation is not lost yet; many manufactures are producing docking systems that allow you to play music from your portable music devices over a more sophisticated speaker system than the native ones.  For fans of Apple portable music and computing devices, there is the iOnly Bass Docking System. Read more »

The popularity of Apple’s mobile computing devices has led many manufacturers to create accessories that attempt to make Apple’s products even better.  While Apple’s mobile devices, like the iPad, iPhone, and iPod lines are convenient for travel, they may be less-than-ideal for presenting media in a home environment.  Seeking to augment the usefulness of your iPod or iPhone, Denon now makes a cool iPod/Networking Client Dock With Wi-Fi. Read more »