Computer Support Blog

Schools do not generally allow teachers to have direct communication with their students outside of class due to privacy and safety concerns.  Unfortunately, this mistrust of teachers makes it difficult to keep students and parents informed about what is happening in class at school.  Students do not have permission to share cell phone numbers, so mass texting is impossible; despite the fact that many young people use their phones as their main means of communication.  Some services provide an Internet-based hub or website where teachers can post assignments and updates, but there is no guarantee that students are going to visit the site and check their assignments.  It is equally unlikely that parents would check for their children.  Read more »

Smartphones can sometimes seem like a contradictory term, because while these devices have added many smart features, the phone aspect of their function mostly remains unchanged.  The only real advantage that smartphones have over regular phones is the transplanting of an alphabetical address book into digital format.

Cool product Brewster believes that more is possible when it comes to changing how people use the phone aspect of their mobile devices.  Brewster socializes and makes a user’s contact list “smart”.  With this cool product, someone’s digital address book doesn’t simply organize alphabetically, but through the relationships that person has.  Brewster categorizes users’ address books based on how often they contact each person in them and the relationships that the users have with their contacts.  Brewster pulls information from your social networking profiles in order to organize your address book appropriately.  Through connections with services such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google Plus, the team at Brewster claims it can create an address book that is more suited to each individual user than the standard alphabetical format.  People who have trouble connecting their social networking accounts to Brewster can get help from a mobile tech support specialist to fix the problem. Read more »

Living with diabetes is no easy task, even with all the advances of medical technology in the last few decades.  One of the most difficult aspects of living with the condition is the need to keep track of one’s body chemistry constantly.  Cool person in technology Erez Raphael wants to make it easier and more convenient for diabetics to track their blood sugar and insulin.  Raphael’s company, Dario, has developed a small mobile phone accessory and companion app that let diabetics check their blood with their smartphone.  Usually, people require separate devices for checking their blood sugar and insulin levels.  Even worse, these devices are often very expensive and invasive to the user.  Dario is a very small device that plugs directly into a smartphone’s headphone jack.  The device holds a number of strip cartridges that provide minimal discomfort when sampling blood.  Users can easily insert and eject cartridges without expending much effort. The lightweight convenience of this device is certainly a preferable alternative to more complicated and painful dedicated devices for the same purpose.  Any user who has a broken headphone jack on their smartphone will need smartphone PC repair in order to use Raphael’s device. Read more »

What if the web worked the same way your smartphone apps did by sending you notifications every time something relevant to you updated?  That’s a question cool product Resultly is trying to answer.  With Resultly, people don’t have to constantly actively search for items or frequently return to web pages in order to see if they’ve updated.  Resultly allows you to “follow” different interests on the web, as opposed to always seeking them out individually.  When you follow an interest on Resultly, you get updates on it through e-mail, on your web browser, or from the Resultly app on your smartphone.  These updates keep you informed when one of your interests has had a status change. On Resultly, you have the ability to follow everything from blogs to musical artists to a pair of boots on an eCommerce site.  Whenever something on the web changes regarding one of your interests, Resultly makes sure you know so you can follow up on it.  This could allow you to keep up with all the aspects of the web you want without having to manually look everything up all the time.  However, anyone who still needs help navigating the web as a whole will want comprehensive home computer support before trying something like Resultly. Read more »

While much of the news in the mobile phone industry is usually about mergers and new products, the rise of a new company or the influence of a new technology in smartphones, the days of excitement for the company Research In Motion may be behind them.  Despite having bold plans for the BlackBerry 10 operating system that RIM executives have been promoting as the product that will turn around the company’s cash flow problems, there have been signs that RIM may be too weak to survive until the BlackBerry 10’s release. Read more »

In the wake of the National Traffic Safety Board’s proposal that each state pass a law to outright ban the use of electronic devices while driving and the revelation that Carrier IQ has been acquiring deeply personal data through its smartphone programming, it is hard not to feel jaded about technology right now.  The National Traffic Safety Board had absolutely the right idea in its proposal.  Unfortunately, if left up to the states or the federal government, it might take some time for government to act.  As penance for the Carrier IQ scandal, the smartphone industry should be compelled to make technology do what law enforcement has not. Read more »

With so much to do in the real world and on the Internet, it can be hard to find enough time to watch television these days!  For those who are paying for a satellite service or cable – especially premium cable channels – this can mean the loss of money, as you are paying for a service you are not enjoying.  Fortunately, with improved mobile computing devices and less expensive laptop computers, you now have additional options for getting the most out of your television service.  All you need to take advantage of all your television and portable device have to offer is the Slingbox SOLO! Read more »

There are, essentially, two ways to sell new technologies in a new market.  The first is to create a device that is entirely indispensible.  Creating a product that consumers feel they absolutely need is a great way to sell millions of units of a product.  The other way to sell new technologies in an emerging market is to reduce prices to move inventory.  It is that approach that Research In Motion is taking in India. Read more »

Big business transactions happen every day in the tech sector.  As more and more technology companies buy out their competition or diversify to stay relevant in a changing marketplace, it is sometimes tough to understand what specific transactions might actually mean.  Lately, there has been a lot of speculation that Google will pay $12.5 billion to buy Motorola Mobility.  This transaction has created a lot of buzz in both the tech sector and the business world.  There are several factors that make Google’s purchase of Motorola Mobility an atypical buyout. Read more »

Smartphones can do amazing things.  From mapping your current travel plans to ordering your dinner, there are innumerable things a smartphone can do.  But what many private consumers fail to consider about smartphones is that their operating systems are not always compatible with the enterprise software of individual businesses.  As a result, most smartphone manufacturers devote an entire division to meeting the unique needs of business clients.  For Motorola Mobility, that responsibility falls to Christy Wyatt! Read more »