Computer Support Blog

Many people are not merely browsing online for trending topics but are serious consumers of news, and for them it can be time-consuming to navigate the many sites where their interests lie. Fortunately, there is Comunitee, created for people who would like to have one spot where they can find their news articles instantly without the clutter.  Combining the methods of corporate news providers with niche social networking that offer snippets, it aims to make the act of news reading social and wants to help people discover news through friends who are similarly focused. This service also does away with the manual sharing of social media and automatically shares what you like with friends.  In short, it is a more comprehensive news service based on the premise that reading news is better with friends. Read more »

Those who like to keep up to date on their favorite topics or important events locally, nationally, or worldwide likely use constantly updated feeds to gather that information such as those provided by news social media websites.  Known as RSS feeds, they compile a list of recent stories from blogs, e-magazines and any other website that offers regular articles and stories. The trouble is that there are few ways of collecting them all in one place for easy viewing.  Headslinger is a solution to this problem.  The app lets you view all your favorite feeds, helps you find new ones, and lets you share those that interest you all from one page.  For just about any category that there is a news source for, Headslinger brings it to you quickly and easily and allows you to peruse the digital versions of any popular publication. Read more »

Checking different news sites and blogs is quickly becoming the daily morning routine for many professionals.  More often than not, one can catch many people going through popular entertainment blogs and news sites on their phone over breakfast or coffee in the morning.  However, despite the fact that someone can do it all on a device that fits in his or her pocket, there is still an aspect of inconvenience to this process.  One must always stop what they are doing in order to check new postings or read articles on their favorite blogs.  Outside of those people who use public transportation and have a specific time where their hands and eyes are free during their morning commute, stopping work or travel is necessary for people to check these websites on their phones.  Cool person in technology Espen Systad wants to make it easy for people to get the information they want from entertainment and news sites without taking more time away from them.  Systad’s company Capsule.fm accomplishes this feat by automatically converting the text from blogs and news sites into a personalized audio feed for smartphone users. Read more »

Two of the most common uses for the web are getting news and finding entertaining content.  Most people bookmark sites and use search engines to find the content they want to consume.  However, cool person in technology Dan Olsen believes it can be even easier to for people to find content on the web.  Olsen refers to his company YourVersion’s main product as a “discovery engine”, which detects a person’s preferences and interests in order to deliver them new content every day automatically.  YourVersion uses two methods to find content that users will enjoy on the Internet: bookmarks and interest tags.  Users can add interests to their profile manually and YourVersion will find content related to those interests.  However, YourVersion also supports website bookmarking and any sites that a user bookmarks for later use on YourVersion also inform the product when it retrieves new content for the user.  People who have trouble signing up for Olsen’s service online can get assistance from a home tech support company. Read more »

Everyone knows that annoying feeling that comes with hearing about news weeks after they should have been aware of it.  Sometimes it’s about a friend, a boss, a business associate, or a celebrity they follow intensely, but it’s almost always something they wish they’d known sooner.  Cool person in technology Axel Hansen created Newsle specifically for people in this situation.  Newsle automatically finds news from hundreds of sources and matches it against each of its users’ specific follow lists to present them with news that only has to do with the people they care about the most. Hansen’s program starts out with users connecting to their Facebook or LinkedIn account and importing their friends or business colleagues onto their follow list first.  This process automatically sets up users so they see news about anyone in their social or business networks the minute it appears on the web. Newsle scours the Internet and finds out when a news outlet reports something about anyone in a user’s network.  Anyone who uses Newsle but can’t seem to connect it to any social networks properly can get assistance through phone tech support. Read more »

There have been reports in recent days that the National Security Agency is collecting data from multiple Internet communication giants in a broad surveillance measure where the government collects e-mails, social media data, and other communications.  The report has stemmed from a leak of an NSA employee’s internal presentation on the surveillance program, which the NSA named PRISM.  The leaked slides claim that the NSA was receiving data from the servers of Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Apple, Paltalk and others.  These companies have all publicly claimed that they the NSA does not have direct access to their servers.  They also claim only to provide customer data if presented with a court order.  However, if reports about the surveillance program are true, all of these companies would be legally required to deny knowledge of PRISM, as it is a classified program.  Read more »

This week, the U.S. Department of Justice takes Apple to court.  The government claims that the computer technology giant was part of a conspiracy to fix prices in the eBook market along with five major publishing companies.  Allegedly, Apple worked with all of the major publishers to radically change the eBook market and enforce their preferred “agency” model as opposed to the standard wholesale model.  Amazon, the dominant retailer of eBooks before Apple entered the market in 2010, sold eBooks on a wholesale model.  This model involved paying publishers a fixed price for each eBook sold, and then reselling it to the consumer at whatever price a company chose.  The wholesale model allows retailers to choose their own profit margins on books they sell.  The government says that Apple tried to create a new standard by working with publishers to replace this wholesale model. Apple’s new agency model had publishers, not retailers, set a standard retail price for eBooks. Retailers then received a 30% cut of the price specified by the publisher.  Read more »

Research firm IDC made a recent forecast regarding wireless technologies in the PC marketplace.  The report opens with a rather dramatic statement about the traditional PC market’s recent struggles.  The document reads that the business for traditional computing experiences is currently “in the midst of an unprecedented slump.”  There is no question that the PC industry is in a transitional period.  Tablet and smartphone sales continue to rise while desktop and laptop sales have dropped significantly.  Rescuecom even added tablets to its reliability report recently to account for this shift in the industry.   What’s most interesting however, is the prediction that IDC makes regarding how manufacturers must adjust to this new paradigm.  IDC believes that the inclusion of new wireless technologies to promote interoperability with other devices will be important in the years to come. Read more »

Kickstarter, the website that popularized the crowdfunding model on the Internet, recently announced that it has surpassed 100,000 total launched projects.  This milestone indicates the effect Kickstarter has had on both today’s creative and startup cultures, as the website gives many would-be artists and entrepreneurs the chance to fund projects when more traditional means aren’t available.  The Kickstarter model is simple.  Someone launces a project in any number of fields that Kickstarter lists on its site, including music, film, technology, games, art, and so on.  Once a creator launches a project, other users pledge specific amounts of money in a fundraising effort so that through many donations, they completely fund the project.  Those who fund a successful project are rewarded by the creator with “perks” for their support, which are often early versions of a product.  Only completely funded projects receive pledged money and Kickstarter itself takes a small cut from those as well.  Of the 100,000 plus projects launched to date, roughly 43% have been successful, putting the odds for a new project to reach funding goals at a bit less than one in two. Read more »

Yahoo has been making big moves lately, possibly attempting to rejuvenate its image in the modern market by revitalizing some of its brands and acquiring new ones.  The first major move by the company was the acquisition of the social network and blogging site Tumblr.  Yahoo acquired the New York company for $1.1 billion dollars, which one could break down into roughly $3.67 per each of Tumblr’s 300 million unique visitors.   The two companies made the deal almost entirely in cash, with the exception of a small amount of Yahoo stock for Tumblr CEO David Karp.

What does this change for Tumblr users?  Not much will be different, according to official statements by Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer.  Mayer claimed on Yahoo’s own Tumblr page that her company is “delighted” about the acquisition of the social network and candidly promised “not to screw it up.”  She has also said that Tumblr will operate independently and the entire team will remain in place under their CEO David Karp.  However, Mayer has also publicly said that her company is committed to monetizing Tumblr, which means some changes, most likely in advertising, are bound to come eventually.  Read more »