Computer Support Blog

While universities are centers of education, they are also a business in many ways.  Reputation and student enrollment are major pieces of the puzzle when keeping a college successful.  However, both of those things drop when a college is unable to retain students from year to year.  Whether young people are dropping out of school completely or transferring to other colleges, it always hurts a school significantly.   Fewer students coming back means lower enrollment and therefore lower tuition.  Low retention rates also hurt a college’s reputation and make it more difficult to recruit new freshmen the following year.  Read more »

It’s easy for people to forget about where they have been and what they have done when people are so caught up in the now every day thanks to social networking.  Sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Vine constantly keep us up to date with the moments happening around us in the present.  However, Jonathan Wegener is a cool person who has created a product that lets people remember and reflect on their past through social networking.  Rather than only focus on the present, Wegener’s iOS app Timehop shows people their activity on social media from the past as well.  Timehop shows people what happened on someone’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts on the same date in previous years.  Essentially, Wegener has created a personal digital time capsule for people to take advantage of when they want to remember where they’ve been as much as where they are right now.  Wegener takes past information from multiple accounts and presents them all in the same app to give users a complete presentation of what their life was like at the same time in previous years.  Users who might be interested but have issues with the Apple App Store should get iPhone tech support to address the problems. Read more »

One of the most appealing aspects of professional sports is the feeling of community fans get when they all cheer for the same team or player.  Hardcore sports fans often tie their team loyalties heavily into their identities.  Because of this loyalty, sports fans can often develop deep and lasting bonds with the rest of a team’s community of fans.  John Wagner is a cool person in technology who is encouraging this bond between sports fans with his iPhone app FANCRU.  FANCRU acts as a hub for sports fans on gameday.  With his app, Wagner combines the features of social networking and a sports news app to keep fans up to date and connected. Wagner’s app both connects fans with up to date scores for their favorite teams, and lets them interact with other fans digitally on gameday.  FANCRU offers real-time scores for all major American professional sports leagues, as well as several international soccer leagues such as the English Premier League.  Each fan on the app also has their own profile where they choose which teams they support so they can proclaim their loyalties to other users.  Those who have trouble connecting the app to a wireless network should call a service for phone computer support. Read more »

Helping people accomplish their goals is a difficult task.  Psychological barriers and stress often demotivate people from changing their lifestyles or going after things that they really want.  Frank Yu is a cool person in technology who wants to gamify people’s goals and motivate people to accomplish more.  Yu runs a startup and website called Kwestr.  On Kwestr, users add different Kwests to their profile from a list of available options.  Kwests lead to an ultimate goal, such as losing fifty pounds, running a marathon, or writing a book.  However, Kwestr has each Kwest split up into several smaller tasks and accomplishments.  This helps overcome users’ psychological barriers by taking a seemingly insurmountable goals and making them appear less intimidating.  Kwestr also rewards users with notifications and congratulations each time they complete a step of their Kwest.  These small reminders and pats on the back encourage users to push further on each Kwest.  When someone completes a Kwest completely and accomplishes a goal, they receive a badge to show off on their Kwestr profile.  These badges can act as social motivators for people as they can put their accomplishments in a public space online.  Users who encounter problems creating a Kwestr account or creating Kwests for themselves will need computer support services to help them.  Read more »

Finding the right company to enjoy a game of football, baseball or basketball and talk about your favorite teams usually isn’t much of an issue for local sports fans.  Sports bars and restaurants are littered throughout every major city with a professional sports team and even many that aren’t, but what happens when you move away from your local team for a new job or another opportunity?  You suddenly find yourself separated from everyone you can talk to about your favorite team.  That’s why cool person in tech Leigh Goldstein has founded Exiles, a social networking site designed specifically to cater to communities of displaced sports fans.  Exiles hosts several micro-sized social networks on its site, and each one is specifically dedicated to a particular sports franchise and its displaced fans in other areas of the country.  Goldstein and his team are aiming for these microsites to replace the community feeling of a local sports bar or club.  Fans can share team-specific stories, ask questions of the community, share related news articles, and even form local meetups if you find other displaced fans in your area.  By transferring teams’ fan community online, Goldstein believes he can recreate the communal experience that local sports fans have for fans that live away from their team. Read more »

Many founders and CEOs can attest to how running just one business can consume someone’s life.  That’s why cool person in technology Tony Stubblebine stands out in his field.  For him, one tech startup was not enough, he actively runs two.  In 2007, Stubblebine founded CrowdVine, a company that creates web-based social networks for conferences and company events.  That company grew over the years and remained successful, but in 2011, Stubblebine decided that he needed more.  He had another idea that he wanted to nurture and grow into a successful business.  That idea was Lift, an iPhone app that assists users in forming and maintaining good habits such as exercising, eating healthy, and keeping in touch with old friends.  Some founders and CEOs would have left one company to start another, or even sold their first venture to support the next, but Stubblebine continues to work as the head of both businesses. Read more »

People often need extra motivation or encouragement to achieve the goals that they set for themselves.  Without keeping track of their progress or setting a deadline, many people will forget about their goals altogether and never complete the necessary tasks to accomplish them.  Wishbomb is a cool product on the web that’s aim to prevent this from happening.  The website acts as persona l progress tracker for your goals.  Users create a profile on the site, add goals, create deadlines, and track every step of the process through the site.  Wishbomb users have “wishblogs” in which they write about their efforts to complete their goals and the challenges they personally face.  The site also offers specially tailored online resources for your specific goal when you need help knowing what to do next.  The site encourages users to join for goals as varied as starting your own business, losing weight, running a marathon, learning more about computer repair or redecorating your home.  Read more »

If you’re a performer or you run a venue that hosts events, you’re well aware that audience members take countless pictures and short videos at shows.  The ubiquity mobile technology allows fans to capture performances more easily than ever.   WESAWIT is a cool product in technology that lets venues, performers or even promoters utilize this phenomenon and take advantage of all the fan-generated content recorded at shows.  WESAWIT integrates with major social websites such as Vine, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Flickr, using geo-tags to collect all the photos and videos that fans take at a particular concert or event.  Venues and performers can then take the collected content and display all of it in one place through a widget on their website.  WESAWIT automates the aggregation of publicly posted fan-generated content so venues and promoters can leverage it for their own purposes. Read more »

Creating and sharing ideas is the backbone of the Internet, and there are many websites that facilitate this marketplace of ideas.  Cool product Recipefy wants to become the standard website that does this for new and interesting recipes. Recipefy is a cool product on the web that’s lets users post and share new recipes and cooking ideas publicly.  Its goal is to both be the first place users go in order to find new ideas to try in the kitchen and the place where budding amateur chefs go to share new concepts and see what others think of them.  Recipefy works similarly to other sharing websites like Reddit and Imgur, except that on Recipefy the posted content is, of course, always recipes.  Just like on other websites, all posts are public and other users can either like or comment on the recipes you post.  The site features the recipes that receive the most likes and discussion.  Those who have trouble posting recipes or getting the site to function may want to find remote computer support to help solve the problem. Read more »

Designers often need feedback for their work but want more than a limited pool of responses.  Dribbble CEO Rich Thornett is a cool person in technology that has created a social network made specifically for designers to showcase their work.  Dribbble allows designers to post the projects their working on and get feedback from other designers.  It also allows designers to put their portfolio online to increase their visibility in the design community.  Thornett works to keep Dribbble a space where designers can interact, give feedback and promote their own work within the community easily.  The Dribbble CEO doesn’t limit what types of designers can use the service, explicitly stating on the site that the social network is for “web designers, graphic designers, illustrators, icon artists, typographers, logo designers, and other creative types”.  Being open to so many forms of design works towards Thornett’s vision of an open community where ideas can cross breed even across design disciplines.  Non-technical designers that would like to post their work on Dribbble may want to find online computer support for help getting started.  Read more »