Computer Support Blog

There has long been an argument about the sound quality of digital music.  Many lament the loss of quality in digital music files due to compression.  However, David Wiener and his company Aphex are working towards eliminating the quality problem with digital music.  Wiener’s company Aphex is an audio company that makes professional audio and recording equipment for musicians.  However, they’ve recently expanded into the consumer digital music space as well. Wiener and his company have released their Audio Xciter App for Android and iOS.  This new app is not just another mobile music player.  It actually incorporates technology that Aphex has used in its professional products to increase the sound quality of all the digital files you play.  Unlike music players that simply play the compressed audio of a standard music file, Aphex’s app allows for high quality playback to improve consumers’ listening experience.  Wiener is a cool person in technology driving his company towards making high quality digital audio available to anyone with a smartphone.  If you need help installing the app or getting it to work, find smartphone tech support for help. Read more »

Smartphones, tablets, and computers have made the digital distribution of entertainment media a major industry in the last decade.  While the first major changes came in the music and film industries, recently the publishing industry has seen major shifts towards digital markets as well.  However, it’s not only prose that people read on their computers and mobile devices these days.  With his company Comixology, David Steinberger has helped to make comics a part of the digital publishing industry as well.  Comixology sells digital comics for reading on the web, on tablets, and on mobile devices.  Readers can buy comics in both the shorter, more traditional issue format or as larger collections of issues in many cases.  Comixology has allowed comics to storm on to the digital market thanks to the vision of its CEO, David Steinberger. Read more »

Privacy is becoming a more and more frequently discussed topic these days.  This is likely because online services like Facebook and Google continue to collect large amounts of data on their users.  Some users do not seem to mind trading a bit of their privacy for free online services. Others have been less than enthusiastic about the way users seem to be paying these companies with their personal data instead of cash for their services.  Brian Kennish, cofounder of Disconnect, is most certainly in the latter camp.

Brian Kennish formerly worked at Google as a software developer.  However, in 2010, Kennish left Google due to increasing dissatisfaction with their mass data collection and the secrecy around how that data is used.  That is part of the reason Kennish developed Disconnect, a browser extension that blocks third-party sites from tracking you when you use the web.  Disconnect is available to download for four different browsers—Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Safari.  If you have trouble installing Disconnect, you can always ask computer support for assistance.  Read more »

Engaging children with engineering concepts at an early age can often be a difficult task.  LightUp looks to solve that problem with specialized hardware kits and an augmented reality mobile app designed to teach kids about the inner workings of electronics.  Using the augmented reality app, kids view their electronic constructions through a mobile device’s camera.  The app will then superimpose virtual electrical currents over the image of the hardware kits to show kids what’s making their constructions work.  The app can also detect if something is wrong with a construction, indicating what that error is, explaining it to the child, and prompting them to fix it.  The kits themselves actually work as electronic circuits and aren’t just models.  However, since they are designed to teach kids, each piece of hardware connects together easily through magnets rather than through soldering.  This creates a “building block” feel to the kit as kids can easily put constructions together, tear them apart, and tinker with them at their whim.  Read more »

Image editing is a task most of us have to do on our computers at one point or another.  We often need to fix our vacation photographs, create a flier for an event, or a myriad of other possibilities.  Unfortunately, most image editors fall into two categories: they’re either simplistic and mostly useless or expensive and overly complex.  This doesn’t have to be the case.  Gus Mueller, founder of Flying Meat Software, has developed an image editor for Mac OS X called Acorn.  Mueller designed Acorn to be accessible for those who want to make their photo editing an easier experience. 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 »

The tech sector finds many people with exceptional skills able to apply those skills in uncommon ways.  While many other industries are run in a way that is heavily dependent upon specific training and certifications, the tech sector abounds with success stories from people who have great ideas and strong business acumen who surround themselves with teams that make their visions possible.  While some executives in the tech sector have an amazing technical sense or idea, other companies spring up and find success out of applying a great business model to someone else’s innovation.  As CEO and Founder of Marin Software, Christopher Lien has found a way to make his business savvy profitable throughout the tech sector. Read more »

In the tech sector, businesses evolve or they die.  Given the rapid pace of technological development since the Internet became a mainstream communications platform, companies founded on the Internet seem to have even greater volatility; there are very few sites that remain cool and well-trafficked year after year.  YouTube.com is one the sites that has worked very hard to maintain its strong presence in the minds of Internet users.  Best known as a library of viral videos and videos that never achieved such renown, YouTube is working to reinvent itself by creating original programming in the form of regular web-based series’.  Working to make that vision a reality is Ivana Kirkbride. Read more »

There are two significant barriers for most people to traveling the world and seeing all that it has to offer: money and not knowing the languages native to the places you wish to visit.  Once you have enough money to travel, you have to determine whether you want to learn a new language or hire a guide.  Either choice may require an investment of time or money you may not wish to spend in that manner or, in the case of adding an additional person, it may fundamentally change the experience you were hoping to have.  Thanks to ECTACO there is now a third option!  If you want to visit Korea, you need not learn the language.  Instead, you just need to take the Partner EK900 Deluxe English-Korean Talking Electronic Dictionary with you! Read more »

In the tech sector, major fields can change with alarming speed.  A few years ago, for example, the idea of streaming movies and music from the Cloud was a far-fetched notion and even the leaders of big businesses in the tech sector were unsure how to capitalize on such an idea.  Now, there are several companies and services that offer streaming video and it is a huge business.  Given the rapidly-changing nature of technology, human resources personnel for media technology companies, like Netflix and Hulu, have their work cut out for them.  When they make a hire, they have to evaluate how the candidate will work for the company as it is now and how it might radically change in the future.  In the case of Netflix, managing the personnel is made much easier thanks to Tawni Cranz. Read more »