Computer Support Blog

As Cloud-based streaming services become more prevalent and popular, the major producers of movies, music, and television programming have become more anxious about the new services.  After early Internet sites like Napster gave away their content, major studios got wise (and litigious) and have been more vigorously fighting piracy.  The new strategy that both streaming services and the major studios have begun taking is creating alliances and agreements as Internet companies develop their platform.  That requires the streaming start-ups, or established sites that are looking to diversify into media distribution, to have great lawyers.  For Roku, the manufacturer of streaming media players, the legal team is headed by Kim Funk. Read more »

Manufacturers of many new devices aim to make them sleek, digital, and surprisingly uniform.  While many consumers, youth especially, eagerly buy up the latest tech, there is a growing consumer movement that makes such purchases less because they love the design and more because it is simply what they are forced to accept.  For many people, the purchase of a new smartphone or tablet computer is made simultaneous to or followed soon after by the purchase of a case or protector.  While the purchase of a protector is obviously about keeping one’s smartphone safe, many people choose their case or protector as a way to differentiate their smartphone from other people’s smartphone.  Accessorizing allows you to express your own personal sense of style.  One of the most eclectic and cool accessories flies very much in the face of manufacturer’s obsession with making technology smaller and button free and that is the POP Phone by Native Union. Read more »

With so many digital photography services online, it can be very hard for a new, emerging, or revamped service to effectively sell itself to its target demographic.  Digital photographers have a lot of choices these days, but with the rapidly changing nature of the Internet, recently several online photo editors and storage sites have been shut down, while new ones have sprouted up.  Making your online digital photo service seem fresh, new, and vital can be as much a marketing challenge as it is an issue of programming your service the right way.  For Shutterfly, the challenge of marketing the website and its many services falls to Katelyn Watson. Read more »

The Internet is a spawning ground of great new ideas.  Many of those ideas, especially when they pertain to making the Internet run in a way that it has not before, have been very profitable for a number of entrepreneurs and investors.  As a result, a whole industry within the industry has developed that focuses on aiding creative minds and programmers to create new products, services, and applications for the Internet.  One of the most intriguing of such sites is Fireplace, a site designed to randomly generate start-up ideas.  One of its founders is the very cool Gilan Avidan. Read more »

Virtually anyone with a real talent not directly related to their field of employment who has friends will be told “you should do that professionally!”  While friends mean well by such compliments, they seldom realize that starting a business is a huge task, often involves a skill set entirely different from the skill or product that their friends love, and they are asking their friend to take something they love doing and become dependent upon it for income.  Very few people have the wherewithal to go through with such an endeavor.  However, Julie Degnan not only made a business out of her hobby, she had all the business skills to make it a success! Read more »

This year will see some exciting new sites and developments on the Internet and in the world of mobile computing.  As Microsoft prepares to return to the tablet computer market, Apple leaks rumors of its iPhone 5 and the giants of technology sue one another repeatedly over alleged patent violations, many exciting new start-ups are readying for public launch.  One of the applications that is generating a great deal of buzz already is Vizify, a service that will cull your social networking information to allow you to create an uber-profile that puts the best of you at the forefront of the Internet.  Vizify is nearing completion and taking it the last steps to launch is what Eli Tucker is entirely focused on these days! Read more »

Computers truly have become integrated in virtually every aspect of life and work in the United States. Those who used to go outside to get away from electronics, experience something primal, or just wanted to enjoy an outdoor hobby, are now finding technology is inescapable.  Between the psychological pull to check your social networks and the ability to keep in touch at all times using hands free devices like Bluetooth headsets, there is a constant pressure to use all the gadgets you own constantly.  Not all of technology’s incursions into outdoor life are bad, though.  There is a great deal of home improvement software and landscaping software that can actually make your outdoor projects much easier.  To make your garden look beautiful and professional, there is the GardenWorks software as well! Read more »

With the media world moving more from an industry that is based in the physical world to one that is digital, there are very few businesses that remain unaffected.  One of the industries that is experiencing significant shifts in the way it creates and manufactures products is the greeting card industry.  Facing stiff competition from online card companies, traditional greeting card companies like Hallmark Cards are forced to innovate.  Hallmark Cards may have been in a better position to compete, as it had built its brand name into an award-winning multimedia company (with the Hallmark Hall of Fame movies) well before online card companies became a viable threat to their bottom line.  Even now, Hallmark has less to be concerned about because it has Paul Barker. Read more »

The relationship between media – movies, music, and television – continues to get closer and closer.  In fact, one of the most significant channels with which to promote new movies or programs is the Internet.  The Internet has numerous sites that act as repositories for clips, news, and historical archives for film, television, and music.  One of the most prominent sites for cinephiles is the Internet Movie Database, but for those who are much more interested in critiques and analysis, Rotten Tomatoes has rapidly grown into one of the coolest sites on the Internet. Read more »

Security is a concern in the tech sector that only continues to grow.  The growth of security services pertaining to computers, smartphones and mobile computing devices is not a reflection on the industry’s unwillingness to adapt; technology continues to change at such a fast rate and hackers continue to adapt as well, necessitating an almost-constant development of new security-related products and services.  While many computers have been protected by the most robust anti-viral software ever created, as hackers take on smartphones and mobile computing devices, many of the major software developers have been slow to react.  Instead, consumers are discovering the benefits of mobile computing protection software, like Reliaty55. Read more »