Computer Support Blog

Many entrepreneurs and innovators have tried to find ways to utilize social media to enhance the educational experience.  One such man is Michael Lucia, CEO and President of LanguageTwin, which is an online service that connects students from different countries so they can improve their conversational skills in foreign languages.  Lucia founded LanguageTwin because of his experiences studying abroad as a college student.  He found that despite his many years studying French at the college level, actual French conversation was still a struggle. “A lot of conversational exposure is needed for true proficiency,” Lucia told Rescuecom. With the rise of video conference technology, Lucia saw an opportunity to connect native speakers of different languages easily and use that connection in a classroom setting. Read more »

Most of us have experienced it at one point or another: you’ve finished your meal at a restaurant and its taking far too long for the servers simply to close out your bill.  Many have probably wondered if there was a way for recent advances in mobile technology, like smartphones and tablets, to improve this process.  TabbedOut sets out to do exactly that.  TabbedOut is an app found on both iOS and Android devices that allows patrons to check in to a restaurant and then pay their check when they are finished via their mobile device.  In theory, this could save both the customer and servers valuable time and improve the overall experience of eating out.  While there are many apps and services for purchasing take-out food, TabbedOut is unique in that it focuses on the experience of dining out.  However, if you have problems operating the mobile app, you should ask mobile support for help. Read more »

Many businesses use a number of online services in tandem for their operations.  However, a common problem many companies have encountered is the wasted time and productivity from having to input information into all of these services separately.  One example would be creating a lead in Salesforce manually for every HTML form filled out on Wufoo.  Even something as simple as manually uploading every e-mail attachment to a cloud service like Dropbox could become tedious for a small business after some time.  Wade Foster created Zapier as a solution for this dilemma.  Zapier is a tool that automatically integrates services together for you, taking tedious steps away from several processes.

Foster told Rescuecom that he came up with the concept for Zapier when he was working in marketing.  As he was working, he found himself repeatedly using the same integrations over and over again.  When he asked if there was a way to automate these processes, people told him to “go check out the API.”  Unfortunately, as a marketing employee, that was not very useful to Foster, who knew very little about programming code.  Foster then set out to hire his own coders and start Zapier in the hope of making service integrations easier for businesses. 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 »

Many have toiled over problems regarding how to handle young computer users.  It is practically a requirement for children of all ages to use computers in our connected age.  Their homework often requires it and even kids must complete many of their everyday tasks online now.  However, Internet security has always been a difficult issue in regards to children on the computer.  Parents have struggled for years to find a solution that will truly teach their children about proper use of the Internet and keep their PC safe in the process.  Richard Shah and the MiiPC team at ZeroDesktop believe they’ve developed a product that can tackle these difficult issues.  The MiiPC is an affordable desktop running on the Android operating system that comes with a mobile app that allows parents to monitor their children’s computer activity in real time.  Read more »

Phishing attacks have become an increasing problem as of late both for everyday computer users and even major publications.  In the last month, there have been widespread phishing attacks aimed at both Apple and Twitter accounts.  These attacks come in the form of e-mails or web pages that seem as if they were from a service the recipient uses.  These e-mails trick recipients into giving over information, which then lets the cybercriminals access their accounts.

The phishing attacks aimed at Apple users mimicked an account verification page from Apple and prompted users to give their e-mail, credit card information, and account password.  This particular attack compromised over one hundred websites, which displayed the page that tricked Apple users into handing over their information.  Without proper Internet security service or software, it would be difficult to detect the attack for most people.  The intent of such attacks is to gain access to people’s Apple accounts.  Criminals will then sell the information or use it to compromise the accounts themselves. Read more »

Video conferencing and calls have become commonplace in the world today.  Video messenger services like Microsoft’s Skype, Apple’s Facetime and Google’s Hangouts have made what we used to see only in Science Fiction an everyday reality for consumers.  However, the developers of the Spreecast video Internet broadcasting service believe there is still untapped potential in the video conference concept.  With this service, users can make public “spreecasts” where other users can join in and drop out at any time.  Once in a spreecast, anyone can come in and interact via text chat while watching, but the host can approve any user to join through video as well.  Spreecast creates a public broadcasting forum where users can search for interactive video broadcasts the same way they access viral videos on Youtube.  If you have issues getting Spreecast to work on your browser, computer support is always available. Read more »

Both on-demand music streaming and Internet radio services seem to be taking the music industry by storm.  Many streaming service options have flooded the market, including Spotify, Rdio, and Rhapsody, among others.  However, these services don’t do much to distinguish themselves.  They all tend to offer mostly major-label music, and they split their services into a limited free option that includes many advertisements and a paid option that limits the devices on which you can stream your music.  Joey Flores, CEO of Earbits, believes in a different model for Internet music streaming.  Earbits.com offers both Internet radio and on-demand music streaming free of cost but focuses on new and independent artists as opposed to the usual major-label music you find elsewhere. Read more »

Sometimes, you need a little help from your family and friends. The MediSafe Project calls itself the first cloud-synced mobile app that helps monitor if people take their medications when they should. The app lets users know when it is time for each medication.

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The ability to video conference is a very modern one that was once the stuff of science fiction and spy shows. But now, the achieved technological level affords individuals and businesses the ability to actually teleconference from anywhere in the world. While there are many companies that manufacture and develop remote conferencing technology, Polycom continues to make some of the most innovative. One of their premiere devices is the Polycom HDX 4000 Series. Read more »