Computer Support Blog

As tablet computers become more of a ubiquitous product in the United States and around the world, it becomes easier for mistakes and mix-ups to occur.  After all, when all iPads look the same, it is easy to pick up the wrong one in a social situation.  Nothing can make you feel like your tablet computer is uniquely yours than a skin that sets it apart from every other tablet computer.  That is where GelaSkins comes in! Read more »

Environmental awareness has become an important factor in all areas of society.  There has been a great deal of research into developing environmentally beneficial or responsible technologies. Researchers at Wake Forest University in South Carolina are concerned with creating green technologies. That is one reason why they have been developing a new method of harnessing heat energy to convert into electricity. Power Felt is the first breakthrough that the researchers have developed to create cleaner, greener, and more sustainable energy. Read more »

Living in a city and owning a car can feel both frustrating and pointless sometimes. Most of the day your car sits in a parking space with no one using it. You have to have a car to get to work, get out of the city for vacation, or go across town to meet a friend, but while you are at work or staying home for the day, your car remains idle, doing nothing. What if your car could be making you money when you are not using it? What if the car could pay for its own monthly payments? Would you be willing to let strangers rent your car for a few hours when you do not need it?  If you answered “yes,” a car sharing service, like the ones offered by the Getaround, RelayRides and JustShareIt apps, might be for you. Read more »

2011 saw some real changes in the world on online video streaming.  As the Cloud rose to prominence thanks to Apple and it advertising juggernaut, some of the traditional leaders in home media found themselves in drastically new positions.  Netflix, for example, was quick to reinvent itself as a digital streaming company, but in the process of price hikes and trying to distance themselves from their DVD subscribers, the company had a much more erratic year than many in the industry thought they would.  With Netflix faltering, Amazon.com was able to make significant strides in the digital video streaming market.  Amazon.com now has a service called Amazon Prime that allows members to stream unlimited videos and receive free two-day shipping on all orders, for only $79 for a year.  Amazon Prime’s video streaming service is now a very cool way to get your movies and television programs on your computer.

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We are using our smartphones less and less for actual phone calls and more for mobile web browsing, text messaging, video chats, and apps. This implies that we do not like calling people anymore, not when it is far easier to simply text them or pull up a website. Of course, that applies to ordering takeout food as well.

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If you use your computer solely for business purposes and look for the most efficient and inexpensive tool possible, the odds are you do not truly understand the idea of a premium keyboard.  There are keyboards that cost consumers hundreds of dollars because they are specialized to niche demographics that have unique demands for how they interface with their computers.  Most of these premium keyboards are marketed to the antithesis of business computer users: gamers.  Arguably the coolest, most powerful premium keyboard is the SteelSeries Merc Stealth keyboard and it is a gamer’s best friend when it comes to interface devices.

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The music industry, which has spent the decade since they effectively sued Napster out of business, has watched their market shrink for years.  The business leaders within the music industry blamed digital downloads of music, specifically pirated downloads, for the steady decline in revenues.  But 2011 showed some interesting trends in the music industry which suggests that the executives may have simply been grossly impatient with their emerging market.

In 2011, for the first time ever, digital music sales grossed more money for the music industry than physical media (compact discs) did.  While the music industry claimed that digital music would outstrip physical media sales back when Napster was in operation, the decade between its demise and the reaching of this milestone suggests that the music industry did not know how to effectively exploit the new medium and sales path.  After all, if pirating music had been the sole problem with the music industry making money off digital downloads, as soon as Napster was shuttered and iTunes started selling digital downloads, the music industry would have met their goal of selling more digital downloads than physical discs.

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Like so many industries, the consumer electronics sector has a vibrant secondary market.  Thanks in no small part to Alpha Consumers frequently upgrading and the consumer culture that fosters the mindset that this year’s new products will be obsolete or uncool by next year, the used electronics market has grown in recent years.  Buyers who are more interested in substance than style or who are simply thriftier than their peers can enjoy significant benefits from buying their electronics in gently used condition.  One of the biggest sectors in the electronics secondary market is in cell phones and smartphones.

However, just like when you are considering purchasing a used car, there are some good rules to live by when purchasing a used cell phone or used smartphone.  Both as a buyer and a seller, you should consider the following:

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Even during the current worldwide economic instability, most everyone would like to be able to donate to charity and help out others.  But just as educated consumers consider the corporate philosophies of big businesses, it is also wise to educate yourself about charities to which you donate.  While a charity will always try to put the most positive spin on themselves in order to solicit donations, objective criteria should be used to determine whether a charity is worthy of your donation or not.  For that, there is Charity Navigator.

Charity Navigator is an Internet site that provides information on charities, much the same way Open Secrets provides information on political donations.  Evaluating objectively using records supplied to the government for tax/accounting purposes, Charity Navigator uses a series of consistent criteria to evaluate the health of a charity.  This allows you to both compare charities and view charities that come close to an ideal using Charity Navigator.

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As the Internet has evolved, one of the ongoing challenges users have had is with the speed at which they are able to send and receive data.  Internet transfer speeds have increased, usually to keep up with the growing file sizes of new programs and applications.  Just as the first modems would take days to transmit and receive over the phone lines the complicated files you use today, greater bandwidth for data transfers provided by fiber optic cabling will someday be entirely obsolete.  Many scientists and engineers are deep at work on creating faster, more efficient means of data transfers.

Researchers from the California Institute of Technology, Florida International University, CERN, and the Universities of Michigan and Victoria, among other partners, have set the newest record in data transfer speeds.  In a controlled experiment, the researchers have effectively achieved a data transfer speed of 186 gigabits per second.

While this news is setting the geek world ablaze, you may wonder what it means to you.  The most prominent example the scientists are using to express what this transfer rate means is that a network with a 186 Gbps transfer rate would be able to exchange the equivalent amount of data as one hundred thousand Blu-Ray discs.  Still not impressed?  Consider the 4G networks for smartphones that have been highly-touted this year.  To be considered a 4G network, the network must run at 100Mbps to 1 Gbps.  That means that the experiment performed at the Seattle conference was 186 times as fast as the standard 4G smartphone network.  The service you get at peak times on your 4G network . . . the technology developed by the research team is 1860 times as fast as that!

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