Computer Support Blog

While many people consider reading books to be a solitary activity, that doesn’t always hold true in reality.  For lots of readers, books are as social of a hobby as anything else.  People create book clubs, use social media and engage in events such as author signings and Q&A sessions just to meet other avid readers and discuss the nature of their favorite texts.  Conversations range from speculation about character motivations to complex academic discussions about story themes.  Now, a cool product in technology wants to harness this social aspect of book reading for profit.  Bookmate lets readers take notes, leave questions, and copy quotes in every book that they read with the app and then share all their notations with all of their friends on social media.  Users can read their friends’ notations within a certain book as they read it on Bookmate and then engage those friends on social media to discuss how they felt about those notes.  Bookmate integrates with popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter so people can even share their notes with friends who don’t use Bookmate.  Anyone who cannot connect his or her Bookmate account to Twitter or Facebook should get help from a remote computer support provider. Read more »

Many people believe the Internet is the answer to anything, or at least that it holds the answer to everything.  Search engines like Google and Bing have made it so people can find answers and hard facts from the millions of websites that populate the Internet.  However, the information people receive through standard search engines and the web is often rote information and limited to simple facts.  There are many times where users need specialized information or want to dig deeper into a subject and regular web searches aren’t the best course.  For these situations, cool person in technology Ben Finkel helped create Jelly, a search engine that uses people’s social connections to find answers instead of web pages. Read more »

Social media has taken many different forms as it has expanded.  People use Twitter for text content, Vine and YouTube for video, and Instagram for photographs.  However, cool person in tech Thomas Clayton believes there is a medium that people have underutilized in social media up to now: voice.  Clayton is the CEO of Bubbly, a social network where users post short voice messages instead of videos, pictures, or statuses.  Clayton’s social network is completely mobile focused.  Bubbly doesn’t even have a basic web based counterpart to its smartphone applications.  In a way, it makes perfect sense.  Since Clayton was creating a social network based on voice communication, why not focus entirely on devices specifically built for voice communication—phones?  Clayton believes that people want to have a literal voice on social media and not just a figurative one. In past interviews, he has described his company’s service as “Twitter with a voice.”  Anyone who has trouble downloading Clayton’s app for their iPhone or Android device will need smartphone tech support. Read more »

One of the most convenient and attractive benefits of staying at a quality hotel when you’re in a new city is having a knowledgeable and helpful concierge to give you advice on the different restaurants, bars, and attractions nearby.  The ability simply to ask for the best sushi restaurant in London or the most affordable steakhouse in Miami when you’re staying there and receive a reliable answer quickly can greatly improve your quality of life.  However, there are plenty of situations outside quality resorts and hotels where you may want access to a concierge for advice.  What about when you move to a new city where you don’t know anyone locally, or maybe you’re backpacking across Europe and saving money by staying hostels rather than hotels?  That’s where cool technology product Agolo can help you.  Agolo is a website that uses crowd-sourced info from Twitter to give you informed advice and recommendations about places to go and things to do wherever you are.  Agolo is trying to be people’s personal concierge no matter where they’re staying. Read more »

Information is everywhere with the Internet these days, but what if you don’t want to be exposed to some of that information while you’re online?  It may seem like an odd problem, but this issue has affected many people.  The most prominent example is encountering TV show or sports “spoilers” when people post a plot element or game outcome in your social media stream before you get a chance to see for yourself.  Zack Shapiro has created a Google Chrome browser plugin that attempts to solve this problem.  Named Silencer, Shapiro’s software actually blocks social media posts on websites like Twitter and Facebook that contain words or phrases that users want to filter out of their stream.  For example, if you recorded the World Series game on your DVR because you missed it while at work but still wanted to go online without learning the outcome, you could block phrases like “World Series” or the names of the teams on your Facebook and Twitter feeds.  This tool could possibly prove useful if one wanted to use social media without fear of ruining the outcome of a game or TV show. Read more »

As privacy concerns and free speech issues become part of almost every news cycle, it is unsurprising that the relationship between technology companies and governments around the world has never been more important.  Scientific progress and the speed of social media have been growing at a far faster rate than the U.S. Government has legislated.  So, it makes more sense than ever for tech companies to hire individuals who have experience in the Federal Government.  For Twitter, that made Katie Jacobs Stanton a very smart hiring choice. Read more »

The rise of the Internet social network has happened with such a speed that it is often difficult to say what the real enduring impact of the Internet social network has been and will be.  To understand what Twitter is trying to convey, as far as what the service might mean to communications and history, a very specific analytic tool had to be built.  That tool was TagWalk and the inventor of TagWalk is Tim Hastings! Read more »

Of all the social networks on the Internet, Twitter seems to be the one that is both the most trendy and least useful.  Limited to 140 characters, Twitter is basically an extended message board for your life where you keep anyone who might be interested up to date on where you are, what you are doing and/or what thoughts are going through your mind.  While Twitter might not be a bastion of deep thoughts or profound ideas, Twitter actually embodies perfectly the “social” part of social networking.  More than any other social network, Twitter acts as a barometer of just what is hip, trendy, and popular in the world at any given moment.  Twitter is the snapshot of both popular culture and current events.  But, seeing the big picture Twitter is trying to reveal can be hard.  For that, you need TagWalk. Read more »

The Internet truly has made the world smaller in many ways.  With communications over the Internet happening virtually instantaneously, the people of the world are more interconnected than ever.  This interconnection between geographically and culturally different people is especially evident on Internet social networks.  Just because the connectivity between people exists in the Internet does not necessarily mean that it is well-understood.  To understand the real impact of online activity, one needs impressive analytical tools like those offered by Gnip.  Gnip needs Chris Moody.

Chris Moody joined Gnip in the middle of 2011.  Hired by CEO Jud Valeski, Moody assumed the dual roles of President of Gnip and Chief Operating Officer.  In the two executive positions, Moody essentially runs day-to-day operations of Gnip.  Chris Moody is directly responsible for the company’s development and while Valeski and the Board of Directors determine the overall direction of Gnip, it is Moody who is responsible for managing the company to get it there!

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