Computer Support Blog

It’s difficult for any small business to become profitable without taking credit cards as a form of payment.  So many people pay exclusively with their debit and credit cards that incorporating some sort of credit payment system is pretty much a requirement, even for one-person ventures.  Unfortunately, integrating credit card payments into a business can incur both extra costs and complications.  Flint is a cool product that takes the recent advances in mobile technology and uses them to make adding a credit card payment system to a small business model much easier.  Flint turns smartphones into credit card scanners with no extra attachments.  Rather than forcing salespeople to carry around a separate device for credit and debit payments, Flint simply uses a cell phone’s camera to scan cards visually.  Users simply act as if they’re taking a picture of the front of a card.  The app then scans for the credit card number.   All users have to do after that is input the verification code from the back of the card to complete the transaction.  This system could save many one and two employee businesses much of the hassle that comes with accepting credit cards.  Any users whose cameras are broken will need iPhone repair or Android repair services to use the Flint application. Read more »

Gift giving is often a stressful experience for the giver and disappointing for the person receiving the gift.  No matter how well someone knows a friend or family member, there will always be times when that person chooses an awkward, inappropriate or just plain bad gift.  Jifiti is a cool product that uses mobile technology to try to get rid of this problem.  Jifiti makes a mobile application that facilitates gift giving for both givers and receivers.  Jifiti works with Facebook to help friends give each other items that they actually want.  Users can add gifts from any store or vendor to their wish list.   They can add potential gifts either through e-commerce websites or by taking a picture of the gift in a physical store.  The Jifiti app will recognize the gift from the image and label it appropriately in the wish list.  Other users can then browse friends’ wish lists in order to find gifts that their friends actually want.  Then, when people find gifts they want to give, they can simply click the gifting button on Jifiti app.  Jifiti charges the giver and sends a voucher to the giftee immediately.  Each voucher is instantly retrievable through any online or in-store vendor with whom Jifiti partners.  This process removes a lot of hassle from gift giving experience and ensures that users receive items they actually desire.  If the Jifiti app doesn’t work properly, users can always contact smartphone tech support. Read more »

There are several tech startups that aim to digitize the gift card industry, but most of them focus entirely on the consumer side of the equation.  These businesses focus heavily on convenience for those receiving the gift rather than the convenience of the giver.  Cool person in technology Leif Baradoy runs Kiind, a digital gift card startups that addresses this problem.  Kiind considers issues such as needing to issue gift cards in bulk conveniently, as well as the potential needless cost of unredeemed gift cards.  Baradoy’s company even has solutions that cater to businesses that use gift cards as a form of marketing.  Baradoy doesn’t believe that the gift card business should exclusively center on consumers’ use of the card.  His company aims to address every aspect of the gift card business rather than hyper-focus on one piece of it.  Read more »

One of the most appealing aspects of professional sports is the feeling of community fans get when they all cheer for the same team or player.  Hardcore sports fans often tie their team loyalties heavily into their identities.  Because of this loyalty, sports fans can often develop deep and lasting bonds with the rest of a team’s community of fans.  John Wagner is a cool person in technology who is encouraging this bond between sports fans with his iPhone app FANCRU.  FANCRU acts as a hub for sports fans on gameday.  With his app, Wagner combines the features of social networking and a sports news app to keep fans up to date and connected. Wagner’s app both connects fans with up to date scores for their favorite teams, and lets them interact with other fans digitally on gameday.  FANCRU offers real-time scores for all major American professional sports leagues, as well as several international soccer leagues such as the English Premier League.  Each fan on the app also has their own profile where they choose which teams they support so they can proclaim their loyalties to other users.  Those who have trouble connecting the app to a wireless network should call a service for phone computer support. Read more »

Making one’s resume stand out amongst a sea of job applications is becoming more and more difficult as the national job market keeps recovering at a very slow pace.  One type of resume jobseekers are turning to in order to gain an edge over their competition is the visual resume.  Visual resumes forgo the usual long lists of past positions for more colorful charts and pictorial timelines of an applicant’s career.  In theory, this visual style stands out to hiring representatives in HR departments and makes it easier to encapsulate a long and varied career into a concise, one-page document.  However, the trouble with visual resumes is the extra time and difficulty required in creating them from scratch.  Cool product Pixsume reduces the time necessary to create a complete and appealing visual resume with their web-based resume creation tool.  Pixsume users connect their LinkedIn accounts to Pixsume’s web tool in order to import all their background information, including past jobs and education.  Pixsume also imports users’ skills and interests from their LinkedIn profile so that users can represent those skills in their visual resumes as well.  If someone’s LinkedIn profile won’t import information correctly into Pixsume, that user should get access to online tech support to help resolve the issue. Read more »

Cloud technology and wireless Internet have already given us the ability to do things like control our houses thermostat with our phones and perform remote tech support on computers thousands of miles away.  Every day it seems new ideas and products straight out of science fiction become reality.  Goldee is a cool product that may remind you of science fiction as well.  Goldee lets people control the lights in their household with their smartphones, tablets or other mobile devices.  Goldee makes light switches unnecessary and can automatically respond to someone’s movements through a house, adjusting the lighting accordingly.  If Goldee works as well as the company claims, worrying about leaving the lights on and managing their effect on the electricity bill become non-issues altogether.  With Goldee installed, people can adjust the lights in their home to match their specific habits.  The idea that your house can become smart enough to run on its own is that much closer to realization with this cool product on the market.  Read more »