Computer Support Blog

Skateboarding has grown from a niche interest to a major aspect of pop culture over the last few decades.  With the interest in skateboarding having increased so much for younger kids, there is a need for a stable source of skating instruction.  Cool person in technology Rob Dunfey wants to fill this need with his company Go Skate.  Go Skate is an online web portal that offers skateboard instruction in various formats to anyone who wants to learn.  Dunfey’s company uses the web to offer those interested in skateboarding a convenient resource from which they can acquire lessons and help.  The site has connections to instructors in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and even Ireland.  Users can book lessons on the site directly.  People can search and filter by both price and location.  Dunfey has even created a gift certificate program for his site.  Gift cards sold in stores such as Wal-Mart and Target work universally as payment for skateboard instructing across continents.  Anyone who has trouble booking a lesson on Dunfey’s website or needs help navigating the site in any way can get assistance from a remote tech support provider.    Read more »

The majority of travel sites essentially handle their business in similar ways.  They focus on specific partners, book through agents that work for the site rather than the transit provider themselves, focus on flights over other forms of travel, and charge convenience fees for booking through the site in the first place.  Cool product FromAtoB is a travel site that doesn’t follow these conventions and attempts to give customers a different, more pure experience.  Rather than have customers book their transit through the site itself as a surrogate, FromAtoB acts more like a search engine. It connects users directly to travel providers themselves.  This difference means that customers avoid unnecessary middlemen, and even potentially avoid unwanted “convenience fees” or extra charges incurred by booking through a surrogate.  FromAtoB lets users search through hundreds or providers and then links customers to those sites so they can purchase their transit and accommodations directly from the source.  FromAtoB wants to de-complicate the process of using a travel website, and this feature is one of its main tools in doing so. Read more »

What if the web worked the same way your smartphone apps did by sending you notifications every time something relevant to you updated?  That’s a question cool product Resultly is trying to answer.  With Resultly, people don’t have to constantly actively search for items or frequently return to web pages in order to see if they’ve updated.  Resultly allows you to “follow” different interests on the web, as opposed to always seeking them out individually.  When you follow an interest on Resultly, you get updates on it through e-mail, on your web browser, or from the Resultly app on your smartphone.  These updates keep you informed when one of your interests has had a status change. On Resultly, you have the ability to follow everything from blogs to musical artists to a pair of boots on an eCommerce site.  Whenever something on the web changes regarding one of your interests, Resultly makes sure you know so you can follow up on it.  This could allow you to keep up with all the aspects of the web you want without having to manually look everything up all the time.  However, anyone who still needs help navigating the web as a whole will want comprehensive home computer support before trying something like Resultly. Read more »

Helping people accomplish their goals is a difficult task.  Psychological barriers and stress often demotivate people from changing their lifestyles or going after things that they really want.  Frank Yu is a cool person in technology who wants to gamify people’s goals and motivate people to accomplish more.  Yu runs a startup and website called Kwestr.  On Kwestr, users add different Kwests to their profile from a list of available options.  Kwests lead to an ultimate goal, such as losing fifty pounds, running a marathon, or writing a book.  However, Kwestr has each Kwest split up into several smaller tasks and accomplishments.  This helps overcome users’ psychological barriers by taking a seemingly insurmountable goals and making them appear less intimidating.  Kwestr also rewards users with notifications and congratulations each time they complete a step of their Kwest.  These small reminders and pats on the back encourage users to push further on each Kwest.  When someone completes a Kwest completely and accomplishes a goal, they receive a badge to show off on their Kwestr profile.  These badges can act as social motivators for people as they can put their accomplishments in a public space online.  Users who encounter problems creating a Kwestr account or creating Kwests for themselves will need computer support services to help them.  Read more »

CoachUp CEO Jordan Fliegal played basketball as a kid and while he loved the sport, he wasn’t very good at it—not at first anyway.  On the CoachUp website, Fliegal speaks about how he was lucky enough to find a personal coach to help him train in his favorite sport.  Through the private coach’s help, Fliegal managed to improve enough that many top colleges tried to recruit him.  He even went on to play professional basketball in overseas leagues.  Fliegal attributes his success to his private coach, and that’s why he founded tech startup CoachUp.  CoachUp is an online service that conveniently connects parents and kids with private trainers and coaches to help them with a sport or activity.  Fliegal attributes finding his private coach when he was a kid to pure luck.  It seems he wants to take luck out of the equation and make private coaching available to as many young people as possible with CoachUp.  This cool person in technology is using the connected world to try to help kids achieve more in their athletic activities. Read more »

Being a professional artist is a struggle for many, as young and talented creators saturate the field in today’s art world, making it harder to acquire a fan base.  However, the Internet has become an incredibly valuable resource for artists to reach admirers and carve out their niche in the wider art loving populace.  Daniel Arroyo is a cool person in technology who has built a website that leverages the advantages of the Internet to help artists as they find their audience.  Artgonia acts as a platform for artists who want to share their work and build a network of fans.  Arroyo’s website utilizes social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus in order to help budding artists and photographers reach much wider audiences.  Artists can share their art through unique Artgonia profiles to try to make their work go viral on the web.  Any artist who is interested but doesn’t know how to create social network profiles that help them take full advantage of Arroyo’s site should seek out an online computer support provider. Read more »

Finding new products, books, music, movies, or activities you want to try isn’t always easy, even with all the resources the Internet provides.  While sites like Amazon provide customer reviews, they are from strangers whose tastes and experiences may not be the same as your own.  This difficulty remains present even in places dedicated to reviews specifically such as Yelp!, TripAdvisor, and Google review pages.  While these reviews can give people general ideas about the quality of different media, products and activities, they don’t compare to recommendations from people whose opinion someone trusts the most, such as friends and family.  Qwinti is a cool product in technology that attempts to resolve this concern by giving people a social platform where they can review and recommend any experience they have, but keep those reviews within the confines of one’s social network.  Qwinti only works through Facebook.  This means that only friends and family see anyone’s review of a product or experience.  This strategy aims for people to get better recommendations that are more relevant to them by limiting the pool of potential reviewers to only the people that a consumer trusts.  Anyone who has problems installing Qwinti on Facebook will need online tech support to assist them with setup. Read more »

Many education-based tech startups are trying to offer online courses and content directly to students through their own brand and website.  While these companies do occasionally collaborate with certain universities for course content, 2U CEO Chip Paucek is a cool person in technology believes in a different path for online education. Paucek wants to provide universities the tools and resources they need to create their own online degree programs.  Rather than offer online education directly, 2U works with schools to help them provide online classes and degrees to their students through a university’s own site and with a school’s own branding.   Paucek and his company concern themselves with forming complete courses and programs that fit into a genuine degree track rather than offering piecemeal educational content or single classes.  Paucek wants to help colleges utilize online classes to increase their reach and produce substantive courses that are in line with a college’s traditional offerings.  Because of this, Paucek doesn’t market 2U towards the public or students, but rather at universities themselves.  2U provides both technology and consulting to help colleges integrate large-scale online programs into their infrastructure quickly and efficiently. Read more »

New crowdfunding sites seem to pop up every day since Kickstarter blew up on the tech scene.  Most sites focus on one particular industry or type of project that can benefit from the now-popular model.  Almost all of these sites are very capitalistic in nature, looking for backers to support businesses or commercial music, writing, and art.  There is nothing wrong with helping entrepreneurs or artists chase their dreams, but cool person in tech Beth Schmidt believes there’s another group who could benefit greatly from this concept—poor and underprivileged youth.  Beth Schmidt is the founder and executive director of the non-profit Internet company Wishbone.  Wishbone finds promising young people who do not have the resources to pay for the education that would allow them to chase their goals.  Schmidt’s company then provides them a space on the Internet where backers can crowdfund their education.  Rather than use the crowdfunding model to invest in single projects or startup business, Schmidt wants people to invest in a proven resource for society’s future—smart, young students.  Read more »

Having a dedicated platform to promote and sell your art can have a significantly positive effect at any stage of an artist’s career.  Getting access to such a platform early on is particularly helpful in the crowded world of fine art.  That’s why cool person in tech Alex Farkas created UGallery in 2006.  UGallery is an online platform that promotes and sells artwork specifically created by artists who are still young in their careers.  Farkas knew the web could be a powerful tool for leveling the playing field between new artists and established ones.  That’s why when he formed UGallery, he chose to target the emerging crowd of painters, illustrators, and photographers rather than chase after established names in the world of gallery art.  UGallery’s model is dependent on newer artists submitting their portfolios to the curation staff at UGallery, which includes Farkas himself.  UGallery selects the artists they want to promote and then help them set up a presence on their site where they can sell their work to interested buyers.  Buyers who have trouble browsing through choices on UGallery can always contact computer support for help.  Read more »