Computer Support Blog

The 2015 Q1 RESCUECOM Computer Reliability Report has arrived, showing longstanding contenders in reliability battling for the top spot along with a surprising comeback in one manufacturer’s reliability.

The Computer Reliability Report takes a manufacturer’s market share of computers and tablets in the U.S. and compares it against the number of tech support calls RESCUECOM receives for that manufacturer’s products to determine a reliability score. Read more »

RESCUECOM has tallied up all the computer repair calls it received, including tablets, for the 2015 Q1 Computer Repair Report, showing a surprising leap in certain problem areas.

The Computer Repair Report is created by tallying the data from all calls RESCUECOM receives at its 1-800-RESCUE-PC call center to form a list of the most common computer and tablet problems. RESCUECOM ranks the top ten computer repair problems in order from most frequent to least and explains them by category, creating a useful tool to inform users about the threats their tech devices face.

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As businesses grow and more people discover that the Internet is not as daunting a tool as they might initially suspect, you might be inclined to build or maintain your own servers for your business.  While the initial set-up of your own server farm may be out of your league if you are not especially computer savvy, monitoring and maintaining your servers has become easier in recent years.  One element that may make it easier to maintain your servers in-house, without the need to hire a specialist, is server-monitoring technology.  Tripp Lite makes several pieces of server-related technology and the Minicom SmartRack 116 16-Port KVM may make monitoring your servers very easy. Read more »

Connecting advertisers and potential customers through all of the digital devices the average person has today is a daunting task.  In fact, very few companies have effectively managed to exploit every possible device and network as a viable revenue stream.  Even sites traditionally known for their success using ad revenue on the Internet, like Facebook, have had some issues with monetizing on a mobile platform.  PubMatic is a company that, in 2006, saw how the Internet was branching into a multiplatform media no longer simply utilized on home computers and developed software that allows advertisers to spread their message effectively across every type of computing device.  Mukul Kumar is the software engineer who makes the PubMatic vision work! Read more »

In the wake of virtually every tragedy involving gun violence, the media and politicians talk quite a bit about responsibility.  While responsibility is easy to determine in incidents where a shooter or group of shooters does violence against others, in situations like accidents involving unsecured firearms (or firearms that were secured, but some element of that security failed), upon whose shoulders the responsibility rests may be harder to judge.  Regardless, technology now exists to make it far easier to secure your firearms and other valuables so that accidents are less likely to occur and so you might avoid losing your valuables to burglars.  Some worthwhile personal security technology is present in Barska’s Standard Biometric Keypad Safe. Read more »

It does not take long, when shopping for new technological gadgets, to realize that every major manufacturer of tech has a different way of connecting, recharging, powering or operating their devices to make them distinctive.  For those who do not want to ally themselves to a single corporate standard and would like to buy gadgets from a wide range of manufacturers, they either end up spending a lot of time figuring out how to maintain each of their devices or they end up spending a lot of money to be able to recharge and synch all of their devices simultaneously.  Callpod, the makers of the ChargePod, FuelTank, and other connectivity devices, saw that problem and has been steadily working to make the lives of consumers much easier.  A lot of the credit for Callpod’s success comes from Craig Lurey. Read more »

Power is rapidly becoming the hardest aspect of mobile computing devices to improve upon.  Manufacturers continually find new gadgets to add to smartphones and tablet computers, but with all of the new components that rapidly drain batteries, there has been no radical leap forward with manufacturing batteries.  As a result, users have not gotten significantly greater battery life from their mobile devices with the newer smartphones and tablet computers.  This is especially irksome for mobile device users who use their devices primarily for business purposes.  They do not need improved video cameras or more realistic speakers to play digital music; they require reliability and endurance.  While the manufacturers of electronic devices may not be radically improving batteries, peripherals manufacturers are focused on delivering stronger power supplies to consumers.  One of the leading products for augmenting the innate power supply of thousands of devices is the Fueltank DUO. Read more »

Personal computers may no longer be incredibly expensive, but the truth is that – especially in a recession – people are looking for any reasonable way to save money.  Certainly, one good option can be to upgrade components of your computer as opposed to buying a new computer outright.  Now, it is possible to save money and time by upgrading your hard drive(s) in such a way that you do not have to stop using your old hard drive.  By swapping out your current hard drive with a new hard drive (or drives) you can continue to use a single computer with multiple configurations.  To make it work, though, you need an easy way to swap out your hard drives.  For that, there is the Genica 5.25” IDE Mobile Rack Removable Tray! Read more »

Late last year, there was a news story that was anything but real news, despite how the technology and business press covered it: Verizon had outages.  Treated as huge news, because Verizon claims to have the “most reliable network,” Verizon was virtually tarred and feathered for having a few bad days last year, wherein the weather contributed to Verizon services going off-line.  What the sensationalists in the media and business sectors neglected to consider was that Verizon’s claim to be the “most reliable network” did not mean that the service would not fail; it is a claim that their network will fail less than its other major competitors!  Verizon, of course, got service back up and running, but there were weeks of analysis – i.e. how did this failure of service happen, who’s to blame for the failure, etc.  Now, it looks like tech sector enthusiasts are likely to endure a series of similar article. Read more »

Computer repair companies, like RESCUECOM, encounter a wide variety of computer problems every day.  Because there are so many parts of computers that can fail or break down on their own from regular wear, it is distressing to discover how frequently damage to computers is reported from something that is easily preventable.  One of the easiest ways to prevent computer damage and protect your investment in your computer and other electronic devices is to purchase and properly use a good surge protector or Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS). Read more »