Computer Support Blog

The print journalism and publishing industry is shrinking yearly as digital magazines and newspapers become the new standard.  This shift has created a new barrier for those who want to get their publications out to the majority of the market online.  Getting a magazine or newspaper to the widest possible audience now requires technical skills that one did not need in the print era.  However, cool product Prss takes down that barrier of difficulty for professional writers and publishers who want to release their work as high quality digital publications.  Prss is a web platform where users create, design, and fill their digital publications with content. It also includes a distribution service to release those publications globally via the Internet.  Prss gives publishers the tools to design and create their own mobile app for their digital magazine even without excessive technical knowledge or skill.  Readers can access the apps you publish via digital distribution services such as Apple’s Newsstand in iOS.  If you don’t understand what Newsstand is or how it works, an Apple tech support service will be able to help you. Read more »

The video entertainment industry has seen a massive shift in its business model over the last several years thanks to the success of subscription-based streaming sites like Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Amazon.  Following these changes, music-streaming services like Spotify and Rdio also grew rapidly and proved the subscription model works for music as well as video.  However, there is one form of entertainment that until recently was still untouched by the purely digital subscription model: books.  Cool product Oyster wants to change that with a monthly subscription model for eBooks.  The team at Oyster has seen that the market proves that subscription-based entertainment is a viable business model and they want to prove that eBooks are the next form of entertainment that can benefit from this system.  Currently, they offer a monthly subscription where users can access any of their library of 100,000 books on any iOS device as often as they want.  If you have concerns about using your Apple products to read books, find Apple tech support to learn more.  Read more »

Geotagging has become a useful tool for many consumer technology startups and services. Travel and hospitality websites and applications see the ability to attach information to specific locations digitally as a way to add new features and increase convenience for their customers.  However, cool person in technology Pedro Valdeolmillos doesn’t think geotagging’s benefits should be limited to locations on land.  Valdeolmillos founded tech company Bloosee to help sea-lovers take advantage of this technology as well.  Read more »

Many of us remember sharing story time with our parents as kids or even to our own kids as parents.  The tradition of storybooks remains strong because it is a strong bonding experience between parent and child.  Mobile technology has made it even easier to share this experience with your children wherever you are, as mobile apps for narrated and interactive storybooks have become more and more commonplace.  However, cool person in technology Woody Sears believes he can make it even easier and more convenient with his new service iStorytime.  iStorytime is a subscription-based service that offers a large, growing collection of digital storybooks to its customers for a monthly charge.  Parents can also buy these digital storybooks a la carte within the iStorytime app.  Sears wants to consolidate the digital storybook experience into one app, so parents have an instant collection of books for their kids whenever they need it.  In theory, this takes away some of the headache of finding new material to read to your kids.  It also ensures that children have access to more varied content to help them learn. Read more »

Lost it again?  A new app for your phone will make it easier to find than ever before.  The Tile App, a product developed by Reveal Labs, is a thin device with a double-sided adhesive to stick to virtually any surface.  Place the tile on your laptop, wallet, keys, guitar, bike, or whatever else you have the tendency to misplace.  In fact, Reveal Labs states that the app can handle up to 10 tiles on one account. Great for the individual on the go who just can’t seem to keep their stuff all together! Read more »

It’s always the right time to throw a steak on the backyard grill.  An app from iDevices takes some of the pressure off the grill chef by monitoring your food via your Apple or Android device.  The app developed by iDevices may be the perfect solution for your next party or just right for the non-stop schedule you keep.  Read more »

Have you ever imagined being able to manage your postal mail as quickly or conveniently as e-mail?  Jason Seriff certainly has imagined it.  In fact, he probably imagined quite a few different ways to accomplish the feat while he was developing snail mail management software as Outbox CTO and cofounder.  Seriff is a cool person in technology who founded Outbox with the hopes of creating a system that made handling postal mail digitally simple for people everywhere.  Along with cofounders Will Davis and Evan Baehr, Seriff set out to make people’s lives easier by erasing the need to handle physical mail that you don’t want to manage.

Outbox is a service that allows you to handle your postal mail via the web, iPhone, or iPad.  Once you sign up for the service, you give the company access to your mail.  Outbox then collects your mail, scans it and stores the files.  Users can then use Seriff’s software to view and manage their snail mail digitally on their computer devices.  Read more »

With so many professionals using mobile and touch technology nowadays, it was inevitable that someone would make software to optimize presentations on such devices.  That cool person in technology is Brent Brookler, the CEO of Treemo Labs.  Brookler and his company have created an iPad app called Flowboard.  Flowboard allows users to create dynamic presentations right on their tablet.  Brookler and his company designed the app to have an easy-to-use interface.  In theory, Flowboard allows people to create presentations more easily by avoiding complicated menu systems.  Brookler wants to make it so laptops aren’t necessary for professionals making presentations for meetings on the go.  In some ways, Flowboard is his attempt to let people replace their work laptops with iPads in certain situations.  Those who want to do so should make sure they have iPad support to help with the transition. Read more »

While the rise of the eBook market has made self-publishing a viable concept for new writers, the process of getting your eBook onto online retail stores can still be complicated and difficult.  However, a new company called Tablo is looking to change this aspect of the self-publishing process.  Tablo is a cloud-based company that offers authors tools to not only help format their novels and short stories, but also easily publish them to online retail stores with a click.  This attempt to disrupt the eBook industry could potentially save many writers hours of time and stress if it delivers on its promise of an easier solution.  Authors want to spend more time honing their craft and less time navigating the complicated route to getting their work online.  Tablo is a cool product that’s in a position to capitalize on this market. Read more »

Smartphones, tablets, and computers have made the digital distribution of entertainment media a major industry in the last decade.  While the first major changes came in the music and film industries, recently the publishing industry has seen major shifts towards digital markets as well.  However, it’s not only prose that people read on their computers and mobile devices these days.  With his company Comixology, David Steinberger has helped to make comics a part of the digital publishing industry as well.  Comixology sells digital comics for reading on the web, on tablets, and on mobile devices.  Readers can buy comics in both the shorter, more traditional issue format or as larger collections of issues in many cases.  Comixology has allowed comics to storm on to the digital market thanks to the vision of its CEO, David Steinberger. Read more »