Free Tech Support!
Updated on April 20, 2007: now includes Neowin.net and Ask Me Help Desk.
Although my company makes money by helping people and other companies with technology, it is without hesitation that I bring you some information on free tech support!
With free tech support, you get what you pay for. But if you have a question or a small problem that has been annoying you for a while, these four sites might be able to help. I don't have any connection whatsoever with any of these web sites and bring them to you as a public service.
For the sake of a quick comparison, I'll be using an example of needing help with Microsoft Word. For any of these sites however, your question could be about any computer help.
All Experts
According to the blurb on their web site, "Allexperts.com is the oldest & largest free Q&A service on the Internet". They use volunteers to answer questions. You fill out a web form with your question and they answer it. The first place to look (on any site) is to search their archive to see if someone has already asked the question. AllExperts has an alphabetical question archive for topics, including Microsoft Word. They are not limited to computer questions, and have experts on pretty much anything you can think of, from accounting to zoology.
After an expert answers your question, it is posted for everyone to see and people can rate the helpfulness of the answer on a scale of 1 to 5. They also list related articles in case you want to find out more information.
The only big downside to this is that if you weren't clear enough asking the question, or didn't understand the answer, you may not get the answer you are looking for, and you may need to repost your question on the web form. You also choose a single expert to answer your question, so you will not see the benefit of alternate answers from others.
Ask Me Help Desk
Ask Me Help Desk is a general help community that works by signing members up to their forums, and has their members and experts answer your question. The forum is for members only, thus you must sign up to read answers or post questions, but membership is free. They have 60,000 registered members, with dozens or hundreds that are regular helpers, depending on the subject area.
Computer Hope
Computer Hope uses multiple tools to help. They have a dictionary, tips pages, question & answer pages and a public forum. Although you could start by using the general search feature, I suggest clicking on the Free Help menu item. The general search does not report forum search results and the advanced search wasn't working as of the writing of this article.
In the Free Help area, you can start with a search of the main database. If you don't find what you are looking for, by all means try searching the forums. Usually the forum is the best place for obscure problems. If you do not find the answer you are looking for, you can go to the forum index and ask your question in the relevant forum. Register yourself a username first so people can identify you.
Computer Hope is a good site with a lot of answers and help.
Free Tech Support
Free Tech Support is a web site with free support on a wide range of computer topics, and they also include support for Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems too. Their support comes in three flavours: live chat, forums and email.
The live chat feature is great when someone is there to answer, but sometimes you'll find the icon says "Leave a Message - Live Help Offline". This type of support opens up a little window where you and the tech support person type live messages to one another in real-time. Many professional tech support departments use this and it works very well.
The forums are not nearly as active as Computer Hope's, but the range of help appeared to be both prompt and knowledgeable. As with Computer Hope, you aren't required to register but I recommend it, especially if you ever come back for more questions.
They also have support by email if you don't want to use live chat or forums (or if they're down). They mention that this is the slowest method. I recommend using the forums so that others who have the same problem might be able to search and find a quick answer. I didn't notice any Microsoft Word questions on the site but perhaps they may answer most of them through their live chat system.
Free Tech Support is also another good resource for help.
Google
The last (and perhaps most valuable) of the free tech support sites is none other than the Google search engine. Most computer technicians I know use this daily for a quick reference. For instance, let's say you want to learn how to set the margins in your Word document. You are using Microsoft Word 2003, so you'd go to Google and type in this search term: microsoft word 2003 set margin. Take a look at what Google finds here!
Instant answers from multiple sources. You don't have to wait for someone to answer, and you have a choice of hundreds of answers. When you use Google (or your own favourite search engine) to search for tech support questions, make sure you include the full name of the software product and the version number so you don't get an outdated answer.
Neowin.net
I have been a member at Neowin.net since April 2006, and their forums are free to sign up for and use. A membership is not required to view the questions and answers as with some other services. Their focus is on computer technology. The one thing that attracts me to Neowin.net is that the level of expertise is very high, with such topic areas as hardware overclocking, computer programming and database development for instance. Their forums and forum search feature are a little slow, but the results are worth it, as Neowin.net usually answers your question quickly and thoroughly. It is one of my favourites.
Conclusion
Hopefully between these four free tech support sites you can find the answers you are looking for when you get stuck! Google is my personal favourite. If you have your own favourite let us know!
Although my company makes money by helping people and other companies with technology, it is without hesitation that I bring you some information on free tech support!
With free tech support, you get what you pay for. But if you have a question or a small problem that has been annoying you for a while, these four sites might be able to help. I don't have any connection whatsoever with any of these web sites and bring them to you as a public service.
For the sake of a quick comparison, I'll be using an example of needing help with Microsoft Word. For any of these sites however, your question could be about any computer help.
All Experts
According to the blurb on their web site, "Allexperts.com is the oldest & largest free Q&A service on the Internet". They use volunteers to answer questions. You fill out a web form with your question and they answer it. The first place to look (on any site) is to search their archive to see if someone has already asked the question. AllExperts has an alphabetical question archive for topics, including Microsoft Word. They are not limited to computer questions, and have experts on pretty much anything you can think of, from accounting to zoology.
After an expert answers your question, it is posted for everyone to see and people can rate the helpfulness of the answer on a scale of 1 to 5. They also list related articles in case you want to find out more information.
The only big downside to this is that if you weren't clear enough asking the question, or didn't understand the answer, you may not get the answer you are looking for, and you may need to repost your question on the web form. You also choose a single expert to answer your question, so you will not see the benefit of alternate answers from others.
Ask Me Help Desk
Ask Me Help Desk is a general help community that works by signing members up to their forums, and has their members and experts answer your question. The forum is for members only, thus you must sign up to read answers or post questions, but membership is free. They have 60,000 registered members, with dozens or hundreds that are regular helpers, depending on the subject area.
Computer Hope
Computer Hope uses multiple tools to help. They have a dictionary, tips pages, question & answer pages and a public forum. Although you could start by using the general search feature, I suggest clicking on the Free Help menu item. The general search does not report forum search results and the advanced search wasn't working as of the writing of this article.
In the Free Help area, you can start with a search of the main database. If you don't find what you are looking for, by all means try searching the forums. Usually the forum is the best place for obscure problems. If you do not find the answer you are looking for, you can go to the forum index and ask your question in the relevant forum. Register yourself a username first so people can identify you.
Computer Hope is a good site with a lot of answers and help.
Free Tech Support
Free Tech Support is a web site with free support on a wide range of computer topics, and they also include support for Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems too. Their support comes in three flavours: live chat, forums and email.
The live chat feature is great when someone is there to answer, but sometimes you'll find the icon says "Leave a Message - Live Help Offline". This type of support opens up a little window where you and the tech support person type live messages to one another in real-time. Many professional tech support departments use this and it works very well.
The forums are not nearly as active as Computer Hope's, but the range of help appeared to be both prompt and knowledgeable. As with Computer Hope, you aren't required to register but I recommend it, especially if you ever come back for more questions.
They also have support by email if you don't want to use live chat or forums (or if they're down). They mention that this is the slowest method. I recommend using the forums so that others who have the same problem might be able to search and find a quick answer. I didn't notice any Microsoft Word questions on the site but perhaps they may answer most of them through their live chat system.
Free Tech Support is also another good resource for help.
The last (and perhaps most valuable) of the free tech support sites is none other than the Google search engine. Most computer technicians I know use this daily for a quick reference. For instance, let's say you want to learn how to set the margins in your Word document. You are using Microsoft Word 2003, so you'd go to Google and type in this search term: microsoft word 2003 set margin. Take a look at what Google finds here!
Instant answers from multiple sources. You don't have to wait for someone to answer, and you have a choice of hundreds of answers. When you use Google (or your own favourite search engine) to search for tech support questions, make sure you include the full name of the software product and the version number so you don't get an outdated answer.
Neowin.net
I have been a member at Neowin.net since April 2006, and their forums are free to sign up for and use. A membership is not required to view the questions and answers as with some other services. Their focus is on computer technology. The one thing that attracts me to Neowin.net is that the level of expertise is very high, with such topic areas as hardware overclocking, computer programming and database development for instance. Their forums and forum search feature are a little slow, but the results are worth it, as Neowin.net usually answers your question quickly and thoroughly. It is one of my favourites.
Conclusion
Hopefully between these four free tech support sites you can find the answers you are looking for when you get stuck! Google is my personal favourite. If you have your own favourite let us know!
Labels: free tech support help
posted by Peter at
12:10 AM
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