Computers have become ever more complex, but as they are now a vital object in every household, users have become ever more divorced from their inner workings. No matter if they are browsing the web with 30 tabs open, streaming music through Spotify, watching House of Cards on Netflix, or editing photos with Photoshop – people expect their computers to “just work”.
When a user runs into trouble – either the computer freezes, won’t play a video properly, or any other problem most do not have the basic confidence to investigate the problem themselves and look to others for help.
So where should you look for help?
Web forums and Q&A sites
The millions of users of specific pieces of software like Windows, OSX, Photoshop, and others means that communities have sprung up around their users. These forums offer a wealth of information, with the vast majority of issues already commented upon and fixed by users.
A quick search of forums such as SevenForums or Eightforums for Windows Users, or MacRumers for Apple users should provide answers to most questions, and the beauty of forums means that if your question has not been answered, then you are free to ask for help. Knowledgeable people frequent these communities, and most questions are answered swiftly and for free.
Q&A sites like StackOverflow also offer a variety of questions and answers form other users that may have had similar issues, and again if you cannot find your problem asked previously, then you can ask yourself and knowledgeable people will likely answer your question within a few hours.
Half of the world’s population are connected to the internet today, and that means in all likelihood you are probably not the first person to come across the issue you’re facing. A quick Google of the error message you are getting, or the symptoms you’re seeing and you may well find that someone has blogged about the problem and provided their tips on how they fixed it, or previously asked the question on an unknown forum and another users has given them advice.
It is worth noting that on rare occasions, you may find so-called “answers” from trolls looking to cause a little misery and confusion by getting inexperienced users to wipe their harddrives, or more unscrupulous people trying to get people to install a virus or trojan, but Google tends to filter real answers to the top of the results.
Professional help
Sometimes the issue may be too complex for most people to solve even with the internet as a guide, or you may just not feel comfortable with following the advice given by internet strangers – and this is when it is always useful to have the phone number of your local IT support service. It doesn’t matter if you’re looking for IT support in Essex, Glasgow, Bristol, or a small town – people are there who have made it their business to help in these situations.
These IT professionals can quickly diagnose exactly what problems you are facing and take the appropriate action, whether that is as complex as replacing a motherboard or carefully removing a virus, or as simple as making sure you have the Silverlight properly installed so you can watch Netflix.