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Search Before You Ask

I think people write to me thinking I'm this genius with an amazing memory.  Hardy Har Har.  NOTHING could be further from the truth.  And, I also think they assume when they call Tech Support that these guys know all this stuff by heart.  NOT!!!

Psssssssst.  Wanna know a secret?  Half the questions you ask them or me are new to us too.   Then how do we get the answers for you?  We search.  Is it hard to find them?  Sometimes, but not always.  Could you do it yourself?  Certainly!

Here's an exercise to show you how simple it can be to find stuff:

I must get 3 or 4 requests each week from people who have upgraded from Windows 98 to Windows 2000 and want to know if Windows 2000 has something comparable to 98's msconfig.  OK.....I can answer this one pretty quick now because I've been asked so many times.  Know how I answer it?  I go to my favorite search engine, Google and in the little white box, I type "windows 2000 msconfig" (without the quotes) and hit the "Google Search" button (or my Enter key).  

Up comes a long list of websites which have these three words in their contents, the very first one takes me here.  Pretty quick and simple, eh?

<<NOTE: for more info on msconfig, see Hal Cardona's article on System Resources in this issue>>

Or, here's another one:

Let's say you are working in Excel and get an error message in one of your cells, like #DIV/0!  Well, this one is even easier to find, if you just go into Excel's help files and search for it, or, again, go back to Google and type it in that white box again.  This time the third one in the list took me here.  Instant answer.

So, if you think you aren't smart enough to find these things, think again.  I guarantee you that any technical service that you call or email is doing just this.  And some of you may even be paying for it!

Whatever search engine you choose does not matter, but I prefer Google simply because it has always found me more answers than the others.  And, if you really want to refine your search, you can click on Google's Advanced Search button and narrow your criteria down quite a bit.  But, other good ones are Copernic, a free downloadable search utility or Ask Jeeves, a really user friendly search engine for Newbie searchers.  

So, the next time you have a question, go see if you can find the answer before you tell someone else to do it for you.  Then, if you can't find it, at least you can tell the person you are asking that you tried certain things to no avail.  Most people are more willing to help you when they know you have tried to help yourself.

Linda Johnson is a college instructor of all of the Microsoft Office Programs, as well as Adobe PhotoShop and Windows. She also teaches online distance learning classes in Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher, and Word at Eclectic Academy. She has worked helpdesk and teaches and lectures at many local businesses and tech schools in her area. Support this newsletter by checking out Linda's eBooks, MS Word MAGIC!, Book I: Fonts, Fun & Formats and Book II: Table Wizardry, How To Get Started As a Software Trainer, and her newest series of MSOffice eBook Tutorials and CD