What are some other good support sites?

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Summary: I don't have all the answers; I don't even have time for all the questions! Here are some additional resources to get your questions answered.

There are hundreds, if not thousands of technical support sites on the internet. If you search for various problem-related terms, you'll stumble across many of them.

I regularly get many more questions than I can possibly answer, so here are some of the sites that I use, sites that I think you can use, and some of the sites recommended by my readers.

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Sites I Use and Recommend

These are some of the places I turn to when I'm searching for answers, or some of the places that seem to show up near the top of search results that have turned out, in my opinion, to have valuable and helpful information.

In alphabetical order...

Annoyances.org - A lot of helpful information on exactly what you'd think: things that annoy the heck out of us all about Windows. Let's face it, a site with an animation of a Monty Python-esque foot stomping on "Clippy" sounds very promising - and it is.
AskBobRankin.com - Bob's a friend, and one half of the force behind the Internet Tourbus, an email newsletter about interesting topics and places that's been cruising the internet for over a decade.
AskDaveTaylor.com - Dave's another friend of mine, and runs a very similar in structure to this one. Dave covers a slightly broader range of topics spanning technology, business and more.
Big Blue Ball - "Everything about instant messaging". A great resources for news, information and problem solving related any of the instant messaging services.

"These are some of the places I turn to when I'm searching for answers..."
DaniWeb - A discussion forum and community focussed on tech support targeted at IT professionals.
Experts Exchange - A very active and exceptionally helpful Q&A site and forum.
Lockergnome's Problem Solvers - AKA the "Lockergnome Forums". Another forum where a lot of really smart people hang out and help solve posted technical problems.
Microsoft Excel Tips - Allen Wyatt's great site chock full of tips, tricks and answers relating to Microsoft Excel.
Microsoft Support - not always the best written or easiest to follow or easiest to search, but most definitely the most authoritative.
Microsoft Word Tips - Another great site of Allen's, this one full of tips, tricks and answers relating to Microsoft Word.
Practically Networked - Networking related forums, news and product reviews.
The David Lawrence Show - Yet another friend of mine, David's been doing technical support on the radio for years. His daily show is typically pop culture, but the Saturday show, "Online Tonight", focuses on technical Q&A. David also answers many questions on his website.

All of the sites above are included on my "More Resources" search if your search of Ask Leo! doesn't get you the results you're looking for.

Reader Recommended Sites

These sites have been mentioned by readers as being helpful or valuable. Either I haven't checked them out in detail myself, or I have but I've not added them to my "preferred list" above.

Tech Sites, in alphabetical order:

AnswersThatWork
Boards.ie
Help2Go
Protonic
Sysinfo.org (exhaustive start-up list, and BHO list)
Tech Support Guy
The Elder Geek
UpdateXP
windows-help.net
Windows Reinstall
Woody's Lounge

General Interest, in alphabetical order:

If you have a recommendation to add to this list, definitely let me know. Just use the ask a question page and submit your suggestion there.

(I'll not be taking comments on this article - I want to do at least a cursory exam of each recommendation before it appears here. Submit your suggestion here instead. Thanks.)

Related:

Ask Leo! - What are some good tech newsletters?
Ask Leo! - Where do you get your answers?

[Updated: 2007-01-03]

Article 10986 | Posted December 7, 2006

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