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Many computer problems
are easy to solve

Many times when I get together with colleagues, we like to reminisce about the "good old days" before Al Gore invented the Internet. We like to ask ourselves "how did we do such and such before the Internet?" Well, we called bookies, exchanged jokes around the water cooler, and bought our periodicals in brown paper bags.

Contrary to the old saying, however, the Internet is useful for much more than gambling, jokes and porn. It really is a treasure trove of information. It must suck to be an encyclopedia salesman nowadays. The Web contains much more information than an encyclopedia ever could.

In the old days, there weren't many ways to get product information, especially for tech products. Usually, this involved making a long-distance call (to an 800 number if you were lucky). Alternatively, some vendors had fax services, where you negotiated through an automated attendant to request information to be sent to your fax machine. Finally, for true old-time geeks, you could use a service like Compuserve or even AOL, which were text-based and dial-up only.

Funny, though, it never ceases to amaze us how often seemingly tech-savvy folks are at a loss as to how to use the Web to its full potential. On a regular basis, clients, colleagues and friends contact us about specific error messages or other strange behavior exhibited by one of their systems. Most of them are astute enough to write down the message verbatim. But virtually none of them bother to look up the offending message before firing it off to us.

Of course this is expected of clients who pay us specifically to take care of such problems. Nevertheless, the fact is more often than not the resolution to such errors is pretty simple and straightforward. In fact, many times, the answer can be found pretty quickly and easily. How? Simply by using Google or any other search engine and searching on the message itself. Usually, the explanation of the message, and any resolution, will be found in the first few matching links.

This method of searching is especially useful when spyware is detected. Many types of spyware can re-infect PC's even after been removal by an anti-spyware program. Such spyware can only be removed with some manual processes, such as editing registry entries. If you see a particular piece of spyware that shows up again and again, you should probably look it up in Google. If there is a manual removal procedure, it will be documented .

Another trick to using Google is to search the Google Groups. Formerly known as Usenet or News, Google Groups is the descendent of quite possibly the oldest electronic message board in history.

Simply click on Groups at www.google.com and you will search information provided by everyday people.

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