TECH TIPS
Mailing lists can offer tech help
You are trying to balance the family checkbook in the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, but you've hit a roadblock that's throwing off your calculations. You need an answer fast, but Excel's help menu doesn't offer any solutions.
Or, perhaps, you are trying to move the names and addresses stored in your Palm organizer to a new desktop PC, but the directions in the Palm manual are confusing.
Rather than futilely trying to decipher the instructions or listening to an endless stream of Muzak while waiting on hold for a support technician, you can go to an Internet mailing list or discussion forum and post your question there.
Odds are you'll get a bunch of helpful answers much quicker than if you send an e-mail to a company's customer support department.
"A big advantage to discussion lists is that your question will go to a pool of people who may respond with answers within minutes," said Todd Kellner, vice president of operations for mailing list service provider List-Universe.com. The Green Bay, Wis., company offers the Tile.Net Discussion List index at tile.net/lists.
Internet mailing lists, for the most part, are free resources. They're easy to join if you know where to look on the Web. Mailing list directory Web sites such as Tile.net, or L-Soft International Inc.'s CataList are among the easiest places to start. Each has databases with names and links to sign-up forms for thousands of lists, which you can find by browsing a directory or performing a search for a keyword, such as "Excel."
If you are having problems with Microsoft Excel, for example, a search would direct you to the Excel-G Microsoft General Q&A List.
Posts cover common as well as esoteric questions about the popular program.
Most mailing lists have a procedure for signing up. Some require a password for access; others don't. Some require that you respond to an e-mail or send an e-mail with a particular word or phrase, such as "subscribe" in the subject line to start receiving a mailing list in your inbox.
In terms of sheer numbers, Yahoo! Group's Computers & Internet section (dir.groups.yahoo.com/dir/Computers_Internet) has links to the most lists — more than 140,000, ranging from topics such as stopping spam e-mail to setting up wireless networks to digital photography techniques.
Delphi Forums also links to many computer support mailing lists. The PC Rest Room is one of the most popular. Questions run the gamut from how to fix a balky computer sound card to activating a game that won't install on a particular computer.
"If only it were possible to explain the problem to the (computer's) help directory and have it spit the answer back — but computers are not human," said Gabriela Linares, vice president of marketing for L-Soft International. "To solve some problems, it is necessary to explain it to another person. Mailing lists make it convenient to (do this)."
