I have been using PC Help Forum to call on the experience of others to help me solve some computing problems.


In the course of this I updated my profile and gave my PC Experience as 'Very Experienced'. This seemed justified as I started using PCs back with MS DOS 3.02 then continued up to the final version of DOS and then on to Windows 3.1, 95, 98 and at present XP. I have installed, used and customised and uninstalled many programs and solved the problems that this often caused. Work was initially received and returned by post. Then e-mail came but one could not attach binary files so one had to set up a direct link between computers with one going into host mode - there were often difficulties with configuring the communication software. Then it became possible to attach files by encoding word-processing files etc as text (Uuencode) and decoding them on receipt. Special software was needed and often there were difficulties. Usually I was able to sort out any problems myself using the help pages of programs and a bit of trial and error, especially error! Indeed I was often able to sort out the problems of others.


Computing has become more and more complex and if it works it is fine but when something goes wrong it has become much harder to find solutions oneself, despite the wealth of information available via the internet. It is here that I am finding forums such as this so useful. One can use the experience of others to solve a problem or alternatively provide a solution from one's own experience.


And this made me think a bit. No matter how much experience one has, one can always learn from somebody else, even if they have had very little experience. If, despite having little experience, they have solved what you are finding a tricky problem, then their help is just as valuable as that from a fully fledged expert with lots of experience.
I believe it has been said that a problem is not a problem if you know the answer. So, no matter how good you are if you don't know the answer it is a problem. Despite my experience I now seem to be finding more problems and, although I am still finding solutions to many of these by myself, forums can often make the task easier by the sharing experience.


Derek Shaw

Very well put Derek.

We are forever learning.

Yep you get a lot of IT specialists which know a lot about one area e.g. networking. But there isn't many people who know loads about all areas and there is always new things to learn