Questions Asked and Answered for Tech and Open Source Tools
Do you work outside of an environment where you can get expert access to help with technology questions and questions related to your favorite open source tools? One of the problems with open source platforms and applications is that they don't always come with robust support and documentation resources. What do you do if you’re trying to solve a PHP or Python conundrum and you're on your own? What if you have a web design question but there’s nobody there to provide an answer?
The good news is that there are a lot of good, free resources for technology help online, including help with open source tools, and you usually don’t have to wait long for good answers. Here are some good resources for next time you have a tech conundrum.
Try the forums. For anyone who works on the web, the free forums at W3Schools are terrific for getting speedy responses from people who know what they’re talking about. There is a “General” forum for questions of any type, but most of the popular forums are on web development and design topics. You’ll find forums on HTML, JavaScript, using Flash and other multimedia tools online, and more. Also, as I’ve written before, the free tutorials at W3Schools’ home page are really outstanding.
Protonic.com. I’ve found many good answers to my tech questions at protonic.com. It’s populated by a large community of volunteers who answer questions, and answers usually come back quite quickly, although you sometimes have to wait a few hours for a question to be “picked up” by the community. You can ask questions on anything from HTML to what hardware to buy and get good responses.
You must log in and provide a valid email address to ask a question. The service is completely free.
Open source questions? If you use any open source applications, from Firefox, to the GIMP graphics application, to Linux, to many more projects, you can always ask a question at OStatic. Just log in and click on “Question” in the toolbar above the OStatic blog to type your question in. OStatic is partly a blog, but also a database-driven site with an active community of open source users. Usually, they provide excellent answers to questions on open source apps and platforms.
Hit the help desk. At AskMeHelpDesk, you can get free answers to tech questions. The site houses many categories for questions, and not all of them are on technology topics, but there are many experts available who can answer questions on everything form web development to smartphones.
While the answers you get from these resources will usually be high quality, it’s important to fact-check them. One good practice to adopt: post the same question in multiple forums and compare the answers you get.