Finding the help you need online.

Google is the obvious first choice when looking for help online; being sure of course to measure the information against the source. Example: While Wikipedia is a great source for information, don’t go into the classroom (or courtroom for that matter,) and list it as your source. This month Cameron talks about a couple of other good ways to find the information you need online.

The internet is often referred to as a great tool for learning, but in my experience it is highly underutilized in this capacity. I think the biggest cause of this is that it’s not always easy to find the information we need. There are tons of user groups and information databases out there. Some are free and some are not, but most require some form of membership to get full access. This usually means I have to join someone’s mailing list just to wade through tons of information just to get the answer I need, if it’s there at all. Of late, I’ve gotten to the point I’m fed up with user groups. They do have some merit but ultimately don’t work for me outside of software.

The first site to check out is Wolfram Alpha (http://www.wolframalpha.com/). It’s a new site with a great concept and design: You pose a question or subject and it returns more information than you’ll ever want. It was started by Stephen Wolfram for the purpose of making the knowledge of the entire planet computable. An example of this can be found in Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. A computer was built to answer the meaning of life, and that answer is 42. If you watch the introduction video, you’ll see that the GDP of France compared to Italy returns the same kind of answer, but also includes nice graphs and related topics such as a breakdown of each country’s GDP. This website is a wealth of knowledge on everything from weather to politics to everything mathematical. It’s well worth keeping on your favorites list.

Wolframalpha is a great research tool, but what if you need instructions on how to perform a task? Say, for instance, that you need to install a transmission in a 1995 Saturn and you’ve never installed one before. YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/) is the place to go. You can get video tutorials, usually with commentary/instructions, for absolutely free. For all of the weird, crazy, and just plain dumb things you can find on YouTube, it has become my go to for tutorials on anything hands on. I’m a hobby musician and find it a great resource for using software or learning new techniques. You can also learn to solder a circuit board or renovate a house through this site. Many of these videos are posted to help sell more complete tutorials offered by their creators, but they’re useful nonetheless.

So, before you spend your hard-earned money buying books that will be used once try these two sites. Reading seems to be losing ground among my generation thanks to technology, but that doesn’t mean we have to stop learning.