Best PC Support Resource Sites

These sites provide quality resources and services for tech support professionals and advanced users.
Sites on this list were first published in my free "Support Alert" newsletter. If you would like to stay up-to-date with the latest sites, click here to subscribe for free
Tom's Hardware Guide
Everything you need to know about motherboards, processors, video cards, storage devices and much more. News, columns and message boards, plus Tom's legendary hardware guides. Resource sites don't get much better than this and it's all free.
http://www.tomshardware.com/

Hardware Advice
This site is an excellent resource for anyone looking to buy new hardware as well as those who want to get the best from what they already own. There are many product reviews and some of the most active user forums on the web. While at the site, check out the useful weekly newsletter.
http://www.pcmech.com

Focus on PC Support
This is an excellent portal site for all PC support issues. The information is thorough, comprehensive and very well presented.
http://pcsupport.about.com/compute/pcsupport/mbody.htm
FAQShop.com: Help for Systems Managers
This site provides hints, tips and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), relating to Systems Management technologies such as Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS), Operations Manager (MOM), Software Update Services (SUS), Windows, IBM Tivoli, amongst others.
http://www.faqshop.com/
Technical Help Online
Help.com is a great resource for tech support staff, with answers to thousands of questions available online.
http://www.help.com/
Help Desk Resources
A database of help desk products, publications and resources.
http://www.helpdesk.com/
CPU Database
This site has a great deal of information about CPUs - worth reading if you want to know whether it's worth upgrading certain users' motherboards.
http://www.cpu-central.com/
PC Disk Technical specifications for 5500 hard drives and 1500 controllers.
http://www.pc-disk.de/pcdisk/index.htm
The Best Internet Network Information Site
It's been a while since I last visited the DNS Tools site and in the interim it has added a whole batch of new online inquiry tools to its already excellent collection of free services. There are too many tools to describe but if you need to know anything about a web site, URL, email address or web routing then this is the place to go.
http://www.dnsstuff.com/
Computer Virus Myths
The definitive guide to all those "don't read this email because it'll wipe your hard disk" hoaxes. If you're not sure whether to believe a message, check here first.
http://kumite.com/myths
Scrutinize Your Web Site
This site brings together on one page, a whole range of web site validation tools.
http://www.craigcecil.com/checkyoursite.htm
Great Free Support Site
I've mentioned this great site before but after using their services last week, I was again impressed with the service. They quickly solved an annoying problem that had been bugging me for weeks.
http://www.suggestafix.com/
WPA vs. WPA2
Confused about all the Wi-Fi security standards? Join the crew. This article documents the varying standards but be warned, it's not simple. What a mess.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=67

Great Set of Programming Resources
As the web site says, "Free Programming Resources is a directory of links to free programmer resources including free programming tutorials, free online programming books, free compilers, free programming tools, free source code, programming libraries, game programming resources, graphics resources and security tools." http://www.freeprogrammingresources.com/

Top Hardware Site
Excellent collection of hardware articles, guides, and reviews all neatly organized into categories ranging from motherboards through to cases and cooling. The forums are very active with knowledgeable moderators and are quite friendly to newbies. http://www.anandtech.com

Guide to Building an Unattended XP Install CD
This site offers a clear how-to guide with separate instructions for beginners, intermediates and advanced users. When completed you'll have an unattended Windows XP install CD that includes SP2 and all subsequent hot fixes. http://unattended.msfn.org/

How to Reinstall Windows Without Losing Your Data
Worth bookmarking; one day you may need it. Better still, print a hard copy. ;>)
http://pcworld.about.com/magazine/2109p156id111652.htm

How to Run Firefox from a USB Flash Drive
Portable Firefox is a special version of Firefox that allows it to run from your flash drive. It's based on the latest V1.06 release and supports Firefox extensions as well. http://johnhaller.com/jh/mozilla/portable_firefox/

Free Service Validates Web Pages
Most web validation sites tend to either concentrate on syntactical validation or standards compliance. This site, which will check individual pages or whole sites, checks both. If all this sounds too tedious try the second link below. http://www2.imagiware.com/RxHTML/ http://posheika.info/whatevervalid/

What Your Web Site Really Looks Like?
Here you'll find an excellent free tool that shows you how your web site appears to a search engine crawler. Using the tool to browse some familiar sites is an educational experience. For example sites that enclose all their content in frames appear as totally blank. Yes, folks that's right; most search engine crawlers can't see inside frames. Don't take it too hard - at least you now know why your site has never been indexed ;>)
http://www.anybrowser.com/siteviewer.html
Training Movies Galore
This site features over 2000 training movies that you can download to your PC. The subjects covered are mainly about web site and web application development though there are some broader IT topics as well. Subscription costs $25 month but
there are always free samplers available. The video quality is excellent which means you'll need a broadband connection to effectively use the service.
http://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/index.asp
What Task is That?
Whenever you bring up a list of running processes in Windows you often encounter names that are totally unfamiliar. At this site you can look up those process names and find out what they actually are doing.
http://www.thetasklist.com
Free Online Courses Offer High Quality
Check out Hewlett Packard’s on-line university. There are a wide variety of courses available and they are all free. They’re not certified but the quality is excellent.
http://www.hplearningcenter.com/
50 Free Support Guides
Daniel Petri runs an excellent site for MCSE aspirants, but it includes a lot of material of more general interest, too. This page features Daniel's 50 most popular guides. Bookmark the one on re-installing TCP/IP. It's the best I've seen and one day just may save your bacon.
http://www.petri.co.il/top.htm
Linux Made Easy
Getting into Linux for the first time? Then check out the Linux Documentation Project site. It's a gold mine of advice and tips.
http://www.tldp.org/
Find that File Easily
Looking for a particular file? Try searching at FileWatcher where they claim they index over 300 million files on FTP and E-Donkey. If you still can't find what you want, try the FTP search over at AllTheWeb.
http://filewatcher.org/
http://www.alltheweb.com/

Excellent HTML Resource Site
An enormous repository of HTML resources: scripts, tutorials, tips and more. All free.
http://www.htmlgoodies.com
File Format Secrets Unlocked
Wotsit's Format started out with the intention of documenting in detail the many different file formats in use. These days, it has expanded to include code snippits, scripts, utilities and other resources needed to read/write specialized file formats. Check out the section on MS Word DOC format.
http://www.wotsit.org/
Free ASP Tutorials
This site offers a comprehensive suite of free ASP tutorials, many useful scripts, plus lots of links to other ASP resources.
http://www.asptutorial.info/
Secure Programming Tips
This site has a lot of useful resources for those interested in writing more secure code. It's mainly geared to C and its variants but there's lots of other material as well. Oddly enough, nothing from MS. ;)
http://www.secureprogramming.com/
How to Expose Conflicts of Interest
Here's something simple but valuable - a sample conflict of interest disclosure form. Use it as a template for deigning your own. That way you'll be well armed next time you deal with consultants and 3rd party suppliers.
http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-6333-5075406.html?fromtm=e012
Free Training Videos
Thanks to subscriber Cliff Krahenbill for suggesting this site that offers a selection of a dozen or so free training AVI's covering Cisco setup as well as Microsoft Windows 2000 and XP topics. The aim of the site is to sell you more training but there's nothing stopping you from just collecting the freebies.
http://www.techvideos.net/
Get Shareware as Freeware
Great freeware products often end up as shareware. This site offers downloads of the final freeware versions of many such products. Their list of products is not complete but it's still quite extensive. They also feature some great freeware utilities, like The Proxomitron, that are no longer available from their authors.
http://www.woundedmoon.org/win32_freeware.html
Free System Tools
This site offers an excellent collection of free command line tools of use to sysadmins and other tech heads. The two I tried worked a treat.
http://www.systemtools.com/free_frame.htm
Solve Windows File and Printer Sharing Problems
Suffering from invisible network printers? Only able to access data one-way between PC's? Get solutions to these and other common Windows 2000/XP file and printer sharing problems here:
http://www.tomsnetworking.com/Sections-article64-page1.php
DVD Compatibility Table
Not all recordable DVDs can be played on all DVDs players. Find out what can and what can't from this web site. While there, check out the impressive amount of other recordable DVD information.
http://www.dvdrhelp.com
Sounds for Linux
If you're using Linux, you are familiar with the various issues involved in playing MP3 or using MIDI. This site provides lots of useful information about Linux audio software, drivers, sound cards and more.
http://www.linux-sound.org/
Mother of all Motherboard Sites
Everything you ever wanted to know about motherboards including reviews, how-to guides and a good assortment of free tools.
http://www.motherboards.org
Free Wi-Fi Access Points
This site lists free access points in the USA and Canada.
http://wififreespot.com/
Free PDF Conversion
This site provides free online conversion of your documents to Adobe PDF or HTML. Documents may be in DOC, RTF, XLS, PPT, TXT, PDF or HTML. There is no limit to the number of documents you can convert. Simple, effective, free.
http://www.gobcl.com/
What TCP Ports Do
Many of the 65535 TCP ports on your PC are for general purpose use while others are used by specific protocols and applications, legit and otherwise. At Steve Gibson's site you can query the usage of any port number and also test whether that specific port is open on your PC.
http://grc.com/port_1.htm
Free Web Page Content Monitoring
This is a free service that lets you know when the content of a web page you have designated has changed. There are a number of sites that offer this service but what impressed me was the fact that the email you receive notifying you of a change, also details exactly what has changed. This means that you don't have to visit the monitored site as all the information you want is in the email. This gets around a real problem with these services; you get notified of a change only to visit the site and discover the change is trivial.
http://www.watchthatpage.com/