Introduction: Operational System and Problem Description
Weirdly enough, sometimes the tiniest issues regarding the operation of a personal computer may block productivity for a considerable time. However, the online assistance of PC users is evolving fast and can provide the user with the information needed for solving major problems nowadays. To compare the efficacy of online support systems, similar messages on a basic computer problem were sent to Protonic.com and Ask Me Help Desk.
Sites Chosen to Address: In Search for an Expert Help
Receiving help from Protonic.com was by far the most complicated process imaginable. Not only was it required that I should include the information about my computer operating system, the browser that I use, and the company that supplies the Internet connection, but also a range of other details including the screen resolution, the e-mail client, the motherboard (since I indicated that the computer was built from parts), etc. Eventually, as the registration was complete, I managed to access the forum and ask the question concerning the font size and color. I pushed the “Ask a question” button and was redirected to a page where I had to specify my problem. After picking the “Operating System Problems” set, I types in “Windows 7 personalization (icons font)” into the title of the card, picked the “general guidance” option and typed the following message into the dialogue window:
“Dear Sir/Madam,
I hope that you could help me solve an issue regarding the personalization of my PC. After changing the wallpaper, I noticed that the captions under the icons became hardly discernible because their color matched the wallpaper (both were dark).
I would not like to change the wallpaper, though. Therefore, I would like to know if there is any way to change the font color. I tried searching the options for font color in Control Panel – Formatting and Personalization, but with little success. Could you help me with the given issue?
Thank you.
Sincerely yours,
D.S.”
Feedback and the Suggested Solutions: Evaluation
Getting assistance from the Ask Me Help Desk was admittedly less complicated and much faster. As soon as I entered my username and password and agreed to the Terms and Conditions, I got an e-mail message similar to that pone received from Protonic.com and was allowed to post a question. This time I had less space to fill in, so I decided to cut my previous letter to a single question: “Hi! Could you tell me how to change the icons font in Windows 7?”
Not much to my surprise, it took very little time for the support teams from the Protonic.com services to handle my request and come up with the solution to my problem. About half an hour after I posted my query, a message from Protonic.com with a practical guide on the personalization of Windows 7 was delivered to my mailbox. The respondent named Paul suggested that I should address the tutorial on SevenForums at the following link (SevenForums, 2013). The guide provided by Paul Illingworth helped me a lot since it allowed not only identifying the problem but also closing the knowledge gap that I used to have about the specifics of the Windows 7.
After rating the provided assistance as excellent, I returned to my e-mail box to check for the reply from the Ask Me help Desk, yet it obviously had to take a while longer with the given service. Finally, the response from the support at the Ask Me help Desk ensued, informing me about my query being answered by one of the site administrators. The note from Curlyben, the administrator, ran: “This covers everything for you: Desktop Icon Font Color – How do I change the font color of the text – Microsoft Community” (Ask Me Help Desk, 2013). As much as I appreciated the assistance provided by the administrators of the site, the quality of their assistance still could not match the one that I had from the support at Protonic.com.
The solution to my problem was, in fact, rather simple. According to the manual provided by the Protonic.com support member Paul Illington, all that it took to witch from black to white font color was changing the color scheme of the desktop.
Comparing the experience that I acquired after receiving help from the aforementioned services, I have to admit that the interaction with the Protonic.com can be defined as the most fruitful and overall successful experience in locating the problem and solving it. Although the process of interacting with the support member was even shorter than the one with the support staff from the Ask Me Help Desk, it still provided the exact answer that my question needed, while the response from Ask Me Help Desk was rather misleading.
Conclusion: Technical Support. XXI Century
Nevertheless, the given example of communication with the support groups from two different free online services shows that the evolution of the companies dealing with problem-solving of computer-related issues is happening at a very fast pace. While the given phenomenon may signify the degradation of users’ computer skills, it clearly shows that the computer-related problem solving has been taken to an entirely new level.
Reference List
Ask Me Help Desk (2012). Home. Web.
Protonic.com (2013). Homepage. Web.
SevenForums (2013). Tutorials. Web.