Popular consumer technical support site releases "top 10" list of most popular questions for prior year.
The highly popular technical support site Ask Leo! released its list of the top 10 most frequently visited pages for last year, 2008. "The popularity of those pages is a direct reflection of not only people's interests, but the areas with which they have the most difficulty in their daily computer usage" said Leo Notenboom, owner and operator of the site.
"The information can be looked at in several different ways," he continued, "Looking at it one way, it shows that security and privacy are big issues for many people. A different look shows how popular services like Hotmail and Myspace continue to be.
The most popular page on Ask Leo! for 2008 was How do I make a new MSN Hotmail account?. "It's fascinating to me," said Notenboom, "since this is less an of an issue with making a new Hotmail account being particularly difficult, as it is simply a lapse in Hotmail's documentation. Many people don't realize that in order to even see the option to make a new account you need to log out of your current account first."
Changing and maintaining the password used to login to Hotmail is another hot topic, with related articles appearing in several of the top 10 spots in prior years. This year only the "how to change" the password remained, at the number 5 spot.
Privacy is a concern, but surprisingly from two directions: at the number two spot "How do I delete history items from my Google tool bar?, presumably being referenced by individuals looking to remove damaging or embarrassing entries, and at the number six spot How do I hack into someone's account? "The 'how to hack' article always surprises me," said Notenboom. "I hope that it's mostly people trying to get back into their own accounts after losing a password, since that's a very common topic as well. On the other hand, I'm realistic enough to know that there are bad folks out there as well who are trying to break into other's accounts. That's why it says what is says."
What it says, in essence, is that you can't, and shouldn't, hack into someone's account.
The newest and fastest rising question? How to restore the Windows Recycle Bin icon to the Windows desktop. "As it turns out," said Notenboom, "it's trivially easy to confused the intent of the word 'Delete' on the Recycle Bin's pop-up menu with 'Empty Recycle Bin', further down. People click on Delete without realizing that it's not going to do what they intended." Fortunately for those who make the mistake, the solution turns out to be simple - and popular.
The full list of 2008's 10 most popular tech questions can be found on Ask Leo! at http://ask-leo.com/2008_most_popular_questions.html.
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Leo A. Notenboom owns and operates Ask Leo!, a free technical question and answer sites that helps over a million visitors each month get answers to their tech questions. http://ask-leo.com
