I’m fairly nerd like myself, so I can usually find my way through most technology based problems I have all on my own, heck like most nerds I’m the one people call when they cant get things to work because they don’t understand them. Be that computers, DVD players, alarm systems,etc.

Unfortunately not every one is like me. Their area of expertise is else where and thankfully they don’t complain too much when I call upon them to return the favour I have given them in the past! Everyones a geek of some kind, just that not all of them are IT geeks.

The guys over at AskNerd obviously go through the same experiences as me. Only they’ve decided to create their site around giving people the answers they seek. There are lots of websites out there that attempt to answer the questions of the less computer orientated of us. Yahoo Answers springs to mind from the top of my head. They all work on a similar pretense, the user submits a question and one of the “experts” produces an answer. Usually more than one expert produces and answer and it descends into an argument as to who as the write answer. Also, the experts tend to neglect the fact that most of the time they are talking to people who have a lower to none existent grasp of the subject matter they find so fascinating and the answer becomes more confusing than the original question.

Over at AskNerd, they’ve gone about it slightly different. The site it’s self is a nice clean design, no excessive graphics or adverts to clutter up the page and distract the user’s eye away from the main focus. On the actual meat of the subject, from the answers I read I think the Nerd in question has found the right tone for his answers. I find the way he explains things to be clear and un-confusing, clear of a lot of the technical jargon that most usually like to throw in to show their advanced understanding of the subject (and to stroke their own egos). The answers show a patient expert and they don’t have a sense of arrogance about them. A liberal sprinkling of humor and real life experiences (see the post about Parental Control Software) make for a refreshing and entertaining read.

The only things that detracted from the site for me were the currently low level of answers, something which I’m sure will rapidly grow as the site looks to be quite new, and the search page could do with some work at the moment it appears to just be the standard zoom search page template, its doesn’t feel like it’s part of the site and it’s missing any navigation links on it.

On the whole though I quite enjoyed my visit and I’m sure I will be recommending it to some of my unnerd like friends in the near future.