Thursday, June 12, 2008

How to find old user manuals

I find myself referencing the blog LifeHacker pretty frequently in this space. It's a great source for finding tools to make the tech world more applicable to everyday life. Here's another great example of that, SafeManuals online.
Here at the library, we get occasional requests for help from people who have lost the user manual to a television or microwave or so on. Really, who hasn't misplaced something like that or tossed it out thinking it wouldn't matter. Hunting these things down on the Internet is a dicey proposition. Frequently the manufacturers want you to purchase another manual. If you can find a free manual online, chances are it's a contorted, confusing download that carries a high risk of putting viruses on your computer.
Safemanuals carries a measure of respectability -- the site gets its money from advertising. It also features a pretty simply search/browsing process to locate manuals in pdf format.

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