Software

To my knowledge TechRepublic offers no such service.

There would need to be a list of "masters" and the subjects they are "masters of" and the hours of availability.

Here, almost all questions are answered at least once pretty quickly. Almost all administrators have various tasks and duties and cannot know everything about everything. How fast a response is generated will depend on your time-zone and whether other people are logged in at the same time and whether the problem is clearly defined, etc.

Most always a specific question can be best answered by the manufacturer of the hardware or software with the problem. I know that response is not quick, mainly because manufactures are in the task of manufacturing, and technical support is not a $'s generating department.

TechRepublic makes money compiling and selling technical documentation. This is forum for dicusussion and q&a etc., a form of knowledge; e-mailing back and forth on an individual basis only helps one person.

While TR does not offer a paid 1 on 1 service, there are a number of such services on the Web.

I found this one with a simple google search

http://www.askdrtech.com/?source=google

As with any for fee service, check them out before signing up.

Chas

There's another site called www.keen.com. There are different types of advisors. You can look up the technology section and find topic and the person you want to call.

It is on a per minute basis and you can check out other user ratings and credentials before you call. It gives you the listing based on the persons availability so if they are unavailable you won't see them listed, unless you reach the end of the list.

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