I do a great deal of research every day. Many times it is looking for electronics equipment that Is purchased to perform certain specialized functions. Some of the time I have very little personal knowledge on some of the items I am looking for and have to get educated fast. I used to spend hours on the phone talking to a roldex full of contacts. Many times companies would try to sell me a bill of goods that I found later cheaper and had better specs.
Well the Net has changed the way I purchase electronics gear. I can find most answers, prices and specifications along with a list of companies with minimal searching. There are even databases now that are subscription based that allow you to run such queries and give you a pretty comprehensive list of vendors. In the process I educate myself on the product and when it comes time to talking to the vendor I am armed and ready to make intelligent choices.
Well many of you are performing some of these same types of searches and getting yourselves educated and saving money. But there have been a few times I have been unable to locate some information no matter how hard I have tried and have had to resort to the rolodex and abuse the phone lines for several hours. Most of you do not have a rolodex of goto people to leverage off and are stuck searching the web. Googles Human touch may be one resource you can use if your stuck. But If you are patient I think you can find most anything you just have to dig and be creative using advanced search functions. Happy Hunting [ABC News]