When you ask people for help, try to be as specific as possible. Provide all information, such as: What, Where, When, Why, How. This is especially true in the case of IT. Here's a case I've seen occurred recently, asking for help on viewing mail in Chinese, via SMS.

1. Clueless: my pc, can view chinese websites but when chinese emails are sent to me i can't read. why? what can i do?

1. Clueful: Mail prog and browser prog different la. Fix mail prog or view mail using browser.

2. Clueless: How to fix?

2. Clueful: You never tell me what mail prog

3. Clueless: i check my mail online le, www.gmx.net

3. Clueful: So difficult to say the prog you using is it? If firefox change character encoding if ie change encoding to utf8.

4. Clueless: I'm not using program ma i retrieve online...

4. Clueful: Cant help you if you cannot provide specifics. Browser is a program also and not everyone uses the same browser as you.

5. Clueless: But i find it strange why can view websites can't view email via browser. i'm using IE lor.

5. Clueful: Answer given earlier. Change encoding to UTF8 or Simplified Chinese in View menu. Over and out.

My comments
1. Clueful has no idea whether clueless is viewing mail using a mail program, or a browser, so Clueful's reply is to either fix the mail program by changing some settings, or view the mail using a browser.

2. Clueless asks how to fix the problem. The issue is, Clueful cannot provide advice on what to fix, if Clueful doesn't know what is the program right? So, Clueful attempts to find out what the program is.

3. Then, Clueless says that the mail is checked online. So presumably, Clueless is using a browser, so Clueful provides answers for both browsers, Firefox and Internet Explorer, the more popular browsers currently used.

4. Clueless is still clueless. How can you access the Internet without using a program? Here, Clueless claims no program is used. Clueful attempts to give a clue to Clueless.

5. Clueless finally gives the answer that the program being used is Internet Explorer. Grrr... Answer already given, but Clueful remains polite and tells Clueless so.