Excellent point zapdbf, there is an enormous amount of repair questions coming in these days. And search engines have locked on to some very prominent repair related threads we have, driving a lot of specific repair related traffic here. It's not a bad thing, per say. Exposing TechLore to more people is good thing overall. It is skewing the forums though, so I see some of your concerns there.

TechLore has two very distinct sides to it at the moment. Initially, our goal for TechLore was to make it a post-purchase consumer electronics community. Troubleshooting and repair is ultimately a part of the post purchase experience (which we know), but we were hoping that TechLore would (more or less) be a place where gadget users everywhere can discuss better ways to use and integrate electronic devices into their lives. If at the very least, some good discussion on the topic of gadgets in general, and some advice back and forth on how to actually work the tech gadgets we all own. More, "How do I get my DVD player to play photos" as opposed to "My DVD player is broke, what's wrong with it." This philosophy has pretty much held up through our articles and blogs, most with a focus on the "Get More Out of Tech" than the "Fix Broken Tech."

The forums are a different story here, and they don't quite line up with the site philosophy since they're more repair focused than anything else. Not sure why, but it seems difficult to get people engaged beyond repair problem solving questions, which I hope changes at some point or another. We'd love for TechLore to be a more friendly place with more use related questions and lively discussion on all gadget topics. Of course, there will always be a place for repair talk here, and no doubt TechLore.com has become a valuable resource for repair related/troubleshooting help thanks to users like you zapdbf, as well as Larry Dillon, dans-repair-service, and MOtvGuy. 

Our editorial calendar rolls forward, and we'll continue to focus on expanding TechLore's coverage with all sorts of new ideas we're tossing around, and perhaps soon you'll see tech news, more reviews, as well as the healthy diet of useful information we've always provided. In time we hope this will round out the site a bit more, and get TechLore a bit more balanced in all areas.

One move in that direction is the new TechLore Holiday Guide for 2007, which will be a great resource for holiday shoppers looking to find the best gear for themselves and to give as gifts to friends and family. We've got a lot of cool stuff coming there, like the Top 5 Plasma TVs, The Ultimate Guide to Camcorders (including the top picks for SD and HD cams), the best iPod accessories, and a whole lot more. We're even searching far and wide for advanced copies of Black Friday sale ads from retailers everywhere to give tech shoppers a great Black Friday resource focusing only on tech products (because I and others like me don't really care if slacks are 50% off the day after Thanksgiving).

All in all, it's only going to get better and better with each passing day. Tell your friends, TechLore.com is the place to be.

Mind Over Matt'er - Technology musings, opinion, and more straight from TechLore's head geek.