Thou must learn how to read a manual. They are your friends and should be consulted before thine family/friend techy

This is probably the easiest posts to write, because all it requires is for the user to either open a book or do a quick google search.

The easiest questions are most often answered in manuals, or product FAQ's which are either included with whatever product is in question, or located on the product's website.

Tip: quick and dirty google search to find a product manual, for example: If I need the manual for an HP DL380 G3 server, my google search would be: "hp dl380 g3 manual", or "hpdl380 dl380 g3 +manual".
Additional tip: most manuals these days come in pdf format, so make sure to grab the free adobe reader: http://get.adobe.com/reader/ - Most office suites (microsoft office or openoffice.org can open pdf's, in the latest versions)

As a help desk tech/administrator, it would be difficult to quantify the amount of time wasted answering (in my opinion) very simple questions, if I had a nickle...

In any event, if the answer isn't located in the literature that accompanies the product, let me demonstrate a quick and dirty google search:

Question - How do I turn on Automatic Updates in Windows XP
Google search syntax: turn on automatic updates xp

Tip: for more complex queries, you'll probably have to comb through several pages and brush up on your google syntax (which I promise to write about in future posts)

In sum, google is your friend and can answer most of life's questions :-D