Re: [EE]: stupid mistakes by Timothy Weber .

Mark Scoville wrote: > So I guess the moral is "Don't overlook the easy stuff". Hear hear! I was Main Geek at a startup around fifteen years ago. I was supposed to be programming but of course helped troubleshoot everything from Solaris workstations to the fax machine. During that period I developed: ---------------------------------- The First Rules of Troubleshooting 1. Is it plugged in? 2. Is it turned on? ---------------------------------- I never found a third rule that applied so often as these. What was most interesting was the variety of *ways* they can apply, especially with a creative enough definition of "plugged in" and "turned on," where you inspect each piece of the system (hardware or software) that can connect to others and/or be enabled or disabled. Mark's story sounds very familiar, though - I guess the third rule might be: 3. Describe the problem to someone unfamiliar with it. A lot of the time, the third party doesn't even have to say anything - just the act of describing the situation reveals some high-level error. -- Timothy J. Weber http://timothyweber.org