See ???Dealing with Drivers and
Other Tales of Hardware Troubleshooting,??? later in this chapter, for
details.
How likely is it that someone else has encountered the same problem I have?
This is often the most useful question to ask yourself, because the odds
are that someone else not only has encountered the same problem (anything
from an annoying software quirk to a deafening application
crash), but has already discovered a solution and written about it in
some online forum. For example, there??™s a Windows Vista discussion
forum at http://www.annoyances.org for this specific purpose!
Am I asking the right people?
If you??™re having trouble connecting to the wireless Internet at the airport,
don??™t call your plumber. On the other hand, the computer store
won??™t be much help with a jammed pressure-balance valve. Again, it
comes down to isolating the source of a problem, and this is one of the
hardest things to do, particularly when the technical support representative
on the phone is insisting that your problem is not his problem.
How much is my time worth?
This last tidbit of wisdom comes from years of experience. Some problems
require hours and hours of fruitless troubleshooting and needless
headaches. In some cases, it makes more sense to replace the product
that??™s giving you trouble than to try to fix it. Keep that in mind when it??™s
four o??™clock in the morning and Windows refuses to recognize your $15
flash memory card reader.
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