Before you start work on a misbehaving thing

Today I was fighting a vintage-lit Christmas tree that I finally gave up and will tackle trying to fix it next year when I take it out from storage. Either it will get a string replaced or if I’m really adventurous I’ll change the string to LEDs. I had all the necessary parts: Replacement light bulbs. A bulb tester. But what finally made me give up for the year was a part of a string – mind you not the entire string – that when I changed the fuse bulb to make it turn on, the portion of the string was much brighter than the rest of the tree. Clearly there is some other problem that I haven’t gotten to the root of yet. If I leave the fuse bulb in, that portion of the string will blow, burning out all of the bulbs in that section. Needless to say my patience for the project was over. Enough for the day, I marked the offending string, put it in the tree bag and went on to other projects, like putting the rest of the boxes away and baking a Galette des rois.

It reminds me of working with computers that are misbehaving. Make sure you have the necessary spare parts before a project even if you are merely investigating something with your computer. Before you start, do you have a backup? Preferably before the issue started occurring. Do you have another “thing” that you can use to search for solutions? This “thing” can be another computer, a tablet, and in a pinch a phone. If you think the issue is related to the hard drive, do you have a spare SSD drive? If worst case scenario occurs, do you have the original cdroms to reinstall your applications, or these days, do you know the usernames and logins to log into a site and download them again?  Can you get to the Internet on an alternative thing to download a copy of Windows, or do you already have it on a flash drive to reinstall should you need to take that action.

Do you have your passwords written down or documented, or in a password manager program so that you can easily log into a site or a place even if you don’t have your main computer working?

Bottom line, plan ahead and have the necessary “tools” to deal with the issue. But don’t forget one more thing  — if you get really frustrated — walk away. Set it aside and come back to again tomorrow. You will have a clearer mind to deal with the frustrations, and might find the exact reason your Computer, or in my case – my Light string – is deciding to misbehave. Often with technology, a good night sleep and a clear head is the best thing you can do for yourself and for the tech you are trying to fix.