Do you ever have days when you’re so busy with technical issues that you feel like a voodoo hex has been put on your computer? Well, that was my day yesterday.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love technology and I love solving problems. But I’d much rather spend my time creating design solutions and experimenting with new technology than encountering programming and hardware issues. So the day was a bit of a challenge to say the least.
No matter which way I turned…
…I encountered a technical issue.
• It all started when my blogging platform WordPress stopped allowing me to upload image files. And then all the internal links on my blog stopped working, too.
• After unsuccessfully trying to identify the issues on WordPress’ online support forum, I turned to my web hosting service at 1and1.com. The very nice, competent technical service person walked me through two programming changes to get my blog working normally again.
• Not to be left out, my Apple wireless mouse became stuck within a rather small radius despite its wirelessness. Then it just stopped selecting anything and had to be reset. Bad mousie!
• And after weeks of lusting after new web fonts, I downloaded Cufon, a pretty popular blog plugin. But to my great disappointment it didn’t work for me. I’m going to check out @font-face and the webfonts at fonts.com to see if I can find a better solution. I know I will!
PHEW! I’m glad that’s all over with.
The Takeaways
1. Assuming the wait time is short, calling for technical support is often much faster than searching FAQs or using an online support forum where many well-meaning people sometimes offer bad advice.
2. One technical problem can trigger a whole host of seemingly unrelated issues. Be sure to share all the details whenever talking with tech support.
3. Take a little tea break when you need it.
4. Stick to the problem-solving process and you will eventually conquer what seems like the most insurmountable difficulties.
5. Be as sweet as a cupcake when talking to technical support people. They’re there to help fix your problems so you can get back to doing what you love to do.
6. Decide in advance how much time you want to spend troubleshooting a problem on your own. Once you hit that time limit, pick up the phone and call for help.
7. You might feel just a little bit smarter when you’re finished working through these problems even if you don’t know how you’ll apply it in the future. It’s kind of like algebra.
8. Don’t let the lure of outside distractions take you away from the task at hand.
9. Kitties want to eat no matter what kind of technical issues you’re having.
I know today will be a better day. In fact, it feels like it’s a hundred times better already!
xo MaryMaru
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