Brainlitter » Simple But Effective Techie Troubleshooting Tip

Simple But Effective Techie Troubleshooting Tip

Someone asked this on Experts Exchange today, so I posted my 2 bits. As someone who daily runs into a ‘gosh, that’s weird or new’ in technology, I find this simple but effective technical troubleshooting/research technique very useful.

As simple as my comments might be, if you aren’t doing this ‘method’ when googling/investigating errors, etc. maybe you should try it (lots of FUD out there, I find this method is useful for wading through the bumpf). I’m sure, like me, you only want to apply the fix ‘once’.

 

If I have an obscure error, EventID or something that isn’t descriptive enough, I do the following…

 

I google errors, EventID’s, etc. but I take that information with a grain of salt as lots of people post ‘expert’ answers but are completely bupkiss.  Here’s my approach.

 

  1. I do my search as specifically as I can on Google. But because there are a lot of folks apparently posting ‘expert’ answers, who quite frankly, post horrible/bupkiss answers, I take that info with a grain of salt and I…
    1. For the 5 or 6 that look reasonable/accurate, I use the ‘open in new windows’ option in IE (or Firefox) to open them all and still maintain my reference page (i.e. don’t close it, you may find yourself going back or wondering how you found the info in the first place). I don’t care for the ‘open in New Tab’ option in this scenario, as I might use another article as the ‘lead page’ for another round of deeper searching and tabs get full/hard to sift through quickly.
    2. I skim all of the various posts and if I find a common theme/answer, then I consider applying it

 

 

As a picture is worth a 1000 words, here’s what I mean specifically…

 

Do your search and open the results in new windows or tabs

 

 

‘Build’ your approach, document the actions you take and apply the fix

 

 

Also, my favourite resources (though hardly gospel or in any particular order) are…