Dude, where's my shotgun?

Rick pointed out to me tonight that I haven't put up any shotgun articles for a few days. It was at that exact moment that I realized that I hadn't written any shotgun articles for a few days.

I have some catching up to do so consider this article one of the most important articles I have written for several days.

When I fix a computer I try to always approach the computer and the situation as if it were my own. I work hard at using techniques that allow me to get the best job done in the least amount of time. I ask myself three questions to determine the approach that I want to take.

1. How long will it take to fix the problem?

2. Is this problem worth fixing?

3. Are there tweaks or workarounds that can be done to make the problem less of an irritant?

If a person is trying to get their digital camera to work with their Windows 95 computer, I usually recommend that they throw in the towel and get a new system.

Occasionally, I have a client who has a very small problem that they have allowed to become a major irritation. For example, I once had a client with a Solitaire program that would no longer remember high scores. That is what she called me about. I worked on it for an hour. I researched the problem on the Internet, I installed and uninstalled Solitaire. Nothing worked. I told her that I couldn't do anything about it. I felt terrible. I would consider this problem not worth fixing, but she felt otherwise. She did change her mind though once I explained (in a nice way) how my hourly wage worked.

Just today I saw a client who couldn't view PDF files on one specific website using Internet Explorer. I installed Firefox and it worked just fine. While I could have spent an hour trying to figure out why IE wasn't working, the Firefox solution was faster and made more sense.

Probably the most common decision I have to help people make where the ends must justify the means is whether or not to totally reformat the computer and start over.

I charge 2.5 hours of labor to reformat a computer and start over. Often when you try to troubleshoot a big problem like spyware or a nasty virus, it can take more than 2.5 hours to get rid of it. Even at that point it has often done enough damage that the computer will never run the same as it did pre-virus.

If I spend half an hour on a computer and can't see any progress I usually begin considering whether the reformat would be a better option than picking at the problem. When you erase a computer, you erase all software problems and replace them with a fresh new setup.

I am not as much of a computer repair guy as I am a computer therapist. 

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