Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Unplugged and Plugged In!

Plugging in... 

The last day of 2014. Wow. Technology has seen many changes as have YOU, the users of the new during this year. 

After 27+ years of tutoring, troubleshooting, advising, purchasing and installing... the premise of making sure it's plugged in and turned on still holds. How ironic that is. That one piece of advice hasn't changed. 

The other piece of advice that hasn't changed... unplug it, then plug it back in before calling for help. Just yesterday, that was the "technical" solution for a mis-behaving printer [aka wouldn't print]. Sometimes it is the simple solutions that we overlook. Aren't we thankful when it IS the simple solution? 

When next the Tutor is called upon to problem solve, shop, install or teach, the calendar will have turned and it will be January of 2015. What will the technologists have in our future? The Tutor promises it will be interesting, enlightening, maybe frightening, educational, exciting, and fun. See you in the future. Happy, safe, healthy new year.

 ALWAYS REMEMBER: before calling for help - is it plugged in, and is it turned on?

 Unplugged

Saturday, December 6, 2014

A Heartfelt Compliment

Plugging in... 
Everyone benefits greatly from a compliment. The Tutor received a compliment of the highest caliber on December 4, 2014. After negotiating another aggravating password problem, this is what my grateful client said:

"What would I do without you? I can do without my Cardiologist, but you, you I cannot live without!"

Clearly the client was grateful and exaggerating ever so slightly. But the sentiment was heartfelt, no pun intended. This is one small reason why the Tutor loves this job: clients are always so very happy to see the Tutor!

ALWAYS REMEMBER: before calling for help - is it plugged in, and is it turned on?

Unplugged

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Password Blues

Plugging in...


There are email programs out there that are looking after your safety, even if you are not. How so? They either require you to change your email password within a certain time frame, or they allow you set a reminder to change the email password. What happens when the reminder doesn't work as advertised, as in no email access at all??


An outlook.com user had set the reminder to kick in every 72 days. And kick in it did, but without any physical reminder: no text, no email, no nudge. The user tried to get email on their iPhone, and the dreaded "incorrect password" message reared its ugly head. The same user then tried to login to the email account on a laptop, and the same message appeared. Much head scratching and puzzled facial expressions occurred. The user was convinced that the email account had been hacked.


Not until several more tries on the iPhone to fetch email did the reminder finally kick in that prompted: you must change your email password. That in turn nudged the user to remember that they had set that option, um, 72 days ago.


ALWAYS REMEMBER: before calling for help - did you create a note about the email reminder external to email, and is it plugged in, and is it turned on?


Unplugged

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Happy Thanksgiving, 2014

Plugging in...

A picture is worth a thousand words...



ALWAYS REMEMBER: before calling for help - is it plugged in, and is it turned on?

Unplugged