by Karelle Scharff

I know how frustrating and scary it can be to deal with computers that aren’t working, so I’d like to suggest some things to do when things go awry.

Many software problems can be solved by restarting. First try restarting the program that’s causing the problem. You might have to force quit the program if it’s hung. On a PC to force quit something press ctrl+alt+delete. This will bring up the task manager. Once the task manager is open, right click the program you wish to close and select go-to process. Then press the end process button. On a Mac, press cmd+option+esc and in the resulting window, select the offending program, press return and then return again. If that doesn’t improve matters, or you can’t restart the application, try restarting the computer. Again, if the computer is nonresponsive, you might have to force a shutdown, but often on reboot the problem will be cleared up. Both Macs and PCs provide a means of turning off the computer without pulling the plug, so use those first and only pull the plug as a last resort.

This also applies to cable /DSL/ satellite modems. If you lose your Internet connection, unplug the power cable of the modem (the wall end goes to an electrical socket), leave it unplugged for a minute or two, replug and try again. If there’s a router, wireless or wired, unplug that, too. Remember, always unplug and replug both ends.

If your computer, or a peripheral won’t turn on, the very first and easiest thing to check is if it’s plugged in. When I say check, I mean unplug both ends and replug them. I have a number of embarrassed clients who insisted their computer/hard drive/printer was plugged in but when I came to their home or office and unplugged and then replugged, turns out that it had wiggled out just enough to break the connection.

This routine goes for USB or firewire cables, too. If, for instance, your computer tells you there’s no printer attached, but it looks attached and is on, turn it off, unplug the USB cable from both the computer and the printer, replug and try again (you might want to clear the printer queue first, otherwise you could be printing a lot of documents, if you tried to print multiple times).

There are a limited number of moving parts on a computer—mostly the hard drive and the optical drive (cd/dvd), and those are the parts that tend to fail first. Of course all your data resides on the hard drive, so a hard drive failure can be catastrophic if you don’t have a backup. There is NO way around the need for a backup. When I say backup, I mean automatic, complete, incremental, and regular, in other words dragging files onto a thumb drive is not a backup system and will only lead to tears and gnashing of teeth when your hard drive fails (please note I did not say if). A backup system can cost as little as $100. In comparison, data recovery starts at $250, can easily cost as much as $3,000, and still only recover part of your data.

Obviously this doesn’t even begin to cover the myriad ways computers can be contrary, and for the other 99.9% of problems, you can save yourself time, aggravation, and money by being observant. Did you do anything differently? Did you load a new program? Is your virus detection software up to date? Was there a power outage? What did you do right before the computer hiccupped? What’s different on the screen? Did you do a system upgrade? Write down your observations, and when you speak to your computer tech, whether it be your 14-year- old daughter, your next door neighbor or a real professional you may actually have answers to some of the questions they might ask.

I don’t want to appear self serving, but unless your computer is not particularly important in your life, or your data doesn’t mean much to you, sometimes it’s not the best plan to turn it over to your kid or your neighbor. If they don’t actually know what they’re doing, they can easily make things much worse and end up costing you a lot more money when you finally have to hire someone to take care of the mess.

But before you do anything, be sure to take a deep breath, hold it for a second, then exhale deeply. If you still feel the need, now you can scream.Karelle Scharff is an information technologist and the owner of Best MacSolutions, is an Apple-certified help-desk specialist, and a member of the Apple Consultants Network (www.bestmacsolutions.com), based in Ward. She provides training, service, and support to small businesses, home-based business, and individuals. Call her at (303) 459-3363.

Karelle Scharff is an information technologist and the owner of Best MacSolutions is an Apple certified help desk specialist and a member of Apple Consultants Network (www.bestmacsolutions.com), based in Ward. She provides training, service and support to small businesses, home-based business and individuals. Call her at (303) 459-3363.