QUOTE
Do I have to know how an internal combustion engine works to drive to the store to get some milk?
Nope.
On the other hand, if your
job is to
deliver that milk, it might be wise to know some of the details of the
vehicle you use to do that. Particularly when/if there are differences with a new one you may buy. An efficient worker knows how to use his tools and which one for each task. Certainly, he needs to know how to keep them in good working order and maybe even repair them.
If you are working for some one else, those things may be handled by others. If you are your own "boss" you'll need to do that yourself or have others who can, and you may even have to pay for that help... just like others are paying for yours!
And don't forget, this is a 'help' site. That means there will be very few people posting about that every thing is fine. It would be pretty boring and the only 'help' might be some data showing how many more people have no problem than those who do. As a matter of fact, when I see a site full of super experiences with any product, I tend to suspect the 'reviews' are fake!
People just don't talk about stuff unless they are having problems!
OK, personal experience just a few minutes ago. I noticed when I accidentally made the Dock visible (I don't normally use it for anything, so I keep it out of sight!) that the App Store was saying I had some Updates available. Three were apps, none of which I use much but I went ahead and updated them. Two were Apple items; iTunes something and Epson Printer updates.
First thing I do when I update any important app is to make an archive of the current one. Done. Although doing that for the Epson requires trips to both the OS Library and my user Library and I did a search in Path Finder to be sure I hadn't missed anything. Printers/scanners are notoriously finicky (sorry for the technical term) about drivers and once I get them working, I don't like to spend time fixing what some programmer broke!
I haven't tried the updated iTunes yet, I can always use the one at church if I have to when I burn a couple of CDs tomorrow. But I wanted to be sure my new scanner was working and I need the printer to print the CDs, also. I use the scanner normally from PDFpenPro. Opened it and it reported the scanner failed to connect. Hmmm... Image Capture reported the same thing! Both apps showed the scanner but weren't able to communicate with it.
Opened Print & Scan Pref Panel and there were two instances of the scanner.
I double-checked and there was only one scanner sitting on the desk. Clicked the "+" button to see if it still appeared in the list of devices and it did. Good news. So, which one is the bad one in the main window? Who knows, I just trashed them both and re-installed with the "+" button. Clicking the Open Scanner... button presented a window indicating the scanner was available that way. More good news!
Opened Image Capture, again. Still not able to communicate with it. I clicked the device list/Hide/Show a couple of times and all of a sudden the normal scanning screen came up with all the controls. We're getting there! But PDFpenPro still wouldn't work.
OK, turned the scanner OFF/ON. No change.
Let's do a warm Restart. Success! Now I can feel better about deleting the archived files later this month.
The point is, the computer is not magic. It is simple in the extreme. It only knows "Yes/No" or ON/OFF or 1 or 0. So fixing a problem with it requires similar simple steps or procedures. Do
one thing at a time and test. If the step you took didn't change anything, do
one more thing... and test.
Very importantly, this method also includes starting from a known setup! Preferably a setup that is working normally,
without problems.
Don't make changes in the hardware and then add/change/update several apps and/or the OS and
then test. If there is a problem after all those changes, you will have absolutely no idea what might have caused it or where to start trouble-shooting. Of course, I didn't completely follow my own advice since I did both the iTunes and Printer driver updates together. But I also have a backup plan (two, actually) should I not be able to fix any problem caused by them. Installing all three app updates is much less likely to have created any problems. Very few apps communicate with each other and even fewer from the App Store will be doing that with the new Sandboxing rules.
Working on a computer problem is really no different than working on any other problem.
1. Know what the problem is.
2. Make sure you have the time to work on the problem.
3. Have and follow a plan for finding the solution.
4. Know what you can do and what you can't.
Oh yeah, if all else fails, read the directions!
