What are three concepts to remember about computers?

 1. Backup, BackUp, BACKUP! Not to one location, but maybe two or more. Hard drives fail; I've had it happen to me on more than one occasion. Yes, maybe you can take your failed hard drive with your beloved photos and documents to an expert who can restore them, but it's easier to keep a couple of 5-6TB external drives to back up to on occasion. My documents, photos, and family history are kept on separate drives as well; and I keep copies of these important folders in the cloud. It's easy enough to restore your operating system and programs, but don't take chances with your personal stuff!

 2. Is it plugged in?

I'm serious here! Yes, I've done this myself! I'm ashamed to say I have too many cables...power, USB [lots of different kinds], CAT-6...too messy. And at times, I've had a USB plugged from a device into a hub that was plugged into itself. I wondered why the device wouldn't work! I remember working as a phone tech for Dell 25 years ago. 
The first questions we would ask the client when a computer wouldn't turn on were, Is the power cable plugged into a working power outlet? Is the power cable plugged into the computer? Is the light switch that powers the outlet turned on? Occasionally, there would be a sheepish, "No" from the computer owner. That job brought a lot of laughs!

 3. It's usually a software problem. Sometimes, users are in a hurry to replace their hardware when it's usually a software problem. For instance, last week, I couldn't hear certain videos on my Android in Chrome, but I could hear Amazon music. And I could hear the videos on my desktop. So, this blew away all the troubleshooting about my Android hardware being bad...didn't need to troubleshoot it as it was fine. I surfed the web for quite a while, finding nothing. I knew that if I added each website as an exception to allow sound to Chrome, I could hear the video. What a pain! So, I decided to uninstall then reinstall Chrome. Wal-la! [Techy for Voilà]. Yes, I had to reset some settings, but at least I didn't have to add a hundred thousand site exceptions to Chrome!

 Well, that’s all for today. My plan is to be more particular about software problems, delving into the details of how to fix something that is really difficult to find a solution for on the internet. Have a blessed day!