A very belated Happy New Year to all my readers! If your Christmas was as busy as mine then I do feel sorry for you.
There used to be a saying in the IT world that went long the lines of “Read The Flipping Manual” - commonly known as RTFM - when something went wrong. These days the word “intuitive” has managed to get in the way. Because the operation of the washing machine, bottle opener or car radio, is supposed to be “intuitive” and therefore almost automatic in operation, as soon as there’s a problem, (and I’m not just talking computers here, it’s just about everything that has a working part in it), the average consumer looks it up the internet for an easy solution.
Unfortunately, unless you know exactly and I do mean EXACTLY what it is you are looking for, this generally gets them even more confused and the problem then gets worse because, as you have found out, these things are not “intuitive”, they don’t work by themselves and anything more than just an on/off switch means if it can go wrong, it will go wrong!
Here the actual paper manual generally raises its head. The definition of the word “manual” varies from language to language, country to country and product to product so if you want to be able to discover anything at all, you are at the mercy of the manufacturer of the device who will probably not want you to go within five miles of the inside of whatever has gone pop. Especially if it has actually gone “pop” and you have scorch marks on the outer casing!
To give you an idea of the range of “manuals”, you can take it from me that the manual for a television is as nothing compared to the schematic and repair manual of a fuel pump for inside the wing of an Airbus A330, yes, there are such animals and pretty complex they are too so there are wide variations in how easy it is to read a manual..
So the reason for this long story is to let you know that there ARE people who can read manuals and sometimes it is relevant to your problem.
Call me on 07714 016830 if you would like me to read a manual for you to solve one of your technology problems.
‘Til the next time, don’t forget I’m always available on the phone.