A friend of mine called me yesterday because he wasn't able to get on the Internet. Before calling me, he was on the phone with his Internet provider (which I will not name - but it's a big one) who talked him through some troubleshooting steps. They were unable to resolve his problem.

Because he mentioned that he went through this troubleshooting step, I assumed (bad move!) that they took him through the basics. After several minutes on the phone, my friend asked if turning off the modem and turning it back on might help.

-- Insert "OH GEEZ!" response here ---

I couldn't believe that that wasn't the first thing the tech support people had him do. I mean, isn't it always best to start from a known starting point? Reset, reboot, recycle...eliminate some question marks that may have led up to the problem!

Needless to say, cycling the power on his modem corrected the problem.

Most people don't care so much why something happens (unless it keeps happening) as long as they can get up and running again. I guess there is just a lack of good tech support out there. Reminds me of all my calls to Apple about my refurbished G5 system - I think it was my fourth call when I actually got to talk to someone who knew what he was talking about.