@neil that's a great tip!

[benbradley@hachyderm.io]

@neil I was actually reading this while waiting for my PC to finish booting and the screen I was waiting to not be black was not plugged in.

[ncrazed@fd00.space]

@neil applies to rope climbing "pre-flight" checks too. Just because you're both tied into the ends of a rope correctly doesn't mean that it's the same rope.

Don't just buddy check, system check!

[thirstybear@agilodon.social]

@neil Most excellent advice.

Also, make sure said cable has not been chewed in half by foster kittens. (There lies a sad tale of the demise of a web cam 🙄 As far as possible everything I now use has replaceable cables rather than integrated)

[davidbcohen@twit.social]

@neil @TheBreadmonkey Technical support from the Viz letters page here.

[ojs@c.im]

@neil another corollary: when working in VM management, make sure your on the right host before hitting reboot on the host (that is not the host that has production VM's).

[faithfulljohn@mastodon.scot]

@neil 😂 This is not unknown to me 😳

[tautology@infosec.exchange]

@neil I've not been this person before. No, never, well, not this week.

[slothrop@chaos.social]

@neil Ah yes!

Me recently: I’ve been doing computers professionally for more than 20 years now. I’m good at this!

Me: why won’t my second monitor turn on? Surely the display driver software is misconfigured. Let me check.

(20 minutes of focused search for the error)

Me: wait, maybe I’ll go check the HDMI cable, just to be sure.

No prizes for guessing what the problem was 🤡

[zebulonmysterioso@mas.to]

@neil so many of the fails in these replies are way too close to home.

[pavel@mastodon.arch-linux.cz]

@neil That never happened to me

(lied someone in the replies)

[alex@social.moreati.org.uk]

@neil call it a case study. Then we can all admire your level-headed holistic joined-up professional analysis, and industry best practice.

[cejjacobs@mastodon.social]

@neil an old tip 😂 https://youtu.be/mxF9yYaG1jE

[fluffykontbiscuits@mastodon.social]

@neil I do this all the time 🤣

[david_chisnall@infosec.exchange]

@neil

In related advice: if you think you have fixed a bug and it looks like it’s still there, it might be worth double checking that the copy of the program that you’re testing is actually the one containing the fix.

[toxy@mastodon.acc.sunet.se]

@neil Cheers Neil. That’s an absolute gamechanger. I’ve become much more productive. This is what winning must feel like.

[m0rpk@mastodon.radio]

@neil @drgeraint Also a valuable tip for live music performance…

[guigsy@mstdn.social]

@neil A couple of years ago I was in the office and the guy next to me spent a week on a critical issue. Pulling in many other people. The new kit to drive a critical business process wouldn't connect. Reinstalled everything. Hard reset network gear and rebuilt configs. Bench tested every bit of kit and switched things out that were known good. Turns out a "fresh out of the bag" 2m patch cable was faulty.

[greem@cyberplace.social]

@neil This is what's known as Quantum Cabling.

[_elena@mastodon.social]

@neil happened to me so many times 😂 they should make rainbow-colored cables, why are they all black or white?