Fix IT Yourself with Google

If you have an IT problem whose solution is not immediately obvious, use Google to resolve your problem. It will almost always take less time than trying to call IT support. As query terms, omit any personal details (username, computer identification) and include the name of the Operating System (OS), the platform (if not inherently associated with the OS), the application, the version number, terms related to the error, and if possible, the exact error message in quotes. ie:

Let me Google that for you.

I’m slightly horrified that there is a need to write this, but even among technical users, there seems to be a widespread ignorance or reluctance to using Google to solve their own problems.

There’s a web page called lmgtfy, apparently for support people tired of answering the same simple question again and again. You type in your search terms and it provides a tinyurl that animates how simple it is to type in a Google search to get the answer. (see Let me Google that for you link above.) It’s a slightly less abusive response than what the BOFH would provide, tho it can be interpreted as somewhat snarky. However, it demonstrates an overwhelmingly frequent truth: someone else has already encountered this problem, solved it, and has posted the solution.

While the ranking algorithms of the major web search engines are closely held trade secrets, all of them try to put the most relevant ones at the top of the search results. All you have do is learn how to phrase your search terms and if necessary, use the advanced search capability to narrow the search, for example to reduce the relevant time window.

One reason for using Google over Paid Technical Support (PTS) is the often infuriating bloody-mindedness of PTS staff. Not that I don’t have some sympathy for them, but you’d think that part of their job is to make you satisfied with their product instead of making you swear that you’ll try to avoid it like the plague.

A PTS call often goes like this:

This was from the Technical Support Line of TBT, (the largest private software company in the world). Is it any wonder that so many suffer from PTSD? It’s like the old Microsoft joke about the airplane lost in the fog (see Lost in Space) except even surlier. For this, we’re paying them for support?

I eventually figured out that the version of Java that TBT provided for a 64bit system was a very old 32bit Java that required the 32bit compatibility libs. It had nothing to do with Java per se or OS versions.

How did I find this out?

As paraphrased above, the paid support from TBT didn’t help (and caused me to waste about half a day jumping thru the various hoops he wanted me to jump thru). So I asked Google. You can read the resolution here, but in the end, it was Google’s indexing and ranking of zillions of web pages followed by some reading that got me to the answer. The reason it took me so long is that TBT, like many proprietary software companies, hides much of their customer support database so Google can’t index it.

The most frequent sequence for me (a Linux geek) is one where I’m trying to install an unusual package and I get a compilation error that leads back to an exotic missing library. Where to find this library? Copy the error message into the Google tool bar and (usually) on the 1st page of hits will be the answer. If it’s not, I try a different set of query keywords or try filtering using Google Advanced Search Page. I rarely find the answer by continuing to read after the 1st page on the same query. And if I’m looking for pre-existing code, I can try Google Code or one of the other Code sites such as Sourceforge or UCI’s own Sourceror.

This specific problem may be quite alien to people who have to support Windows and Macintosh, but the problem domain is essentially identical. A typical sequence that occurs repeatedly is that a program fails and emits an error message. If you’re very lucky, the error message will tell exactly what has gone wrong:

This pretty much explains how to fix the problem.

The more usual is the error message that contains the answer but which is masked by verbiage. The one sent frquently to me for diagnosis is the the ssh error:

It’s a pretty exciting error and explicitly tells you to contact your system administrator. However, it also tells you

What it doesn’t tell you is that all you need to do is to delete line 24 in your /home/<user>/.ssh/known_hosts to remove the error message and continue with your life. While it could be a man-in-the-middle attack, it’s much more likely that a machine rebooted after a configuration change which caused the key mismatch. Since ssh is the most popular terminal protocol, the error message should link to a discussion of this point. Since it doesn’t, the alternative is to paste the most alarming part of it into a search bar, which provides a page of relevant explanations

Much more often is the type of error message:

but even though the error message seems to be intentionally (and malignantly) obscure, there’s a very high probability that someone has run into the same problem enough times that they’ve blogged it or entered it into a public ticketing system, or has consulted a public BBS about it and someone has figured it out (a million chimps typing on a million keyboards). In these cases, if the answer has been found it’s just up to you to find it.

The easiest way is to just paste the error message verbatim into a Google search panel. Remember to remove any information that is situation-specific - it will decrease the accuracy of the search. For example, if the eror message was:

You’d want to query with your.host.name.edu removed from the query string.

It also helps if you give the query some relevant context: the OS & version, the application & version. In the overwhelming number of cases, that’s enough to get the answer.

Should this NOT result in your finding the answer, engage in your own quest to find the answer. In doing so, you’ll get much better response if you phrase the question usefully.

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