電腦問題束手無策?5個小建議幫你擺脫困境

Always have a reliable backup. You never know when disaster will strike. But mark my words: Every hard drive fails eventually, and if you don’t have a good backup of your personal data (pictures, music, documents) then when your drive does fail, all that data will be gone forever. I recommend a dual backup. Use an external hard drive and a simple backup program so you have easy access to your stuff if you need it, but also spend a little money on a cloud backup solution like Mozy or Carbonite. That way, if your computer is ever stolen or it bursts into flames, you have a reliable copy of your data stored online.

總是有一個可靠的備份。你永遠不知道災難什麼時候會發生。但是記住我的話：每個硬盤最終都會失效，如果你的個人數據(圖片、音樂、文件)沒有一個好的備份，那麼當你的驅動器失效時，所有數據將永遠消失。我推薦雙重備份。使用一個外置硬盤和一個簡單的備份程序，以便你在需要時輕鬆地訪問你的東西，但也花一點錢在像Mozy 或Carbonite那樣的雲備份解決方案上。這樣，一旦你的電腦被盜或起火，你在線存儲的數據就有一個可靠的複製。

Keep a recovery checklist. If you ever have to “rebuild” a computer – reinstall programs, set up email, reconnect to your printer, and so on – I’m sorry. It’s no fun. But it’s even less fun not knowing what to do, or having to aimlessly browse the Internet looking for instructions. Here’s what to do instead: Take the time right now to write down all the steps you need to get a new PC up and running, including all the special settings. Keep that paper printed out (not just stored in your Documents folder) and in a location that you can easily get to when you need it.

記錄一份恢復清單。如果你曾經“重建”過電腦，重新安裝程序，設置電子郵件，重新連接打印機等等——我很抱歉。這沒有任何樂趣。但不知道做什麼更無趣，或者不得不漫無目的地瀏覽互聯網尋找指令。這是要做的事情：現在花時間寫下你需要重啓並運行電腦的所有步驟，包括所有特殊設置。把那張紙打印出來(不僅僅是儲存在你的文件夾裏)放在一個你需要時很容易找到的位置。

Only change one thing at a time. Need to upgrade, fix, or replace a few things? Make changes to your PC or network one at a time. Adding new memory to your computer? Install it, make sure everything still works for a day or two, and then replace the video card. If you change two or more things at once, it can be really hard to know how to troubleshoot the system when things go awry.

一次只改變一件事情。需要升級、修理或更換一些東西嗎？讓你的電腦或網絡每次只改變一件東西。要添加新的內存到你的電腦嗎？安裝吧，確保一切仍能正常運行一兩天，然後更換顯卡。如果你一次改變兩個或兩個以上的東西，當事情出錯時很難知道如何解決系統故障。

The simplest solution is usually the best solution. One of the problems with my home network was that it was needlessly complicated. My wireless extender made my entire network more fragile and convoluted. I tried troubleshooting for a spell, but in the end I did what I should have done to begin with: I replaced the router with a new, high quality model. Miraculously, the new router had the range to reach all around my house and solved all my glitchy network problems without the need for an extender.

最簡單的解決方案通常是最好的解決方案。我家庭網絡的其中一個問題並沒有那麼複雜。無線擴展器使我的整個網絡更加脆弱和複雜。我試着修復一段時間，但最後做了我一開始就應該做的事情：用一個新的高質量的路由器替換了原來的。奇蹟般地，新的路由器覆蓋了我房子的所有範圍，在不需要擴展器的情況下我解決了所有緩慢的網絡問題。

Have a cookie. Having computer trouble? It can get really frustrating, really fast. Remember to occasionally walk away – take a break, have a cookie, and decompress. Then take a fresh look at the problem a bit later, knowing there are more cookies what last one came from.

吃塊餅乾。遇到電腦麻煩？這真的會很快變得很沮喪。記得偶爾走開——休息一下，吃一塊餅乾，減一下壓。然後稍晚會兒用新的眼光看待這個問題，清楚還有最後一個靈感到來的更多餅乾。