by Stever Robbins

Recently my audio recorder developed a strong hiss in the right ear, every time I recorded an episode. You can imagine my horror at the thought of needing to buy an entirely new recording setup.

Although our high tech gadgets make our lives a lot easier, fixing them when they have trouble can take a lot of time. More importantly, it can take a lot of attention. Here's a very simple tip that has saved me hours of time dealing with tech support people.

Rather than calling tech support or bringing something in to a repair shop, try this: turn it off. Turn off everything that's connected to the broken device. Wait 2 minutes. Then turn it all on again.

In the last couple of months, I've managed to "fix" almost everything I own by power cycling: my mixing board, my audio recorder, my desktop computer, my USB ports, and my printer.

I don't know why things break. And I don't know why power cycling should fix it. But it does. So if it breaks, try turning it off and back on. And make sure it's plugged in.