Thursday, July 26, 2018

Bad advice about getting rid of instruction manuals

























When I log off my Hotmail account, I get to view gems like an article from Bob Larkin at Best Life on July 10, 2018 titled 50 things no man over 50 should own. Item # 23 was:

“Young guys cling to their electronics manuals with white knuckles, terrified they’ll need them if something goes wrong with their TV or computer. But by 50, you realize those manuals are pretty much useless after awhile. If you don’t know where the on-off switch is by now, you never will."

After setting up that electronic gizmo you won’t need the quick start guide anymore. They showed you where to plug in the cables, and how to find the power switch. Toss it.

But either now or much later the full instruction manual (which you might have to download) can be very handy. On May 20, 2018 I blogged about More nightlight technology – default settings and doohickeys. That post discussed how I searched the .pdf file of the manual for my new Roku TV to find how to shut off the annoying bright white LED. On a computer there might be a motherboard battery that eventually needs replacement. You really should RFTM (Read That Fine Manual).

My Weber natural gas grill quit working early this summer. When I looked in the manual I found out that to get at (and clean) the air inlet screens for the burners I just had to pull off the control knobs and remove the horizontal sheet metal cover.  

The man reading was adapted from an image at the Library of Congress.

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