The Art Of Troubleshooting

A useful, entertaining and unusual guide that turns troubleshooting into an art form.
Debut author Maxham, a founder of a data-mining company who also pilots airplanes, is the kind of guy who likes to figure out how and why machines break. It occurred to him that this skill—troubleshooting—is one that everybody should learn: “I want to put you back in control by giving you the tools and mindset needed to have a healthy and productive relationship with the machines in your world,” he writes. The brilliance of his handsomely packaged book is in how he generalizes troubleshooting for virtually any machine or system. He offers numerous strategies for how to assess, address and fix problems, and his solutions run from the obvious (turn the machine off and on again) to the complex (“[M]alfunctioning parts, each with their own patterns, can act together to produce much more complicated and intermittent failures”). Maxham occasionally employs some unexpected methods, such as when he applies therapists’ skills to computer programming, because, he says, “machine problems are actually human problems.” Maxham’s study is a highly intriguing work that’s a deep-dive how-to guide for service technicians of any ilk. However, the book could be equally valuable to lay readers who are keen on learning how to diagnose problems. Although Maxham uses several technical examples and discusses theories that may be a bit advanced for some readers, he lightens the book with well-chosen, cleverly captioned color photographs to illustrate conceptual points. Several tables and diagrams also act as useful supplements. Overall, Maxham’s style is informative, engaging and laced with humor.
A quirky read that may be a breath of fresh air for professional and novice troubleshooters alike.