When in doubt, read the manual

By Dave Moore, 7-9-06

The acronym “RTM” is widely used in the computer geek community, and is often used in reply to dumb questions that are posted to Internet computer repair forums.  If the person posting the question would simply “RTM” (Read The Manual), they would see that their question had already been answered.  Extremely dumb questions posted by people who are obviously too lazy to RTM are sometimes met with the less polite reply, “RTFM.”

Computers are complicated gizmos, requiring precise actions by the user in order to perform a desired function.  Computers are also stupid, in that they can only do what they’ve been told.  They cannot “think” on their own, and guess what it is that you are trying to accomplish.  Click the right icons, push the right buttons, and you can make a computer do amazing things.  Just start clicking away willy-nilly, and you’re often left scratching your head, wondering why nothing seems to work like you think that it should.

I recently had to repair two computers, one, belonging to an attorney, and the other, to a music teacher.  The attorney had downloaded and installed a “beta” version of Microsoft’s new Internet Explorer 7, which was causing some of his favorite program features to misbehave.  If he had read the description of what “beta” software is all about, he would have learned that “beta” means “experimental.”  In fact, regarding Internet Explorer 7 “Beta,” Microsoft states quite plainly, “Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3 should not be used on production systems in mission-critical environments.”  This translates to, “Don’t use this program, unless you are willing to break your computer.”

The music teacher had installed some buggy trackball/mouse software on his computer, which was causing it to exhibit the infamous Microsoft “blue screen of death.”  Had he read and followed the easy-to-find instructions from the manufacturer’s website, he could have avoided paying me to do this chore for him. 
Sadly, the majority of computer users have spent so little time learning how their machines work that they don’t even realize that most computer programs come with built-in manuals, called “help files.”  This situation led popular programming author Joel Spolsky to declare, “…it's a good idea to keep two principles in mind: (1) Users don't have the manual, and if they did, they wouldn't read it, [and] (2) In fact, users can't read anything, and if they could, they wouldn't want to.”