You may recall in June my house was struck by lightning knocking out a good deal of electronic equipment (reference blog: Nature’s Fireworks). Fortunately my computer was not plugged in at the time and the damaged electronics were plugged in to two separate surge protectors. (The DVR and the garage door also got bamboozled, but those are another story). The ‘clean-up’ required multiple telephone calls for technical support and two visits to the local office supply store. In all, it took 10 days and 10 people doing a lot of troubleshooting to get my office back to 100 percent operational.

Highlight. Nearing the end of the troubleshooting saga, the router rep exclaimed, “You’re a good troubleshooting buddy!”

I experienced nothing but top notch customer service providing technical support during this recovery period from four separate companies varying in size from ‘big box’ to small business.

The thank yous go to: Charter Communications: Tom, Jeff and Dave onsite along with Abdul and Dylan offsite. Hewlett Packard: Jose, Sara, Maria; NetGear: agent #46301; and Shaun Selman at NC IT Professionals, Inc. who always exceeds the call of duty every service call.

Here are some tips from Sean Donohue, Demand Media in the article: How to Troubleshoot a Computer That Won’t Start Up After a Lightning Storm.

Mother’s Nature surge of energy in a single lightning strike during a summer storm knocked out integral pieces of my business equipment. Fortunately, I was able to maintain operations implementing “Plan B” and “Plan C.” This flash in time triggered a chain of troubleshooting events that required a great deal of expertise, effort and patience.