The Sure-Fire, Can't-Lose, 100% Guaranteed Way to Troubleshoot Every Computer Problem You'll Ever Encounter

Computer problems are maddening; troubleshooting them, more so.

Googling for solutions merely heightens your frustration, spewing masses of inscrutable and useless results.

But my hack lets you cut through the palaver straightaway, to get to the answer you need.

Here it is:

Type a description of the problem—no matter what—and add to it, inside quotation marks, the phrase "piece of shit."

I assure you the solution to your problem will appear in the top one, two or three Google results.

For example:

Excel will not print odd-numbered pages "piece of shit"

or

Lightroom freezes when I save file "piece of shit"

I guarantee my hack works, every time.

By the way, where does hack come from?

The word, meaning "a tool for chopping," dates back to the 14th century and derives from the German Hacke, meaning "hatchet."

But the sense in which we now use the word originated at MIT in the 1950s. Students called any practical joke that employed technology (like welding a public trolley car to the tracks) a hack.