Regarding the "is it plugged in?" question. A great anecdote I heard was that the support person on the phone asked if the power plug was clean. The user was confused. The support person told them to unplug it, blow the dust out of the holes, and plug it back in. This fixed the problem!<p>The issue was that the power plug was in the socket, but too loose to connect. Somehow, the support person figured this was the case (prior experience?) and knew that if he asked "is it plugged in?" he would get a "yes". Taking the power plug out and putting it back in ensured that it would be in properly. But just asking the person to do that can be faced with push-back or even a lie that they did it (since the power plug <i>obviously</i> was already connected).<p>I always chuckled at the story but did not think it was true. I worked tech support while attending university. One time, I had an on-site where the monitor just stopped working. We went through the standard question on the phone, including asking if it is plugged in, and of course it was. Could not get it fixed over the phone. Once on-site, it turned out it was a loose power cable.<p>I could have avoided an on-site had I only asked them to blow the dust out of the power cable. Maybe this should be added to the questionnaire.