how to report a bug

Steven Frank has an excellent post on reporting software bugs in OSX applications. I’ll take this one step further: several of those steps are good advice when seeking support for any application. He addresses one of my pet peeves well into the post:

Include the entire text of error messages

Be sure to tell the developer whether or not an error message is generated as a result of the problem. If an error message does appear, it’s very important that you include its exact wording. There may be multiple error messages in the application with similar wording.

BAD: “I always get an error message when I print”
BAD: “I always get an error message when I print, something about a driver”
BETTER: “I always get an error message when I print: ‘Driver could not be found’”

Barring a tech support team with excellent and up-to-date documentation (which, given its probability, is likely manned by Santa’s elves), the guy on the other side of the phone cannot divine the messages you are seeing. Are you reading this, mom?
(via Daring Fireball)

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