The SD cards from my camera were not working in my new computer so I called Dell.

The technician from India got on my computer remotely, checked some things and said the card reader was working fine and the problem must be with my cards.

I knew he was wrong. The cards worked in the computer an hour earlier. They worked in my camera. They worked in other people's computers. The cards only stopped working when I downloaded a Microsoft update. I insisted the problem had to be with the software update.

The Indian guy was very nice. He was solicitous and kept checking things, but he was not too bright. He kept getting back to the point that there must be something wrong with the cards, because he could find nothing wrong with the card reader.

Well you know how Indian support is. So we went back and forth, me explaining the undeniable logic of my reasoning and he with his poor problem solving skills.

I was patient.

While he continued to check again and again, I felt something on the bottom of my card. I turned the card over and there was something loose hanging over one of the connectors. These were special ultra cards and I guess they had something unusual that was not exactly compatible with the new computer. The other card had the same thing. I twisted off these little pieces, put the cards back in the card reader and they worked.

Ah, ha! I am a genius and solved the problem, but I did not want to brag, so I did not tell the Indian guy what I found out.

I just told him he did a good job and he did not have to bother any more. I would do as he said and check the cards out further.

His manager got on the phone and asked me how his man did.

"Excellent," I said.

Sometimes we are just not as smart as we thing we are.

By Andrew Weitzen (c) 2010

Weitzen is the publisher of several online Internet journals including: InternetHandholding.com, DomainNames.gs, DotNetNuke.bz, Programmer.bz, Software.vg, WebHosting.vg