Book excerpt: Details the best methods to achieve consistently outstanding productivity solving technical problems. Includes symptom acquisition and reproduction, damage control, general maintenance techniques, divide and conquer techniques, testing methods, solving intermittents, bottleneck analysis. Guides the reader in achieving and maintaining the proper mental state for productive troubleshooting. Includes tips on career optimization through effective troubleshooting. An entire chapter is devoted to troubleshooting computers and networks, and another chapter is devoted to troubleshooting software.