How Typos Can Mean Failure

We have had a few issues posted on the forum this week and it turned out that the issue was a typo on the part of the student.

That got me thinking about the consequences.

When I look back at network problems I have spend many hours troubleshooting plus many of the issues posted on the forum when people 'follow' my labs I would say around 80% were due to a typo.

Our brains tend to scan text and skip over text or numbers and fill in the blanks with, well with whatever. I've written many books also and what came back from my proofreader made me wonder about my command of the English language.

In the past 24 hours three students have posted with problems they actually created themselves.

One put a NAT pool together of CCNA but called it CCCNA in the config later on.

One configured a serial interface but not the one his cable was attached to.

Another missed off one line completely.

Actually, about fifty percent of the customer service posts are due to people not reading stuff at all. Even when I put massive icons on the page saying 'Watch this Video' or 'Download the software here.' And I get 'Hey, where is the darn software?'

Think about your Cisco exams. When you type in that config would it matter if you got even one number or letter wrong? You betcha.

Real life? You type the wrong port number into a firewall rule for a customer. Bye bye contract and hello legal action.

I don't have an easy solution to this one. I suggest you take a break from the screen and double check for the silly mistakes. Get a second set of eyes on it and if possible, check configs on test labs first.

In the exam read stuff out to yourself.

Paul Browning

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I agree, typos and "minor" errors mean failure, August 11, 2010

By vladccie - See all my comment or reviews

Yes, when we check our work or config we see what we expect to see, not what is actually there (typo).
Again, this bring importance for production config changes.
I always look for "show" commands that would produce output to confirm the changes for verification.

And for exams, a typo equals a failed question as they are checked by computer.

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	I Wish You Had a Solution, July 29, 2010
	By pwilko - See all my comment or reviews

Thanks Paul, it is a big issue. I think it shows the risk involved in making any change to live equipment. Something you need to consider before bypassing change control (not that we would every do that).

There are times when you just need to slow down, think, consider the consequences and check before doing.

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