I am often asked to help troubleshoot all things computer related. Sometimes I run into situations where I am asked questions about something that I consider "inside the black box". To explain what "inside the black box" means it is best to give an example.

Most everyone uses a mouse to navigate on their computer. I believe it's safe to assume that everyone knows how a mouse works, in that you slide the mouse up and the pointer moves up. I also believe that most people don't know how a mouse "works". Why should we care how the laser sends out a beam and captures movement at a specific Dots Per Inch level and translates that movement into movement of the pointer. We just know that when the mouse works the pointer moves, and when the mouse doesn't work the pointer doesn't move.

In the above example the mouse is the box. Apply this same principle to anything you are working on in your daily lives. There is always going to be a certain level of knowledge required to make anything work, but how deep does your knowledge really need to get? Most times I prefer to stay outside of the box if at all possible unless the subject is something that I have a deep fascination for learning about that item.

A better example would be my work with certificates. I work with certificates almost every day and have developed a pretty good collection of knowledge about how things work in the certificate world. But every now and again I am asked questions that are in the black box and I don't have an answer. Is this bad? I don't believe so since it's virtually impossible to know all things about certificates. Additionally as you get older and have more responsibilities (aka... kids) it becomes even harder to spend the additional time required to dive into some of those black boxes.

I figured I would explain this concept in hopes that it helps others to avoid spending too much time on things that may not be all that important to understand. My motto: You need to know what you need to know.