Tech

Monitor being stripy - can't manage without it. Read the mags. Find a recommended one on sale. Buy.

Apple laptop won't talk to Samsung phone without a go-between that is usually asleep. No solution. Apple laptops are really snobby.
    (Edit: Veronica has given me a solution! See her comment below.)

Ethernet dead - can work around if the wifi works but annoying.

Wifi  r e a l l y  s l o w - can't manage without it. Press the factory reset button and lose the name and password I gave my network.

Wifi still r e a l l y s l o w. Call out my provider's service engineer. He fixes the wifi speed by smiling at the router then goes way beyond the call of duty and checks the ethernet wiring that is 100% my responsibility. He finds two dead sockets that were working last time I checked but tells me that the one that has been playing dead for weeks is working, just not getting beyond my docking station (an infuriating bit of kit that Apple makes you buy if you want anything to work since it doesn't instal ports in its laptops).

6-year-old docking station not working? I hadn't thought of that. I really hadn't.

I google 'docking station not working' and find a mention of firmware. Firmware? Do I need to update that?
I go to the manufacturer's website to get firmware and read in big red letters: 'Do not update firmware without talking to our engineers first'.
I start drafting a long email of complaints to the engineers.
Then it dawns on me that the first thing the engineers will tell me to do is to switch it off, let it cool down, then switch it on again.

I stop writing the email, unplug everything, switch the docking station off, let it cool down and switch it on again.

I plug everything back in.

Everything works.