Oh so very many stories that can relate to this...

Recently I had the exact same issue as the article mentioned.  The wife and I were trying to get photos off her phone to our NAS and the bloody phone WOULD NOT show up.  It was the same problem as Steve ran into, I was using some random cable I grabbed, once I pulled the one that came with the phone, voila, there's the phone...

Back in my help desk days, my mantra was always "start with the basics," because more times than not something basic was the problem.
Favorite memory?  A customer had a laser printer that would not print.  No errors, no warnings, it would feed the paper through, but nothing printed.  They had just replaced the toner cartridge that day, as well.  So, I had them pull the toner, and lo and behold, the bright orange tab that had to be pulled off (pulling out the strip that sealed the cartridge out with it) was still attached.  Once they pulled it, everything was working fine.

Of course, I've caught myself skipping checking the basics sometimes, and it almost always comes back and bites me, because it *does* turn out to be something basic that I skipped checking, because "there's no way *that's* the problem."