Larry Osterman's WebLog

Google

Technet newsgroups

Easy answer:

1. google

MSDN blog search doesn't work well for me, and google picks up blog articles anyway, so I use google for a single, consolidated search of all Internet content.

For general questions - Google.

For tech questions - Google or other free forums like vbcity,codeguru.

Previously the google answers was good one for general questions.

Google, of course :)

That'd be Google. And forums.

Generally, I use a search engine first. If that doesn't cut it, I use a site specific search of msdn.com, support.microsoft.com, or something like that. If those don't cut it, I try someone I know who I think may have the answer. If that doesn't work, I use free e-mail support options if they exist. Generally, issues aren't important enough to me to use pay support.

I would say that Google is a valid answer.  If the answer to my question is on a blog or forum *somewhere* how am I supposed to  find it?  I've used forum search software and it's pretty bad compared to Google's site:forum.site.com feature.

Of course there is always paid support, but I'm never sure my question is worth whatever they are charging these days...

* The ASP.NET forums (which would be much nicer if integrated into the MSDN forums, IMHO).

* MSN Groups (which generally suck, but for instance Windows Live Writer uses it for a support forum, for some reason).

* The MS Knowledge Base.

* Connect, occasionally

* Google groups

Arrgh. Hit "submit" too fast.  What I mean to say is that if I don't find it on Google, the question goes unanswered.  Typically, I'm the guy people go to for technical questions they have.  I don't think "I'm the most knowledgeable person" (far from it) but the people who REALLY know can't be bothered with my trivial questions.

Perhaps that's the problem.

For the really hard questions, sometimes I ask reddit/digg/slashdot/usenet/etc people, but I do so indirectly. If you just try to ask a direct question, nobody will answer you. However, you can still get meaningful results if you are sneaky.

If I know that the answer to a question 'A' is definitely NOT 'B,' I will try to say something like: "How do I (A)? I think the answer is (B)." If you do this people will trip over each other trying to correct you.

Now that you know my secret, please don't ruin it for me.

Pretty much the same answer as others - Google.    Where google falls down I'll go to more specialized places.   But that's typically only where the terms I'm searching for have overloaded meanings so I don't get a good hit on the first page.

Like today - I saw the Zune mentioned on Penny Arcade.   I wanted a little more info on it, so I went to the what I thought was the zune website, comingzune.net, which I'd seen mentioned in the ads for the devices at gamestop.   This was basically useless, there's not a bit of useful info there.   Specifically I wanted to know 'what's the bitrate of the songs at zune marketplace'.

So I hit google instead, and found the answer.  This led me to wonder what the DRM implementation was actually like, and a quick google found that as well.  (answer - it's not pretty and it's horribly thought out.  Someone should be fired over it).   The mentions of that led me to wonder if I'd be able to play my audiobooks on it, and a quick google on that determined that no, they don't support either bookmarks or content from audible.com.

As long as google keeps answering my questions the vast majority of the time on the first page of results, I don't see why I'd ever switch.

MSDN forums, then Google.

I look at:

1. Google (including Google groups)

2. Vendor's website (in case it is so screwed that Google cannot index the stuff on it)

3. Vendor's direct support through (in decreasing order of preference): online chat, phone, e-mail

What I find is usually either on Usenet or various user support forums. Vendor's websites come in distant second. I only had to use vendor's support a couple of times.

I generally turn to Google first.  In fact, I rarely have to go outside of Google.  It searches web sites (even specific sites with the "site:www.microsoft.com" syntax), blogs, news groups, etc.  I keep trying to replace Google with Live, but it's just not there yet.

I subscribe to loads of blogs, but that information is rarely searched for solutions to problems.  More frequently it alerts me to new ideas.

Increasingly, I check wikipedia even before google, although this is less useful for technical stuff than for other questions.

Google web search then Google Groups. If neither of those show up solutions I'll generally post a question to a relevant newsgroup

search.live.com

It's funny, I was realizing that I do the same thing as Tim now-a-days too. The quality of search results--whether Google, Live, or whatever--has been going down for some time. If I know the manufacturer or SDK, I'll go there first. MSDN for Windows programming, nVidia, ATI.amd.com, or whatever the well-known site is.

I always start with Google, first the web search and then the groups search.

If it's not on there it depends and what I need to know. If there is a vendor site I can go to, I'll try to see if there are forums there. This also goes for programming questions, so I might try to search MSDN forums.

Usually if it's not on Google I'll try ro figure it out myself or just work around it. I only dig further if it's really pressing.

If neither Google or the vendor website helped me out, I might try another search engine like Live Search or All the Web, but these have never helped me (not more then Google that is. If it's not on Google it doesn't exist on the web ;-) ).

As a followup to answer the question 'what do you do when it's not on the search engines' - it really depends.   If it was something that I could reasonably query on and expect to find the answer if it exists on the net, and it doesn't show up it probably depends on the urgency with which I need the answer.  I'd probably hit the manufacturers forums, search there and maybe post a question if I don't need an immediate answer.

Getting on the phone is going to be a last resort, and only if I need an immediate answer.

1.

As recommended by Steve Riley at TechEd 2005, Google!

ie.  'some microsoft problem' site:microsoft.com

    or site:msdn.com

2. my peers, I work for a large global IT company.

In this order:

1. Google

2. Usenet (Google groups)

3. Try again with Google, using the "site:" operator on possible targets, like microsoft.com

4. Off-line MSDN (the installable, DVD version)

For most things Google is first.  This used to include MSDN searches, but two things happened a few months ago:  (1) Google suddenly couldn't find things that it used to find in MSDN, and (2) MSDN's own search engine got some half-improvements, though some results are still weird.  Anyway for Windows APIs and stuff like that it's now MSDN before Google.

For drivers usually it's vendors' sites first and then Google.

Sometimes Google results include MSDN blogs so I haven't felt any need to restrict a search to a blog site's own search engine.

Sometimes Google results include Wikipedia pages, and forum postings, etc.

Hmm, let's see...  Yes!

http://www.missdewey.com/

is still operating, and it still crashes Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall.  But I got a good laugh out of it in a different environment.

Google > MSDN(local copy) > Channel 9 > BBS > microsoft newgroups for Microsoft related ones

Google > BBS > supporting newsgroups(if present)>  mailing lists for Linux or other technical problems

I don't search for blog entries unless they are returned by search engines. :P (Actually, I found here because I found answer to one of the problem I met here, and then later I found myself enjoys other articles)

Step 1 - Google.  Google often searches a site better than their own "search" feature (including MS).

Step 2 - Refine search terms, try other search possibilities.

Step 4 - Specific site, search whatever local resources they have (e.g for Asus motherboard problems, I might search their site for support or forum links).

Step 3 is missing to emphasise that step 4 is actually highly unlikely.  Even Microsoft's site search is terrible most of the time; Google site search does a better and quicker job in 99% of cases.

Nobody's mentioned it yet, so I'll throw it out there. The http://www.arstechnica.com forums. Some very smart folks hang out there. Also, of course, The Old New Thing.

I used to use Google a lot. But i got a lot of links to a site (can't remember the name) where i needed a payed subscription to view answers to questions posted by other users. So i started using Live Search.

Mostly I end up at MSDN or Wikipedia though

* Google

* Google groups

* The MS Knowledge Base.

* MSN Groups

Sometimes other people on codeproject.com's forums know more than I do about a topic.

In order of preference:

1. Google limited with site:microsoft.com

2. MSDN Library or KB-articles depending on problem

3. Microsoft blogs: google with site:blogs.msdn.com

4. Google again, without site-limitation

Often I need the correct and supported-by-Microsoft answer. Then I cannot rely on random forums, which I think often contain unsupported solutions. Therefore I often verify the answer i got from step 4 above with the following sources:

* MSDN Library

* KB-articles

* Other parts of microsoft.com

* Microsoft blogs (at least less chance of unsupported solutions)

* EULA of the product

i try live search first. if i don't find an answer, i try on msdn forums and msdn newsgroups. however, i never got a useful answer in the newsgroups and only got a useful answer on msdn forums once. as a last resort, i try to contact someone from the product team (incase i know someone from that team) or some other person at ms that i know and hope he can connect me to someone who can help. i tried to use paid support twice, and that was a nightmare (i'm located in germany), so i'm not doing this anymore. basically, i think that if a solution isn't already available via search, you're stuck.

Working with .net my favorite place for information is Refelctor.

Google is a close second :)

One thing I do that I haven't seen mentioned is to look through the sscli project and also use Reflector to look through .net assemblies to see how microsoft solved a similar problem related to my question.

Google for blogs and KB Articles, etc.

The search inside Microsoft and MSDN sucks so much, I can't even begin to describe what a waste of time it is.

Google

Then Google with the site: microsoft.com keyword.

I usually stay on Google until I find it, trying out a lot of different keywords until I come upon the right answer. Sometimes this might be over twenty different searches.

I used to love offline helpfiles, SDK:s, API resources etc. Then Windows helpfiles got slow and unsearchable so I lost patience.

Usenet/Google Groups used to be my primary source but the Google screwed up the interface and made it slow so I lost patience.

I would love to use MSDN or MS KB but find I get better results searching them through Google than actually starting out there.

I also enjoy Google's clean interface. It makes me feel like I'm in control. On MSDN I always feel like I'm missing out on something because I haven't found it yet. I always leave thinking "If only I knew where _the proper_ place to find these things were".

We all love Raymond, but am I really supposed to have to go to a private blog to find out how the Win32 API works?

1. Google/MSN search/MSDN/Microsoft.com

2. 3-rd party forums

In order:

1. Google (general search)

2. Google Groups (general search)

3. Google Groups (search within an appropriate newsgroup)

(Sometimes, I'll have to play some more with search criteria, or narrow the search to support.microsoft.com or something, but that's rare.)

4. If its a particular area that I've identified a knowledgeable forum, post a question in that forum.

Why a general search engine?

Because it should return results from Blogs, support.microsoft.com, discussion groups, online forums, or whatever is the most relevant.

Why Google?

In my experience, much more relavant results than MSN search. On several occasions, I've dug through 4 pages of MSN results without finding what I was looking for, and the same query in Google returns 3 "on-target" results on the first page. Haven't tried Live search much, so I can't speak to that.

(Gee, I hope this thread hasn't gone completely cold because i wonder who out there works like I do.)

I have NEVER asked a single technical question on any kind of on-line technical forum.  If the answer's not in any manual or help file or near the top in a Google search then I just put on my old-fashioned thinking cap and work it out as well as I can on my own.  Been doing it that way for 25 years.  I will, of course, talk to co-workers or friends or, you know, actual human beings.  As opposed to anonymous on-line "persons" who might not even be people.  Seriously, am I completley and embarassingly out of touch?

I guess it depends on the question but in no particular order

- MS Support / Technet / MSDN Search

- MS Premier Support Search

- Live Search

- Google Groups search

- Blog search trough the above engines or the ones I have subscribed in FeedDemon

- Real books (actually overlooked these days)

In no particular order:

1.  Mark Minasi's forum (www.minasi.com/forum)

2.  Live Search

3.  Google

4.  Event ID (www.eventid.net)

5.  My TechNet Subscription DVD's

6.  Expert's Exchange

7.  Microsoft PSS

8.  The MSDN blogs

9.  The TechNet blogs

10.  My own personal bookshelf and library

JamesNT

Not in order.

Google

Google Groups

Blogs, especially the Exchange Team Blog

Vendor's website/KB/forums

Microsoft KB

Books

Microsoft PSS

This is an interesting thread that shows the search habits of folks on C9. What stuck out to me was that

1. Google (includes Google Groups, codeproject/guru, etc.)

2. MS Blogs (Raymond Chen, primarily)

3. MSDN

4. MS support forums

5. My bookshelf

"On MSDN I always feel like I'm missing out on something because I haven't found it yet. I always leave thinking "If only I knew where _the proper_ place to find these things were".

We all love Raymond, but am I really supposed to have to go to a private blog to find out how the Win32 API works?"

I'm wondering if this isn't a context problem  For the record, this has been a major complaint of mine about the MSDN.  There's almost *too much* information to grok the right answer.  Especially for simple, "How do I..." type questions.  In the VS 2005, heaven forbid I need to do a search for Win32 information.  The MSDN has become so .Net oriented, it's difficult to find "The Old New Thing".  

1. Documentation on hand.

2. Google for leads...

3. Wikipedia for leads...

4. Get the original source documents.

5. Contemplate navel...

6. Vendor forum (to gripe about documentation).

"If it is not documented then it is not supportable."

1) Google

2) Google Groups

3) MSDN Library

4) CodeProject/CodeGuru