Do you use online or local help in Visual Studio / Are there downsides of one over the other? - visual-studio

Well I am sure that most people have seen the following:
This time, I did not install the local MSDN so I do not have the option of Local help, however I usually always use the first option of look online anyway.
I was wondering if there are any downsides to not installing MSDN?
The only one I have found so far is that dynamic help does not seem to work. As this is a feature I love, I think I will install MSDN.
I was just wondering, are there any other downsides and what do others use?
Edit -
It is hard to really select one answer here and I did various experiments and came up with my own conclusion. They are all good points so +1 to everyone - I was going to put this as an answer and mark it, but that feels rather cheap... so I have edited the question and will have to think about who to mark as answer.
I have been experimenting with different combinations and it is weird to say the least. On a new project, I just pressed F1 at random places and it is amazing that the differences are huge in the pages which are returned - For example, just selecting a <form> tag and pressing F1 came up with 100% different results between online and offline help.
I love the dynamic help feature but I always have an internet connection... I am confused and just not sure what I should do! Another benefit I have found is that through offline help, you can sync the sidebar and navigate around VERY quickly and find other articles - which is much harder online.
I think I will install help, but I am really not that happy... I hope the help feature is improved in VS2010 (haven't had a chance to play around or see) because it shouldn't be this hard to try and choose!
#blaketaylor.nameindex.ht - I personally find Google a bit mucky when I just want to figure out one property or item etc... I like looking in MSDN / Documentation first as there is usually a good example and then just look at Google after if I cannot figure it out - the dynamic help feature is a brilliant feature which I love and skips straight to the correct part in the library, and you do not get this without installing help.
#Shiraz Bhaiji - Agreed with your points, however, I think 2GB's is not really huge. I like your comparison.
#Yassir - It disabled the dynamic help feature, 2GB's isn't huge, I do like Google and SO but I like to try and get it done on my own first.
#Stephen Nutt - Agreed about speed, but it isn't really by much. How do you see local and online help at the same time? I love Dynamic help but when I click a link, it goes straight to local help and I see no options.

I have never found the local help to be of any use. I stopped installing it years ago and have never looked back.
Google is my help.

The main downside to not installing local help is that you do not have access to help if you do not have access to the internet.
The benefits of not having it local are:
Always up to date
Does not use space on your harddisk

I really don't think you might need it unless you don't have no internet connection all the time
also it takes about 2Gb of your hard drive !!
All you need is google and SO :)

I always use local help - it is much faster to navigate around in. When I do a search it always brings up the results count in my local help and online, if I see nothing in my local help I just click on the online tab and see the online search results.

Related

Mozilla Firefox resource for bug reports and suggestions

I use Firefox for about 90% of my overall browser usage experience and periodically discover bugs or strangeness in work, also from time to time I have suggestions for improvement.
So I think that it's useful for Firefox community to know about potential or actual problems. Is there such resource to create quick reports (I'm at work, for example, and haven't enough time for advanced conversations)? What is the easiest way to report bugs and suggest some new ideas? May be there is some addon for this purpose?
Thanks in advance.
Good question! Depending on the problem you are seeing, there are different strategies for efficiently reporting the issue. Efficiency in this case means the reduction of the time that passes from your report to actually get somebody to take a look at it (and then decide what's next).
Here's a set of ways you can use to get in touch with the community (disclaimer: I'm part of it):
Bugzilla: it's the one stop place for reporting bugs for Firefox. I know it's a bit cryptic at first, and there are plans to improve the bug reporting workflow. There's a comprehensive article on MDN that explains how to write a good bug report that's actually helpful. Don't get mislead by the word "bug": Bugzilla is also used to track the development workflow and discuss enhancements.
webcompat.com: if you're having problems with a particular website that doesn't get rendered properly, you could still write a bug report in Bugzilla. However, the webcompat website (still supported by Mozilla) is more suited for this kind of things. It also features a downloadable Firefox addon to speed up filing website compatibility issues.
Github: some components (Testpilot, ...) live on Github rather than in the central Mozilla repository. If you're experiencing issues with them, you could file an issue on the github page for the specific project.
irc.mozilla.org: (discontinued) this chat server allows to get in touch in real-time with the Mozilla community. There are several channels you can hang out in, even using a web-based IRC client. People are usually very willing to help. This is not the best place to report problems, but still a good place to raise awareness about your bug if it doesn't get triaged (i.e. assigned a priority and discussed) within a week or so.
chat.mozilla.org: as of May 2020, this replaced IRC and is the new recommended mechanism for synchronous communications. See the related wiki.
I know that's a lot of info, but it's easier than you think! If you feel like you don't know where to file bugs, just go to Bugzilla. Please do not hesitate to ask if you need more help and.. cheers for willing to report bugs!
Updated May 2020: Added Matrix and marked IRC as discontinued.

Adding CKEditor content to a database

Please help me. I have been assigned to input data in the CKEditor demo and store that input in a database. What is the code for this? Any help would be appreciated.
The question you are asking is very broad. There are a multitude of different ways to go about accomplishing your goal. The scope of answers we can provide vary greatly depending on your experience. I would recommend visiting W3 schools to get you started.
http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_mysql_intro.asp
Start off by making a new database, or connecting to an existing one. Then you can start by installing CKE and we can go from there.
This site is designed to answer specific questions, for example we would be more than happy to help if you hit a road block while trying to design or build a database. We do ask however, that you please provide us with what you know, and what you have tried and experienced problems with. Doing so not only makes it easier for us to answer, but helps beginners get in the proper mindset for development and makes it much easier to learn. There is an overwhelming amount of tutorials you can find via google to get you started. We will be more than happy to help once you come back with a more centered question.

Can someone explain this website speed test result?

I have taken over the management of a site - Expand in the USA. The site loads far more slowly than would be expected given its content and the fact that it has been optimized. When I run a speed test using Pingdom, I find that the bottleneck is the time that it takes to connect with the server (as highlighted in this screenshot). I am relatively inexperienced with this type of issue and was hoping someone might be able to suggest the root cause so that I can work on resolving it.
Hi instead of pingdom you please check with http://gtmetrix.com/ .Gtmetrix will give you exactly what is the problem.Try to install Pagespeed in your server which really helps to improve the performance and you will fell the difference even.

Project in Ruby

I've been coding alot of web-stuff all my life, rails lately. And i can always find a website to code, but i'm kind of bored with it. Been taking alot of courses of Java and C lately so i've become a bit interested in desktop application programming.
Problem: I can't for the life of me think of a thing to code for desktop. I just can't think of anything i can code that isn't already out there for download. So what do i do?
I need some project suggestions that i can set as a goal.
I would say you should roam through github or some other open source site and find an existing young or old project that you can contribute to. Maybe there is something that is barely off the ground, or maybe there is a mature project that could use some improvement.
I find to complete a project, it needs to be something I am passionate about. I feel you need to find your own project I'm afraid.
There is always the Netflix Prize though!
I would write a ray tracer.
Oops, sorry... you're looking for an original idea. :) Ray tracers are still cool, though, and easy to get started on. Maybe you'll get an idea for a game while you're working on it.
Visit shoooes.net for a UI toolkit that's easy and fun, and then the-shoebox.org to see the kinds of things people are doing with it.
If you could make a Ruby ANSI (and xbin, and idf, and adf...) Editor, I would love you. Because that means you would have written ANSI parsing routines that I can hope you release to the open source community.
... but that is a selfish answer. Oh, and a cross-platform editor would be nice as well (although TundraDraw somewhat takes care of that).

Tracking Useful Information

What do the clever programmers here do to keep track of handy programming tricks and useful information they pick up over their many years of experience? Things like useful compiler arguments, IDE short-cuts, clever code snippets, etc.
I sometimes find myself frustrated when looking up something that I used to know a year or two ago. My IE favorites probably represent a good chunk of the Internet in the late 1990s, so clearly that isn't effective (at least for me). Or am I just getting old?
So.. what do you do?
­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­
Two Things I do:
I blog about it - this allows me to go back and search my own blog.
We use the code snippet feature in Visual Studio.
Cheers.
I use:
Google Notebook - I take notes for projects, books I'm reading, etc
Delicious + Firefox plug in - Every time I see a good page I mark it.
Windows Journal (in tablet pc) - When I need to draw something and then copy/cut/paste it. I have more distractions here, the web is always very close :)
Small Moleskine paper notebook - Its always with me.
Big paper notebook - When I need more space to write and less distractions.
Obviously these are for all useful information, not just for snippets or tips and tricks.
Why not set up a Wiki?
If you are on windows, i know that ScrewTurn wiki is pretty simple to deploy on a desktop/laptop. No database to fuss around with.
Blog about it.
One of the nice side-effects of blogging is that if you use a sensible categorization or tagging system, it's quite easy to search for stuff within your blog. The fact that you wrote about it also makes it easier to remember problems you have encountered before ("hey, I blogged about that!").
That's a great benefit aside from, of course, being able to share this information publicly so that others might be able to find your solution to a particular problem using Google.
A number of people I know swear by Google Notebook
I send them to my gmail account, that way I have them where ever I go, and they can be put into appropriate folders for later.
I second the blog about it technique...even Jeff said that's a major reason he blogs.
Also, regarding the wiki idea, if you set one up at work, be sure to encourage your coworkers to do the same. When someone finds something of interest they can just write a little "article" explaining what it is and how to do it... that way, not only are your own things easily available and quickly searchable, but you'll often find out things you never knew from other people in your group. That way it benefits everyone not just you.
I agree with emailing, the wiki and the blog. Emailing is the most useful. If you can't use GMail and you're on windows, install a desktop search utility (Windows search, Google Desktop, Copernic, etc)
I also like to jot it into a textfile and save it in my documents folder. Whatever desktop search utility you use will be able to find it easily. e.g.
//print spool stop.notes.txt
If the printer spooler stops, start it again by
- Services > Provision Networks > Restart Service
tags: printer provision no printer spooler cannot print remote desktop
Subscribe in Google Reader and then search later.
At my last place of work they wouldn't let me set up a wiki or anything - so I just made various word documents full of tips and instructions and gave that to my successor when I left.
Now though I'd use a private wiki, or maybe a blog.
For many years I've kept a Word doc named Knowledgebase.doc that contains all my notes with a decent table of contents. I like to keep everything in one searchable doc.
I use a sync tool to make sure the file is copied to all the machines I want it on.
I use TiddlyWiki stored in my DropBox account. Although, recently, Evernote is getting my atention; it has a really useful feature: you send a twitter direct message to evernote user (myen) and it adds a note with your message (a really quick way to add notes or URL's for post-processing). Imagine, you can use a command-line twitter client to create notes! (or any twitter client). I really like this feature.

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