---
title: "The solution is out *there*, NOT on in my chat window!"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2005/7/27/the-solution-is-out-there-not-on-in-my-chat-window.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2005/7/27/the-solution-is-out-there-not-on-in-my-chat-window.html"
published: "2005-07-27T21:06:00"
updated: "2005-07-27T21:06:00"
tags: ["Off Topic"]
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "Here's a small hint before you try to \"chat\" with someone on your MSN Messenger about solving a specific problem in .NET. It will save you (and them) a lot of time in a many cases. It may seem silly, but a lot of people…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# The solution is out \*there\*, NOT on in my chat window!

By Roy Osherove July 27, 2005 In [Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic)

**Historical article** · Originally published July 27, 2005; technical details may be outdated.

Here's a small hint before you try to "chat" with someone on your MSN Messenger about solving a specific problem in .NET. It will save you (and them) a lot of time in a many cases. It may seem silly, but a lot of people don't realize that they can find the answer **on their own**.

Here's a short tutorial:

Let's say that you have a problem such as "I can't install my C# Winforms application on Windows 98"

**Instead of:**

 - Google for ".NET programmer MSN details", register the account as your "friend" and try to ask them this question

**Try:**

 - [Google](http://www.google.com/): "[Install C# on windows 98](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=install+c%23+on+windows+98)"

## More in Off Topic

[All posts in Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic)

- Jul 28, 2005

    ### [Microsoft "Genuine Advantage" cracked in 24h](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/7/28/microsoft-quotgenuine-advantagequot-cracked-in-24h.html)

- Jul 28, 2005

    ### [How many services does windows need to run?](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/7/28/how-many-services-does-windows-need-to-run.html)

- Jul 26, 2005

    ### [\[OT\]The Friday Page](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/7/26/otthe-friday-page.html)

- Jul 20, 2005

    ### [\[OT\] If you can't stand the heat, take your ThinkPad out of the oven](https://osherove.com/blog/2005/7/20/ot-if-you-cant-stand-the-heat-take-your-thinkpad-out-of-the.html)


---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

### Sites

- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
- [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts.
- [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin.
- [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model.
- [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps.
- [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes).

### Social

- X: https://x.com/royosherove
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/

### Contact

- Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7

### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/