What how-to guides would you want to see on a blog?

[Tek7]

Well, my job search isn't going anywhere, so I thought I'd try my hand at writing a blog and placing ads on the site to make money. People need a reason to visit a site and I figured I could write technical guides and post them in hopes of making a few bucks. I have some experience as a Technical Writer, so I can write a decent walkthrough.

Aye, I know, it's a longshot, but it gives me something to do, might help some people, and may result in pocket change.

So my question to everyone on the forums is: What how-to guides would you want to see on a blog?

 

[nattyg]

not to tell you what to do or anything, but now might be a good time to pick up a 'hobby' like programming - c# or java (the former being vaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaastly superior )

1.) it gives you a new skill and if you want to go into tech writing long-term, it can help in certain situations

2.) you can blog about your experiences...before too long, i suspect you'll find yourself writing less 'hello world' stuff and more things of interest to people; one of my favorite visual studio blogs has to do with all the ridiculous crap you can do in there and you never knew you could!

i'd at least click to provide color commentary

 

[blackgravity]

I have a C# textbook lying around.....

 

[Elader Arkon]

2.) you can blog about your experiences...before too long, i suspect you'll find yourself writing less 'hello world' stuff and more things of interest to people; one of my favorite visual studio blogs has to do with all the ridiculous crap you can do in there and you never knew you could!

I second that motion. Its fun seeing what people are doing, not to mention people find ways to do stuff that is often vastly superior to how others have been doing it.


And what's the link to that blog with the ridiculous Visual Studio stuff? I love reading that stuff.

 

[Tek7]

not to tell you what to do or anything, but now might be a good time to pick up a 'hobby' like programming - c# or java

Is there any way to do that for free?

If not, I'll need to stick to everyday things like cropping and re-sizing photos.

 

[vibrokatana]

Is there any way to do that for free?

If not, I'll need to stick to everyday things like cropping and re-sizing photos.

You can get visual studio express for free. So long as you have basic programming concepts down it is pretty easy to [re]learn C# or shudder VB.

Nowadays most GUI frameworks allow you to drag and drop controls on the window. So it is basically WYSIWYG and most even let you run the program without inserting any code. So you know what it will look like before you have to go back and change things.

 

[Tek7]

You can get visual studio express for free. So long as you have basic programming concepts down it is pretty easy to [re]learn C# or shudder VB.

So do all the programming experts agree that I should try learn the basics of C# instead of other languages?

Even if I were to learn the basics, it will take a while until I'm prepared to write tutorials. In the meantime, what guides for everyday tasks would you all want to see on a blog?

 

[vibrokatana]

So do all the programming experts agree that I should try learn the basics of C# instead of other languages?

Even if I were to learn the basics, it will take a while until I'm prepared to write tutorials. In the meantime, what guides for everyday tasks would you all want to see on a blog?

In all honesty, if you learn it just to write how-to guides you wont get very far (inspiration wise). Most programming blogs that I have seen are snippets of inspiration or a WTF they encountered while working on projects.

 

[nattyg]

I second that motion. Its fun seeing what people are doing, not to mention people find ways to do stuff that is often vastly superior to how others have been doing it.


And what's the link to that blog with the ridiculous Visual Studio stuff? I love reading that stuff.

blogs.msdn.com/saraford/

 

[Odale]

This reminds me of something I saw in a ThinkGeek catalog.

 

[Elader Arkon]

blogs.msdn.com/saraford/

Sweet thanks!


I think C# or Java make for good beginner languages (at least, that's what they used to teach programming at CofO), then move on to C++ or whatever.

C# is amazing when you use it with Microsoft's .Net stuff in Visual Web Developer (which has an express version as well).

 

[nattyg]

not to mention a good career path if you find out you actually like them

 

[vibrokatana]

Sweet thanks!


I think C# or Java make for good beginner languages (at least, that's what they used to teach programming at CofO), then move on to C++ or whatever.

C# is amazing when you use it with Microsoft's .Net stuff in Visual Web Developer (which has an express version as well).

I prefer that people learn C or C++ first. While it is a lot harder it also teaches the horrors of procedural programming.

Once you learn C# almost everything is object oriented. And you will learn to love it in a way that cannot be described with mere unoffensive words.

Java always seemed like a big mess of hacked together classes and the like. In all honesty I would not use it unless I had to support multiple platforms. I have yet to see a java program that was actually useful without crashing randomly or hogging way to much memory (Oracle's SQL Developer comes to mind...).

 

[Tek7]

not to mention a good career path if you find out you actually like them

I ruled programming out years ago after taking 4 programming classes in high school.

I wasn't bad at it, but I wasn't especially good at it, either.

I quit programming for the same reasons I quit graphic design and web development: I tend to obsess over details to the point of losing time and forgetting to eat.

 

[Kidan]

So do all the programming experts agree that I should try learn the basics of C# instead of other languages?

Even if I were to learn the basics, it will take a while until I'm prepared to write tutorials. In the meantime, what guides for everyday tasks would you all want to see on a blog?

In college I started out with Pascal, went to Cobol then to C/C++ and finally Java (with a bit of SmallTalk, Eiffel, LISP, Assembler, and a half dozen others for good measure).

But once I got out of college, I've used VB.Net almost exclusively.



As for the other part of your post, sry, I don't have an answer for ya.

 

[tjguitarz]

high school.

I tend to obsess over details to the point of losing time and forgetting to eat.

What's different between then and now? You have a beautiful, wonderful wife to snap you back to reality.

 

[Tek7]

What's different between then and now? You have a beautiful, wonderful wife to snap you back to reality.

That, and I got tired of "coming to" four hours after starting a graphic design project, tired and starving.

But yes, having a wife to help me manage my time does indeed help, though I still obsess over the occasional tech project (like configuring my router to create two SSIDs, one for my main network using WPA encryption and one for my DS using WEP encryption).

 

[Ember]

Snapping tek back to reality is no easy task. Just wanted to throw that out there.

 

[vibrokatana]

Snapping tek back to reality is no easy task. Just wanted to throw that out there.

You should just hope he doesn't obsess with taking over the universe. Nothing would be able to stop him.