Searching stuff

If you have a problem (not only programming-related, but also any other technical field) always start your search at the most trustworthy sources and go down from there.

First try: Search in a programming book

I always keep in my quick access lists a few programming books that I use over and over for references when writing some code for something I haven't tried before, or when trying something I haven't done in a while. This should be the first place to search in, as this is in my opinion the most reliable source of information.
As a side-note, the book I find myself most often browsing is Pro ASP.NET 3.5 in C# 2008, 2nd edition. But keep in mind that (almost) any book can do just fine, read it once to get an idea of its contents and browse it over and over again each time you're trying out something that you've read about in the book, this is in my opinion the best way in which you can improve your code.

Not there? Try an online knowledge base

If you can't find what you're looking for in a book (or don't have a book on that particular field available), try some online knowledge bases. For example, if you're a .NET programmer, you trust MSDN, as long as you make sure that the topic you're browsing is up to date (check the posted date, the target framework and so on).

Still didn't find it? Just Google it!

Or show some love and use Bing! to google it. I haven't tried it in the past months though.
OK, to be honest, this is in many cases my first try, but only for trivial subjects or error messages. In many cases it will send you to a guru's blog (see http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/ ) or an online knowledge base, but other times it might send you to a forum.
While I do support forums (i'm an active member in several, including the asp.net forums, The CodeProject, and, my personal favourite, StackOverflow), the wiki-like behaviour of forums decreases their credibility (anyone can answer anything, and there's no higher authority to validate an answer, the community usually deals with rating answers).

Not there yet? Time to develop your own language

If the problem you're seeking did not have an answer in any of these locations, you're either trying a technology too new to have a considerable footprint in books and online sources, or you're trying something that no-one has ever thought to try out before. In both cases, either find an alternative or get in touch with the team behind the technology you're using.
I love this site.

But the most important thing is to search. I've noticed that there are too many developers that rely too much on their own knowledge, and the closest that they get to any documentation is when intellisense kicks in. I've heard there was a time when knowing all ~200 methods of a language was what made you a good developer (I once read a post that stated that someone found about ~13000 classes in .NET 1.1 by using reflection). But that was when dial-up was cutting-edge and horses wore pants. And that's not the case today.