Time lines are used to help visualize what is happening in time value of money problems. Cash flows are placed directly below the tick marks, and interest rates are shown directly above the time line; unknown cash flows are indicated by a symbol for the particular item that is missing.
This page explains how you can apply a patch file. Patch is a standard format, and there are many options for how to apply one. Pick the one that is easiest for you. Perhaps most critical is the usage of the -p flag, which tells patch about the relationship between the directory where the patch file is located and the files that will be patched.
A dump file is a snapshot of an app at the point in time the dump is taken. It shows what process was executing and what modules were loaded. If the dump was saved with heap information, the dump file contains a snapshot of what was in the app's memory at that point in time. Opening a dump file with a heap in Visual Studio is like stopping at a breakpoint in a debug session. Although you cannot continue execution, you can examine the stacks, threads, and variable values of the app at the time the dump occurred.