The Old New Thing

Ten things I noticed at the 2005 PDC

September 23, 2005 Sep 23, 2005 09/23/05

Raymond Chen

Supplementing Sara Ford's PDC trip report: Some of my own stories and observations from the PDC. Tip: If you're designing a hotel, don't put big noisy fountains right next to the check-in desk. Turns out that if you do that, conversation between a guest and the desk staff becomes rather difficult. Eventually, guests get tired of asking the...

Contradictory feedback from my 2005 PDC talk

September 22, 2005 Sep 22, 2005 09/22/05

Raymond Chen

I was looking through the feedback from my 2005 PDC talk, and I noticed an interesting contradiction. The written feedback indicated that the first half of my talk (wherein I talked about memory management and "paying your taxes") was more favorably-received than the second half (on user interface issues). On the other hand, nearly all of the...

Coming to the completely opposite conclusion on Windows versions

September 22, 2005 Sep 22, 2005 09/22/05

Raymond Chen

When I discussed why there is no all-encompassing superset version of Windows, people somehow interpreted this as an explanation of why there are so many versions of Windows Vista. I guess these people never even made it past the title of the article, which argues for fewer Windows versions, not more! Besides, the article talked about ...

Black(out) humor at the 2005 PDC

September 21, 2005 Sep 21, 2005 09/21/05

Raymond Chen

Trying to make light (get it? light?) of the situation, there were quite a few jokes about the power outage at the PDC. The Hands-On Lab was being set up at the time the building went dark. A bunch of us speculated what the technicians must have been thinking when the power went out just as they plugged in a rack of computers... Perhaps in ...

Giving fair warning before plugging in your computer

September 21, 2005 Sep 21, 2005 09/21/05

Raymond Chen

That colleague who gave me the AOL CD that came with a big-iron server later received a prototype Itanium computer for testing purposes. The early Itaniums were behemoths. They weighed a ton, sounded like a weed whacker, and put out enough heat to keep you comfortably warm through the winter. (If you opened them up, you would likely see ...

Things to do at Microsoft when the power goes out

September 20, 2005 Sep 20, 2005 09/20/05

Raymond Chen

When the power goes out, the first thing you notice is how quiet everything becomes. The hum of the computers in the building stops. You hear... nothing. Bask in its peaceful silence. The next thing you do is turn off all the machines in your office, because you don't want to stress the power grid and network when the power eventually ...

Corrections to the answers I gave at the end of my PDC talk

September 19, 2005 Sep 19, 2005 09/19/05

Raymond Chen

I guess one advantage of having a web site is that I can publish errata. I haven't watched the Channel9 video (and probably never will; it's hard to watch yourself), but I do remember some of the questions at the end that I wasn't able to answer off the top of my head, but after a few days' research I think I can do it now. The person who ...

Why doesn’t Microsoft give every employee a UPS?

September 19, 2005 Sep 19, 2005 09/19/05

Raymond Chen

One reaction to my story about the oldest computer at Microsoft still doing useful work was shock (shock!) that Microsoft suffers from power outages. In the Pacific Northwest, winter windstorms are quite common, and it is not unexpected that a windstorm blow down tall trees (which are also quite common) which in turn take out power lines. ...