The Old New Thing

March 2006 - Page 4 of 5 - The Old New Thing

Reading the fine print, episode 2: Portable headphones

March 8, 2006 Mar 8, 2006 03/8/06
Raymond Chen
Marketing writes the big print; lawyers write the small print. I bought some portable stereo headphones. The front of the box says you can use it "while in-line skating, power walking, biking, jogging, skiing, running, weightlifting, climbing and more." (Emphasis mine.) The back of the box says that it should not be used "while driving or ...

Why is there no message for disabling the Cancel button on a wizard?

March 8, 2006 Mar 8, 2006 03/8/06
Raymond Chen
Some people have noticed that there is no message that lets you disable the Cancel button on a wizard. This is on purpose. Usability studies reveal that users find it extremely frustrating when they get partway through a wizard and then decide they don't want to perform the operation after all, but find that the wizard doesn't give them a way ...
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Raymond, you even pose like a girl

March 7, 2006 Mar 7, 2006 03/7/06
Raymond Chen
Okay, so it's bad enough that I write like a girl. (And so does Betsy.) Now, Korby Parnell reported on a little get-together of some Microsoft bloggers, and in the photograph you can see that I'm doing the "peace" sign, just like young Japanese women do in photographs. Apparently, boys are supposed to strike a superhero pose, but the peace...

The consequences of invalidating the null window

March 7, 2006 Mar 7, 2006 03/7/06
Raymond Chen
On occasion, you might notice that every window on the desktop flickers and repaints itself. One of the causes for this is a simple null handle bug. The InvalidateRect function is one you're probably well-familiar with. It is used to indicate to the window manager that the pixels of a particular window are no longer current and should be ...
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The ForceAutoLogon setting doesn't do what most people think

March 6, 2006 Mar 6, 2006 03/6/06
Raymond Chen
The folks on the logon team wish me to remind you that the ForceAutoLogon setting does more than just log on an account automatically. They've had to deal with large numbers of people who set the key without really understanding what it does, and then getting into trouble because what they get is not what they expected. In addition to ...

The peculiar appeal of the Baseball Uncyclopedia

March 3, 2006 Mar 3, 2006 03/3/06
Raymond Chen
NPR's Only a Game interviewed the authors of The Baseball Uncyclopedia, an irreverent guide to our national pastime, and it was a blast to listen to. The two authors clearly are huge baseball fans, but they bring to it a fascination not with mind-numbing statistics but with the deep history of the sport. (Plus the fact that they disagree ...

Very late remarks on the original Chinese dictionary series

March 3, 2006 Mar 3, 2006 03/3/06
Raymond Chen
I have not forgotten about the Chinese/English dictionary series, but I simply haven't had the motivation to sit down and write up descriptions and discussion for the code that I wrote along the way, so instead of adding to the program, I'm going to answer some questions that were asked back when I started the series but which I didn't respond...
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Martha, Martha, Martha!

March 2, 2006 Mar 2, 2006 03/2/06
Raymond Chen
Martha Stewart was in town this past weekend signing her book on baking. Although I'm a Martha fan, I didn't attend the signing because I already have a really awesome book on baking. I've listed below some of the ground rules for the book signing, mixed in with some stuff I just plain made up. Your mission is to pick out which of these ...

Restating the obvious about the WM_COMMAND message

March 2, 2006 Mar 2, 2006 03/2/06
Raymond Chen
I'm satisfied with the MSDN documentation for the WM_COMMAND message, but for the sake of mind-numbing completeness, I'm going to state the obvious in the hope that you, dear readers, can use this technique to fill in the obvious in other parts of MSDN. The one-line summary of the WM_COMMAND message says, "The WM_COMMAND message is sent ...
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