February 2008 | The Old New Thing

The 2008/2009 Seattle Symphony subscription season at a glance

Raymond ChenFebruary 29, 2008Feb 29, 200802/29/08

Every year, I put together a little pocket guide to the Seattle Symphony subscription season for my symphony friends to help them decide which ticket package they want. As before, you might find it helpful, you might not, but here it is anyway. Notes: This chart doesn't include "one-off" concert series such as the Visiting Orchestras or ...

Why can't I get FormatMessage to load my resource string?

Raymond ChenFebruary 29, 2008Feb 29, 200802/29/08

A common mistake I see is people confusing message tables with string resources. This basically shows up in one place: FormatMessage. The folks who were designing Win32 decided that plain string resources weren't fancy enough, so they invented message tables, which is just another way of storing strings in resources. Why string resources ...

Coca-Cola for breakfast: It's not just for computer geeks any more

Raymond ChenFebruary 28, 2008Feb 28, 200802/28/08

It's not just orange juice for breakfast any more. Soft drinks are making inroads into the world traditionally dominated by milk, orange juice, coffee, and tea. According to the article, over one in seven people order a soft drink to accompany their breakfast. (Among people who eat at home, the rate is 2.4%.) If this trend continues, can ...

Why are process and thread IDs multiples of four?

Raymond ChenFebruary 28, 2008Feb 28, 200802/28/08

On Windows NT-based operating systems, process and thread IDs happen always to be a multiple of four. Is this just a coincidence? Yes, it's just a coincidence, and you shouldn't rely on it since it is not part of the programming contract. For example, Windows 95 process and thread IDs were not always multiples of four. (By ...

Making a reservation at the Asteroid and interrupting a cookie-bake

Raymond ChenFebruary 27, 2008Feb 27, 200802/27/08

Some months ago, I wanted to make a reservation at my favorite Seattle restaurant for special occasions: the Asteroid Cafe. (Asteroid trivia: Their original Wallingford location was so small, you had to go into the kitchen to use the rest room. When they moved to Fremont, they made a special point of putting the rest room in the kitchen for ...

If you ask for STANDARD_RIGHTS_REQUIRED, you may as well ask for the moon

Raymond ChenFebruary 27, 2008Feb 27, 200802/27/08

One of the predefined security access masks is STANDARD_RIGHTS_REQUIRED. You see it used in defining the _ALL_ACCESS masks for various objects. Here are just a few examples: The STANDARD_RIGHTS_REQUIRED mask is meant to be used when defining access masks for object types. I'm guessing it's called STANDARD_RIGHTS_REQUIRED because it's the ...

TechDays 2008 learns the sneaky way of getting me to show up at your conference

Raymond ChenFebruary 26, 2008Feb 26, 200802/26/08

The organizers of TechDays 2008 Portugal have decided to lower their standards and invite me to speak at their conference in Lisbon, which by an amazing coincidence takes place during the same week as my appearance at XV Semana Informática do Instituto Superior Técnico (though fortunately not the same day). You don't need to ...

Losing the game of Last Checkin Chicken two products in a row

Raymond ChenFebruary 26, 2008Feb 26, 200802/26/08

Some time ago, Larry Osterman wrote about the unofficial game of Last Checkin Chicken, wherein teams "compete" to avoid being the one responsible for the last change to a product. The competition is purely virtual; nobody really keeps score, and the "winner" is soon forgotten. Unless you're that winner. I know someone who won the Last ...

The United Kingdom of Great Britain, Northern Ireland, and France?

Raymond ChenFebruary 25, 2008Feb 25, 200802/25/08

Recently-unearthed documents reveal that back in the 1950's, France proposed merging with United Kingdom into a single country or at least joining the Commonwealth. Apparently, Churchill proposed a similar alliance in the 1940. It too was rejected. (Other coverage. There's a secret joke in that article: Check out the URL.) Apparently, the ...

When somebody gives you a gift of code, it's more often than not a burden in disguise