The Old New Thing

June 2008 - The Old New Thing

2008 mid-year link clearance

June 30, 2008 Jun 30, 2008 06/30/08
Raymond Chen
Time for the semi-annual link clearance. And, as always, the obligatory plug for my column in TechNet Magazine: Footnotes ¹Yes, it isn't literally powered by RFID. I was spoofing marketing-speak. I apologize to those for whom this did not require explaining...

The mystery of the garbage lady

June 26, 2008 Jun 26, 2008 06/26/08
Raymond Chen
Last year, my good friend and colleague Sarah transfered from the Redmond offices to Microsoft UK in Reading. One of her most popular lunchtime stories is the mystery of the garbage lady, which she finally got around to posting on her blog. Some of my other favorite stories from her blog: A colleague of mine experienced the ...

The disappointment of people who need to have their hand held from beginning to end

June 26, 2008 Jun 26, 2008 06/26/08
Raymond Chen
Some customers already have the answer but need to have their hand held. My customer wants to enforce a company-wide policy of disabling the "Keep the taskbar on top of other windows" feature. We have confirmed that there is no group policy setting for controlling this setting. Further research reveals the SHAppBarMessage function. The ...

The difference between a junior and senior position at a video card company

June 25, 2008 Jun 25, 2008 06/25/08
Raymond Chen
Here are the descriptions (verbatim) of two job positions open at a major video card manufacturer back in the late 1990's: Software Engineer - Drivers The way in to a "hot" company in a "hot" field. This entry level position requires some programming experience with graphics preferred. Senior Software Engineer - Applications (Demos) ...

Don't require your users to have a degree in philosophy, episode 3

June 24, 2008 Jun 24, 2008 06/24/08
Raymond Chen
While signing up for online bill payment for one of the services I use, I encountered the following check box: Uncheck this box if you do not wish to receive electronic communications from XYZ. This is not simply a negative-sense checkbox; it's a double-negative-sense checkbox! What's wrong with this: Send me electronic communications from...

Raymond misreads acronyms: MSPP-PVP

June 23, 2008 Jun 23, 2008 06/23/08
Raymond Chen
I was looking up some information about the Microsoft Partner Program, commonly abbreviated MSPP. I stumbled across an internal wiki called mspp-pvp. My first reaction upon seeing the name was, "What, it's player versus player?" I got this images of the CEOs of the various partners wearing VR goggles and running around playing laser tag. No...

Just because you're using a smart pointer class doesn't mean you can abdicate understanding what it does

June 23, 2008 Jun 23, 2008 06/23/08
Raymond Chen
It's great when you have a tool to make programming easier, but you still must understand what it does or you're just replacing one set of problems with another set of more subtle problems. For example, we discussed earlier the importance of knowing when your destructor runs. Here's another example, courtesy of my colleague Chris Ashton. ...
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Donations to the Microsoft Archives: Pens, CDs, and paperweights

June 20, 2008 Jun 20, 2008 06/20/08
Raymond Chen
Among other responsibilities, the Archives department preserves Microsoft history, be it old hardware, old software, old documentation, or ephemera. Last year, one of my colleagues was cleaning out his office because he was moving to Granada, and of the junk he was going to throw out, the Archives asked me to save the following: and my ...