The Old New Thing

July 2008 - Page 2 of 4 - The Old New Thing

Theorize if you want, but if the problem is right there in front of you, why not go for the facts?

July 23, 2008 Jul 23, 2008 07/23/08
Raymond Chen
On an internal discussion list, somebody asked a question similar to this: My program launches a helper program. This helper program does different things based on the command line parameters, but the way I'm using it, it just prints its results to the console and exits. When I launch this program and wait for it to exit, my wait never ...
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Windows could not properly load the XYZ keyboard layout

July 22, 2008 Jul 22, 2008 07/22/08
Raymond Chen
In my rôle as the family technical support department, I get to poke around without really knowing what I'm doing and hope to stumble across a solution. Sometimes I succeed; sometimes I fail. Today, I'm documenting one of my successes in the hope that it might come in handy for you, the technical support department for your family. (...

A modest proposal: Getting people to stop buying SUVs

July 21, 2008 Jul 21, 2008 07/21/08
Raymond Chen
I developed this modest proposal many years ago, but it looks like rising gasoline prices have done the job. But in case they don't, here's my plan. SUVs are classified as "trucks" for the purpose of C.A.F.E. regulations, and those regulations are more lenient on gasoline efficiency for trucks. As a result, the auto industry happily built...

MessageBoxIndirect loads the icon itself; you can’t hand it a pre-loaded icon

July 21, 2008 Jul 21, 2008 07/21/08
Raymond Chen
Commenter 8 wants to know how to tell the MessageBoxIndirect function to use an existing HICON instead of pointing it to an icon resource. You can't. The MessageBoxIndirect loads the icon itself. You can't hand it a pre-loaded icon. Of course, it's hardly rocket science to write your own MessageBoxWithMyIcon function that lets you use...
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Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, available online for a short time only

July 18, 2008 Jul 18, 2008 07/18/08
Raymond Chen
Get it while it's hot. Available through this weekend only, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is a three-act Web series featuring Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible, a wannabe mad scientist evildoer who video-blogs about his plans for world domination, his application to the Evil League of Evil, his arch-enemy Captain Hammer, and his crush on ...

A new record for the shortest amount of time between an email message and its resend

July 18, 2008 Jul 18, 2008 07/18/08
Raymond Chen
As I've noted before, people didn't answer your first question for a reason, but one thing I forgot to point out is that you also need to give people a chance to answer the first time at all! Occasionally, I'll see somebody ask a question, and then resend the question a short time later. You also have to take into account the time of day. ...

Microspeak: Well, actually management-speak

July 17, 2008 Jul 17, 2008 07/17/08
Raymond Chen
I hate management-speak. Here's an example from an internal Web site. The purpose of this Web site is two-fold. Create a reference source (best practices) where individuals can learn how to plan/facilitate and leverage their X activities most effectively. Establish a library of X material teams can utilize. Wow, let's look ...

News flash: Online drug sales are shady!

July 16, 2008 Jul 16, 2008 07/16/08
Raymond Chen
In what I'm sure is a fantastic surprise to everybody who has visited the Internet, according to a report in the New York Times, researchers at Columbia University have discovered that there are prescription drug pushers on the Internet who will sell you prescription drugs without a prescription. From what I can gather, they didn't ...