August 2009 | The Old New Thing

And they don't take American Express

Raymond ChenAugust 31, 2009Aug 31, 200908/31/09

A conversation between two friends of mine. Friend 1: Here's the fifteen dollars I owe you. Oh wait, I only have a twenty. Do you have a five? Friend 2: I don't carry cash. Everybody takes credit cards. Friend 1: I don't take credit cards. In my imagination, Friend 1 would have responded to "Everybody takes credit cards

Why do new controls tend to use COM instead of window messages?

Raymond ChenAugust 31, 2009Aug 31, 200908/31/09

Commenter David wonders why new controls tend to use COM instead of window messages. "It seems that there must have been a decision to only develop COM controls after the invention of COM." There have been plenty of Win32 controls invented after the invention of COM. In fact, the entire common controls library was developed after the inven

A different perspective from the first row of the symphony

Raymond ChenAugust 28, 2009Aug 28, 200908/28/09

On the weekend of November 10 during the 2007–2008 Seattle Symphony season, the symphony performed both Brahms piano concerti and two of his symphonies in consecutive concerts. My subscription included one of them, and I bought a separate ticket to the other one, and the seat I was given was in the very front row. You notice all s

The great thing about naming conventions is that not everybody will follow them

Raymond ChenAugust 28, 2009Aug 28, 200908/28/09

The naming convention for HRESULT is «facility»_«severity»_«name», where the facility portion (and the underscore) is omitted if the facility is FACILITY_NULL or FACILITY_WIN32. Good luck finding anybody who follows this naming convention. Okay, fine, if you look closely you might be able to find some peop

Isn't every dinner at a technology conference a geek dinner?

Raymond ChenAugust 27, 2009Aug 27, 200908/27/09

I'm always amused when somebody announces that they're having a geek dinner at a technology conference. I mean, at a conference like that, every dinner is a geek dinner. The geek density is so high, +4 enchanted vorpal swords quiver in fear. [Update 8am: Fixed broken permalink. Yay, they broke a permalink...]

What is the maximum number of timers a program can create?

Raymond ChenAugust 27, 2009Aug 27, 200908/27/09

As MSDN correctly notes, "Timers are a limited global resource." How limited are they? (We're talking about timers created by SetTimer.) Not as limited as they once were. Originally, there were eight timers total for the entire system. When there are only eight timers, you have to be very careful not to waste them and to destroy them when th

The way to stop people from copying files to a folder is to use NTFS security, not to block drag/drop

Raymond ChenAugust 26, 2009Aug 26, 200908/26/09

A customer wanted to prevent users from copying files to certain locations, and they did it by hooking functions like SHFileOperation and failing the operation if the parameters were not to its liking. The customer found that the hooks stopped working in Windows Vista because Explorer in Windows Vista uses the new IFileOperation COM interface

In Ephesus, you juggle or die

Raymond ChenAugust 26, 2009Aug 26, 200908/26/09

In 1987, The Flying Karamazov Brothers performed their interpretation of Shakespeare's A Comedy of Errors. When I watched this show (part 1, part 2) when it first aired, it was my introduction both to the juggling team and to the play. It also reinforced my impression that Shakespeare was meant to be performed and not merely read.

Meta-content: Suggestion Box 4 will open sometime next year

Raymond ChenAugust 25, 2009Aug 25, 200908/25/09

Yesterday, I finished composing the last entry taken from an item in Suggestion Box 3. My prediction that the backlog would clear in early 2010 was off by exactly one year: The last Suggestion Box 3 entry is scheduled to be posted on January 3, 2011. I figure I'll open Suggestion Box 4 sometimes next year. But I'll leave it op

My phone just DoS'd my office network