November 2009

Good advice comes with a rationale so you can tell when it becomes bad advice

November 4, 2009 Nov 4, 2009 11/4/09

Raymond Chen

A customer asked for guidance in software design: Is there an issue with creating and using COM objects from a UI thread which was initialized as STA? I have heard that it is a best practice to create and use COM objects on a background thread which is MTA. I would like to have some more information as to why. Any help? (I still have ...

When asked to choose among multiple options, the politician will pick all of them

November 3, 2009 Nov 3, 2009 11/3/09

Raymond Chen

During the run-up to a local election some time ago, the newspaper posed the same set of questions to each of the candidates and published the responses in a grid format so the readers could easily compare them. The candidates agreed on some issues, had opposing positions on others, but the question whose answers struck me was one of the form...

Microspeak: Net out

November 3, 2009 Nov 3, 2009 11/3/09

Raymond Chen

It started out in finance, but the term has crept into more mainstream usage (at least within Microsoft) and along the way picked up its own meaning: Where did we net out on this? Customers want you to net out the business value. Note any significant changes to the forecast and explain the reasons why. Net out changes to start ...

Hey, is there somebody around to accept this award?

November 2, 2009 Nov 2, 2009 11/2/09

Raymond Chen

Back in the late 1990s, some large Internet association conducted a survey in order to bestow awards in categories like Best Web server and Best Web browser, and one of the categories was Best Web authoring tool. We didn't find out about this until the organization contacted the Windows team and said, "Hi, we would like to present Microsoft ...

The Old New Thing

November 2009 - Page 4 of 4 - The Old New Thing

Good advice comes with a rationale so you can tell when it becomes bad advice

When asked to choose among multiple options, the politician will pick all of them

Microspeak: Net out

Hey, is there somebody around to accept this award?