The Old New Thing

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

I'm sorry, Brian/Bryan Gregory, that confirming the spelling of your name is too much for you to handle

December 7, 2009 Dec 7, 2009 12/7/09
Raymond Chen
At 10am on November 30, I received a telephone call at work with "Anonymous" as the caller ID. Strange. But maybe it's the same person who called my office phone from New York at 1am on the day after Thanksgiving and didn't leave a message, and they're just following up on the first business day after the holiday weekend. "Hello?" — ...

What is the story behind multimon.h?

December 7, 2009 Dec 7, 2009 12/7/09
Raymond Chen
Commenter asdf wonders what the deal is with that header file. Let's set some context. That header file was written back in the time when Windows 98 was still under development. Windows 98 was the first version of Windows to support multiple monitors. At the time, most application authors had Windows 95 as their target ...

Why do some comments have a star?

December 4, 2009 Dec 4, 2009 12/4/09
Raymond Chen
Every so often, someone posts a really funny comment, and I feel stupid just posting the remark "Haha, that was funny" or even worse "LOL". So I'm going to try giving them a star instead. Chris Blackwell wins the first star. Hopefully people won't post comments just fishing for a star. (I realize that this is a vain hope and that I will ...

When there is a long line of people waiting for a shared resource, you want to investigate the person who is hogging the resource, not the people waiting in line for it

December 4, 2009 Dec 4, 2009 12/4/09
Raymond Chen
If you see a long line of people waiting for a phone booth (note: this analogy assumes you remember how phone booths work), and you want to understand the reason for the long line, do you Go to a person waiting in line and begin your investigation there? Go to the phone booth (and the person inside) and begin your investigation there...

Why do Swedes count "1, X, 2"?

December 3, 2009 Dec 3, 2009 12/3/09
Raymond Chen
Occasionally, when an article in Swedish needs to count off three items, they are not labelled "1, 2, 3" but rather "1, X, 2". Why is that? I asked Jesper Holmberg, and he was kind enough to explain. (The entire exchange naturally was conducted in Swedish. Here's my translation.) As with most of the good things in life...

Intelius cancels its cell phone directory, saving me the trouble of having to opt out of it every three months

December 1, 2009 Dec 1, 2009 12/1/09
Raymond Chen
A few years ago, I wrote about a new cell phone directory that charges $15 to give you incorrect information, and from which you have to renew your opt-out every three months. Well, apparently, less than a year later, due to "complaints from consumers and Verizon Wireless," Intelius decided to discontinue the service. Intelius is back in ...