Raymond Chen

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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Then again, it might not be overclocking after all

April 21st, 2006
While it's true that there's an awful lot of overclocking out there, it's also true that not everything that looks like overclocking actually is. Last Thanksgiving, I helped one of my relatives upgrade their computer by scavenging parts from another unused computer (installing more memory and replacing a broken CD drive). When I took the ...

More about the house in front of Microsoft's RedWest campus

April 20th, 2006
After I mentioned that house in front of Microsoft's RedWest campus, I received an e-mail message from Mike Daly which corrects some of my mistakes and provides additional details: Actually, there were two houses in the strip in front of RedWest. The one you show has not been moved. The other ended up on blocks and parked opposite the ...

The 2006/2007 Seattle Symphony subscription season at a glance

April 19th, 2006
I put together this little pocket guide to the 2006/2007 Seattle Symphony subscription season for my symphony friends to help them decide which ticket package they wanted. Maybe it'll help you, too. Maybe not. But since I already put it together, I may as well post it. Explanatory notes follow the table. Notes: This chart doesn't include "...

Adding a new flag to enable behavior that previously was on by default

April 19th, 2006
One of the suggestions for addressing the network compatibility problem was to give up on fast mode and have a new "fast mode 2". (Equivalently, add a flag to the server capabilities that means "I support fast mode, and I'm not buggy.") This is another example of changing the rules after the game is over, by adding a flag to work ...

Maybe you don't sound like Carl Kasell, but you can have his job

April 18th, 2006
According to the wonderful Mixed Signals, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is searching for radio hosts. They're calling it "American Idol for public radio". I recently stumbled across Mixed Signals and was instantly hooked. Some of my recent favorites: The curatorship of Mixed Signals appears to change hands rather frequently. ...

How to fill in that number grouping member of NUMBERFMT

April 18th, 2006
If you look at the structure, the way groups are expressed by the member do not match the value returned by : expresses grouping as a series of semicolon-separated numbers, each expressing the number of digits in each group (least-significant group first). A trailing zero indicates that the last grouping should be repeated indefinitely. ...

Merchandise your food with pride

April 17th, 2006
There is a new placard in our cafeteria which reads "Merchandise your food with pride". That's the first time I've seen the word "merchandise" used as a verb. Here, I'll translate that last paragraph into management speak for you: The cafeteria newly signed a placard whose read is "Merchandise your food with pride". That's my first see of a...

Locale-sensitive number grouping

April 17th, 2006
Most westerners are familiar with the fact that the way numbers are formatted differ between the United States and much of Europe. What people don't realize is that the grouping is not always in threes. In India, the least significant group consists of three digits, but subsequent groups are in pairs. I've also seen reports that the first ...

Where did start.com get its name?

April 14th, 2006
I remember some time ago getting a piece of email that basically said, "Hey, is anybody using start.com?" I have since learned that that domain was registered by the marketing department, presumably to "synergize" with the "Start Me Up" campaign or something like that, but nothing ever happened with it. Nevertheless the registration kept ...

Chain tax preparers do not fare well in undercover investigation

April 13th, 2006
The Government Accountability Office paid nineteen visits to chain tax preparers, presented information on two hypothetical families, and asked for assistance in preparing the tax return. "Only two returns showed the correct refund amount, but both of those returns included errors." The article goes into specifics of what sorts of mistakes ...