This weekend is NBA All-Star Weekend 2007, because just having a game isn't enough; you need to make it a weekend-long festival. Tyrus Thomas, invited to paricipate in the slam dunk contest, which comes with a top prize of $35,000, was quoted as saying I'm just going to go out there, get my check and call it a day. ... I'm just into the free mon...

As a general rule, I avoid using any class libraries in my sample code. This isn't because I'm opposed to class libraries, but rather because I don't want to narrow my audience to "people who use MFC" (to choose one popular class library). If I were to start using MFC for all of my samples, I'd probably lose all the people who don't use MFC. "Oh, ...

Every year, Road and Track magazine reviews a strange vehicle in their April edition. Last year, it was the 1949 MG TC. But my favorite is their 2005 review of the Zamboni 500. [T]he Zamboni leaves the line with alacrity (revved to its 3000-rpm redline), rockets up to 9.7 mph and then stays at exactly that speed for the full 200-ft. length of...

If you try to set the current directory of a command prompt, you get the error message "CMD does not support UNC paths as current directories." What's going on here? It's MS-DOS backwards compatibility. If the current directory were a UNC, there wouldn't be anything to return to MS-DOS programs when they call function 19h (Get current drive). Tha...

One phenomenon I've noticed quite a bit is something I'm going to call "technology hypochondria", the belief that you are suffering from whatever problem you just read about. It reminds me of this joke: A man goes to his doctor. "Doctor," he says, "I'm pretty sure I've got this disease here. All the symptoms match. I'm suffering from fatigue, s...

Barry Leiba extends my previous remarks on choosing meaningful subject lines with his own contribution to the cause. Of particular interest is his note on how to choose a subject line for meeting requests.

If you add me to an existing discussion, you have to say why. Do you have a specific question for me? Do you want my opinion on something? Are you just sharing a funny joke? Sometimes, I'll get a piece of mail that goes like this: From: Xxxxx To: Aaaaa; Bbbbb; Ccccc; Raymond Adding Raymond. --- Original Message --- ... Gee, that's very nice...

There was a morning meeting event at which donuts were provided as an enticement. Someone commented on the food thus: "These donuts failed to meet expectations." Peter Sagal remarked that the phrase "emerging to standard" has entered currency in his family as a euphemism for "substandard". (Opening panel round, final question, time code 1:20.) Ho...

If you look at the documentation for the function, you'll see that it calls out different behavior depending on whether you're running Windows 95 or Windows NT. Commenter Vipin asked why Windows NT doesn't follow Windows 95's lead. Back in the old days, 16-bit Windows did unregister classes automatically when a DLL unloaded. ...

Long Zheng followed up on the story of where the default wallpapers in Windows Vista came from and managed to score an interview with Hamad Darwish, one of those amateur photographers.