The Old New Thing
Practical development throughout the evolution of Windows.
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What do these topics have in common?
Update: The first correct answer is from Tom Smith who correctly identified the articles as having ridiculous In Popular Culture sections which mention The Simpsons. Lazbro was right: There needs to be a bot that deletes all "In Popular Culture" sections from Wikipedia.
How slow do you have to slow-double-click for it to be a rename?
In many parts of the system, you can rename an item by first selecting it, then clicking on its name. The selection step is typically done by clicking on the item, which creates the risk that your second click will be interpreted as a double-click rather than as a rename click. How slow do you have to slow-double-click for it to be a rename? Slow enough that it's not a regular double-click. The double-click time is set in the mouse control panel; I believe the current default is 500 milliseconds. If your two clicks are within a half second of each other, they will be treated as a double-click. If they occur ...
What I don’t get about bank robbers
My reaction to the news story about the so-called Barbie Bandits wasn't disbelief or shock at the crime, but rather confusion over their over-arching plan. People rob a bank and use the money to buy stuff. Dude, cut out the federal crime; just steal the stuff directly. When I expressed this disbelief at the lunch table, one of my colleagues took issue with my assessment. "Oh, no, the food in state prison is awful. Federal is much better."
Self-esteem gone overboard: The perils of a global namespace
There are items with overly generic names. , , , , . But their functionality doesn't live up to their name. refers only to kernel handles, can only close kernel handles, only gets information about GDI objects, applies only to the numerical difference between group resources and standalone resources, and only queries information about Terminal Services Remote Desktop Services. Why do functions that operate only inside a specific realm have names that suggest a broader scope? Self-esteem gone bad. You're on the kernel team. You have a handle manager. What should you call your handles? Well, since the...
What seventh grade students want to be when they grow up, an analysis
A few years ago, I listed some of the careers seventh grade students chose for themselves. But my friend the seventh grade teacher pointed out to me that the list hides the correlation between the jobs and the students. The lower-performing students chose the high-glamour jobs: Professional athlete, model, rock star, actor. Some of these students may be exhibiting boundless optimism; others may simply not have thought through the question very much and just picked the first thing that popped into their head. By comparison, the higher-performing students tended toward low-glamour but highly-skilled jobs: Contra...
Does version 6 of the common controls support ANSI or not?
I mentioned in passing a few years ago that version 6 of the common controls supports only Unicode. And then other people stepped in to say, "Well, XYZ uses ANSI and that works for me." So does it support ANSI or doesn't it? It does and doesn't. All of the controls in the common controls library are internally Unicode. But not all controls in the library are created equal. The first group is the traditional common controls. List view, tree view, those guys. These controls were never part of the window manager and have been internally Unicode on all Windows NT platforms. The ANSI messages such as ar...
Microspeak: Represent
The more conventional definition of represent is along the lines of "to act as a proxy for". An attorney represents his or her client in court. Your legislator represents you in the assembly. A token on a board represents your position in the game. At Microsoft, the word represent takes on a stranger meaning. Here are some usages inspired by actual sentences: In the first case, I'm guessing that the word represent means "to act as an advocate for" or possibly just "to serve as a source of information on". In the second case, it appears that the word represent just means "tell us in an official capacity...
Quite possibly my last in-person ballot for a long time
Most parts of the state of Washington have switched to all-mail voting. No more standing in line at the polling place and casting your vote in person. This is certainly a convenience, but to me, it dilutes the voting experience. Part of the experience is the sense that you're part of a process, and standing in a room full of voters certainly drives that point home. You may come from all walks of life, but you all have one thing in common: You all want to vote. Also concerning to me is the loss of the guaranteed secret ballot in a mail-in election. With a mail-in ballot, you have the problem that an overbeari...
How did Spicy Hot V-8 vegetable juice get added to the complimentary beverages in Microsoft kitchens?
Today is Election Day in the United States. Don't forget to vote. (Void where prohibited.) In honor of Election Day, I figured I'd tell a story about voting. One of the complimentary beverages available in Microsoft kitchens is Spicy Hot V-8. (Sure it's tasty, but watch out for the sodium content!) I remember well when Spicy Hot V-8 was added to the refrigerators. At the 1992 Company Meeting, Bill Gates and then-head of HR Mike Murray appeared on stage to read questions submitted by employees ahead of time. One of the questions was "Can we carry Spicy Hot V-8 in the kitchens?" Mike Murray decided to pu...