The Old New Thing

Where did start.com get its name?

April 14, 2006 Apr 14, 2006 04/14/06
Raymond Chen
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 13, 2006 Apr 13, 2006 04/13/06
Raymond Chen
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 ...

News for dummies in French and English

April 12, 2006 Apr 12, 2006 04/12/06
Raymond Chen
In case you didn't get the joke, "News for dummies" is just my nickname for the news designed for non-native speakers. It tends to be spoken more slowly and use less advanced vocabulary. I use the term because I'm the dummy, you see. If I were smart, then I'd use the news for native speakers. (Sometimes I give it a shot and then my head ...

Why is the Microsoft Protection Service called "msmpsvc"?

April 12, 2006 Apr 12, 2006 04/12/06
Raymond Chen
(This is the first in a series of short posts on where Microsoft products got their names.) The original name for the malware protection service was "mpsvc" the "Microsoft Protection Service", but it was discovered later that that filename was already used by malware! As a result, the name of the service had to be changed by sticking an "ms...

What's the deal with the house in front of Microsoft's RedWest campus?

April 11, 2006 Apr 11, 2006 04/11/06
Raymond Chen
What's the deal with the house in front of Microsoft's RedWest campus? Here is my understanding. It may be incomplete or even flat-out wrong. The house belongs to a couple who was unwilling to sell their property when Microsoft's real estate people were buying up the land on which to build the RedWest campus. (I'm told it was originally a ...

You'd think it'd be easy to give away a ticket to the symphony

April 10, 2006 Apr 10, 2006 04/10/06
Raymond Chen
I'm sort of the ringleader of a group of friends who go in together on a block of tickets to the Seattle Symphony. I bought a pair of tickets in the block, one for myself, and one for a rotating guest. And for some reason, I had a hard time finding a guest for last weekend's concert. Of course, six of my friends have already been ruled out...

Be very careful if you decide to change the rules after the game has ended

April 10, 2006 Apr 10, 2006 04/10/06
Raymond Chen
One suggestion for addressing the network compatibility problem was returning an error code like which means "Um, the server ran into a problem. Please start over." This is basically the same as the "do nothing" option, because the server is already returning an error code specifically for this problem, namely, . Now, sure, that error doesn'...

News for dummies now available in podcast form

April 7, 2006 Apr 7, 2006 04/7/06
Raymond Chen
I'm probably the only person who uses the "News for dummies" links in the navigation pane on this page, and now I'm going to use them even less. The Swedish news for dummies recently became available in podcast form [RSS], joining the German news for dummies, which has been available as a podcast [RSS] since the beginning of the year. (...

Computing over a high-latency network means you have to bulk up

April 7, 2006 Apr 7, 2006 04/7/06
Raymond Chen
One of the big complaints about Explorer we've received from corporations is how often it accesses the network. If the computer you're accessing is in the next room, then accessing it a large number of times isn't too much of a problem since you get the response back rather quickly. But if the computer you're talking to is halfway around the ...