The Old New Thing
Practical development throughout the evolution of Windows.
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Seattle to Portland (STP) 2007 trip report, part 4 of 4: St. Helens to Portland and beyond
Note: You probably want to start with Part 1. 1:33pm: S and I arrive at the St. Helens High School food stop (mile 175) just as J, M, and A are on their way out. S is pretty wiped out by this point and heads over to the nearby McDonalds for a cup of Coke and an order of French fries. "What I need is fat," she explains. (And she was hardly the only person to stop at McDonalds for "alternative fuels".) Here's how the math works out: high fructose corn syrup + caffeine + starch + fat = ready for the last 30 miles Z arrives at the St. Helens stop and we tell him that we're down at the McDonald's. S confess...
Don't just grab the foreground window and host UI on it
I was asked to look at an application compatibility bug in a program from a major vendor. But that's actually irrelevant; what I'm writing about today has nothing to do with application compatibility. That's just what drew my attention to the program in the first place. At some point during the install, the setup program encountered an error and wanted to display an error message. When it called to display the error message, it didn't pass the setup program's main window as the . Instead it passed . They chose the wrong owner for modal UI. (I've also seen people try .) It so happened that the foreground window...
How do the names in the file security dialog map to access control masks?
When you call up the file security dialog, you'll see options like "Full Control" and "Read and Execute". That's really nice as friendly names go, but when you're digging into the security descriptor, you may need to know what those permissions really map to when it comes down to bits. First, the summary attributes: If you go to the Advanced view, then you get much more precise control: (In the Advanced view, you control inheritance from the "Apply to" drop-down combo box.) Note that the "Delete Subfolders and Files" and "Delete" attributes together determine whether you can delete a file or subdirectory: Y...
Seattle to Portland (STP) 2007 trip report, part 3 of 4: Toledo to St. Helens
Note: You probably want to start with Part 1. Sidebar: There are a lot of groups that wore matching jerseys to build team spirit. Here are a few riders that caught my eye that I haven't already mentioned: Our detour to Toledo bypassed the towns of Napavine and Winlock, which meant that we missed out Napavine night life, the banana bread lady, and The World's Largest Egg. I found a funny picture of another rider trying to eat the world's largest egg, and check out that bizarro bicycle towing contraption they cobbled together later in the ride! Sunday (Day Two) 6am: I did not have a very good night's...
Seattle to Portland (STP) 2007 trip report, part 2 of 4: Spanaway to Toledo
Note: This story makes much more sense if you read Part 1 first. It won't be any more interesting, but at least it'll be a coherent sort of boring. 12:20pm: We arrive in Spanaway for the lunch break (54 miles) [pic]. The consensus among seasoned riders appears to be that the Saturday lunch is pretty lame this year. It consists of a rice and bean wrap, a bagel, and a handful of grapes. I don't think it's so bad, but then again, I don't know what to expect either. Given that we lost a good chunk of time, I suggest that S, Z and I get a head start, since we tend to go slower. (S's normal pace is a bit s...
What is Dave's frame class?
Back in 2004, we lost Dave's frame class. Dave's frame class, or more accurately, DavesFrameClass, was the window class that drew the CPU meter on the Performance page of Task Manager. As you might have guessed, Dave was the name of the original author of Task Manager. (If the checked version of Task Manager from NT 4 encountered an internal error, it printed a message to the debugger which includes details of the error and Dave's telephone number so you can tell him about it! Mind you, that phone number is several years old, so don't call it, or you'll probably annoy the family who lives in Dave's old hous...
Seattle to Portland (STP) 2007 trip report, part 1 of 4: Seattle to Spanaway
Note: I found some other riders who blogged their experience on the STP, and I've slipped in links to some of the more interesting ones. All statistics are approximate. Prologue Biking to and from work the Monday before STP, I noticed that I had more saddle discomfort than usual. Could it be residual effects from that training ride? Am I simply not cut out for this distance riding stuff? Oh, no, that's not it. I got a mosquito bite on my butt. The bite heals before the week is over. Disaster averted. On Thursday, however, I develop a sore throat and other influenza pre-symptoms. Not a good time to be sick. Ho...
Just because you say something in my presence and I don't raise an objection doesn't mean that I agree
This is a sneaky trick that people try to pull occasionally. They'll say something while I happen to be present (either physically in person or virtually by adding me to an email conversation) and see what my reaction is. If I don't say anything, then they assume that I agree with whatever it is they said. Just to make it official: Just because you say something in my presence and I don't raise an objection doesn't mean that I agree. I can usually tell when people are trying to pull this stunt and I refuse to play along. I see the same trick being played in the comments of this web site. Just because somebody ...
Tips for doing the Seattle to Portland (STP) in two days: What I learned in 2007
Two weekends ago, I participated in the 28th annual Seattle to Portland bicycle ride, wherein I joined up with 8999 of my closest friends for a friendly ride through western Washington and Oregon. Earlier this year I provided tongue-in-cheek bad advice for preparing for STP. Today I restore the balance with proper advice. This was my first STP, and I was somewhat apprehensive over whether I was up to the task, since I had never ridden more than 60 miles in a day prior to this. Here are some notes I'm recording for the benefit of future generations, since I couldn't find much in the way of this type of advice o...