The Old New Thing
Practical development throughout the evolution of Windows.
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SIFF reviews: Falling, 2 Days in Paris, Hula Girls
More SIFF reviews.
The program doesn't have to be run from the Start menu to earn Start menu points
There's a second subtlety to the basic principle that determines which programs show up in the Start menu: Each time you launch a program, it "earns a point", and the longer you don't launch a program, the more points it loses. Since programs earn points and not shortcuts, a program can earn points even if you don't use the Start menu to run it. In usability studies, we often see people who run programs by digging through their Program Files directory until they find an icon that looks promising and then double-click it. If there is a shortcut on the All Programs section of the Start menu that points to the...
I never thought of it before, but drumming is a metaphor for life!
Rolling Stone writer Jancee Dunn talks about her memoir and particularly presents several tips on how to interview rock stars and other celebrities. The story about Ben Affleck is worth the price of admission.
Points are earned by programs, not by shortcuts
The first subtlety of the basic principle that determines which programs show up in the Start menu is something you may not have noticed when I stated it: Each time you launch a program, it "earns a point", and the longer you don't launch a program, the more points it loses. Notice that the rule talks about programs, not shortcuts. The "points" for a program are tallied from all the shortcuts that exist on the All Programs section of the Start menu. Many programs install multiple shortcuts, say one to the root of the All Programs menu and another to a deep folder. It doesn't matter how many shortcuts you hav...
The New York City Profit Calculator
New York Magazine has a fascinating feature in today's issue: The Profit Calculator. It covers a cross-section of New York City businesses and studies how they make their money. Chock full of interesting little details, such as
What determines which programs show up on the front page of the Windows XP Start menu?
The principle is that programs you've run most often recently are the ones that show up on the front page of the Start menu. At least, that's what we started with, but it turns out that some fine-tuning was needed in order to get the experience to be more "natural". The basic rule is that each time you launch a program, it "earns a point", and the longer you don't launch a program, the more points it loses. The Start menu then shows the programs that have the most points. That's about all I'm going to say about the mechanics of point-winning for a variety of reasons. After the basic rule is applied, the fine-...
shopautodotca seocontest online contest tacitly encourages comment spam
There is a Canadian web site that is running a contest to see who can get their web site to rank highest for the terms "shopautodotca seocontest". There's $14,000 in prize money at stake (presumably in Canadian dollars), as well as a contract as the company's SEO manager. Since the contest rules do not rule out spam as a mechanism for improving search rank, this web site (and no doubt others) are getting hit with comment spam from people trying to get their site to rank higher. (I sent a message to the contest organizer last month, who wrote back, "we will investigate." Haven't heard anything since then.) Just t...
Why does canonical order for ACEs put deny ACEs ahead of allow ACEs?
So-called canonical order for ACEs in an access control list places deny ACEs ahead of allow ACEs. Why is this the canonical order? Because it gives results that are sensible. The algorithm for determining whether a user has access to an object protected by an ACL is as follows: let access-still-needed = access-requested for each ACE in the ACL that applies to the user (in order) if it is a deny ACE: if (access-still-needed & ace-mask) return access-denied if it is an allow ACE: &nb...
The meaning of a red traffic light is open to interpretation
It seems a sure-fire way to get a lot of good comments is to write about traffic lights or crazy driving, so I'm going to combine the two and write about crazy driving at traffic lights. Then my comments will set a new record. My friend The Knitty Professor told me about the time the sister of one of her friends came to visit from another country. The sister was driving through the streets of Boston with my friend among the passengers, and she drove straight through a red light. After my friend checked that she was still alive, she pointed out politely that the traffic light they had just driven through was...