The Old New Thing
Practical development throughout the evolution of Windows.
Latest posts
Adding a new flag to enable behavior that previously was on by default
One of the suggestions for addressing the network compatibility problem was to give up on fast mode and have a new "fast mode 2". (Equivalently, add a flag to the server capabilities that means "I support fast mode, and I'm not buggy.") This is another example of changing the rules after the game is over, by adding a flag to work around driver bugs. Consider a hypothetical program that uses fast mode on Windows XP. It runs against a Windows Server 2003 server and everybody is happy. Suppose you make a change to Windows Vista so that it requires that servers set a new "fast mode 2" flag in ord...
Maybe you don't sound like Carl Kasell, but you can have his job
According to the wonderful Mixed Signals, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is searching for radio hosts. They're calling it "American Idol for public radio". I recently stumbled across Mixed Signals and was instantly hooked. Some of my recent favorites: The curatorship of Mixed Signals appears to change hands rather frequently. The last few entries I linked above were from Robert Smith, whom I had the pleasure to meet at KUOW studios when he was stationed in Seattle.
How to fill in that number grouping member of NUMBERFMT
If you look at the structure, the way groups are expressed by the member do not match the value returned by : expresses grouping as a series of semicolon-separated numbers, each expressing the number of digits in each group (least-significant group first). A trailing zero indicates that the last grouping should be repeated indefinitely. For example, "3;2;0" means "Group the three least significant digits, then in twos until you run out of digits." If there is no trailing ";0", then there are no commas past that point. For example, "3" means "Group the three least significant digits, then stop." The member ...
Merchandise your food with pride
There is a new placard in our cafeteria which reads "Merchandise your food with pride". That's the first time I've seen the word "merchandise" used as a verb. Here, I'll translate that last paragraph into management speak for you: The cafeteria newly signed a placard whose read is "Merchandise your food with pride". That's my first see of a verbed "merchandise". Earlier this year, I was chatting with a Boeing employee who mentioned that he "had to status an action item". I have yet to see the word "status" used as a verb at Microsoft, but it's only a matter of time.
Locale-sensitive number grouping
Most westerners are familiar with the fact that the way numbers are formatted differ between the United States and much of Europe. What people don't realize is that the grouping is not always in threes. In India, the least significant group consists of three digits, but subsequent groups are in pairs. I've also seen reports that the first group consists of five digits, followed by pairs: Meanwhile, Chinese and Japanese traditionally group in fours. What does this mean for you? Don't assume that numbers group in threes, and of course you can't assume that the grouping separator is the comma and the decimal...
Where did start.com get its name?
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 getting renewed year after year. (Perhaps we should also put marketing in charge of renewing passport.com since they seem to do a better job of keeping on top of expiring registrations than whoever is in charge of Passport.) It was probably at about the time I got that email ...
Chain tax preparers do not fare well in undercover investigation
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 were made. A Marketplace report added that mistakes with tax credits were particularly bad because messing them up can render you ineligible for claiming them in the future. Add to that the plans for the IRS to permit tax preparers sell information about their clients to mar...
Where did the name for Microsoft Access come from?
It was already taken, but that's okay.
News for dummies in French and English
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 explodes. German tends to explode my head more than Swedish.) In response to my links to the Swedish and German news for dummies, commenter David Conrad asked if there was an equivalent service in French. I don't speak French myself, but a little bit of web searching turned up ...