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You are not alone – Michael Jackson (History Tour Munich 1997)

Madalin Games: sites.google.com It is sad that Lisa Marie Presley did not follow her heart and stay married to her soul mate who she now admits was the love of her life . Friday, June 26, 2009 He Knew. Years ago Michael and I were having a deep
Jun 25 2010 11:34 PM
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Who Deserves The Credit For Software Craftsmanship and Great Design?

How did people design great software before OO and how did we ever manage to run a successful project before Agile came along? Those are the questions young programmers undoubtedly ask themselves at some point in their career (I know I did, early on).
 
Alan Skorkin
May 12 2010 05:03 PM
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Why doesn't SS_WHITERECT actually draw a white rectangle?

There are six styles available to the static controls which draw frames and rectangles in one of three fixed colors: SS_BLACKRECTSS_BLACKFRAME SS_GRAYRECTSS_GRAYFRAME SS_WHITERECTSS_WHITEFRAME But if you actually create a static control with one of these
 
oldnewthing
tags: history
Apr 08 2010 05:49 PM
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EnumClaw, the function that never was

bhiggins asks about the mysterious function EnumClaw that existed in some versions of the Win32 documentation. I went digging through the MSDN archives and was close to giving up and declaring the cause lost, but then I found it: A copy of the EnumClaw
 
oldnewthing
tags: history
Apr 01 2010 07:13 PM
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Why does SHFileOperation have internal error codes for DVD?

erangi asks why the SHFileOperation function has internal error codes DE_DEST_IS_DVD and DE_SRC_IS_DVD if DVDs hadn't been invented at the time it was first written a long time ago. As my colleague Christopher Davis explained, the SHFileOperation
 
oldnewthing
tags: history
Mar 22 2010 04:30 PM
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Why does the OLE variant date format use 30 December 1899 as its zero point?

In 2006, via the suggestion box, Chris J asks why the OLE variant date format has such a strange zero point. Its zero point is 30 December 1899, as opposed to 1 January 1900 (SQL Server's zero point) or 1 January 1970 (the unix zero point). It turns
 
oldnewthing
Mar 12 2010 07:30 PM
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Manchester University’s CS Legacy

When I chose Manchester University for my Computer Science MSc, it was partially because of its reputation but I realized I didn’t actually know anything specific about that legacy. I thought I’d find out a little more about some of the
 
Paul Brabban
Mar 02 2010 04:17 AM
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Why does the CBS_SORT combo box style sort the left square bracket so strangely?

Some time ago, Michael Kaplan asked (and answered), How the @#%&*! does CBS_SORT choose to sort it all out? One detail in his answer is that the sorting algorithm used by CBS_SORT is basically CompareString, with special treatment for the left square
 
oldnewthing
tags: history
Feb 24 2010 07:30 PM
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Google TechTalk: The Evolution of End-User Programming

End-User Programming has been a topical discussion lately in mainstream software outlets. The IEEE journal Software recently had an issue dedicated to end-user programming challenges; see Joel Brandt's Opportunistic Programming: Writing Code to
Feb 12 2010 10:54 PM
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Blast from the Past - The Inside Track Series Concludes

I hope you have enjoyed the Blast from the Past - The Inside Track Series. To make life simpler, I have attached a zip file with all 10 of the original Inside Track pdf files. To finish off, here are some comments from the original author, Karl
 
David Musgrave
Jan 20 2010 10:04 AM
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Blast from the Past - The Inside Track - October 2001

This is article 10 of 10 from the Blast from the Past - The Inside Track Series. This newsletter from Karl Gunderson was sent out in October 2001. The Inside TrackPlease Step This Way, Part 2October 2001 As I write this, less than a week has
 
David Musgrave
Jan 18 2010 09:46 AM
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Blast from the Past - The Inside Track - August 2001

This is article 9 of 10 from the Blast from the Past - The Inside Track Series. This newsletter from Karl Gunderson was sent out in August 2001. The Inside TrackPlease Step This Way, Part 1August 2001 As a professional developer for over
 
David Musgrave
Jan 13 2010 05:30 AM
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But that's not all: The story of that cheesy Steve Ballmer Windows video

While it's true that the cheesy Steve Ballmer Windows video had bad music, bad hair, and bad acting, it's also true that all that cheese was intentional. That video was produced for and shown at the Company Meeting, back when a mainstay of the Company
 
oldnewthing
tags: history
Jan 12 2010 08:40 PM
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Blast from the Past - The Inside Track - June 2001

This is article 8 of 10 from the Blast from the Past - The Inside Track Series. This newsletter from Karl Gunderson was sent out in June 2001. The Inside TrackRepresentative and Reactionary ProgrammingJune 2001 I'm back from my vacation.
 
David Musgrave
Jan 11 2010 05:30 AM
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Why Normalization Failed to Become the Ultimate Guide for Database Designers?

While trying to find marshall's claim that Alberto Mendelzon says the universal relation is an idea re-invented once every 3 years (and later finding a quote by Jeffrey Ullman that the universal relation is re-invented 3 times a year), I stumbled across
Jan 09 2010 06:15 AM
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Blast from the Past - The Inside Track - March 2001

This is article 7 of 10 from the Blast from the Past - The Inside Track Series. This newsletter from Karl Gunderson was sent out in March 2001. The Inside Track, March 2001UML – Understanding Meta Language If you've been around Great
 
David Musgrave
Jan 06 2010 05:30 AM
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Blast from the Past - The Inside Track - February 2001

This is article 6 of 10 from the Blast from the Past - The Inside Track Series. This newsletter from Karl Gunderson was sent out in February 2001. The Inside Track"XML Reprise"February 2001 The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has given the
 
David Musgrave
Jan 04 2010 05:30 AM
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The goggles, they do nothing!: Gemulator advertisement from 1992

Darek Mihocka, proprietor of emulators.com, and whom I linked to a few years ago, released the source code to Atari ST emulator Gemulator 9.0 source code as open source, and in celebration, he also posted his 1992 promotional video to YouTube: Part
 
oldnewthing
tags: history
Jan 01 2010 11:45 PM
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Blast from the Past - The Inside Track - January 2001

This is article 5 of 10 from the Blast from the Past - The Inside Track Series. This newsletter from Karl Gunderson was sent out in January 2001. The Inside Track "COM See, COM Saw"January 2001 If my titles get to be too cute, blast me
 
David Musgrave
Dec 30 2009 05:30 AM
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How does the keyboard autorepeat setting work?

Commenter eric johnson wonders how that control panel keyboard autorepeat setting works. This is one of those questions that has many answers, depending on how deep you want to dig. The first layer of the question is how the control panel changes the
 
oldnewthing
tags: history
Dec 28 2009 10:17 PM
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Blast from the Past - The Inside Track - December 2000

This is article 4 of 10 from the Blast from the Past - The Inside Track Series. This newsletter from Karl Gunderson was sent out in December 2000. The Inside Track"See Farther, See Sharper" [Ed: Should be Further :-) ]December 2000 Do you
 
David Musgrave
Dec 28 2009 05:30 AM
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Blast from the Past - The Inside Track - November 2000

This is article 3 of 10 from the Blast from the Past - The Inside Track Series. This newsletter from Karl Gunderson was sent out in November 2000. The Inside TrackNovember 2000 Did you see the Blondie comic on September 11, 2000? Check it
 
David Musgrave
Dec 23 2009 05:30 AM
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Blast from the Past - The Inside Track - October 2000

This is article 2 of 10 from the Blast from the Past - The Inside Track Series. This newsletter from Karl Gunderson was sent out in October 2000. The Inside Track From Here to ThereOctober 2000 In the last edition of The Inside Track, I
 
David Musgrave
Dec 21 2009 05:30 AM
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Back to the Future: Lisp as a Base for a Statistical Computing System

Back to the Future: Lisp as a Base for a Statistical Computing System by Ross Ihaka and Duncan Temple Lang, and the accompanying slides. This paper was previously discussed on comp.lang.lisp, but apparently not covered on LtU before. The application of
Dec 17 2009 07:31 PM
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You are listen to Radio Free Bob, a pirate radio station broadcasting on the Microsoft corporate network

Back in the late 1980's, when NETBIOS ruled the land at Microsoft, one of my colleagues ran a pirate radio station on the Microsoft corporate network. Let's call this colleague Bob, my generic name for a Microsoft employee. Bob had converted a bunch of
 
oldnewthing
tags: history
Dec 15 2009 08:57 PM
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The Development of Sage

Sage is a project to create a viable free open source alternative to Magma, Maple, Mathematica and Matlab. The lead developer/manager William Stein has recently written Mathematical Software and Me: A Very Personal Recollection, a rather enjoyable story
Dec 12 2009 02:23 AM
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Versioned Data

In about one of two projects the customer comes up with the requirement of ‘historization’ of data. And more often then not this lead to an unholy back and forth of discussions, prototypes and complaining. The reason for this as far as I can
 
Jens Schauder
Nov 29 2009 03:16 PM
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Coders at Work

When did you learn to program? What was the first programming language you’ve used? What was the hardest bug you ever needed to track down? These are only the starting questions of Peter Seibel’s recent book »Coders at Work« which is one of
Nov 25 2009 01:09 PM
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Can I talk to that William fellow? He was so helpful

Today we're going to take a little trip in the wayback machine with the help of my colleague Seth Manheim, who was there when this happened. Set the date to November 22, 1989, twenty years ago and one day. Bill Gates is being taken on a guided tour of
 
oldnewthing
tags: history
Nov 23 2009 11:49 PM
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We found the author of Notepad, sorry you didn't go to the award ceremony

I've received independent confirmations as to the authorship of Notepad, so I'm inclined to believe it. Sorry you didn't get to go to the award ceremony. The original author of Notepad also served as the development manager for Windows 95. His job
 
oldnewthing
tags: history
Nov 18 2009 01:25 AM
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What was the ShowCursor function intended to be used for?

Back in the days when Windows was introduced, a mouse was a fancy newfangled gadget which not everybody had on their machine. Windows acknowledged this and supported systems without a mouse by having keyboard accelerators for everything (or at least that
 
oldnewthing
tags: history
Nov 17 2009 11:51 PM
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Why can you create a PIF file that points to something that isn't an MS-DOS program?

James MAstros asked why it's possible to create a PIF file that refers to a program that isn't an MS-DOS program. (That's only part of the question; I addressed other parts last year.) Well, for one thing, there was indeed code to prevent you
 
oldnewthing
tags: history
Nov 13 2009 08:46 AM
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What is the story behind multimon.h?

Commenter asdf wonders what the deal is with that multimon.h header file. Let's set some context. That header file was written back in the time when Windows 98 was still under development. Windows 98 was the first version of Windows to support
 
oldnewthing
tags: history
Nov 08 2009 12:06 AM
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In the product end game, every change carries significant risk

One of the things I mentioned in my talk the other week comparing school with Microsoft is that in school, as the deadline approaches, the work becomes increasingly frantic. On the other hand, in commercial software, as the deadline approaches, the rate
 
oldnewthing
tags: history
Nov 04 2009 11:09 PM
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Hey, is there somebody around to accept this award?

Back in the late 1990s, some large Internet association conducted a survey in order to bestow awards in categories like Best Web server and Best Web browser, and one of the categories was Best Web authoring tool. We didn't find out about this until the
 
oldnewthing
tags: history
Nov 03 2009 08:45 PM
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Where did WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN come from?

Commenter asdf wonders where WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN came from. The WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN symbol was introduced in the Windows 95 time frame as a way to exclude a bunch of Windows header files when you include windows.h. You can take a look at your
 
oldnewthing
tags: history
Oct 31 2009 09:52 PM
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What is the format for FirstInstallDateTime on Windows 95?

Public Service Announcement: Daylight Saving Time ends in most parts of the United States this weekend. Windows 98/98/Me recorded the date and time at which Setup was run in the registry
 
oldnewthing
Oct 30 2009 07:30 PM
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Why does the Photo Gallery show all my photos with a colored tinge?

When you view your pictures with the Photo Gallery program which comes with Windows Vista, and which is also available for download from live.com, you might see a colored tinge. Where is the tinge coming from, and how do you get rid of it?
 
oldnewthing
Oct 28 2009 07:30 PM
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