MSDN Blogs

Posts

| |

The Galactic Patrol

categories coming

Posted over 10 years ago

by bwill
- 1 Comments
I’m going to go ahead and tag some of my posts with categories; I’m not sure if this will make them show up again in your aggregators or not. If you see old posts from me showing up, this is why.

...
The Galactic Patrol

Macs suck - they really, really suck

Posted over 10 years ago

by bwill
- 49 Comments
Ok, prompted by this Russell Beattie post , I have to say that Macintosh computers really bite the big one. They are awful. I can’t begin to describe how bad they are. BHWaaahahahaha! I just can’t keep a straight face...
The Galactic Patrol

Be verwy verwy quiet - we're hunting bugs!

Posted over 10 years ago

by bwill
- 0 Comments
Eric Lippert has a great post describing some of his adventures with security issues in VBScript. I particularly liked this segment: “Of course, it could be worse. There was a bug in early versions of the CLR (which I believe was...
The Galactic Patrol

oh - my - god - buy me this computer!

Posted over 10 years ago

by bwill
- 2 Comments
Calling this machine a 3.8 GHz Pentium computer does it a massive disservice. It completely ignores the fact that it runs the entire OS off a RAMDisk for speed, and has what is basically a built-in refrigerator to keep the CPU cool. On...
The Galactic Patrol

old (and long) e-mail ramble about agent technology and other trivia

Posted over 10 years ago

by bwill
- 9 Comments
Peter’s response to my TiVo post for some reason reminded me of a rambling e-mail conversation I had several months ago; for your amusement I repeat it below. Incidentally, mail threads like this are reason #128 why I like working at Microsoft...
The Galactic Patrol

UWB looks promising (and I'm not talking about the University of Washington Bowling league, either!)

Posted over 10 years ago

by bwill
- 1 Comments
When I first read about the UWB technology for high-speed wireless connections, less than a year ago, it seemed like a pretty pie-in-the-sky, research-ey kind of technology that might come to fruition in fifteen years or so. Recent posts , however...
The Galactic Patrol

Fault injection tools from Microsoft

Posted over 10 years ago

by bwill
- 1 Comments
In a response to my recent post on fault injection , Mark asks if I know of any publicly-available fault-injection frameworks. Yes! In fact, much of the fault-injection work done at Microsoft is built on top of work done by Microsoft Research...
The Galactic Patrol

How do I know I have four readers?

Posted over 10 years ago

by bwill
- 20 Comments
I recently asked the maintainers of http://blogs.gotdotnet.com if they kept access stats on my blog; I was curious if anyone actually read it. They sent me to a web page with a ton of stats and charts; on one of those, it says that over the past...
The Galactic Patrol

are categories useful to you?

Posted over 10 years ago

by bwill
- 2 Comments
In a post on his blog , Ron implies that I should be categorizing stuff on my blog. I never look at categories on the blogs I read, so it never really occurred to me to categorize my own posts. Would my four readers find it useful if I...
The Galactic Patrol

For better or for worse - but I'm not taking your name!

Posted over 10 years ago

by bwill
- 6 Comments
I read this post discussing wives who don’t take their husband’s last name. Here is the comment I left at the site. “My wife (Gina Alsdorf) didn't take my last name when we got married. I'm fine with that; it seems to me...
The Galactic Patrol

Hulk Hands kick ass

Posted over 10 years ago

by bwill
- 2 Comments
I stumbled across this blog entry , where the Accordian Guy is showing off his “Hulk Hands”, large foam gloves that make amusing Hulk noises when you bounce them off things. I got a set for my nephew once, and I liked them so much...
The Galactic Patrol

Code Name: "Avalon"

Posted over 10 years ago

by bwill
- 0 Comments
I noticed this link to Wesner Moise’s comments on Microsoft’s “Avalon” technology, to be debuted at PDC. I’m certainly no Avalon expert, but I’ve been to their internal web site, and saw a demo once. This is killer stuff. Not wanting...
The Galactic Patrol

Don't mess with my TiVo!

Posted over 10 years ago

by bwill
- 5 Comments
I read this article recently discussing the fact that some recent TV shows are scheduled, not exactly on the hour or half-hour, but off by a minute or three. Apparently this really hoses TiVo, because that extra three minutes at the end keeps...
The Galactic Patrol

For a good time, call 1-800-FAULT-INJECTION-TESTING

Posted over 10 years ago

by bwill
- 3 Comments
We have occasional debates here at Microsoft on the value of ‘white-box’ testing. (For the sake of this discussion, ‘white-box’ testing means testing that takes advantage of internal product knowledge, while ‘black-box’ testing relies solely on...
The Galactic Patrol

father-son bonding

Posted over 10 years ago

by bwill
- 0 Comments
Here is a cute story about a father teaching his son one of life’s most essential skills. Normally I wouldn’t post a link like this, but with my own first child coming in January, it hits a new nerve…

...
The Galactic Patrol

The *most* *awesome* monitor in the world...

Posted over 10 years ago

by bwill
- 0 Comments
Here is the most awesome monitor in the world . It has a resolution of 6400x1200. I want one. I must have it. I will have it. I just have to convince Gina… (From Gizmodo )
The Galactic Patrol

www.weblogs.com

Posted over 10 years ago

by bwill
- 0 Comments
I enabled a BlogX option to ping weblogs.com when I post – lets see if it works…

...
The Galactic Patrol

Test tracing - it is not optional!

Posted over 10 years ago

by bwill
- 0 Comments
I’d like to talk about one of the first lessons I learned as a tester at Microsoft: Anticipate failure investigations, and log everything. Let me tell you a fairly rambling tale of my early days at Microsoft: We’d just shipped Windows...
The Galactic Patrol

Freeze, sucker! and drop that download!

Posted over 10 years ago

by bwill
- 0 Comments
I recently discovered David Isenberg’s blog , and while surfing it I ran across a pointer to this cartoon that sarcastically pans the RIAA copyright crackdown. My wife Gina is the lawyer in the family, so I’ll defer to her for the...
The Galactic Patrol

Better living through chemistry

Posted over 10 years ago

by bwill
- 2 Comments
I read this recent article about a drug called Provigil, which restores alertness and lets one go without sleep. (temporarily.) Discoveries like this excite me; on a very visceral level, I’m a big fan of life-style drugs. Maybe...
The Galactic Patrol

Eyeglasses that record everything...

Posted over 10 years ago

by bwill
- 2 Comments
Here is a concept for a pair of sunglasses with a built-in video camera, that records everything you see . This appeals to me; any number of times I’ve seen something particularly interesting or beautiful, and told myself, “if only...
The Galactic Patrol

Pre-PDC checklist

Posted over 10 years ago

by bwill
- 0 Comments
I’ve never been to an industry conference (yet; I keep trying to convince my management to send me…), but to my uneducated eye, this pre-flight PDC checklist by Adam Cartwright looks eminently useful…

...
The Galactic Patrol

more Scoble stuff - there are many parts, but only one Microsoft

Posted over 10 years ago

by bwill
- 0 Comments
Again, while reading this same Scoble post , it got me thinking about my role at Microsoft. When I tell people what I do at Microsoft, I say "I do software testing. If you find a bug in a Microsoft product, it is my fault." Of course...
The Galactic Patrol

Scoble talks about "us" at Microsoft

Posted over 10 years ago

by bwill
- 0 Comments
I was reading this recent post on Scoble’s blog , where he talks about how he refers to “we” and “us” when talking about Microsoft. A friend of mine told me once that they found it unusual that I say "we" and "us" when referring to stuff that...
The Galactic Patrol

I'm going to miss the company meeting!

Posted over 10 years ago

by bwill
- 0 Comments
Damn! I just found out that the Microsoft Company Meeting, a yearly event, is on October 30 th , and I will be out of town! Its hard to describe these meetings; but let me try. You walk into SafeCo field, Seattle’s new baseball stadium...