|
|
Saving the Universe from Boskone and Bugs
September 2003 - Posts
-
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.
Read More...
|
-
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. Read More...
|
-
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 fixed before Read More...
|
-
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 top Read More...
|
-
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… Read More...
|
-
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, Read More...
|
-
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, Read More...
|
-
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 Read More...
|
-
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 did Read More...
|
-
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 that your Read More...
|
-
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, I Read More...
|
-
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 Read More...
|
-
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 it Read More...
|
-
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 Read More...
|
-
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…
Read More...
|
-
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 ) Read More...
|
-
I enabled a BlogX option to ping weblogs.com when I post – lets see if it works…
Read More...
|
-
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 NT 4.0 (and IIS Read More...
|
-
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 intricacies Read More...
|
-
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 Read More...
|
-
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 I Read More...
|
-
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…
Read More...
|
-
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, that Read More...
|
-
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 Microsoft Read More...
|
-
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, and Read More...
|
-
Well, who knew that ctrl-S in NewsGator would post, in addition to alt-S? And
both my machines with the WinBlogX.exe client are not allowing me to use it.
Darn. Please ignore that post, while I finish it; I’ll post the completed
version shortly…
Read More...
|
-
-
I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard the wish: “if only software construction was more like building construction, where all the issues are clearly known up-front, everything is rigorously defined, and construction follows a Read More...
|
-
Lest my last post be seen as overly critical of the SysInternals folks,
let me comment that I personally have had nothing but success using their tools, and
I find them extremely useful.
Read More...
|
-
Wow, this post had me worried – nothing a regular user program does should be able to blue-screen a W2K3 box. Looking at the description of the program , however, I see that it installs a device driver. Ok, that makes sense; I device Read More...
|
-
I noticed on meta-douglasp that some of our Indigo PMs are soliciting your input on a few issues; please take a look and let them know what you think! “ Serialization Surrogates : If you are using surrogates in your application or framework, we Read More...
|
-
I found an interesting post recently that discusses some detailed feedback from soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq. The reports are interesting from a tactical perspective, if you are into that kind of thing: “EQUIPMENT WISE, OUR GREATEST Read More...
|
-
-
Looks like hurricane Isabael is set to slam into the east coast today. My parents,
and Gina’s, live directly in the path – I hope they are buttoned up!
Read More...
|
-
The site of sculptor Greg Brotherton displays an amazing assemblage of very cool-looking (if non-functional) ray-guns and giant robots. If you are decorating your house in retro- tech (or early evil genius), this is a good place to start. Read More...
|
-
For a while, Gina was addicted to an on-line Scrabble game; she became quite adept at it, to the point where she could defeat my father – who had previously been considered the ultimate Scrabble competitor in the family. I don’t know Read More...
|
-
In my last post, I mentioned a video display product, whose web page (at least the front page), contains no mention of the actual physical mechanism used to display the image in the air. At first this seems odd; if they really have such a wonderful Read More...
|
-
This is a clever little project . It apparently works by dispersing a relatively flat, relatively invisible spray of particles into the air, and projecting a video image on that. They seem to go to some lengths on their web page to not talk Read More...
|
-
-
I saw a question recently on an internal Microsoft alias, asking where old computers go when they are retired. It turns out that Microsoft’s old computers (and those of other companies) end up at http://www.retrobox.com . It looks like they Read More...
|
-
-
Ok, this is just awesome . I just got mail about it; I’m not sure if its supposed to be public or not, but its on the public gotdotnet site, and its easier to get forgiveness than permission… <grin> Read More...
|
-
My dreams are starting to come true – see this offering by Sony , a completely wireless 5.1 surround sound system! True, it uses IR transmission instead of radio, but on the other hand that means it doesn’t eat into your WiFi bandwidth. Read More...
|
-
I fixed those pesky ASP.NET blogs in my blogroll with this hum-dinger: perl -pe "s!title=\"WebLogs @ ASP.NET\" description=\".NETWeblogs by .NET Developers\" xmlurl=\"http://weblogs.asp.net/(.*?)/[rR]ss.aspx\" htmlurl=\"http://weblogs.asp.net!title=\"$1's Read More...
|
-
Here is a hilarious cartoon discussing the dark underside of Hamburger Town – it cracks me up! (“You’ve got to understand: these people * eat * each other. Every one of them is made of food. Ronald puts a happy face Read More...
|
-
Prologue One of my teammates recently set up a Wiki site for my team, and I must admit that I have become quite addicted to it. One of the pages I’ve created has been a list of common test areas, a checklist of things most of our tests will Read More...
|
-
Well, I decided it was time to export my blogroll to my blog. Fortunately, NewsGator exports in OPML format; the same format BlogX expects in its blogroll file. Unfortunately, the text that NewsGator spits out is too big (!) to fit in the Read More...
|
-
-
<SARCASM> Thank goodness our government is looking out for me , and making sure I don’t have to sit next to some horrible pot-smoker! They might steal my peanuts! </SARCASM> On a more serious note, however, I don’t Read More...
|
-
One of the more interesting sites I visited in the days before before and after the recent Iraq war is that of the Baghdad Blogger, Salem Pax. It is cool; he comes off as something of a geek, so I feel a kinship with him. He also seems Read More...
|
-
Ok, just kidding. Still, it seems like the RIAA is really stepping over the border of common sense, prudence, and just plain pissing people off. The link below is to a story about how they are pursuing the vile international criminal, that Read More...
|
-
Al and Allison Alsdorf, my parents-in-law, run a beautiful Bed & Breakfast in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. It is really wonderful place; the house is large and comfortable – and the town of Harpers Ferry is a very cool, small town, about Read More...
|
-
After the Indigo team's last milestone (M4), most of our feature test teams did an analysis of the bugs in their feature area, and extracted some useful 'lessons learned' to help us improve our testing in future milestones. Here are some of Read More...
|
-
I read here that Sony is coming out with yet another rev of their Aibo robot dog. That thing has had more staying power than I figured – I would have guessed that its still a bit too early to make money off an electronic pet. (Of course, Read More...
|
-
I was reading this article about the uses of iron nano-particles. You know, nano-scale objects are like new chemicals all their own. I’ve heard speculation that bucky-tubes can be as dangerous as asbestos. I don’t know if Read More...
|
-
I recently read another glowing review of “I’m With Busey” on Sean Alexander’s web site . That’s the last straw – I’ve seen enough plaudits that I have now added the show to my TiVo to-do list. We’ll Read More...
|
-
I’ve really been enjoying RaymondC’s blog posts on the history of Windows and the checkered past of its development. Here is the one where he explains why Joe Schmoe developer isn’t allowed to add entries to the Start Menu pin list. Read More...
|
-
I’ve found this site where Ton Zijlstra is documenting his conversion from Windows to Linux. I’ll be curious to see how it goes – of course, I hope he finds out that Windows is the better answer after all! [Note that the website appears blank, Read More...
|
-
Here is an interesting personality assessment test; the Myers-Briggs personality assessment, very popular in some circles. I don’t know how useful it really is, but I do find that it describes my personality fairly well, and it is quick and Read More...
|
-
I forgot to post the item that prompted my last post on containers – it is this jacket I recently read about at the Wired web site . It has 30 pockets. It has 2312.75 sqare inches of pocket space. It has useful wiring conduits Read More...
|
-
“Hello, my name is Bruce Williams, and is has been six days since I last bought a container…” Does anyone else ever get that feeling? I don’t know what it is, but I just love those container stores. Plastic bins? Read More...
|
-
I noticed at this link that folks are starting to hear (and speculate) about Indigo. That’s cool to see, because that’s my team! I know, I shouldn’t tease, because I’m not allowed to talk about it yet – but still, it is just cool to start Read More...
|
-
A Fry’s electronics store opened recently near here – I’ve seen a number of folks mention it on their blogs. Apparently Fry’s is quite an institution down in CA, so I had to go and see what all the fuss is about. I Read More...
|
-
Mark Pilgrim converts the new MS.COM web service into a REST format ; it is certainly more compact! My team works mostly with SOAP, so I have a lot of intellectual investment in that approach; it is interesting and challenging to see other ways Read More...
|
-
One of the things I remember most fondly from high school was the seemingly endless free time I had to pursue whatever fancies caught my mind. When I see the amazing on-line resources being made available from MIT and the BBC , it makes me wish Read More...
|
-
My internet is being very flaky this morning – half the web sites I try
don’t respond, but if I refresh they show up. I wonder what’s up?
Read More...
|
-
Gina and I like to buy toys – toys for little people, toys for big people; it is shopping madness. If we see a really cool toy, we’ll buy it even if we don’t have a recipient in mind; it goes in the “toy closet”, because Read More...
|
-
I recently had a very pleasant vacation (modulo the whole mother-having-cancer issue), and one of the fun things was the gaggle of nieces and nephews running around – seven of them between the ages of one to nine years old. Well, naturally, Read More...
|
-
Ok, normally gratuitous anti-Microsoft writing turns me off, but this one is just hilarious! (Matrix's Morpheus speaking to Neo) “Microsoft Windows is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around and what do you see? Read More...
|
-
Ok, this is bizarre . It is a maze whose walls move around as you walk through it! It looks pretty small from the outside, but I imagine if done well it could project a much larger “virtual space” while you are walking through Read More...
|
-
Seriously, this sounds pretty cool – a news reporter discusses the day’s news with you, live on TV. Just sits in his kitchen in a bathrobe, with some newspapers and a highlighter. Huh. Kinda makes me wish I lived in Read More...
|
-
I will be the first to admit that I have one of the least discriminating musical ears in existence. Really; CD, radio, TV, MP3 – they all sound pretty much the same to me. You can probably tell that I don’t buy the expensive speakers Read More...
|
-
It seems like all I ever hear about Iraq these days is new attacks, new people killed. It is all negative news. I’m interested in that, but I’m also interested in the positive, rebuilding, actions taking place in the country. Read More...
|
-
I’m actually really happy to read about this . I’d read an earlier article that described how this guy was sent to Los Alamos, and his * job * was to look for problems and misconduct – and when he found and reported it, they fired Read More...
|
-
I read an article on Gizmodo recently, how some Japanese researchers want their government to fund a long-term program to develop a robot with the capabilities of a five-year-old. Now, as a techophile, I’m all for this. I completely understand Read More...
|
-
John Tobler talks a bit about Abstract State Machine Language (ASML) on his blog. This is actually a really cool technology – one my test team has been looking at for a little while now, and one that I personally have been struggling to wrap Read More...
|
|
|
|
