After watching Apple vs Predator, a short YouTube video, I had a blinding flash of the somewhat obvious and this is it: no other interface but the iPhone/iPad interface can seamlessly transfer to a virtual surface and gestures. Let’s expand on this. If you’ve seen “Minority Report”, the movie, you must remember the interface Tom [...]

To quote an article on annoyances.org about the new ClickOnce install support that MS has added to .NET: The Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 update, pushed through the Windows Update service to all recent editions of Windows in February 2009, installs the Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant firefox extension without asking your permission. This [...]

Had to use the Directory.GetFiles() method in .NET, so I read the description. Now, take a moment and read the following about how an asterisk wildcard character works in the search pattern parameter. Then tell me if this description is of a feature or of a bug. Windows, largely due to legacy, is full of [...]

Ok, I admit, that title is a bit over the edge, but still that is how I feel. Developing for .NET is increasingly becoming not fun and far too expensive. The only reason to do it is because customers expect products for .NET, but under slowly increasing pressure from developers, that is going to change. [...]

I love GotoMeeting, but until now I had to run it under Windows. You could only run it as a viewer under OSX before, but the latest version has a full function Mac client. I opened GotoMeeting under OSX (Firefox) then under XP (Firefox) on the same machine in a full screen virtual window, and [...]

I finally got around to putting up the source code for x2c under GPL. No, you haven’t heard of this thing and it may not seem immediately useful, but when it is useful, it’s incredibly useful. The hardest thing is coming up with full samples of what it can do, so I’ll just outline it [...]

…on new innovative ways to make an install fail. After upgrading my SQL server to 2005 SP2, I went to download the update for the Books On Line using the recommended link from the SP2 installer. Downloaded the msi to my desktop, double-clicked it and ran it. Then, after a while, got this message: “A [...]

After a bit of searching, I found a way to have strongly typed constant parameters for C# functions. You know the situation, where you need to pass one of a limited set of strings or chars or other values to a function and you want to make sure somebody doesn’t just go and pass any [...]

Today I helped a neighbor recover data from his laptop. It wouldn’t boot and it ran (or failed to run) Windows XP. Checking it with a low level utility showed that the MBR and partition table were shot. Now, Windows repair didn’t find the drive. Fixmbr didn’t fix the MBR. Fixboot didn’t fix the boot. [...]