Larry Osterman's WebLog
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What’s wrong with this code, Part 23..
I recently tracked down a bug that was causing problems in my code. Once I figured out the...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 09/05/2008
Anatomy of a Heisenbug
I just spent a half an hour debugging a heisenbug and thought I’d pass on what was happening....
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 09/03/2008
I'm So Excited!
'nuf said. I know it's bragging, but I'm sorry - I really couldn't resist. It's...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 09/02/2008
What makes a bug a security bug?
In my last post, I mentioned that security bugs were different from other bugs. Daniel Prochnow...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/18/2008
Go see Shrek the Musical. Right now!
We just got back home from seeing Shrek the Musical which is currently in try-outs at the Fifth...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/17/2008
Linus Torvalds is “Fed up with the ‘security circus’”
There’s been a lot of discussion on the intertubes about some comments that Linus Torvalds,...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/15/2008
The SS_PATHELLIPSIS, SS_ENDELLIPSIS and SS_WORDELLIPSIS styles force static controls to disable word wrap.
I didn’t find this in the documentation for the static standard window so I figured I’d...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/14/2008
Why doesn’t Windows support amplification of audio samples?
Nils Arthur asked in another post: While we are talking volume controls. Could you explain why it's...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/11/2008
Remembering Aaron Reynolds
Last Saturday I received an email from Tandy Trower, a long time Microsoft employee letting me know...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/06/2008
THIS is what a Windows PC should look like…
We had a neighborhood picnic on Saturday at our neighbors house. While we were chatting in the...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/05/2008
What’s wrong with this code, Part 22 – the answers
The other day, I wrote about measuring the dimensions of a piece of text using the DrawText API. My...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/04/2008
What’s wrong with this code, part 22 – Drawing Text…
Recently I’ve been working on something that I’ve never done before in my almost 24 years at...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/01/2008
Oh Wow, Dr. Horrible is AWESOME!
Someone just pointed me to https://www.drhorrible.com, which is Joss Whedon’s newest epic. The...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 07/17/2008
Whatever happened to Wave Out Mix?
The Intertubes are all atwitter with reports that Dell and other OEMs colluded with the RIAA to...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 07/11/2008
In which Larry goes back to college for the first time in over 20 years.
Last weekend we dropped Daniel off at Carnegie-Mellon for summer school (the CMU drama...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 07/02/2008
BillG Memories, Part 2
Not surprisingly, as a peon, I don’t get to interact with Bill very often, so my few...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 07/01/2008
Who's on that banner?
For whatever reason, various groups at Microsoft love to run banners and posters that promote their...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 06/10/2008
Off to the 5th Avenue Awards tonight!
Tonight we're going to be attending the 2008 5th Avenue High School Musical Awards show. It's the...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 06/09/2008
News Flash: Spaces are legal characters in both filenames and passwords!
I recently figured out a problem that I've been having with one of our internal tools. The tool is...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 06/03/2008
Cool Schwag :)
Not surprisingly, I'm the security contact for my small part of the Windows organization (it's...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 05/15/2008
More proof that crypto should be left to the experts
Apparently two years ago, someone ran a static analysis tool named "Valgrind" against the source...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 05/13/2008
Resilience is NOT necessarily a good thing
I just ran into this post by Eric Brechner who is the director of Microsoft's Engineering Excellence...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 05/01/2008
This is the way the world (wide web) ends...
Robert Hensing linked to a post by Thomas Ptacek over on the Matasano Chargen blog. Thomas (who is...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 04/16/2008
Somehow I don't think I'm going to see this story on slashdot any time soon :)
Michael Howard sent the following news article to one of our internal DL's this morning. For some...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 04/08/2008
The Overlake Chamber Choir goes to Verona.
Daniel just returned from a 10 day trip to Italy where his school chamber choir performed at the...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 04/01/2008
Somehow I managed to do another Channel 9 video and I didn't even know it!
Dan Fernandez over on the Channel 9 team just let me know that one of my earlier videos was featured...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 04/01/2008
The Trouble with Giblets
I don't write about the SDL very much, because I figure that the SDL team does a good enough job of...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 03/07/2008
"We're back and..."
Raymond sent me an email yesterday asking me to confirm an old Lan Manager slogan. Back in the...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 02/20/2008
Casting from one interface to another...
A co-worker came by to ask what he thought was a coding "style" question that turned into a...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 02/15/2008
Why hasn't Larry posted in almost a month?
Mostly because Larry's been swamped with work :). I've been heads down working on stuff and it's...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 02/15/2008
Wow - We hired Crispin Cowan!!!
Michael Howard just announced that we've hired Crispin Cowan! This is incredibly awesome, I have a...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 01/18/2008
We're finally legal!
Continuing in a stream of blog posts that started with "18 years ago, Today", "Nineteen years ago",...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 01/17/2008
What's this untitled slider doing on the Vista volume mixer?
Someone sent the following screen shot to one of our internal troubleshooting aliases. They wanted...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 01/08/2008
Playing Librarian...
Those of you who know me (and my family) from beyond my blog know that among my our many passions,...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 01/04/2008
Every Domain Name tells a story, I wonder what this one's was.
And I'd love to know the story behind this site:...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 01/01/2008
Merry Christmas to everyone
We're currently taking a break opening presents (when there's 25 people at xmas, it takes a while...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 12/25/2007
Heard on a street corner in New York City
Nothing technical, just cute. Yesterday afternoon, the family went to see "The Fantastiks" (which is...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 12/20/2007
Where's Larry Been?
Sorry about not posting for so long - I'm on vacation for the month of December, so posting will be...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 12/06/2007
Hanselminutes
A couple of weeks ago, Scott Hanselman stopped by my office, and we chatted for almost an hour for...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 11/21/2007
So Amazon brought out this "Kindle" thingy... But I have one question for them...
Amazon just brought out a new eBook reader called "Kindle". It looks pretty cool, but I have one...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 11/20/2007
Think Geek Responds
Valorie just received the following email from Think Geek (in response to our previous issue with...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 11/19/2007
How to lose customers without really trying...
Not surprisingly, Valorie and I both do some of our holiday season shopping at ThinkGeek. But no...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 11/15/2007
Analog to Digital Conversion
Steve Rowe (test lead on the sound team) points to a great article from Ars Technica on D2A:If you...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 11/13/2007
When you're analyzing the strength of a password, make sure you know what's done with it.
Every once in a while, I hear someone making comments about the strength of things like long...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 11/12/2007
My son is SUCH a geek (in a good way) :)
Back when Daniel was in 5th grade, his teacher Bob Whittemore taught a unit that he called "Patterns...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 11/07/2007