Larry Osterman's WebLog
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A Midsummer Night's Dream (The Musical) at KIDSTAGE TeenSelect!
Somehow I managed to forget (except for a passing reference) that Daniel's in THe Village Theatre's...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 01/15/2007
Software Contracts, Part 5: Hold on a second, why do we care about this stuff anyway?
I'm more discombobulated than usual on this series, I totally missed the third article in the series...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 01/15/2007
Software Contracts, Part 4: Documentation
The other day, I started talking about software contracts. Today I'd like to start talking about how...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 01/12/2007
A Snowy Day...
Well, yesterday was "fun". I left work at 5PM and got home at 10PM (to be fair, we stopped for...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 01/11/2007
How long is a WAV file?
One question that kept on coming up during my earlier post was "How long is it going to take to play...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 01/10/2007
Sometimes you find the answers to questions you didn't even know you were asking...
Yesterday's post by Raymond struck a chord when I read it. He discussed how the property sheets...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 01/09/2007
Software Contracts, Part 3 - Sometimes implicit contracts are subtle
I was planning on discussing this later on in the series, but "Dave" asked a question that really...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 01/08/2007
Software Contracts, Part 2 - There are two sides to every contract.
One thing that's critically important to understand when thinking about software contracts is that...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 01/05/2007
Contractual obligations
Once upon a time, I watched the TV show The Paper Chase. As I recall it, the feared and respected...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 01/04/2007
Where do you go to get answers to your technical questions.
One of the things I'm currently working on is analyzing our community efforts, so I'd like to turn...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 01/03/2007
Where's Larry been?
Ok, 5+ weeks and no posts, what gives? Basically, after Vista shipped, I took a much needed...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 01/03/2007
Proofreading...
So this morning, I was reading the PI's Microsoft blog and noticed this post: Google, Microsoft,...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 11/16/2006
Flattening the world
Yesterday, I finally decided to bite the bullet and flatten my dev machine. I got this machine in...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 11/16/2006
What's wrong with this code, part 19 - the answer
In yesterday's post, I asked about a relatively simple piece of code that tried to use the COM type...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 11/14/2006
What's wrong with this code, part 19
Wow, I've done 19 of these? Cool. I got an email question from a reader earlier today, and I...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 11/13/2006
Four years ago...
I was working in building 50, the SCP project was clearly approaching it's end-of-life, and I was...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 11/08/2006
Resolution to my IE CTRL-D problem
A long time ago, I complained to the IE team on their blog: So how do I disable the CTRL-D...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 11/02/2006
The New Sounds are here!!!
I don't usually do "Me Too", but I just had to share this. James Senior has released a short podcast...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 10/30/2006
Two Bloggy Shoutouts
I wanted to shout out to two bloggers I read religiously but haven't commented on. The first is Ryan...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 10/18/2006
Mother, Can I?
Recently someone posted the attached screen shot on the internal self hosting alias. What's wrong...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 10/17/2006
So when is it ok to use SEH?
I got an email from someone using the contacts form asking: There is an article on MSDN about using...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 10/16/2006
It's much worse, in a better way
I was just chatting with one of the other developers in my group (Mitch), and he mentioned a bug...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 10/12/2006
Thanks!
So I decided to take the advice people mentioned in the previous post, and my laptop is now happily...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 10/12/2006
Forced to use XP again
A couple of weeks ago, my old laptop's motherboard gave up the ghost, so after much price and...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 10/11/2006
Sometimes people don't really get the point of defensive programming for security...
I was reading this months issue of Dr. Dobbs Journal, and I ran into the column "Illusions of...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 10/04/2006
A bedtime story :)
Once upon a time (all the best stories start with "Once upon a time"), there was a computer...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 09/22/2006
Going gaga over XGL
Chris Pirillo's been making a ton of noise over a video he posted showing off a YouTube video of a...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 09/15/2006
..
Way back when when NTFS was first being designed, the designers of the filesystem had a problem -...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 09/07/2006
Technorati claims
Please ignore this post... Technorati Profile
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/25/2006
OMFG we've got a zamboni!
I've been on vacation until a couple of days ago (that's why no posts), and I'm still swamped with...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/24/2006
Replacing operations with developers
I'm swamped right now (the perils of live-blogging), but instead of finishing up the half written...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/09/2006
Collectionz
For those of you that know us, you know that everyone in my family is an inveterate reader. One of...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/08/2006
Breaking into Apple
Larry's in a curmudgeonly mood today, so... Over the weekend, I noticed this post on Digg: "How I...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/07/2006
So where DOES the mass of a tree come from?
Yesterday, I asked where the mass comes from in a tree. The answer is actually really simple:...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/02/2006
A Tree Grows... How?
Valorie's currently attending a seminar about teaching science at the middle-school level....
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/01/2006
WASAPI documentation online
I've known this for a while, but forgot to mention it. The documentation for the WASAPI interfaces...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 07/26/2006
Paddington Thoughts
The other day, I mentioned I got sucked off on a high priority project shortly after I returned from...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 07/25/2006
Daniel's first play of the summer starts on Thursday!
This summer, Daniel's appearing in two separate SCT productions (I believe he's the first actor to...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 07/24/2006
Seen in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul.
One more from my trip to Europe. One of the things that really surprised me about the Grand Bazaar...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 07/21/2006
To default, or not to default, that is the question...
One of the "interesting" features of C++ is the ability to default the value of parameters to a...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 07/20/2006
I'm Back (European trip report)
I'm a baaad blogger. It's been a while, sorry 'bout that. We were on vacation 'til the 5th, then I...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 07/20/2006
Outta Here Again
I'm off to Europe for a couple of weeks of vacation with the extended family, I'll be back in early...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 06/19/2006