Larry Osterman's WebLog
Just another Developer Network site
What's an audio endpoint?
One of the parts of the audio engine rework was a paradigm shift in how audio devices are addressed....
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 09/21/2005
Windows Audio Quality Enhancements
In my last post, I mentioned the architectural thrust behind the Vista audio changes. I left off...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 09/20/2005
Windows Audio Channel9 Video is up.
Robert Scoble's posted the audio team Channel9 video, in it, the GPM for our group goes over what...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 09/16/2005
Converting between bases...
The other day there was a thread on Channel9 where "orangie" was complaining about the fact that his...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 09/15/2005
Interacting with Services
In the comments for my first services post, someone asked about the SERVICE_INTERACTIVE_PROCESS flag...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 09/14/2005
I'm NOT at the PDC this year :)
It seems that every single Microsoft blogger's at the PDC today, but unfortunately, I'm not :( On...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 09/13/2005
Breaking Up (shared services) Is(n't) Hard To Do
The last time I wrote, I talked about shared services. One of the problems of working with shared...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 09/12/2005
Shared Services
One of the comments I made when doing my "first impressions" of the Mirra backup device was that the...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 09/09/2005
APIs you never heard of - the Timer APIs
It's time for another "APIs you never heard of" article :) This time, I'd like to talk about the...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 09/08/2005
Mirra, first impressions
We've currently got something like 7 computers currently in use in my house these days, and I've...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 09/07/2005
Administrivia
When we switched to community server, back in April, I decided to stop moderating my posts, since...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 09/03/2005
Where do "checked" and "free" come from?
People who have MSDN or the DDK know that Windows is typically built in two different flavors,...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/31/2005
Milestones
Today, I'm celebrating my 21st anniversary at Microsoft (it was actually Saturday), anyone on campus...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/29/2005
My favorite hardware bug
Adi Oltean asks: What's your favorite Bug? My personal favorite was on the ICL PWS-400. The ICL...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/29/2005
Modifying software when running as LUA
Lee Holmes (a developer over in the Monad group) had a problem. It seems that he had an application...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/26/2005
The application called an interface that was marshalled for a different thread.
Another one from someone sending a comment: I came across your blog and was wondering if what to do...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/25/2005
Why don't critical sections work cross process?
I could have sworn this was answered in a previous blog by someone else (Raymond, Eric Lippert,...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/24/2005
Larry goes to Layer Court
Two weeks ago, my boss, another developer in my group, and I had the opportunity to attend "Layer...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/23/2005
Off for the week
Valorie, the kids, and I are heading back to Albany for the week, so no posts until next week.
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/15/2005
Re-applying the decal
Some of you might know this, others might not even care, but one of my private passions is a MMORPG...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/11/2005
Life in a faraday cage
There was an internal discussion about an unrelated topic recently, and it reminded me of an early...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/05/2005
Another pet peeve. Nounifying the word "ask"
Sorry about not blogging, my days are filled with meetings trying to finish up our LH beta2 features...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/04/2005
Dos Ain't Done 'til Lotus Won't Run
I was originally going to do a post on this, but Adam (who interviewed me on the topic before he...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/02/2005
Where do they get those names?
I've stayed out of the Windows Vista naming thingy, I figure that the name will grow on me. But...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 08/01/2005
Cool article about Honk! at SCT in the local newspaper.
Last week, we got a phone call from the local newspaper (the Woodinville Weekly), they were doing a...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 07/28/2005
Oh yeah - We shipped Beta1 today...
It feels wierd, because I don't normally jump on the "everyone in the world is blogging about it"...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 07/27/2005
Words I dislike - Policy
A while back, I wrote about how I disliked the word "Robustness" because it's meaning was so vague....
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 07/27/2005
Making time go faster
I got the following email the other day from a reader: I cam across your post on pc time and thought...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 07/26/2005
We've RI'ed, part 2
In November of 2002, the SCP project (to build a controller ship for home automation) was winding...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 07/25/2005
Seattle Childrens Theater Summer Season
As I mentioned earlier, Daniel's appearing in SCT's summer season production of Honk!. He'll be...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 07/22/2005
UUIDs are only unique if you generate them...
We had an internal discussion recently and the upshot of the discussion was that it turns out that...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 07/21/2005
Clippy Lives!
My boss just sent me this blog post from a friend of his. The language is a bit rough, but I came...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 07/21/2005
Remember the blibbet
There was a thread on Channel9 that got me to remember the blibbet. "The blibbet?" What on earth is...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 07/14/2005
Beware of the dancing bunnies.
I saw a post the other day (I'm not sure where, otherwise I'd cite it) that proclaimed that a...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 07/13/2005
What's wrong with this code, part 14 - the answers
Yesterday's post was a classic example of Joel Spolsky's Law of Leaky Abstractions. Why? Well,...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 07/08/2005
What's wrong with this code, part 14
Keeping up with the "theme" of COM related bad code examples, here's another real-world example. To...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 07/07/2005
What I did on the 4th of July...
I originally wasn't going to write this up, but Valorie thought it was a cute story. I need to...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 07/06/2005
Should developers learn crypto?
Over the weekend, Paul Maher posted an article in which he asked if developers needed to understand...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 07/05/2005
Private Destructors
Yesterday, I mentioned that Michael Ruck had complained that I'd made the destructor on my CFooBase...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 07/01/2005
What's wrong with this code, part 13 - the answers
I loved this particular "What's wrong" because it was quite subtle (and real world). One of the...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 06/30/2005
What's wrong with this code, part lucky 13
Today's example is a smidge long, I've stripped out everything I can possibly imagine stripping out...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 06/29/2005
How many computers does it take to make a Microsoft employee happy
Over the weekend, it seems like a mini-meme went through https://blogs.msdn.com, "How many computers...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 06/27/2005
Why is the DOS path character ""?
Many, many months ago, Declan Eardly asked why the \ character was chosen as the path separator. The...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 06/24/2005
Why is defense in depth so important?
Yesterday's post on the principal of least privilege engendered some discussion about how important...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 06/23/2005
Why did I say that the Date&Time control panel applet was a security hole waiting to happen?
In response to a comment I'd made on Raymond's post about the Date/Time CPL: And what's even neater...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 06/22/2005
Something I learned the other day...
I have a mild allergy to theatrical makeup (powder in particular). Go figure that one. Yes, it's a...
Author: Larry Osterman [MSFT] Date: 06/21/2005