Archive for August, 2004

XP SP2: Web related changes

If you're a web developer, you'll definitely want to browse through Microsoft's document of browsing-related changes in XP SP2. For starters, there is the IE popup blocker. Popups will be allowed if opened by a link clicked by the user, but other than that, no more JScript window.opens for untrusted domains. By the way, a […]

August 10, 2004 · Jouni Heikniemi · No Comments
Posted in: General

XP SP2 for developers

Short and sweet: Windows XP Service Pack 2 is out. Here's the lengthy list of changes and here's some documentation for developers.

August 9, 2004 · Jouni Heikniemi · No Comments
Posted in: General

A view on bug report voting systems: 0/1 vs. 0-x

MSDN Product Feedback Center Blog explains how bug votes and Dr. Watson reports affect bug priorities inside Microsoft. The story discusses the differences between "this is important for me"-style vote (0/1 votes) versus the current MSDN style (where you can give a bug an importance score of 1..5 – or a 0-x voting system from […]

August 9, 2004 · Jouni Heikniemi · No Comments
Posted in: General

ISV Buddies: towards a more open Microsoft

Earlier in the summer, Microsoft launched ISV Buddy Program – that is, a program that allows Independent Software Vendors to get a contact person inside Microsoft. The contact person is an "insider", providing the ISV a quick access to resources and inside information. For Microsoft, it's a sort of extended support and of course, good […]

August 7, 2004 · Jouni Heikniemi · One Comment
Posted in: .NET

The pain of big code reviews

Some ranting on code reviews in general: Bugzilla's bug 185090 is nearing completion, and I certainly hope I've finished my part by finally granting review to the 70 kbyte patch. To the no less than 13th iteration of the patch. For those of you not familiar with the Mozilla family review process, a short recap: […]

August 4, 2004 · Jouni Heikniemi · No Comments
Posted in: Misc. programming

New string stuff in Whidbey

The .net framework 2.0 comes with quite a few exciting new features. One of the less visible, yet very useful enhancement is String.Split's ability to split by a group of strings; in 1.1 you only could split by single characters. In 2.0, you can say "a=b and c=d".Split("and"). You can also give Split a new […]

August 1, 2004 · Jouni Heikniemi · One Comment
Posted in: .NET

Transitions

The last few days have been nothing short of hectic. It was to be guessed, though: Final tasks at the old job, preparing for the new one. My medium-scale farewall party was fun – and included a monster-scale swiss schnitzel (in-baked with ham, cheese and feta – and yes, those two are lemon halves). And […]

August 1, 2004 · Jouni Heikniemi · No Comments
Posted in: General