The Old New Thing

Other - The Old New Thing

The psychology of naming your internal distribution lists

November 9, 2005 Nov 9, 2005 11/9/05
Raymond Chen
One problem that I'm sure everybody has run into is what I'm going to call the "comp.unix.wizards" problem. People who have a problem with unix are looking for someone who can help them, and given the choice between a general questions group and a wizard group, they're obviously going to choose the wizards because that's where the smart people...

It’s not a book, but it’s slightly closer

November 4, 2005 Nov 4, 2005 11/4/05
Raymond Chen
TechNet Magazine has picked me up as a columnist, and in their November/December 2005 issue they granted me the great honor of being on the back page. My opening salvo is an IT-ized version of one of my more popular early articles, but future issues will contain never-before-seen random musings on subjects of interest to IT professionals...

It’s like being at the PDC, but without the lines or the tote bag

October 25, 2005 Oct 25, 2005 10/25/05
Raymond Chen
Michael Swanson announced last night that the arduous process of assembling the PDC 2005 DVD content is now complete and the results are now online. For free. For six months. You can choose a session and watch it via streaming video, or you can download the video itself for offline enjoyment (!). Michael also has links to the order ...

One person’s discoverable feature is another person’s annoyance

October 25, 2005 Oct 25, 2005 10/25/05
Raymond Chen
When I discussed the behavior of Windows XP SP2's autoplay dialog, one person suggested making the CD autoplay configuration dialog more discoverable to solve the problem of people not knowing how to get back to the dialog to change the settings later. But what is the boundary between discoverability and annoying behavior? ...

The things in the PDC 2005 introductory video

October 20, 2005 Oct 20, 2005 10/20/05
Raymond Chen
I remarked earlier that the creative director for the PDC rummaged through our offices looking for stuff which was to be used in the opening PDC video to decorate a developer's cubicle. It all flashed by really quickly, but if you were paying attention, you might have been able to make out the following: One thing you won't find in the ...

There’s something about Rat Poker

October 19, 2005 Oct 19, 2005 10/19/05
Raymond Chen
When performing usability tests, one of the standard tasks we give people is to install a game, and the game we usually use is The Puzzle Collection. (Yes, it's an old game, but continually updating the game makes it less valid to compare results from one year to the next.) One of the things that the game's Setup does that always confuses ...

Answering the phone, a classic rookie mistake

October 18, 2005 Oct 18, 2005 10/18/05
Raymond Chen
I had taken yesterday off from work just to take a breather, but I stopped by the office in the morning to pick up my bicycle helmet. (How I managed to leave my bicycle helmet at the office is not important.) My office telephone rang and I answered it. As my colleague Ken described it later, "Ah, classic rookie mistake." The call was from...

New blog on integrating Groove with Office

October 11, 2005 Oct 11, 2005 10/11/05
Raymond Chen
Andrew Wharton from Groove has started writing about integrating the team and its product with Office. His opening salvo sets the stage and hooked me in for what looks to be an interesting glimpse into life in another division at Microsoft. (Something that is as mysterious to me as it is to you.) In the early days of the Windows division, ...

The difficult balancing act between customization and supportability

October 10, 2005 Oct 10, 2005 10/10/05
Raymond Chen
My colleague Kam VedBrat (from who I shamelessly stole the pictures of thse high-DPI displays in my PDC talk) discusses the difficult balancing act between customization and supportability. (Part II.) Note that decisions on this subject also also impact compatibility: Windows Vista greatly expands the palette of objects covered by the ...