Category Archives: Geek Stuff

Earlier, I saw a tweet fly by about MSNBC doctoring audio on a video. They made a story out of a crowd chanting “Ryan” instead of “Romney” and questioned whether Romney is generating sufficient excitement, etc. I thought the accusers were wrong when I watched the video. The crowd was clearly chanting “Ryan.” Then I glanced away from the screen to check an email and I could clearly hear the crowd chanting “Romney.” What gives here? Am I turning into the Sicilian? It turns out they weren’t actually doctoring the video, but providing misleading visual cues, abusing the McGurk effect. … Continue reading →

http://www.nekogames.jp/mt/2008/01/cursor10.html  Great concept, and clean implementation, impossible to stop clicking until you beat it.

Many people working with MSI aren’t aware of the UPGRADINGPRODUCTCODE (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/msi/setup/upgradingproductcode.asp) property, which Windows Installer sets when uninstalling the product being upgraded. This property should be used to condition custom actions that need to be run only when “really” uninstalling vs. uninstalling as part of an upgrade. So… if you want a custom action to be executed only when uninstalling, add “AND NOT UPGRADINGPRODUCTCODE” to your condition if you want a custom action to be executed only when upgrading, add “AND UPGRADINGPRODUCTCODE” to your condition if you want a custom action to be executed only when being upgraded by a … Continue reading →

This isn’t news, but is worth remembering… Peter Hallam commented on what consumes most of a developer’s time between the following: Design Code Write New Code Understand Existing Code Modify Existing Code Verify Existing Code Still Works He argues that most developers spend most of their time understanding, modifying, and verifying that existing code still works. His focus is primarily upon how this balance impacts (or should impact) editor (Visual Studio) features, but the discussion is interesting outside that context also. Why do we hire developers based upon how well they can write some lame from-scratch sample code? My current employer … Continue reading →