Archives

Archives / 2003 / July
  • So Microsoft, when is VS.NET 2002's service pack released?

    When VS.NET 2003 was announced, Microsoft made it clear that it wasn't a service pack for VS.NET 2002 you had to pay for, it was a new release and that they'd release a service pack for VS.NET 2002 'shortly' after the release of VS.NET 2003. Well... it's been 3 months now today, since VS.NET 2003 is on the market and no sign of any service pack for VS.NET 2002.

  • The Blob!

    Microsoft Research is busy using inkblobs to construct strong passwords that are easy to remember. Very interesting read. Go to the article by clicking [here].

  • Get rid of the 'file' concept for sourcecode!

    After the recent sourcecode control debate I started thinking: why on earth are we still using the 'file' as the base unit to store sourcecode in? The whole 'file' concept is pretty bad and limiting when it comes to sourcecode control, code reuse and overall code management. Much better would it be if we could work with a code repository as the container for our sourcecode which would work with sourcecode elements like we know, e.g.: namespaces, classes, assemblies, resource objects etc. etc.

  • It's not Visual SourceSafe's v^Hfault

    Lately, some people started blogging about a new source control system, Vault. I haven't used it, nor am I intending to do so. The reason is not that I don't like Vault or Eric Sink, but because I don't have problems with what I currently use, Visual SourceSafe (VSS). I personally believe Eric Sink knows what he's talking about big time, as his blogs are one of the few which truly show some vision on the total scope of software development, and therefore I think Vault must be a product that can live up the hype that is being build up around Eric's new source control system.

  • LLBLGen v1.21 has been released! (Mostly bugfixes)

    A new LLBLGen v1.x has been released today! Version 1.21.2003.712 to be exact, is a QFE (Quick Fix Engineering) release, which means only minor new features are added and for the rest just bugfixes. This is the final release, no more updates will be released after this release, since the next version of LLBLGen, LLBLGen Pro, is in development and will be released later this summer. The sourcecode comes in a project that is compatible with VS.NET 2003 but not with VS.NET 2002. You need a converter to load it into VS.NET 2002.

  • Re: Am I the stereotypical VB Programmer?

    Roy writes some text about him wondering why someone "accused" him of being a stereotypical VB programmer. Now, why is accused between quotes? If you wonder why or think being called a 'stereotypical VB programmer' is a bad thing, I feel sorry for you. Being "accused" of being some stereotypical [insert a 3GL language here]-programmer by a random person X is nothing to worry about.

  • XBOX's 4th of july

    Some German geeks discovered a hole in the XBOX's dashboard loader code and because Microsoft didn't respond to their claims, they now have released their proof of concept to the public, with exploit code. I find it a little farfetched to call it a 'security hole' which should be stamped 'critical', because after all it just lets you do what you want with hardware you own yourself. The exploit is a nifty trick with an integer underflow in the buffer allocation logic in the font loader. Two doctored font files, called ernie.xft and bert.xft do the work for you. Sorry to say it but I find it clever that you can find such a hole in the first place and a sign of a good sense of humour to call the files to pull the trick 'ernie' and 'bert' :)