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How the shell converts an icon location into an icon
A customer had trouble getting an icon to display for a registered file type. In my resource file, I specify the icon like this: 101 ICON awesome.ico And when I register my file type, I set it like...
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Eating where the teenagers are: Pão Pão, Queijo Queijo
In Belém, directly to the east of the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos is a block of small shops, the most famous one of which being the Pastéis de Belém which sells the, um, Pastel de Belém, the Belém version...
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What are these strange =C: environment variables?
You won't see them when you execute a SET command, but if you write a program that manually enumerates all the environment variables and prints them out, and if you launch it from a command prompt,...
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On the Portuguese custom of the couvert, and other restaurant customs
In restaurants in the United States, the custom is that anything brought to the table that you didn't order is complimentary. For example, after you place your order, the waiter returns to your table...
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The many ways of converting a string from one language to another
A customer asked, "I'm looking for a way to convert English characters to another language. For example, if the target language is Arabic and the string is the word Hello, I want it to convert to...
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Words you've had wrong your entire life
As a child, my mother would always call out "banzai" when she wanted me to raise my arms above my head so she could put on or take off a pullover shirt. I assumed that banzai was the word for "stick...
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Why can programs empty the clipboard when they start up?
Via the Suggestion Box, Johan Almén asks, "What was the rationale behind the decision to let Excel empty the clipboard when launched?" Why can an application empty the clipboard? Because it's there....
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On nearly getting pickpocketed in both Lisbon and Madrid
My trip to Lisbon introduced me to another tourist phenomenon: pickpockets. It was around 10:30 in the morning, and I got on the train to head into town, planning to climb the steps through the Alfama...
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It rather involved being on the other side of this airtight hatchway:...
In the category of dubious security vulnerability, I submit for consideration the following report: A machine with the kernel debugger enabled is vulnerable to a denial of service attack from an...
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The problem with setting up a story is that people focus on the set-up and...
In writing, one of the steps you need to perform is motivating the discussion. Now, technically, you don't have to do that, but if you just dive into the guts of a topic right off the bat, people are...
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Why can I type a lowercase s with caron with the numeric keypad, but not a...
For concreteness, let's assume that you are using 437 as your OEM code page (which as we all know is not actually provided by the OEM) and 1252 as your ANSI code page (which as we all known is not...
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Things the locals know: How to have lunch at El Brillante
One of my colleagues moved to Granada last year, and he kindly provided me some recommendations for places to eat in Madrid. We found El Brillante easily, positioned across the street from the Atoche...
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How do I prevent users from dragging and dropping files in Explorer?
More than once, I've had a customer ask, "How do I prevent users from dragging and dropping files in Explorer?" Actually, three of them in the past year phrased it in an even more provocative way: "I...
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How do I prevent users from dragging and dropping files in Explorer?
More than once, I've had a customer ask, "How do I prevent users from dragging and dropping files in Explorer?" Actually, three of them in the past year phrased it in an even more provocative way: "I...
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Maxing out the upsell-o-meter
Many grocery stores in the United States have a printer next to the cash register which prints out coupons customized to your purchases. If you buy the house brand of spaghetti, it might print out a...
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If Windows 3.11 required a 32-bit processor, why was it called a 16-bit...
Commenter Really16 asks via the Suggestion Box how 32-bit Win32s was, and why Windows 3.11 was called 16-bit Windows when it required a 32-bit CPU and ran in 32-bit protected mode. First, let's look...
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An insight into the balance between forgiveness and permission
One of my colleagues shared this valuable insight into the balance between forgiveness and permission, which he in turn learned from a high-level manager in his organization: The statement that it is...
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No good deed goes unpunished, part 2, redux
I noted some time ago that I have taken to "blaming" Exchange when someone assumes that my reply to a thread on a distribution list implies that I have taken responsibility for resolving their...
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If you can detect the difference between an emulator and the real thing, then...
Recall that a corrupted program sometimes results in a "Program too big to fit in memory" error. In response, Dog complained that while that may have been a reasonable response back in the 1980's, in...
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We've traced the call and it's coming from inside the house: Operating system...
As the Windows Server 2003 project wound down, somebody reported a serious bug that went something like this: Subject: Windows Server 2003 still refers to itself as Windows .NET Server Previous...
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