If you do .NET development, sometimes you have to drop down to the Win32 API to do your dirty work. One fun and exciting task when you have to do that is creating the PInvoke signature, which is fraught with peril. Thankfully, today I discovered pinvoke.net, a community site based around a wiki, which contains PInvoke signatures and associated gotchas. Truly a fantastic site for folks that have to do this kind of work, and it’s run by Adam Nathan, one of the bigger heads on the whole subject. Definitely a must see for any .NET dev.
Bugfix for HttpCompress
I just uploaded a pretty major bugfix for v5 of HttpCompress. Turns out, the modification I made to the #ziplib library broke GZip compression, which in turn broke a number of older browsers that only support GZip. I’ve made a fix and reuploaded the v5 release. Just redownload it and replace your current install and everything should be peachy.
engin.umich gets with the times
Looks like the alma mater is finally getting with the times and moving to a standards-compliant web site! I wonder if my old friends at Fry had anything to do with it?
Farewell HyperCard
A long, long time ago in a distant university, I took a class
called
Human Factors in Computing,
taught by the energetic Paul Green.
In this class, we had to mock up different interfaces to a device that
would allow the user to set the time on a digital clock. I wanted to use
the then fresh-faced DHTML, but wise old Prof Green pointed the class
in the direction of HyperCard
instead, insisting that we use it.
For all my misgivings, HyperCard proved to be a worthy little tool in mocking up our interfaces.
In many ways, I liked it better than DHTML. It just worked, no cross-browser support, no stupid spec. Just
nice little programs that let you move digits up and down
Sadly, I learned today that
HyperCard has
been decommissioned. Farewell my little stack,
so full of love and eager to please. You will be missed.
Riding through Chernobyl
Hurwitz pointed me at a site detailing out a woman’s
rides
through Chernobyl. The photos are flat out amazing.