Programming Sucks
”There will always be darkness
I spent a few years growing up with a closet in my bedroom. The closet had an odd design. It looked normal at first, then you walked in to do closet things, and discovered that the wall on your right gave way to an alcove, making for a handy little shelf. Then you looked up, and the wall at the back of the alcove gave way again, into a crawlspace of utter nothingness, where no light could fall and which you immediately identified as the daytime retreat for every ravenous monster you kept at bay with flashlights and stuffed animals each night.
This is what it is to learn programming. You get to know your useful tools, then you look around, and there are some handy new tools nearby and those tools show you the bottomless horror that was always right next to your bed.”

Internet Explorer (IE) version detection in JavaScript
Minification-safe JavaScript detection of version of Internet Explorer (IE) browser up to version 10 inclusive.

Falsehoods programmers believe about time
”I have repeatedly been confounded to discover just how many mistakes in both test and application code stem from misunderstandings or misconceptions about time. By this I mean both the interesting way in which computers handle time, and the fundamental gotchas inherent in how we humans have constructed our calendar – daylight savings being just the tip of the iceberg.”

Saturday Link Roundup

Posted on August 8, 2015 by Dale

Group Policy Search – powered by Windows Azure.

How to bring harmony to your mixed wired and wireless networks
The article discusses several different ways to cause your WiFi enabled Windows PCs to switch to a wired connection when it is available. The one which impresses me is the use of DHCP Default Router Metric Base property.

Sandy Mackinnon’s unlikely voyage through the canals of Europe
In a Mirror Dinghy no less.

Saturday Link Roundup

Posted on August 1, 2015 by Dale

Processor Hacker
”Process Hacker was started in 2008 as an open source alternative to programs such as Task Manager and Process Explorer.”

Group Policy application fails on a computer that is running Windows 2000, Windows XP Service Pack 1, or Windows XP Service Pack 2
And Windows 7 as well.

How to reset a Roaming Profile in Windows 7

Script to list all active users and their group membership in a domain

Windows 7 Notification Area Automation – Falling Back Down the Binary Registry Rabbit Hole
”After countless hours of searching for a programmatic way to modify the notification settings of the task tray icons, I came to the conclusion that there are many questions and no answers out there. I embarked once again on the fun task of reverse engineering a binary registry setting to change a setting that should be pretty straight forward but, alas, is not. …”

How to be a reviewer
Chortle’s style guide for writers

And finally, some interesting Firefox plugins:

Auto Reload
”Reload page automatically when selected local files are changed.”
LastPass
”LastPass, an award-winning password manager, saves your passwords and gives you secure access from every computer and mobile device.”
Session Manager
”Session Manager saves and restores the state of all or some windows – either when you want it or automatically at startup and after crashes. It can also automatically save the state of open windows individually.”
Tab Auto Reload
”Adds auto reload menu to tab.”
Tab Rotator
”The Tab Rotator automatically switches between the open tabs of a browser window after a certain amount of time.”