I consider myself to be an expert WinDbg user, when it comes to debugging unmanaged x86 code. I haven't used WinDbg much on managed code, and when I did, I found it quite painful.

Via Scott Guthrie's blog, I discovered Tess Ferrandez's blog. Tess is an escalation engineer in PSS who specializes in ASP.NET and a WinDbg virtuoso. Scott has a list of her best posts. Mind-blowing stuff, but not for the faint of heart.

I blogged before about KeePass, a free password manager utility. A few minutes ago, I added the 200th entry to my password database, when I registered to download VMware Server.

200 entries! At one point or another, I've registered on a hell of a lot of websites. I also use KeePass to keep track of credit card numbers, software registration keys, and so on. KeePass not only lets me use distinct, strong passwords for each site, but it also lets me remember which sites I've registered on. Some sites want me to use my email address; others prefer an alphanumeric username.

One friend reliably informs me that KeePass runs just fine under Wine, giving him a cross-platform way to manage his passwords.

Via AmericaBlog, it's Brokeback to the Future.

Back in October, I joined Atlas Solutions as a senior software engineer. The company just held its first "partner summit", to educate some of our key partners on the kind of work we're doing and new developments. An attendee blogged it. I'm working on video on demand, the stuff that Scott Ferris talked about.

I saw some of the presentations being rehearsed last week, but a lot of this is stuff that I've never seen before. I come from a software background, after all, not an advertising background.

18 Ways to be a Good Developer, inspired by 20 Ways to be a Good User.

The Onion interviews Stephen Colbert on the Colbert Report, politics, and improv.

This application to join the Republican National Committee arrived in the mail the other day. Hell hasn't frozen over yet, so I won't be joining the Republican party.

I don't know how the RNC came up with my name, though I got another solicitation from them a few years ago. Usually, I get solicitations from the Dems and from a variety of progressive causes, but then I have a track record of supporting them.

The previous owner of our house, Harry Korrell, is a made man in local Republican circles. He was a member of Dino Rossi's legal team when Rossi was trying to overturn the last gubernatorial election in Washington state. Feh!

I've been trying to make Vim 7 compile with the Microsoft Visual C++ 2003 Toolkit, as a favor to Bram Moolenaar, the primary author of Vim. He wants to be able to use the free compiler as the primary build tool for the Win32 version of Vim.

Oh. My. God.

The VC2003 toolkit may include a full optimizing compiler, but it's certainly far from a complete system for building Windows binaries.

First, I discovered that it came only with the C library headers, but not the Windows headers. That was easily rectified. Download the Platform SDK. Just the Windows Core SDK subset. This also got me nmake.

At this point, I was able to compile Vim, but not to link it. The linker required cvtres.exe, to link some resources. Some googling showed me that this is included in the .NET Runtime.

The main Vim executable now linked, but the shell extension DLL didn't. I didn't have msvcrt.lib! It took me more detective work to learn that I'd have to install the .NET Framework SDK to get msvcrt.lib. There are several clever hacks out there that generate msvcrt.lib from msvcrt.dll, with the help of link -dump -exports and a sed script, but these do not include the all-important _DllMainCRTStartup@12, the real entrypoint for DLLs linked with msvcrt.

All the necessary steps for getting the downloads are summarized on the Code::Blocks wiki. Code::Blocks is an open-source IDE that can host the VC2003 toolkit, GCC, and a number of other compilers.

So why bother with the VC2003 toolkit, since Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition is freely downloadable?

The main reason is that it's free only for the first year, and Bram wants something that will still be available after November 2006, so that anyone can compile it.

I have also ported Vim 7 to compile with VC2005 Express. It was fairly straightforward, after I had added the following

 #if _MSC_VER >= 1400
 # define _CRT_SECURE_NO_DEPRECATE
 # define _CRT_NONSTDC_NO_DEPRECATE
 #endif

to shut up the warnings about deprecated CRT functions. I also had to make it link with libcmt.lib (multithreaded) instead of libc.lib, as the single-threaded static library is gone.

I still need to make sure that everything continues to work with the retail compilers, VC6, VC7.1, and VC8, before passing my changes back to Bram. Sigh.

Update #1: I almost forgot. VC2005 Express also requires the Platform SDK to build Vim.

I'll send the diffs to Bram in about a week. I'm too busy to clean everything up this week.

Update #2 (2006/03/12): I sent updates to Bram a week ago and he's checked them into the Vim7 source tree. Be sure to read src/INSTALLpc.txt, section 1, for details on compiling Vim with VC5-VC8.

Update #3 (2006/04/22): VC2005 Express is now free forever. Vim7 is in beta and will be released soon, and Bram doesn't want to switch compilers at this point.

A useful compendium of health risks associated with excessive computer usage: Is Your Computer Killing You? RSI, eye strain, deep-vein thrombosis, insomnia, etc.

A little app that I find useful in reminding me to take occasional breaks is Workrave. Though I've gotten all too good at ignoring it.

Time for a break.

Bill Shatner doing Elton John's Rocket Man: video. Be sure to watch the last 30 seconds or so.

This morning, I sent the following letter to the Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee:

Senator,

Your job last week was to show up Samuel Alito as the extremist that he is.

You failed. You were outmaneuvred by the Republicans and you did not make a compelling case when you had the spotlight on you. Instead many of you were, rightfully, pilloried as bloviating blowhards.

Do you really want your legacy to be that you swung the Supreme Court to the right for three decades? Do you want to remembered as one who lost Roe v. Wade? That you placed someone with a track record of privileging the executive branch on the Court under such an administration? To have confirmed, by default, another Justice in the mold of Scalia and Thomas?

Stand up and fight! If -- no, when! -- Alito gets out of committee, filibuster! What are you saving the filibuster for, if not to prevent the balance of power changing in the Supreme Court?

We, the freedom lovers of America, are counting on you to do your job, and lead!

George V. Reilly, Seattle, WA

Here's the contact information for the Judiciary Committee

• Patrick Leahy

• Joseph Biden

• Russell Feingold

• Ted Kennedy

• Dianne Feinstein

• Herbert Kohl

• Chuck Schumer

• Richard Durbin

Here's a very pissed off reaction to the ineptitude of the Democrats

I re-read Scott Hanselman's blog post on using Consolas as the Windows Console Font, and I decided to put together a registry file to make it a little simpler. (You'll have to rename the file to console-font.reg after downloading.)

The registry file includes entries for:

• Andale Mono

• DejaVu Sans Mono (an extended version of Bitstream Vera)

• Consolas

As Scott says:

(I'm afraid I can't distribute Consolas online or provide a download out of abject fear. That said, you can find it in any version of the Longhorn bits.)

Or Office 12, I believe.

Update, 2008/01/15. The Consolas Font Pack is the easiest way to get Consolas, if you don't have Office 2007 or Vista. Technically, you are supposed to have Visual Studio 2005. (I'm guessing that VS 2008 comes with Consolas.)

On Tuesday night, I felt like Imelda Marcos. I conducted a long-overdue purge of my closet, leaving me with two large boxes of clothes, mostly shirts and t-shirts. I probably got rid of 80% of my collection of Microsoft shirts. All in all, I had 63 empty hangars in the closet when I was done. Yikes!

Lately, I've been dressing a little better. More button-down shirts, fewer t-shirts. Not that there's been any pressure to do so at work -- the geeks at Atlas are just as badly informally dressed as at any other software company that I've worked at.

Via DailyKos: some of the nation's leading libraries have books bound in human skin.

I made this recipe for Thanksgiving. It was a big hit.

Mustard-Mushroom Soup recipe from CDKitchen.com:

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter

• 2 pounds mushrooms, thinly sliced

• 4 cups chicken stock (preferably homemade)

• 1/2 cup dry Sherry

• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

• Salt and freshly ground pepper

• 1 cup whipping cream

Directions

Melt butter in heavy large saucepan over medium-high heat and cook until lightly browned. Add mushrooms and cook until liquid evaporates, stirring frequently, about 10 minutes. Add stock, Sherry and mustard and simmer briskly 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add cream and warm through. Serve immediately.