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July 2005 - Posts

Why do the high surrogates have the low numbers?

This is a question with true 'drive on a parkway, but park on a driveway' feel to it, but one that I have been asked by many people. If you look at the surrogate range and its definition in Section 3.8 of the Unicode Standard : 3.8 Surrogates D25 High-surrogate Read More...
Posted Sunday, July 31, 2005 5:50 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 2 Comments
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Why my syndication links were broken....

The other day I complained about how My syndication links are broken . We can blame it all on surrogates! :-) You see, when I complained that There is no such thing as a surrogate character (dammit!) , the post was sponsored by the first high surrogate, Read More...
Posted Sunday, July 31, 2005 5:39 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 5 Comments
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What's wrong with the SortKey class?

You may be wondering what I am talking about here.... Well, it is about the SortKey class in the .NET Framework, which you get to by calling the GetSortKey method of the CompareInfo class . The class contains everything you need -- the source string and Read More...
Posted Sunday, July 31, 2005 5:10 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 0 Comments
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New in Vista Beta 1: FindNLSString (an 'internationalized' strstr)

This is an example of the kind of features that we in NLS can add to a product -- not as fancy as transparency and other cool Vista stuff that gets all of the press coverage. But there is a certain class of people, a class with a big overlap with those Read More...
Posted Sunday, July 31, 2005 4:10 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 8 Comments
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Microsoft Company Picnic

Yes, I went to the company picnic yesterday, scooter and all.... It was an interesting time, though it does seem to be especially made for kids (and parents with kids). There were many events there that I was not going to try but Teresa thought she would Read More...
Posted Sunday, July 31, 2005 10:20 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 0 Comments
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That 'international' aimeemann.com site I was talking about

A while back I mentioned how I was once involved a little bit with Aimee Mann's web site. I mentioned it some people at work who did not even believe me until it finally went live -- when I showed them the local version I had running they thought I just Read More...
Posted Thursday, July 28, 2005 12:05 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 1 Comments

My syndication links are broken

I am posting this so that maybe people will no longer feel like they need to contact me to tell me that the RSS 2.0 and Atom 0.3 links are out of order. I know they are. I hav actually been looking at my stats for the first time -- it is simultaneously Read More...
Posted Wednesday, July 27, 2005 10:27 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 6 Comments

Disagreeing with minimsft again

Well, our old pal minimsft , has proven that once again, not everyone at Microsoft will agree with what he or she has said. But I guess I am used to that. We all are at Microsoft (well those who read that blog from time to time). So what am I disagreeing Read More...
Posted Wednesday, July 27, 2005 7:00 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 0 Comments

There is no such thing as a surrogate character (dammit!)

The title of this post, including the parenthetical note, is something that people associated with the Unicode Standard have to tell people all the time (of course generally people only say that parenthetical note to themselves, and really only because Read More...
Posted Wednesday, July 27, 2005 4:47 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 8 Comments
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Windows Vista Beta 1 is released!

Windows Longhorn Vista Beta 1 is available from MSDN Subscriber downloads Also check out the nice looking Windows Vista developer centre on MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/about/ I will be posting about Longhorn NLS features that are available Read More...
Posted Wednesday, July 27, 2005 12:52 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 0 Comments
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Aimee Mann is on David Letterman tonight

Just thought I would mention this so people could set their Replay TVs or their Tivos appropriately! Some usually unreliable sources have told me that they still are not sure which new song they want to play from The Forgotten Arm (the new CD, which I Read More...
Posted Wednesday, July 27, 2005 12:28 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 0 Comments
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Not everyone likes Unicode

It is true -- not everyone likes Unicode. This includes a guy by the handle tyomitch who was trying to post a long comment to a post here and hit some kind of length limitation in Community Server. I did not want to appear unwilling to post negative comments Read More...
Posted Tuesday, July 26, 2005 12:01 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 4 Comments

All code page architectures are created equal

Yes, I said it -- all code page architectures are created equal. But in the most Orwellian sense, some are more equal than others.... First I will digress into a favorite Odgen Nash poem of mine, which is very short. I pretty much memorized it: Let's Read More...
Posted Tuesday, July 26, 2005 6:30 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 8 Comments
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A subkultur iz a shprakh mit an armey un a flot

The title of this post is inspired by a quote from Max Weinrich, a Yiddish linguist -- A shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un a flot . I think it can be understood by many without knowledge of Yiddish, especially if they know German (as German-knowledgable Read More...
Posted Monday, July 25, 2005 9:42 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 7 Comments

Kristin Connell at Paragon tonight

I first saw Kristin Connell when she opened for Jim Boggia in the Green Room, and I even bought her CD Second Chances there since I enjoyed several of the songs she played, and she said most of them were on the CD. I had her autograph it, too -- why not? Read More...
Posted Sunday, July 24, 2005 3:19 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 7 Comments
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Fixing the .NET Framework 1.0 and 1.1 SP install errors

Just days ago, one of the developers in Ireland contacted me. He was thinking we ought to have a KB article to cover the problem and someone from PSS is working on that. I did plan on posting about it, but I figured I would wait until the KB article was Read More...
Posted Sunday, July 24, 2005 2:48 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 0 Comments

When other teams lock down your implementation....

The other day someone was talking about how we could maybe think about not using the registry for some of our NLS support configuration. It was an interesting thought, and I am not completely against the concept of breaking people who insist on doing Read More...
Posted Sunday, July 24, 2005 11:59 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 4 Comments
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Does MS pull new locales out of their [insert stronger language here]?

This may remind you a little of my post back in January ( Does MS pull new keyboard layouts out of their @!#$%? ). :-) There are two questions people tend to ask about locales: How the heck [insert stronger language here] do we decide which ones to add? Read More...
Posted Saturday, July 23, 2005 10:25 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 4 Comments
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Is the Optimus keyboard just a myth?

From my mailbox in response to The so-called Ultimate Keyboard : I think most of the Western auditory didn't get Optimus concept correctly. It is only a concept, it is not existent physicallly yet. The idea was created and then it was instantly rendered Read More...
Posted Friday, July 22, 2005 8:12 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 11 Comments

The ideographic 'myth' ? Well...

I like Suzanne's blog, abecedaria . Even when I don't agree with what she posts, I do find myself thinking. :-) Her very recent post, The Ideographic Myth (named after a chapter in a book), discusses the concept championed by the book's author John DeFrances Read More...
Posted Friday, July 22, 2005 7:45 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 8 Comments
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Show me the [small]money!

SQL Server's currency data types have some interesting international features. And some of the intricacies of those features have some interesting international implications. I figured as long as we were here I could talk about some of them.... The money Read More...
Posted Friday, July 22, 2005 12:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 19 Comments

Does the visibility of a fiery ball 93 million miles away really affect your mood?

The title of this post is a question I asked a few months ago of Anna Tholse, one of the very cool developers on the NLS team, whose office is right next door to mine. (We were talking about the benefits of window offices , and the benefits of a place Read More...
Posted Thursday, July 21, 2005 8:15 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 1 Comments
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Every character has a story #12: U+2071 (SUPERSCRIPT LATIN SMALL LETTER I)

This entire post below was authored by Ken Whistler and posted to the Unicode List at 7:37pm on July 20, 2005. I sit and watch Ken with awe and wonder at times like this. :-) (Asmus Freytag inspired this post when he stated: W e could create a new series Read More...
Posted Thursday, July 21, 2005 12:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 6 Comments

The so-called Ultimate Keyboard

It all started on Friday, July 15th, at 2:43am. I received the following mail: Hi Michael I read your blog everyday, and I really enjoy it. Normally I would never contact someone who's blog I read (nor any other celebrity) but I saw this and I thought Read More...
Posted Wednesday, July 20, 2005 10:14 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 17 Comments
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More on sort elements

Yesterday I contrated sort elements and text elements . I am now going to leave text elements aside for a bit. Because linguistic collation on Windows, at its heart, is an ordering based on sort elements, not text elements. Every time I look at the text Read More...
Posted Wednesday, July 20, 2005 1:15 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 6 Comments

It isn't really more secure in most cases

Sometimes, you go to log in to your Windows box. You see this friendly dialog (all screen shots c/o Virtual PC): (adjust for your Windows version, of course!) You do the requested three-fingered salute, and type in your password: and at this point is Read More...
Posted Tuesday, July 19, 2005 1:29 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 20 Comments
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Sort element vs. text element

Text elements have been called that since version 1.0 of the .NET Framework. MSDN defines them as follows: The .NET Framework defines a text element as a unit of text that is displayed as a single character; that is, a grapheme. A text element can be Read More...
Posted Tuesday, July 19, 2005 2:13 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 6 Comments
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Typing in random Unicode code points redux

It was about two months ago when I pointed out a method for typing in random Unicode code points using the Unicode IME. Well, Andrew over at http://www.fileformat.info (the cool provider of my Unicode character links!) has been getting feedback on this Read More...
Posted Monday, July 18, 2005 2:01 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 14 Comments

MSLU isn't perfect

Now as far as I know, no one has ever stated a contrary opinion, but I thought I would point out that MSLU is not perfect. This does not of course keep people from being unhappy when they find a bug! One of the strangest patterns for a bug that I have Read More...
Posted Monday, July 18, 2005 9:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 0 Comments
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Use of VkKeyScanEx

On the microsoft.public.win32.programmer.international, Nick asked: Hi there, Does anyone know why this function returns -1 when it is used to convert the character code of a "dead key" when the keyboard layout is set to German on an English Windows. Read More...
Posted Monday, July 18, 2005 12:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 2 Comments
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What do the scooters look like?

People have been asking about the scooter lately, starting to wonder what it looks like. the term conjures up images of.... But that is a Scooter of a different color. :-) There are actually two scooters -- nicknamed Fat Man and Little Boy . Now some Read More...
Posted Sunday, July 17, 2005 7:01 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 5 Comments
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For crying out loud, Spazzo is gone

Last night was a night for dancing (well, that pseudo-dancing I do with the scooter) at Misty's in Bellevue, and since things do not get rolling there until after 9pm, dinner seemed like a good idea. Of course, trying to get dinner reservations at 7:30pm Read More...
Posted Sunday, July 17, 2005 12:01 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 2 Comments
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A Microsoft convention for compressions in sorting

The other day, a developer named Stephanie sent me an email about compressions (these are used in collation when two or more characters are given a single sort weight -- the Unicode Collation Algorithm calls their analagous construction a contraction, Read More...
Posted Sunday, July 17, 2005 8:25 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 10 Comments
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Pardon my French, but...

John Yunker posted an ironic little ditty a few days ago entitled Pardon My French . The post's scariest note said: A group of French language teachers in Japan are suing the mayor of Tokyo for saying, "French is a failed international language because Read More...
Posted Saturday, July 16, 2005 11:38 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 2 Comments
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Ambiguity of Language in the Platform SDK

A few weeks ago, Ivo asked in the microsoft.public.win32.programmer.international newsgroup: I was wondering what is the point of the LeadingZero member in NUMBERFMT and CURRENCYFMT. The fact is that GetNumberFormat and GetCurrencyFormat do not have an Read More...
Posted Saturday, July 16, 2005 8:30 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 4 Comments

Disabilities in the workplace

Gretchen (the one who looks like a South Park character if you fall for her blog masthead) pointed to an article by Maureen Crawford-Hentz, the Director of Career Services at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston. The article is entitled Job-Seeking Read More...
Posted Friday, July 15, 2005 6:28 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 3 Comments
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Don't roll your own CompareString... uh... never mind

(more experimentations with pre-recorded messages!) Earlier today I told everyone Don't roll your own GetDateFormat and even showed an example consequence of doing so, when Microsoft Office would fail to pick up the right support for genitive dates, an Read More...
Posted Friday, July 15, 2005 1:01 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 2 Comments

Don't roll your own GetDateFormat

A few days ago, Daniel asked (in the microsoft.public.win32.programmer.international newsgroup): This issue is happening with MS Windows XP (all patches and updates) and MS Word XP (also all updates installed). Until now, I thought that, when using the Read More...
Posted Friday, July 15, 2005 3:51 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 2 Comments

Michael vs. the Lion

It is common for people to talk about the connection between 'the Lion' and the Netherlands (see Order of the Dutch Lion for an interesting reference!). Of course I am merely attempting to be poetic here; I have not declared war on Holland. And certainly Read More...
Posted Thursday, July 14, 2005 6:30 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 4 Comments
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Ignore this blog (and this post)

I read David Weinberger's post about how even with an aggregator, there is just too much out there to keep up with all of it. As a public service to the blogosphere, I am going to volunteer my blog as one that you should not read. I will keep posting Read More...
Posted Thursday, July 14, 2005 3:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 2 Comments

Saw Jim Boggia tonight

And he even remembered the road trip we were both on (though he did not remember my name). I will post more about the show tomorrow (and about his starting act, Kristin Connell). Right now I just need to get some sleep! (Also up tomorow -- Michael faces Read More...
Posted Wednesday, July 13, 2005 11:57 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 0 Comments
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Microsoft is everywhere!

Gretchen posted on Monday about how to work for Microsoft if you don't live in North America . I think I may have linked to material on this before since I have gotten questions about the issues, and I do not know as much about this as I probably ought Read More...
Posted Tuesday, July 12, 2005 1:42 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 4 Comments
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The GIFT Ireland team is really good

I noticed some things as I was meeting with the Irish 'wing' of the GIFT team yesterday. First I had given part one of a four-hour presentation on the state of the world and the state the world that will be in for NLS/NLS+/etc., and then we were meeting Read More...
Posted Tuesday, July 12, 2005 1:45 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 1 Comments

Keynote #2 at TechEd Europe....

This keynote was on Thursday afternoon and was entitled The Future of Software . Ordinarily, I am just as likely as anyone else to give stuff like that a miss. But David Vaskevitch gave it, and I was interested in seeing what was going to be said. You Read More...
Posted Monday, July 11, 2005 12:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 4 Comments
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Lotsa miscellaneous language/linguistic stuff

The speaker dinner was on Friday night and it was very cool. We went to see the Heineken Experience which was on the con side not as accessible as it could have been but on the pro side looked a lot like the factory scenes from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Read More...
Posted Sunday, July 10, 2005 6:30 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 0 Comments

Why doesn't FoldString take an LCID?

I actually recall asking Julie Bennett this question (why doesn't FoldString take an LCID?) a few years ago, and her answer was that none of the foldings that the function did were locale-dependant. Now that is true for some of the foldings: MAP_FOLDCZONE Read More...
Posted Saturday, July 09, 2005 12:11 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 10 Comments

Getting intermediate forms

Unicode has a certain complexity to it that can at times be challenging. Let's take for example U+1ec5 , a.k.a. LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH CIRCUMFLEX AND TILDE. Here is what it looks like (how good will depend on your OS and browser support!): ễ Now obviously Read More...
Posted Saturday, July 09, 2005 12:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 18 Comments

Real developers use CompareInfo's Compare (Part 1)

In the not too distant past, I pointed out that String.Compare is for sissies (not for people who want SQLCLR consistency) . Well, today I am going to start to wrap that functionality I described, so that it can be used without a ton of work being done. Read More...
Posted Friday, July 08, 2005 12:31 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 5 Comments

Was it or weren't it? It's No Myth, either way

The Michael referred to in the title is actually Michael Penn, not I. :-) It started several years ago when singer/songwriter Michael Penn wrote and performed a song entitled No Myth . The lyrics for this song as published (on several fan and official Read More...
Posted Friday, July 08, 2005 12:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 4 Comments
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Bottles sometimes talk, they never say the right things though

As Mike Gunderloy pointed out, if the wine talks to you, maybe it's time to stop . Of course, in the spirit of 'prior art' other spirits have been talking already. Unfortunately, Jack [Daniels], Jim [Beam], and Johnny [Walker], always have such great Read More...
Posted Thursday, July 07, 2005 8:27 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 4 Comments
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Calling it a night, for the party at least

Ok, I went back to the party, but could not find any of the people I knew among the 1000+ people milling about. I settled in to get a drink, maybe people watch a bit by the band, and figured I'd perhaps see somebody. Then, a bit behind me on to the left, Read More...
Posted Thursday, July 07, 2005 3:50 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 4 Comments

So why I am I not at the party?

It is Thursday night, I can hear the party from where I am sitting (in room 3c, while the party is down in 3a). I was actually there for a while. I was originally going to skip it but essentially ended up going with a woman named Pauline I met at a BoF Read More...
Posted Thursday, July 07, 2005 12:54 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 2 Comments

Coming soon

When I showed the differences between the CLR and Yukon collation support in this post , I definitely left a lot of assembly required. I will soon be posting more direct samples to help here. Keep your eye on this spot.... Oh, I saw Betsy Aoki 's TechEd Read More...
Posted Wednesday, July 06, 2005 4:31 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 0 Comments
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Change is in the cards for ConvertDefaultLocale....

For some time now, the model being used for neutral locales in Windows, described in this post, has been geting more and more problematic. After all, there are more and more new neutral locale LCID values that do not look like ordinary PRIMARYLANGID values. Read More...
Posted Tuesday, July 05, 2005 11:30 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 2 Comments

'Need more input, Stephanie!'

Since these immortal words were spoken by the voice of Tim Blaney to Ally Sheedy, I think every one of us has at times felt like the industrious Number 5 who would read the encyclopedias and dictionaries if only you could point at the information, at Read More...
Posted Tuesday, July 05, 2005 9:35 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 3 Comments

I think I am getting old

(nothing all that technical here) I had dinner with Andrea last night (yes, the same Andrea who I was talking with about the Korean Unicode sort ) in the before time, in the long long ago. Just dinner folks. She has a boyfriend now, and he is not me. Read More...
Posted Monday, July 04, 2005 11:30 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 5 Comments
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Is 'International' stuff sexy?

I was talking to an attendee of TechEd who had just registered. He was looking at all of the sessions that were available, and asked me what I was talking about in my sessions. When I told him, he thought for a moment and then asked me the question that Read More...
Posted Monday, July 04, 2005 4:55 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 4 Comments