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November 2008 - Posts

From I SCOOT to IBOT, #6 of ?? (The cost of standing still?)

Once again, a blog for your reading pleasure that is technical though not on the usual subjects. If iBOT crap bores you, then please skip gracefully! Prior blogs in the series here and here and here and here and here . It was actually in a response to Read More...
Posted Thursday, November 27, 2008 1:31 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 9 Comments

I İ ı i before Ѐ ѐ unless you ask Y y ʏ

I was asked the other day what I thought about string comparisons. What with all the different recommendations floating around, all of the different possibilities, and all the unclear guidelines, the question was whether there was a succinct way to describe Read More...
Posted Wednesday, November 26, 2008 12:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 2 Comments

Azeri serious bug for non-Unicode SQL Server columns?

So it all started in a conversation with some of the folks from the SQL Server team when I was at PASS. What did they expect? Send 600 Microsoft employees to an event and you are bound to run into some of them just in the act of walking around! They were Read More...
Posted Tuesday, November 25, 2008 7:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 2 Comments

y? Because it's documented that way!

The question yesterday was: For date formatting and parsing APIs, is there a difference between lower- and upper-case Ys? (I.e., “yyyy” v. “YYYY”.) The articles on MSDN seem to be inconclusive. Errr. That's an interesting question, I think. Whether one Read More...
Posted Tuesday, November 25, 2008 12:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 0 Comments

UCS-2 to UTF-16, Part 6: An exercise left for whoever needs some exercise

Previous blogs in this series of blogs on this Blog: Part 0: The intro, sans content Part 1: Getting the obvious out of the way Part 2: A&P of a 'linguistic character' Part 3: It starts with cursor movement (where MS simultaneously gets better and Read More...
Posted Monday, November 24, 2008 7:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 3 Comments

From I SCOOT to IBOT, #5 of ?? (sometimes it is phase 3 that is ????)

Warning: although slightly technical, this blog is mostly non-technical, and/or technical about stuff related to the iBOT. If the technical issues related to SQL Server and/or PASS interest you then they will probably show up in future blogs ... Prior Read More...
Posted Monday, November 24, 2008 12:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 11 Comments

Apocalypse Font (aka Guess they must have picked the wrong eight characters.)

The title of this blog is an allusion to Coppola's Apocalypse Now , and eventually I'll be quoting a bit of the Herr-provided narration (those are the pieces Martin Sheen read)... It all started with a seemingly innocent question the other day. It went Read More...
Posted Wednesday, November 19, 2008 12:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 12 Comments

If he don't like it, or me, then why the hell is he here exactly?

This blog is as off topic as you can get without a prescription from your doctor.... Sometimes when one doesn't get the answer one wants, one can feel somewhat bitter about that fact. Technical problems with computers can cause a person to be particularly Read More...
Posted Tuesday, November 18, 2008 7:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 8 Comments
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If you say I'll PASS, that means you'll be there!

Warning: Excessive PASS puns follow; if you don't like that sort of thing, then do not PASS... It was one of those fun conversations that I find myself in from time to time. Over IM, I was talking to my friend Rachel (a very smart ASPNET developer I know Read More...
Posted Tuesday, November 18, 2008 12:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 3 Comments

In or out of the default, no way to win, really

Microsoft tends to get criticized, no matter what they (by which I mean we) do. They (by which I mean customers) hate that the default install the additional IME, keyboard, font, and code page files(ref: What isn't in the default install for NLS ). But Read More...
Posted Monday, November 17, 2008 12:01 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 2 Comments

Same shit, different decade/century/millennium

Lest you have any doubts, I speak here for myself and only for myself, not for Microsoft or for any person, group, or division within Microsoft. This statement is so simple that anyone can get it, right? Now although I work for Microsoft, for everything Read More...
Posted Monday, November 17, 2008 12:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 2 Comments
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When features collide (aka Your LCID sucks, but sometimes the bug sucks more)

Regular readers might recall a long ago blog entitled New in Vista: What's your name? Who's your daddy? , which talked about the new name-based NLS API functions, intended to wean people off of their use of LCIDs. Because let's face it, LCIDs suck . Anyway, Read More...
Posted Friday, November 14, 2008 12:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 0 Comments

On reverting unexplained spontaneous alteration of language

Cheekheon asked via the Contact link: Hi, I have a NEC Desktop Computer running Windows XP Home Edition SP 2 with an ATI X300 (RV370) display card. A few months ago, I did a security update from Microsoft and was advised to update my ATI display driver. Read More...
Posted Thursday, November 13, 2008 7:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 1 Comments
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No need to throw out the baby with the streamwriter; they probably could have just put in a replacement

So anyway, Kim 's other recent blog, entitled Making a StreamWriter usable even after given garbage characters , highlights an interesting difference some of the methodology between the way that Windows and .Net handle encoding and codepages. In Windows Read More...
Posted Thursday, November 13, 2008 12:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 3 Comments

You can either be intuitive and completely inconsistent, or consistent and completely unintuitive!

People have been misusing the word neutral in the whole area of internationalization of Microsoft products for quite some time now, a fact that I have discussed previously in blogs like Neutral? I do not think that word means what you think it means! Read More...
Posted Wednesday, November 12, 2008 7:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 1 Comments

"We" don't tell you how to spell *our* language in *yours*, so...

Now if you look at all of the following blogs: Uighur or Uyghur? Persian? Or Farsi? Is it Macau or is it Macao? Bangalore or Bengaluru (Bengalūru)? Chaudhuri vs. Chaudhary? Persian? Or Farsi? Redux The real issue we are talking about (once everyone stops Read More...
Posted Wednesday, November 12, 2008 12:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 8 Comments
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Trying to ignore the small stuff is harder, if you're Arabic

Via the Contact link, Alain asked: Hello Michael, I ask you about a problem I searched on the net all morning and get no response. We work à UNESCO (Paris/France) on a multi-lingual database (SQL Server 2005). We actually add Arabic to a English/French/Spanish/Russian Read More...
Posted Tuesday, November 11, 2008 7:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 0 Comments

On blowing a font cache, and overwhelming a Fonts folder with the raw power of typography

In response to About the Fonts folder in Windows, Part 3 (aka What changes in Vista?) , Shaun asked in a comment : I unzipped a large number of font folders into my Windows/Fonts folder and now the unzipped folders are not showing up… my Fonts folder Read More...
Posted Tuesday, November 11, 2008 12:51 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 3 Comments
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Grease is the word; ░░░░░░ not so much...

The question from, the other day was an interesting one. It was something like this: I’m trying to do a word-boundary check, and I noticed regex doesn’t handle boundaries correctly for some extended characters (░╤╞╬═╣etc.). A simple example is “\b░” which Read More...
Posted Monday, November 10, 2008 7:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 3 Comments

From I SCOOT to IBOT, #4 of ?? (with some pictures!)

Prior blogs in the series here and here and here . In response to I SCOOT TO IBOT, #2 of ?? , Gwyn commented : Can you provide some pictures of the different modes? I'm not really sure what they all are exactly like. Very good idea! I had a few minutes Read More...
Posted Monday, November 10, 2008 12:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 6 Comments

'It's Not Easy' saying WTF to an 'Ant in Alaska'

This blog title is not a reference to Kermit's It's Not Easy Being Green , as any diehard Liz Phair fan would recognize... I'm going to dig a little into one of the random questions that came out of this last April's I'm aware of that: an Andreaesque Read More...
Posted Saturday, November 08, 2008 3:11 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 4 Comments
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Helping partners -- small steps can be a big deal

So it was yesterday from over in Hong Kong that friend/colleague/Microsoft MVP Martin Poon pointed out an article in Chinese entitled Microsoft 帶領合作夥伴協助中小企克服經濟逆境 (Microsoft partner will help lead SMEs to overcome difficult economic conditions). This is Read More...
Posted Friday, November 07, 2008 7:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 0 Comments
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ELS is not ESL, or SLE, or SEL, or LES

Extended Linguistic Services . It is something I first mentioned last week, in From ____ to ____ to MUI to ELS -- World Ready @ the PDC! . You should also note that Kieran is talking about it in her blog (ref: What's new for you in Windows 7: Extended Read More...
Posted Friday, November 07, 2008 12:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 2 Comments

Being smart, by not trying to be clever

There are times that Microsoft Word is too smart for its own good The message I received via the Contact link was: Dear Michael, First, I would like to thank you for your great BLOG! Well done! I've spent many hours reading and studying various articles Read More...
Posted Thursday, November 06, 2008 7:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 0 Comments

I think we're taking the wrong approach, mostly

In the past, I've done a lot of presentations on globalization and localizability issues. In different companies where I was brought in to do this, they were very well received, because generally a company is being asked to do the work to support another Read More...
Posted Thursday, November 06, 2008 12:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 5 Comments

Strange control over CTRL and control characters

Via the Contact link, Rich asks: Hi Michael, I've been reading your (very detailed and useful) series on keyboard layouts. There's one thing that's puzzling me with respect to the post about the Caps Lock state ( Getting all you can out of a keyboard Read More...
Posted Tuesday, November 04, 2008 7:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 0 Comments

You think herding cats is hard? Try herding CATS. Hell, try herding KATS!

It reminds me of a joke that I actually experienced a while back. My cat of blessed memory (Tamara Penelope Kaplan, or Tammy for short) had done something that required stitches. The veterinarian was quite helpful and she (the veterinarian) gave her (the Read More...
Posted Tuesday, November 04, 2008 12:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 2 Comments

Inspiration, and a code chart

Way back in September after I did that presentation at the Internationalization and Unicode conference that I mentioned and provided the slides of in Behind the Proposed Change to Tamil in Unicode (five different ways) , Scott sent me the following via Read More...
Posted Monday, November 03, 2008 7:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 4 Comments

The sort order of the Language Bar (and Michael is in heaven on this one, other than...)

At this point, I am convinced that people are afraid of the Suggestion Box . Because even if the question would completely make sense to be there, people still send it to me via the Contact link and thus become part of a big file of potentiasl questions Read More...
Posted Monday, November 03, 2008 12:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 7 Comments
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This is not yet my take on DirectWrite

More news out of the PDC. :-) I had a few people point out after they saw the talk I pointed to in From ____ to ____ to MUI to ELS -- World Ready @ the PDC! (the one that I liked the content but didn't care for the title, and I though could have used Read More...
Posted Sunday, November 02, 2008 7:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 0 Comments

From I SCOOT to IBOT, #3 of ??

Prior blogs in the series here and here . I had to set a security code for the IBOT. Peter, the guy who was programming the code into the IBOT as soon as I had decided what it would be, was shaking his head as he watched me going through the exercise Read More...
Posted Sunday, November 02, 2008 12:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 7 Comments
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The absentee ballot seems like the best approach, if I am a homeowner about to be sexually assaulted...

Here I am, home in a Saturday afternoon and pondering what I'm going to do tonight (the choice is between several things that aren't really sounding too exciting, but maybe it will pick up). Over to my right is a huge pile of mail asking me to vote for Read More...
Posted Saturday, November 01, 2008 4:59 PM by Michael S. Kaplan | 0 Comments
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What's the shape of the sort?

There is an old Marx Brothers routine that goes something like this: Groucho : What's the shape of the world? Harpo : It's terrible. Groucho : No, I'm talking about the shape. Harpro : Oh, that's different. Groucho : So what's the shape of the world? Read More...
Posted Saturday, November 01, 2008 8:01 AM by Michael S. Kaplan | 4 Comments
 
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