I found this in a customer's code, where the intention is to provide a unified method of handling interrupts for an interactive data-entry program:

signal(SIGINT, main);

main doesn't process any command-line parameters, so it's not going to access a bogus argv. This has been in production use for years, so objections like "but... but.... you can't do that!" which I share are obviated in the face of experience.

I've had a 14-hour Philips Tivo unit for a coupla years (a kind birthday gift from my brother Jeffrey), and my friend Steve Gardiner has been bugging me to upgrade it - he's kind of a Tivo nut and has a couple of souped-up models. Well, last night I did, and it wasn't so bad at all. An old 61G hard drive I had lying around is now part of my 65-hour Tivo.

The instructions were clear, though there were so many choices and options that it was a little tricky picking out the parts that just applied to me, but anybody who's comfortable with tearing a PC apart can do this.

At some point I'll install the Ethernet card so I can do my schedule updates over the internet, but this will be another day.

Tivo rocks.

I've been using Yahoo! Instant Messenger for several years, and am generally happy with it - most of my friends are on Y!IM. But for months now their servers seem to get in some kind of "unsynchronized" state where they can't report properly who's online and who's not.

When I look at my main Y! IM window (the Win2000 client), typing control-R for refresh will often change people's status as if I had old data, but typing it again changes it again. Right now I am rotating between three different views of buddy status - this is maddening because I can't tell who's idle and who's even online.

I cannot imagine the complexities of maintaining millions of clients connected to a set of servers, but AOL IM - which has a much larger client base - finds a way to run what seems like a rock-solid service to me.

I receive tremendous value from Yahoo! IM, and I wish there were a way for me to pay for it. Right now I'm just some cheapskate whining about a free service, but paying for it would presumably (a) provide better support and (b) fund development.

AOL can do it. Why can't Yahoo!?

Some time ago, I wrote about woes of my XML/SOAP project: XML/SOAP is kicking my ass, and I mentioned the disappointing book Programming Web Services with SOAP (O’Reilly). Though it was good for an overview of the technology, it was nearly useless for hands-on work with SOAP::Lite.

But now the book I wanted has just come out:

Programming Web Services with Perl by Randy Ray and Pavel Kulchenko (O’Reilly). This book is fantastic, and I dearly wish it had been available six months ago. The writing style is positively delightful, the coverage looks very thorough, and this is clearly on my "A" list of helpful technology books. Managers might be better served by the first book, but this one is for programmers.

Thank you, Randy and Pavel (and O'Reilly).

In December 2002, Microsoft released an advisory MS02-071 - Flaw in Windows WM_TIMER Message Handling Could Enable Privilege Elevation (328310), and there are convincing reports that this patch is broken for Windows NT 4.0. I've had a customer getting BSOD routinely since this patch went in, and we never get them otherwise.

This Advisory came across Bugtraq recently, and it shows that we're not the only ones. Microsoft hasn't said anything about this yet, but it's good enough for me to back the patch out all over. This patch can be uninstalled from Control Panel »» Add/Remove Programs »» "Windows 4.0 Hotfix (see Q328310)"

I've not had any problems with this on Win2000 or XP, but it's clearly not happy with NT 4. Consider not installing this patch if Windows Update presents it to you.