wa page 62 - Dave's Blog

HIMAGELIST Stream Size

2008 Jan 12, 2:26If you're like me you need to serialize an object that contains an HIMAGELIST via IMarshal for COM's marshalling. I could use ImageList_Write to actually write the HIMAGELIST to a stream for IMarshal::MarshalInterface, but I needed to know the size of the data that I was going to write for IMarshal::GetMarshalSizeMax. I thought I'd use HIMAGELIST_QueryInterface to get an IPersistStream pointer which works, but alas its implementation of IPersistStream::GetMaxSize just returns E_NOTIMPL. Ultimately I called ImageList_Write on a special stream that ignores the data passed to it and just records how much data is written to it. In this fashion I could get the size the HIMAGELIST would require when written to a stream.technical himagelist boring serialize imarshal com

IPv6 Roundup: Address Syntax on Windows

2008 Jan 9, 11:34

IPv6 address syntax consists of 8 groupings of colon delimited 16-bit hex values making up the 128-bit address. An optional double colon can replace any consecutive sequence of 0 valued hex values. For example the following is a valid IPv6 address: fe80::2c02:db79

Some IPv6 addresses aren't global and in those cases need a scope ID to describe their context. These get a '%' followed by the scope ID. For example the previous example with a scope ID of '8' would be: fe80::2c02:db79%8

IPv6 addresses in URIs may appear in the host section of a URI as long as they're enclosed by square brackets. For example: http://[fe80::2c02:db79]/. The RFC explicitly notes that there isn't a way to add a scope ID to the IPv6 address in a URI. However a draft document describes adding scope IDs to IPv6 addresses in URIs. The draft document uses the IPvFuture production from the URI RFC with a 'v1' to add a new hostname syntax and a '+' instead of a '%' for delimiting the scope id. For example: http://[v1.fe80::2c02:db79+8]/. However, this is still a draft document, not a final standard, and I don't know of any system that works this way.

In Windows XPSP2 the IPv6 stack is available but disabled by default. To enable the IPv6 stack, at a command prompt run 'netsh interface ipv6 install'. In Vista IPv6 is the on by default and cannot be turned off, while the IPv4 stack is optional and may be turned off by a command similar to the previous.

Once you have IPv6 on in your OS you can turn on IPv6 for IIS6 or just use IIS7. The address ::1 refers to the local machine.

In some places in Windows like UNC paths, IPv6 addresses aren't allowed. In those cases you can use a Vista DNS IPv6 hack that lives in the OS name resolution stack that transforms particularly crafted names into IPv6 addresses. Take your IPv6 address, replace the ':'s with '-'s and the '%' with an 's' and then append '.ipv6-literal.net' to the end. For example: fe80--2c02-db79s8.ipv6-literal.net. That name will resolve to the same example I've been using in Vista. This transformation occurs inside the system's local name resolution stack so no DNS servers are involved, although Microsoft does own the ipv6-literal.net domain name.

MSDN describes IPv6 addresses in URIs in Windows and I've described IPv6 addresses in URIs in IE7. File URIs in IE7 don't support IPv6 addresses. If you want to put a scope ID in a URI in IE7 you use a '%25' to delimit the scope ID and due to a bug you must have at least two digits in your scope ID. So, to take the previous example: http://[fe80::2c02:db79%2508]/. Note that its 08 rather than just 8.

roundup ip windows ipv6 technical microsoft boring syntax

Vegas and New Year

2008 Jan 2, 8:57

Two and half weeks ago Sarah and I went to Las Vegas where I got to see Jesse, Pat, Chris, and (briefly because he's some kind of big shot too busy for his friends now etc) Grib from college. They're mostly in San Jose and I hadn't seen them for a while so it was a lot of fun to hang out. We all stayed at the MGM which is a nice hotel with some good restaurants. In other Vegas related links, Sarah added Sarah's Las Vegas restaurant reviews to her reviews and Jesse has Jesse's Vegas photos up too.

Sarah and I saw the Blue Man Group (video from a concert) and the Price is Right Live Show. The Blue Man Group was very cool although the music was all rock with a heavy drum focus (not depicted in the videos I linked) which I got a little tired of. But despite that I really enjoyed the show, very funny and I totally recommend it. The Price is Right Live Show is like the regular show on TV except the recording is not televised and its not hosted by Bob Barker or Drew Carey. So folks from the audience are still called up to play the same games and really win prizes. It was advertised as hosted by Todd Newton, B-list game show host, but was instead hosted by JD Roberto who hosted such things as "Reality Remix" and the show "Are You Hot? The Search for America's Sexiest People". The showcase showdown included the 2008 version of my car and thankfully I wasn't picked to compete for that because, well I don't know where they bought the car, but I would have gotten the price very wrong. We sat right next to the stage for that show and had a good time.

For New Years Eve Sarah and I stayed in and watched the glitched Seattle Space Needle fireworks show from a safe distance. On New Years we went to a pot-luck at Todd's house and had a fun time. Todd's place is on the top of a hill and has a lovely view of Washington's snow-capped mountains.

newyear vegas lasvegas personal bluemangroup

Old Miscellaneous Thoughts

2007 Dec 26, 5:45Miscellaneous thoughts I had that would have been relevant many months ago:

• A History Channel program had a reenactment of a 1920's archaeologist discovering a stone tablet, sending the tablet to a warehouse, etc. all behind the voice over giving the dry facts. The reenactor hammed it up a bit and I would have rather had clips from Indiana Jones in the background. If they're already not showing me the archaeologist who discovered the tablet, they may as well show me one who will be entertaining.
• There are many parodies of the Get a Mac ads and so when I saw a UK Get a Mac ad I payed attention to see what the joke was. I was disappointed by the 'parody' because it was a conventional Get a Mac ad with different actors. Apple localized their Get a Mac ad campaign in this fashion in the UK and in Japan. I've got a playlist of the US, UK, and Japan's version of the Piechart ad. Ranking the lovable bumblingness of the PC I give the order UK, Japan, then US and ranking the sumgness of the Mac I give the order UK, US, then Japan. But don't take my word for it, view the ads for yourself.
  
• Yahoo Pipes lets users generate an RSS feed altering service that runs on Yahoo's server using a GUI. This is very different from Microsoft's Popfly which allows users to component-ize and share javascript utilities that run client side on a webbrowser. Both have the awesome power of buzzword associations like 'Web 2.0' and 'Mashup' but in my mind Yahoo Pipes is for server side RSS feed modification and Popfly is about client side javascript webpages. And neither will allow me to run an arbitrary XSLT =).

popfly apple personal history-channel indiana-jones pipes mac technical microsoft mashup yahoo nontechnical

Theme Options

2007 Dec 24, 12:41These days it seems like there's a social sharing website for everything representable as bits. Like Scribd for (mostly legal) documents, SciVee for scientific research videos, Wordie for words, and Kuler for color themes. Kuler seems like a ridiculous website (overkill) but I had been meaning to update my homepage's color design and Kuler has an RSS based REST API. The API lets you obtain things like the most recently added color themes or the most popular or all themes containing the color dark red, etc... So of course rather than update my website's design I hooked up my css to the color themes coming out of Kuler. Select my main page's color theme from a list of random Kuler themes. As I'm sure the regular readers can guess I use an xslt and blah blah blah... It looks OK with Silver Surfer and Happy Hipo but in general changing the colors this way doesn't produce something pretty.

When reading about Kuler I found that they may have stolen the whole idea wholeslae from ColourLovers. They discuss the thievery in an article on their blog. I would have switched over to ColourLovers out of principle but they don't have an easily accessible API.colourlovers color xslt theme homepage technical kuler design

California Trip

2007 Dec 23, 11:18Sarah and I went down to California at the end of last month for a Thanksgiving visit with my parents. We visited the famous Monterey Bay Aquarium (fun fact: the aquarium scenes in Star Trek IV were filmed here) and saw many jelly fish. We wandered around Capitola where we visited many local shops and ate on the wharf. We shopped in Carmel and ate at the Forge in the Forest (fun fact: Clint Eastwood was the mayor of this city in the late 80s). We visited the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk which was very cold and closed.
My parents took us out to dinner on the first night and the rest of the nights we ate dinner at their house. They had the Shelton's over and I got to see Chris and Alison. It was fun to talk with them and catch up since its been quite a while since I'd seen them.
We stayed in the lovely beach house of our family friend's the Goodwins. My parents have been helping them fix it up and decorate it and it looks great. It was quite a treat staying in a house right on the ocean. Also of note, this was the first trip on which I was old enough to rent the car and accordingly I did all of the driving. This trip was very fun and relaxing.aquarium friends parents personal beach california vacation

Weekend Activities

2007 Dec 11, 12:31I wanted to give a brief update on what's been going on for me this weekend and the previous two.

Two weekends ago Sarah and I went down to Santa Cruz for a long weekend and a belated Thanksgiving. I have yet to sort through the photos but Sarah has already put up the photos from our California trip. There's some nice shots from the Monterey Bay Aquarium in there and the place where we stayed. It was a good trip and I'll write more about it at some point in the future.

This past weekend Sarah and I went bowling with Eric and Jane and other friends. And no bowling experience is complete without a DJ and black lights. Surprisingly my work shirt looked great in the blacklight.

This coming weekend Sarah and I will stay at the MGM in Las Vegas where I'll meet up with college friends I haven't seen in a while. Previously the only non-gambling thing I did in Vegas was buffets and the Star Trek Experience (I'm cool) but this time we'll see some more shows which should be fun.lasvegas personal bowling california weekend nontechnical