Programming

Figure out why an application hangs

Last December, it was Word 2007. Two weeks later, it was Outlook 2003. Out of the blue, a program that worked just fine yesterday freezes up today.

A few days ago, I described how to force Windows to close hung applications faster at shutdown. That fix might get you out the door quicker, but it doesn't address the source of the problem.

Unfortunately, determining the source of a hung application usually requires quite a bit of detective work. If the problem is widespread, chances are Microsoft and any other hardware or software vendors affected will do their best to … Read more

Google: We didn't help the NSA (or did we?)

Google is now the first of the major search engines and e-mail providers to make a firm statement on the issue of the National Security Agency's wholesale surveillance of Internet content.

Google has stated it didn't help the NSA search your e-mails. More specifically the company denies participating in the NSA's Terrorist Surveillance Program. But the company's carefully worded denial might not be enough to reassure savvy readers.

The Wall Street Journal recently revealed the true extent of the NSA's surveillance system:

"According to current and former intelligence officials, the spy agency now monitors … Read more

Microsoft, Intel to sponsor multicore development research

Correction: The Microsoft and Intel press conference is scheduled for Tuesday.

Microsoft and Intel on Tuesday are expected to launch a joint research initiative to tackle programming for multicore processors.

The two PC industry giants sent out a media alert saying that they will host a teleconference to announce the research venture.

The Wall Street Journal on Monday reported that the venture will focus on multicore programming and that the bulk of the work will be done at the University of California at Berkeley.

The need for more research stems from the emergence of processors with two or more processing … Read more

C# set to take Java's crown as Java drops 50 percent

Using book sales as surrogate tea leaves, Mike Hendrickson of the O'Reilly Radar finds life bleak for pretty much every major programming language except C#, Javascript, and Ruby. Java? It has plunged by 50 percent since 2003.

Sun Microsystems is hedging its bets on web scripting languages, recently adding Python experts to its fold. So perhaps Sun will weather the storm. Regardless, even despite its five-year slide, Java still holds the biggest share of the book-buying market, as this chart shows:… Read more

AMD open-sources code for multicore development

Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday released the source code aimed at making it easier to build media applications for x86 multicore processors.

The AMD Performance Library, which is now called Framewave, is available on SourceForge.

The framework is a collection of routines that optimize performance of media-oriented applications on multicore processors. For example, a developer could link to a library that optimizes video display on a specific graphics card.

By starting a project at SourceForge.net, the chipmaker will allow programmers to customize and further optimize the software, which will work with compilers for Linux, Windows, and Solaris, said Margaret … Read more

A partial cure Microsoft Word 2007 crashes: disable add-ins

A funny thing happened after I installed Windows Vista Service Pack 1 on my PC: Word 2007 started crashing whenever I closed it, and all but a handful of the application's settings became inaccessible.

I still haven't figured out how to keep Word from crashing on exit, but I regained access to the program's settings by disabling all add-ins. Unfortunately, it took me the better part of an afternoon to figure out this partial solution, and I'm no closer to finding the source of the crashes, though Vista SP1 is the prime suspect.

My first attempt … Read more

Microsoft says 'D' language better than 'C' variants

Microsoft is working on a new development language, called 'D,' which will make it easier to model applications, Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet reports.

Her post describes D as a "declarative language aimed at non-developers."

Modeling and end-user programming are big themes in Microsoft's development tools work.

By creating models of applications, developers can speed up their development time and make it easier to deploy and operate those applications once they are live.

End-user programming, a long-held idea, is getting more realistic in the days of mashups where people combine data from different Web feeds onto a … Read more

A free utility uninstalls apps that Add or Remove Programs can't handle

On Tuesday I reported on Microsoft Outlook 2007's unexcused absence from my Vista PC. I thought the problem might due to Outlook 2003 being installed on the same machine. When I upgraded to Office 2007, the older versions of the apps remained on my system, even though I never used them. This didn't appear to be a problem until Outlook 2007 took a hike.

My second surprise was my inability to uninstall Office 2003. Vista's Programs and Features Control Panel applet (which XP calls Add or Remove Programs) would pop up this error message: "This patch … Read more

Novell developer tool embraces main rival

Novell has endowed its OpenSuse Build Service with the ability to produce software for its main rival, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and a clone called CentOS, the company said Thursday.

The build system was originally established so programmers could make sure their software works on new versions of Novell's Suse Linux products. The build system already worked with two other Linux distributions, Debian and Ubuntu.

Why the largesse from Novell?

My guess is that the company hopes to tow more open-source developers into its orbit, but there are altruistic motives as well: "By adding support to build packages … Read more