I’ve been always interested in File Systems. Mostly the history. Can you believe that I wrote a technical paper in college comparing the current file systems of the day? (No, you don’t want to read it, trust me).
Here’s a blog article that links to a history comparison and some other great little tidbits of info. (A Google file system? wow) Not a lot of histoical info about the linux side of things though. He said he couldn’t find any. Anyone got some info they want to share?
There’s been a series of comments by the MS Bloggers that describe the various problems related to running a Windows machine as non-admin.
It’s only been recently that you’d even *think* about running as non-admin because of all sorts of problems you’d run into. Imagine not being able to access certain directories. Imagine having to change users just to install your programs (even games!). You have problems with programs installing into wrong places (must be under c:Program Files), programs writing per-user config info in c:Program Files, instead of Docs & Settings, etc. You basically couldn’t get *anything* done if you wanted to run as non-admin. And it seemed like MS didn’t want to do anything about it (truthfully, it’s probably just legacy reasons… takes a lot of effort to change an industry’s whole way of thinking overnight). However, reading the MS blogs shows that some of the MS employees have a wholehearted desire to make running as non-admin a big priority. I hope they succeed.
Here’s some of the recent articles:
Larry Osterman - Running Non Admin
Aaron Margosis -
Not running as admin…
Why you shouldn’t run as admin…
The easiest way to run as non-admin
“RunAs” basic (and intermediate) topics
“Zero-day” attacks and using limited privilege
RunAs with Explorer
MakeMeAdmin — temporary admin for your Limited User account
PrivBar — An IE/Explorer toolbar to show current privilege level
Running restricted — What does the “protect my computer” option mean?
Running Least-Privilege: Quick’n'Dirty RunAs Batch File
I quit running as an administrator on my new box!
Low-privileged accounts and non-Windows platforms
Oh that’s enough for now, I guess… I think you get the point.
Update 10/26: Running As Normal User
Check out this article:
Living with Virtual Server and Remote Desktop
That’s one large project. Imagine if he had to copy the build to 64 physical machines before running his tests. I can see why he loves Remote Desktop.
I love it too. It is soooo convienent being able to access any machine, anywhere. It’s one of those “really miss it when you don’t have it” programs. Like the Internet. Or Total Commander. 
I just wish you could have multiple users with Remote Desktop, or ghosting for when you want to show someone how to do something. Oh well, maybe they’ll have it by Longhorn…
I’ve come across a few utilities that attempt to make life easier to do testing and automation and I figured I’d get them all down in one place. This is all for C# development BTW. That is currently the only language I’m doing development with at home.
NUnit
Ever wanted to test something you’ve written in a small stand-alone app so that you don’t have to test it in your huge project? Isn’t it such a pain? You’ve got to create a solution, write your main(), make sure you include all your libs… NUnit makes all of that setup painless. You just write your test function and run NUnit, it takes care of setting most everything up. Easy!
Test-Driven Development in .NET - a good tutorial for getting started with NUnit
Test Runner - NUnit VS.Net plugin. Run the tests that you write inside the debugger.
FxCop
I’ve always liked the idea of code analyzers (like lint, etc), but every time I’ve run them, they were so ultra-paranoid, it was almost worthless. Well, here’s the main code analyzer for use with C# programs. I haven’t run my code through it yet, maybe I shouldn’t be recommending it until I do. Maybe I’ll do an update later on to let you know how well it does (or should I say, how well I write my code!)
FxCop Homepage
CC.Net
This utility tries to put together a fully automated, checked build in a semi-intelligent way. Imagine a system that detects when a change has been checked into your database, pulls the latest copy, compiles it, tests it with your unit tests, revs the version number, and then posts it into your daily builds directory for you to download. Amazing if it works. I plan on giving it a try.
CC.Net Homepage
Versioning Nightly Builds with NAnt and CC.Net - MS Blog article mentioning the util.
Versioning with CruiseControl.Net - This guy is doing a lot of work with CC.Net (is he the dev?)
CruiseControl.NET and MSBuild - [Added 10-8-04]
[Edited 10-8-04 - Added another CC.Net link]
Movie care of bluesnews:
Soccer Ball madness
Here’s my comments after watching it… Feel free to add your own…
“This guy probably plays a mean game of hacky sack”
“Let’s not forget that he did all of that with a T-Mobile t-shirt and a Nike soccer ball”
“He really needs to work on his song selection… Beat it?”