Daniel Schneller's Blog

Update: If you arrived here, looking for a solution to a blue screen problem that started to occur on Feb 12th, 2010 - this is a different kind of problem. The solution to that can be found here: Heise Online (English). Basically, it is a side-effect of a Microsoft update (MS10-015) that triggers a flaw in an already present bootkit malware, which then leads to the blue screen of death problem. From time to time (i. e. every workday ;-)) I still use Windows XP. Recently I kept getting complaints about the system partition being too full. I guess on all operating systems this can have all kinds of funny (or disastrous) effects, so I tried to clean up a little. Apart from the usual suspects (temporary internet files, some huge downloads on the desktop and the like) I noticed that there were literally dozens of $NtUninstall...$ folders containing the setup/uninstall files for a lot of updates that had accumulated over time. I realized that those could be deleted, however I prefer having …

While waiting for my in-law's Ubuntu machine to download the update from 7.10 to 8.04 over a "DSL light" (384kbit/s) line I thought I might just write a bit about my first developer experiences on the Mac.Back in August I switched from the PC to a 24" iMac. Now that I got a little more acquainted with it I thought I might just as well have a look at what the developer experience is like. People tend to say all sorts of things about Objective-C and that for a Java guy like me it would be a huge step backwards.For that reason I was glad to read that Objective-C 2.0 comes with support for garbage collection, because manual memory management after years of Java would have been a real pain-point for me. I find it interesting to still see a discussion going on in the Mac developer world about whether or not GC is a good idea or not. I would have expected everyone to jump at it and leave the manual stuff behind with delight. Well, seems like a little bit of history repe…

I recently went on a trip to the U.S. For 10 days I stayed in different hotels, and in each of them I wondered about the state of the power outlets...Armed with an adapter for my German/European plugs I tried to charge the camera's or phone's batteries. I don't know if it's just me, but I expect to just plug a device in and get a firm and secure connection to the power outlet. At least that's what I am used to at home.However in all the hotel rooms the sockets seemed to have no "grip" on the plugs which then tended to either slip out completely or at least lose contact all the time. I first thought it might just be the adapter model I brought, but even the lamps and TVs in the rooms had flaky connections which would easily slip out even when just brushing the cable slightly. I believe this may have to do with the fact that in the US system the power outlets are just flat while in Europe they recess into the wall and provide a much firmer mechanical hold o…