By now you’re probably well-acquainted with the “discovery” of so-called “god modes” or “superuser” features in Windows 7.  In actuality, these are nothing more than undocumented developer shortcuts to common control panel dialogs, apps and utils.  In fact, the wild-eyed brouhaha that’s erupted from this has caused some mirth down Redmond way, with Windows Division President, Steven Sinofsky even providing a C|NET reporter with a list of the shortcuts.

Here’s how you can quickly create your own “god mode” shortcut links to experiment with:

Step 1:  Copy the following code into your fave editor and save as a batch file – I called mine “godmodes.bat” (removing the line numbers).  Save this file in a folder on your desktop or other preferred location.

    1 mkdir "GodModeA.{05d7b0f4-2121-4eff-bf6b-ed3f69b894d9}"

    2 mkdir "GodModeB.{1206F5F1-0569-412C-8FEC-3204630DFB70}"

    3 mkdir "GodModeC.{15eae92e-f17a-4431-9f28-805e482dafd4}"

    4 mkdir "GodModeD.{17cd9488-1228-4b2f-88ce-4298e93e0966}"

    5 rem mkdir "GodMode.{1D2680C9-0E2A-469d-B787-065558BC7D43}"

    6 mkdir "GodModeE.{1FA9085F-25A2-489B-85D4-86326EEDCD87}"

    7 mkdir "GodModeF.{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D}"

    8 mkdir "GodModeG.{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}"

    9 mkdir "GodModeH.{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}"

   10 mkdir "GodModeI.{241D7C96-F8BF-4F85-B01F-E2B043341A4B}"

   11 mkdir "GodModeJ.{4026492F-2F69-46B8-B9BF-5654FC07E423}"

   12 rem mkdir "GodMode.{62D8ED13-C9D0-4CE8-A914-47DD628FB1B0}"

   13 mkdir "GodModeK.{78F3955E-3B90-4184-BD14-5397C15F1EFC}"

   14 mkdir "GodModeL.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}"

Note:  The rem’ed entries were included in Sinofsky’s list, but didn’t work when I created them – I’ve included them here for completeness.

Step 2:  Open a command console using Run As Administrator from your Start Menu and execute the batch file created in Step 1 above.

Step 3:  Behold the “God Mode” links that have been created – double-click and explore away!  The most useful one by far is the last one, the “original” God Mode discovery that provides a consolidated list of shortcuts to just about every imaginable Windows 7 control panel feature, property manager or utility.

One more note:  The folder names don’t have to be prefixed with “GodMode” – in fact, any prefix will do.  As the batch file reveals, the trick is in naming the folder with a “.[GUID]” suffix.  I’ve added an alphabetical identifier to each of my entries to keep them in order.

Take a look at this – the future of small business transactions has been realized by a startup called Square:

Their vision is to enable any small device with an audio jack to be able to process credit card purchases:

… and provide instant email receipts:

Really inspired thinking here – this is one of those revolutionary products that can act as a catalyst to power-up all kinds of entrepreneurial ventures.  Really smart design.

Square is still in beta, so availability even in the US is limited.  Canada – fuhgeddaboudit.

So, we’re finally getting around to defending ourselves against those infantile Apple ads which, let’s be frank, contain a lot of half-truths and outright lies.  However, they’ve gone unanswered and as Chris Matthews will tell you, if you leave a charge unanswered long enough, it becomes “truth”.

Here is our first “retort” to take back the argument over Microsoft products and what they will enable people to do.  It follows on the Mojave Experiment, where unassuming folks were shown a “new” Microsoft OS code-named “Mojave” and asked to compare it against what they thought Vista was like.  This was pretty smart as it showed how people have had their perceptions manipulated by Apple and others.

Forthwith:  Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld at the Shoe Store – our attempt at re-connecting with our audience.

Video: Shoe Circus

What do you think? Is this as clever as Mojave?  Does it set the stage for taking back our turf from Apple?

Colorful cartoon caricatures of common coding calamities.  See all 10 here.

In the thread Breaking Unit Tests:

On Nov 27, 2007 8:02 PM, Scott Bellware <sbellware@...> wrote:

On Nov 27, 2007, at 8:27 PM, Steven Mitcham wrote:

> To me, it would seem that if the tests that are breaking have
> nothing to do with the change, that would be an indication of
> either over specified tests, or badly coupled code.
+1

We're trying to create test harnesses, not test shackles.

This should be the official motto for unit testing...