8.31.2010

Speed Tracer (Chrome Extension)

I discovered this amazing tool a few months back created by Google called Speed Tracer. It is a Chrome Extension that allows, I suppose, just about anyone to diagnose performance issues in web applications. Take a look at the description below.


Using Speed Tracer you are able to get a better picture of where time is being spent in your application. This includes problems caused by:
  • Javascript parsing and execution
  • Layout
  • CSS style recalculation and selector matching
  • DOM Event handling
  • Network resource loading
  • Timer fires
  • XMLHttpRequest callbacks
  • Painting
  • and more ...

8.05.2010

32-bit and 64-bit software on Windows 7

Maintenance programming - yes, we all have to do it. Most of us experience it by way of coercion. The fortunate ones have the privilege of delegating this task to an eager intern willing to get their hands on any production code. I for one do not have such a privilege.

I have the responsibility of updating a VB6 application every year and in part of doing so is the need to set up an ODBC for each client machine. This year has been a little different in that these machines run Windows 7.

In Windows 7 there are two folders where dll, driver and executable files live...


%SystemRoot%\System32
     and
%SystemRoot%\sysWoW64

I was surprised to find out that on a 64-bit machine the System32 folder actually holds 64-bit files and not 32-bit files as the moniker suggests. Why? Backwards compatibility. That's right. That means the sysWoW64 folder contains 32-bit files. So let me give it to you again. System32 holds 64-bit files and sysWoW64 holds 32-bit files. That certainly is backwards.

And no, the WoW in sysWoW64 is not an acronym for World of Warcraft.  It actually means Windows 32-bit on Windows 64-bit, if that helps you remember at all.