Monthly Archive for January, 2008

Coping With Windows File Locking

I’ve run into this problem more times than I’d like to admit:

C:\>del foo.txt
The process cannot access the file because
it is being used by another process.

Umm, right, thanks. So should I just start killing processes indiscriminately? Perhaps now would be a good time for my daily sacrifice to the reboot gods?

Turns out there is a better way. I am not sure how I got this far without discovering handle.exe from SysInternals Microsoft:

C:\>handle foo.txt

Handle v3.2 (64-bit)
Copyright (C) 1997-2006 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

evil.exe            pid: 6044     68: C:\foo.txt

Now I know exactly which process to kill with extreme prejudice.

Embarrassing and Improbable

I just called the IT help desk for support. They told me to reboot.

It worked.

AAPL: Sell; Pull-ups: Buy

I bought AAPL before earnings and, wow was that a colossally dumb move. Ouch, I just lost a MacBook Air.

On the plus side, today I reached my goal of 30 consecutive pull-ups by my 30th birthday. My twenties don’t end until April, so this was a pleasant surprise.

Linux-Based In-Flight Entertainment

Delta’s in-flight entertainment system runs Linux. Notice Tux below?

delta's in-flight linux boot screen

I was lucky enough to witness a couple of reboots on a flight from Atlanta. The boot spew also indicates that they use an AMD Geode processor.

Overheard at Work

Just witnessed the following hilarious exchange at work:

Anton: Why don’t you like dogs?
Wendy: Well, I just don’t. Do you like brussels sprouts?
Anton: Yes.
Wendy: OK, well, do you like turnips?
Anton: Yes, if they are cooked right.
Wendy. Well I might like dogs, if they were cooked right.




Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 United States
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 United States