Allergies

Having myself allergic rhinitis and suffering in recent years, I’d like to share some interesting posts on MSN about allergies:

 

Cold or allergy Which is it

http://health.msn.com/centers/allergies/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100123645

 

Allergy-Proof Your Home

http://health.msn.com/centers/allergies/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100159736&GT1=9303

 

Food Allergies – Topic Overview

http://health.msn.com/centers/allergies/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100076487

 

Food allergies – Food labels list top 8 allergens

http://health.msn.com/centers/allergies/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100154034

 

Allergic Reaction – Topic Overview

http://health.msn.com/centers/allergies/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100058722

 

Allergic Rhinitis – Overview

http://health.msn.com/encyclopedia/healthtopics/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100069651

start/kill processes with VB.net

a friend was just asking me over MSN messenger how to start and kill processes using VB.net, so here is some info on it:

 

* to start a process you can just do

 Process.Start("test.exe")

or

 Dim proc As New ProcessStartInfo()

 proc.Filename = "test.exe"

 Process.Start(proc)

 

see 

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.diagnostics.processstartinfo.aspx

 

* to kill a process you can do something like (haven’t tried it though):

 

Dim plist As Process() = Process.GetProcesses()

For Each p As Process in plist

 Try

  If p.MainModule.ModuleName.ToUpper() ="TEST.EXE" Then p.Kill()

 Catch

  ‘seems listing modules for some processes fails, so better ignore any exceptions here

 End Try

Next p

 

see

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.diagnostics.process.kill.aspx

+=1, -=1 not atomic operations at VB.net

This is something that bit me sometime ago: seems +=1 and -=1 aren’t atomic operations at VB.net and other .NET languages (not sure for C++) although modern CPUs have INC and DEC instructions at least for integers (maybe IL – intermediate language [for .NET compilers' target "theoretical" machine spec] – doesn’t define such?)

 

You have to use the class System.Threading.Interlocked and specifically the Increment and Decrement methods it has (you can pass an integer ByRef to them for example to do say i+=1 and i-=1 in a thread-safe way). That class also has methods to Add/Subtract more than 1 (haven’t checked if it also support multiplications/divisions etc.)

 

Many thanks to the guy who tiped me about this at a Microsoft Hellas presentation some years ago in Athens, wouldn’t have spotted that class myself, although I was already skeptical whether +=1 and -=1 were atomic operations (thread-safe, fetch and update done in 1 step) in VB.net and other .NET languages or not and was querying about it some MS Hellas people (who didn’t know either – I even asked J# program manager sometime ago and they had to doublecheck to be totally sure it didn’t do it as atomic operation either)

 

I wonder about what C++ compiler does on .NET regarding this one, I though the ANSI C++ spec said += and -= are atomic, but I might be remembering wrong

web.config’s schema change at .NET2: node doesn’t define child node anymore

At an ASP.net project I was moving from ASP.net 1 to ASP.net 2, at "web.config" file of the web application I had to move <compilers> child node of <configuration>/<system.web>/<compilation> node to a new <configuration>/<system.codedom> node.

The former one has been deprected at .NET2 (although still supported and overriding the <system.codedom>’s <compilers> setting if existing) and the Web.config XML editor was compilaing that the schema didn’t define a <compilers> child for <configuration>/<system.web>/<compilation> node.