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Call for Windows hackers (_yes_, Windows)

Wintel Love Another in Danny and my ongoing series, in which we basically beg other people to do our work and finish this Godforsaken book for us.

In today’s installment, Danny pleads your help with the one thing we’re both ready to admit we know almost nothing about: cool Windows hacking. (Yes, thanks, I do see the irony of the high and mighty Mac dork asking for help from the people he supposedly scorns [or so spins the long-discredited urban myth]).

So, of course, all the usual admonitions about Windows talk are abolished for this post. It’s Thunderdome, people! The Mac-centric people humbly yield the floor.

Thus, Danny writes…

GREETINGS PEOPLE OF EARTH

Being an O’Reilly book, our fine (and Godforsaken) book contains lots of Deep Geek solutions: Perl and Python scripts, webapp glue, that kind of thing.

I’d really really like it to be cross-platform. One of the Life Hacks rules was that it shouldn’t matter what computer you’re sitting in front of: the tricks, as much as possible, shouldn’t depend on the plumbing underneath.

Which means I’ve got a stack of really neat ideas, implemented using Linux and MacOS tricks: all of which could probably be implemented in a few lines of Windows code too, and would probably make hundreds, nay, zillions of Win users lives better.

That means I’m on the search for a few good VBScript, C#, and just general Wintel modders.If you’re interested, post a note about it here in comments or with a pointer to something cool you’ve done, and let’s talk.

I now return you to your usual programming. Ahaha. Do you see the clever pun I made there?


Like the man says, spill. Got some amazing Windows fu for us?

Merlin's picture

Is this part of the...

Is this part of the Apple-Intel deal?

Absolutely. I’m receiving a huge amount of money under the table to pimp Macs and Windows now.

It’s a pretty good gig, I have to say.

(Noooooo, of course it has nothing to do with that.)

Also, @Waider, it’s more than perl hacks. Like Danny said, there are a lot of conceptual things that—based on our skills and interests—has been easy to do on Linux and Mac, where we’re more familiar with the gluey pieces. And since a lot the hacks are above the CLI, the help we need might start with something as simple as Outlook and extend through ActiveWords and so on.

Ask Danny. This part is his gig.

 
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