Top all-time · #814
Long Zheng
Personal blog · istartedsomething.com · on HN as longzhengdesignsystems
Long Zheng writes istartedsomething, a personal blog at istartedsomething.com about design and systems. Since 2007, 80 different Hacker News readers have linked it 100 times, most often “Amazing Search Experience using Bing's AJAX API”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Rarely recommended · 0 of 31 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link istartedsomething as a source of Windows and Microsoft history, such as Windows 7 features, the Bing 'Live Search' instant search demo, and bundleware. Most links are cited as context for other points.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 31 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Blog by Long Zheng, user experience entrepreneur.
Most-linked posts?
- Amazing Search Experience using Bing's AJAX API6 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2009-09-01
- Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2013-01-15
- Google Chrome 35 beta adds much needed DirectWrite font rendering on Windows4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2014-05-14
- Microsoft Office Labs vision 20192 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2009-03-01
- Microsoft adds free root certificate authority to Windows2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2009-10-09
- /20061029/royale-noir/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-03-31
- Competition Sucked Again : Live Messenger blocks YouTube2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2008-05-10
- Windows 7 adds native Virtual WiFi technology from Microsoft Research2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2009-05-19
What Hacker News says?
Pretty much, yes - if there's a buck to be made and the law isn't being broken (in a way that will be meaningfully prosecuted), someone will do it. To answer your first question, someone from HN should surely about this given: http://www.istartedsomething.com/20130115/y-combinator-is-fu... Extensive commentary at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5059806
Comment linking /20130115/y-combinator-is-funding-the-future-of-spam-in-windows-drive-by-crapware-installers/
on “What Happens When You Install the Top Download.com Apps”Submitted Y Combinator is funding the future of spam in Windows as a story · 1065 points
HN discussionReminds me the old "war" between AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger. I think I recall that one the same day there was around 50 updates to those programs. Each update breaking something from the other and then one blinked and the stream of updates stopped and the 2 apps no longer spoke to each other. https://www.istartedsomething.com/20140420/msn-messenger-and...
Comment linking /20140420/msn-messenger-and-aim-instant-messenger-war-reverse-engineering-and-sabotage/
on “In Stockholm there's currently an IT battle underway”Submitted The 12 step process to download Microsoft SQL Server Express 2014 as a story · 88 points
HN discussionSomeone actually built a Bing-based instant search a while back: http://www.istartedsomething.com/livesearch/ It's not nearly as responsive, dunno to what extent that's imposed by MSFT's server infrastructure though.
Comment linking /livesearch/
on “Google Instant Search Released”Submitted Microsoft Office Labs vision 2019 as a story · 36 points
HN discussionBing Instant? : http://www.istartedsomething.com/livesearch/
Comment linking /livesearch/
on “Google Instant Search Released”Submitted Microsoft adds free root certificate authority to Windows as a story · 30 points
HN discussionPaul, I'm one of the two people you're indirectly addressing with this HN post. (The second is Long Zheng.) I wrote here: http://www.withinwindows.com/2013/01/16/installmonetizer-qui... Long zheng wrote here: http://www.istartedsomething.com/20130115/y-combinator-is-fu... I'll respond to each of your items individually. 1. OK. 2. Maybe. Or more likely users are mistakenly installing these applications because the of…
Comment linking /20130115/y-combinator-is-funding-the-future-of-spam-in-windows-drive-by-crapware-installers/
on “What we discovered about InstallMonetizer”Submitted The Real Live Search – Bing API experiment as a story · 26 points
HN discussionHave they changed their policy on UAC not being considered security barrier on administrator accounts since W10? Windows was screwed for a long time[1], in practice not much better than running in SYSTEM all the time like in Windows 95 days. [1] http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090611/uac-in-windows-7-s...
Comment linking /20090611/uac-in-windows-7-still-broken-microsoft-wont-fix-code-injection-vulnerability/
on “Zero-Day Vulnerability in Microsoft Windows Leaked on Twitter”Submitted Microsoft's video accidentally reveals that they have only ~200k servers as a story · 14 points
HN discussion> I'm still rather baffled about how people look back fondly on XP, it looked like a toy for toddlers Agreed, yet somehow its Start menu is still better than what you get on Windows 10 these days: https://i.stack.imgur.com/rwZqf.jpg > ...installing the Zune theme was the first thing I did after a fresh install to try and tone it down. Everyone knows the best XP theme was Royale Noir! https://www.istartedsomething.co…
Comment linking /20061029/royale-noir/
on “Remembering Windows 2000”Submitted Microsoft Research develops yet another 3D photo viewer (new video, watch till the end) as a story · 14 points
HN discussionhttp://www.istartedsomething.com/20120818/microsoft-backport...
Comment linking /20120818/microsoft-backports-windows-8-emoji-for-segoe-ui-symbol-to-windows-7/
on “Abusing Emoji in iOS and Your Mac”Submitted Whoever did this at Apple, I tip my hat to you as a story · 11 points
HN discussion> and the way I do it safely is by creating a completely separate user account in Windows Leaving aside the fact that this is not advisable because user to admin boundary is a lot more porous than remote boundary I hope you're at least running under local non-admin account because of a certain peculiarity of Microsoft[1]. Microsoft doesn't regard UAC as security boundary for admin accounts and won't fix vulnerabilit…
Comment linking /20090611/
on “DLL Hijacking Just Won’t Die”Submitted Updated Zune software drivers hints at Zune Phone – istartedsomething as a story · 8 points
HN discussion>This makes me even more angry at SourceForge and not less. YCombinator also invested in a company that did this. http://www.istartedsomething.com/20130115/y-combinator-is-fu... Here's pg's response: >2. The apps that get installed are "crapware." >This one seems a matter of opinion. A lot of the world's most popular apps and sites seem like junk to us. But the users are choosing to install these things. https://new…
Comment linking /20130115/y-combinator-is-funding-the-future-of-spam-in-windows-drive-by-crapware-installers/
on “GIMP-Win project wasn’t hijacked, just abandoned”Submitted Musings from anonymous Microsoft developers on Reddit “Ask Me Anything” as a story · 8 points
HN discussionThere was also the never released Royale Noir, Royale Blue, Embedded, and Zune themes, which were even signed and didnt need uxtheme.dll patched. https://www.istartedsomething.com/20061029/royale-noir/ https://www.askvg.com/download-official-windows-xp-themes-no...
Comment linking /20061029/royale-noir/
on “Updates to form controls and focus”Submitted Amazing Search Experience using Bing's AJAX API as a story · 6 points
HN discussionI probably saw an earlier tally: http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090607/bing-vs-google-vs-...
Comment linking /20090607/bing-vs-google-vs-yahoo-blind-search-engine-test/
on “Let me Duck Duck Go that for you”Submitted Sacrificing security for usability: security flaw in Windows 7 beta (w. proof of concept) as a story · 6 points
HN discussionIn some Vista betas, where Aero wasn't finished yet, Aero's glass was a lot more transparent. This video shows some of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCDcekzU3cQ There were parts of Vista that were mostly glass and they still looked fine. The widget picker comes to mind: https://istartedsomething.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/09/gad... What Apple demonstrated in their first OS demo is not yet finished, and I'm su…
Comment linking /wp-content/uploads/2006/09/gadget_1.jpg
on “Liquid Glass – WWDC25 [video]”Submitted Microsoft is now the proud new owner of Office.com as a story · 5 points
HN discussionMicrosoft seems to be the biggest current proponent of flat design, and I must say it's not so great for usability. When I see this: http://www.istartedsomething.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/... I have no idea what is and is not a button. I suppose it's all a button. But there are zero affordances in this UI. This is now finding its way to Microsoft's websites. On outlook, I can't quickly find the buttons to do ke…
Comment linking /wp-content/uploads/2011/09/windows8metrostart.jpg
on “The Flat Design Era”Submitted Google Chrome 35 beta adds much needed DirectWrite font rendering on Windows as a story · 4 points
HN discussionMulticolored fonts are supported by the text stack on Windows 8.1 ( and potentially by the opentype standard in the future?) http://www.istartedsomething.com/20130628/microsoft-adds-mul...
Comment linking /20130628/microsoft-adds-multi-color-fonts-in-windows-8-1-proposes-opentype-standard/
on “We switched from an icon font to SVG”Submitted Google Chrome 35 beta adds much needed DirectWrite font rendering on Windows as a story · 3 points
HN discussion
