Software Diagnostics Library

I’m pleased to announce that MDAA, Volume 5 is available in PDF format:

www.dumpanalysis.org/Memory+Dump+Analysis+Anthology+Volume+5

It features:

- 25 new crash dump analysis patterns
- 11 new pattern interaction case studies (including software tracing)
- 16 new trace analysis patterns
- 7 structural memory patterns
- 4 modeling case studies for memory dump analysis patterns
- Discussion of 3 common analysis mistakes
- Malware analysis case study
- Computer independent architecture of crash analysis report service
- Expanded coverage of software narratology
- Metaphysical and theological implications of memory dump worldview
- More pictures of memory space and physicalist art
- Classification of memory visualization tools
- Memory visualization case studies
- Close reading of the stories of Sherlock Holmes: Dr. Watson’s observational patterns
- Fully cross-referenced with Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, and Volume 4

Its table of contents is available here:

www.dumpanalysis.org/MDAA/MDA-Anthology-V5-TOC.pdf

Paperback and hardcover versions should be available in a week or two. I also started working on Volume 6 that should be available in November-December.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

Frequently caught myself recognizing bit values like 100084 when I’m looking at car plate numbers. Sometimes I see a number and wonder whether it is a valid window handle.

Do you also have similar perceptions? Please let me know if you have different memceptions

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

“… he who has not been in” support “does not know what” debugging “is.”

Attributed to Leo Tolstoy, by Adam Ulam, The Bolsheviks

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

Dump - The last hope.

Examples: He was so desperate on site to ask whether a complete dump will do.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

Pre-analysis - Avoiding crash dump analysis anti-patterns like wrong dump or zippocricy. Sometimes it goes with wild explanation no one asked for. Checking whether a software trace is empty before sending it. 

Examples: He is always doing !locks pre-analysis before sending any dump.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

Resolution rush - The rush of software technical support and maintenance engineers to provide the resolution to a suddenly escalated incident.

Examples: After it crashed 3 times in a row at the customer site our VP was called and we all got the resolution rush.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

This is an artwork commissioned for the New Year of DeBugging 0×7DB. How many bugs can you count there? Click on the picture to expand instead of using a magnifying glass (as seen on debugging books covers):

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

Memory Dump Analysis Services is the first to use a memory dump slice as a barcode. You can see that on its founder business card:

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

Crash dump makes noise.

Suzanne Vega, Blood Makes Noise

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

Treat yourself, your family and friends with this selection of gifts from OpenTask store:

The perfect binary gift for your family and friends

The perfect gift for software engineers

The perfect gift for job hunters

The perfect coffee table book

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

Domenico Scarlatti 555 binary form sonatas are an ideal background complement to a static memory dump analysis activity. Endless thread transitions between user and kernel spaces. A memory dump in front of my eyes in WinDbg window becomes live and software behavior patterns are literally heard (a spiking blocked thread trying to get a lock finally gets its and gradually descends from one module to another to rise again touching a kernel space ceiling and abruptly disappears from the memory landscape reborn in another thread form).

Domenico Scarlatti: Keyboard Sonatas (Complete)

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

Five volumes of cross-disciplinary Anthology (dubbed by the author “The Summa Memorianica”) lay the foundation of the scientific discipline of Memoretics (study of computer memory snapshots and their evolution in time) that is also called Memory Dump and Software Trace Analysis.ca

The 5th volume contains revised, edited, cross-referenced, and thematically organized selected DumpAnalysis.org blog posts about crash dump, software trace analysis and debugging written in February 2010 - October 2010 for software engineers developing and maintaining products on Windows platforms, quality assurance engineers testing software on Windows platforms, technical support and escalation engineers dealing with complex software issues, and security researchers, malware analysts and reverse engineers. The fifth volume features:

- 25 new crash dump analysis patterns
- 11 new pattern interaction case studies (including software tracing)
- 16 new trace analysis patterns
- 7 structural memory patterns
- 4 modeling case studies for memory dump analysis patterns
- Discussion of 3 common analysis mistakes
- Malware analysis case study
- Computer independent architecture of crash analysis report service
- Expanded coverage of software narratology
- Metaphysical and theological implications of memory dump worldview
- More pictures of memory space and physicalist art
- Classification of memory visualization tools
- Memory visualization case studies
- Close reading of the stories of Sherlock Holmes: Dr. Watson’s observational patterns
- Fully cross-referenced with Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, and Volume 4

Product information:

• Title: Memory Dump Analysis Anthology, Volume 5
• Author: Dmitry Vostokov
• Language: English
• Product Dimensions: 22.86 x 15.24

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Opentask (10 December 2010)
• ISBN-13: 978-1-906717-96-4

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Opentask (10 December 2010)
• ISBN-13: 978-1-906717-97-1

Back cover features memory space art image Hot Computation: Memory on Fire.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

As the Year of Dump Analysis 0×7DA (2010) comes closer to the end and the DeBugging decade starts 0×7DB (2011) soon we organize Debugging Joke Competition with the results announced on the 1st of January, 2011 (if Internet works). Please send your jokes using this contact form:

http://www.dumpanalysis.org/contact

Winners get signed (by Dr. DebugLove) copies of Dr. Debugalov book and the forthcoming full color coffee table book Spikes, Hangs, Crashes, Leaks and Dumps of Imagination: The Art of the Debugging Art.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

Just came up with this one for a starter:

Q. Why is the execution of this program so stable? A. Because there is a breakpoint at every instruction.

For those from countries in the past socialist camp like Soviet Union it might appear bugtated from a joke I heard from one Moscow State University mathematics professor when I was a student:

“Q. Why is the Communist Party course always straight? A. Because there is an inflection at every point.”

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

I’m pleased to announce that MDAA, Volume 4 is available in PDF format:

www.dumpanalysis.org/Memory+Dump+Analysis+Anthology+Volume+4

It features:

- 15 new crash dump analysis patterns
- 13 new pattern interaction case studies
- 10 new trace analysis patterns
- 6 new Debugware patterns and case study
- Workaround patterns
- Updated checklist
- Fully cross-referenced with Volume 1, Volume 2 and Volume 3
- Memory visualization tutorials
- Memory space art

Its table of contents is available here:

http://www.dumpanalysis.org/MDAA/MDA-Anthology-V4-TOC.pdf

Paperback and hardcover versions should be available in a week or two. I also started working on Volume 5 that should be available in December.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

On the value of study and perseverance. It all started with dumb 0xc0000005 (resulted in a dump) and ended up with 5 volumes of Summa Memorianica (Memory Dump Analysis Anthology):

The Dumb 0x.

Albertus Magnus said of Thomas Aquinas

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -

Don’t name your driver a “Missile” blog post dealt with funny names seen in crash dumps. However, even innocuous driver names may occasionally provoke a laughter from people in the know. For example, SGUB32.SYS can be read 23BUGS in reverse. My recent encounter is a print driver SGNUD64.dll where we read 46DUNGS in reverse. Don’t rush to Google the name to find ISV, it was modified to avoid an engineering embarrassment, although a dung was really there

- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org + TraceAnalysis.org -