Sensei's Classroom Lessons, Breaks and Recipes

JQuery Ajax ProgressBar with asynchronous calls

Sensei — Fri, 5 Feb 2010 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 031
Starting from the post "Using the jquery progressbar widget in aspnet applications" i modified the code and made it working like I wanted.

Now we have a progressbar that updates correctly while a server process is being execute.

Of course it's not perfect (the static variable ProgressPerc should not be static, maybe a Session variable or so on) but it works and it's easy to get.

You can find the VS2008 Project
here.

'Files required to use Windows Update are no longer registered or installed on the computer'. Windows Update Error

Sensei — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 030
If you get this error trying to execute Windows Update on a computer, yoiu may probably correct it doing the following steps, ad stated by
paulprovance

Solution:
This problem can be corrected by re-registering the various dll files that Windows Update requires to run.

To do this firstly click on the “Start” button then “Run” and enter the following command into the “Run” dialog box

· regsvr32 wuapi.dll

You should then receive a message to say it was successful. The above process then needs to be done for each of the following commands:-

· regsvr32 wups.dll

· regsvr32 wuaueng.dll

· regsvr32 wucltui.dll

· regsvr32 atl.dll

· regsvr32 msxml3.dll

___

If all the above doesn't work, you can try Manually installing the Windows Update Agent, like described in that thread too.
You can find all the Agent versions here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946928
___

If you even get errors during Agent installation, try to update Windows Installer (Version 4.1 worked for me, on a windows2003R2 server) and restart the system.

Have a nice time :)

ORA-12154 error only from asp.net/c# application

Sensei — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 029
If you are trying to open a connection to an Oracle DB from an asp.net application and it doesn't work (giving you the "ORA-12154" error), but the same connection works perfectly with an udl file or TOAD and tnsping working flawlessy, it's probably a problem of permission to the asp.net user.
Try to give the asp.net user full permission on all the oracle installation dir (and subdirs).
It should work (worked for me)

Import ORACLE Dump to different user/schema

Sensei — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 028
Here a simple command line to import a dump of a user/schema into a different user/schema.
Tested on Oracle 10g.

imp [username]/[password] file=[filename].dmp fromuser=[INITIAL_USER] touser=[END_USER]

Related Links:
http://wiki.oracle.com/page/Oracle+export+and+import+

Nokia VMG to TXT (VMG2TXT)

Sensei — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 027
I wrote a little piece of software to help you guys convert nokia sms VMG files to TXT files.
Here is the Visual Studio 2008 Code.

Pizza Dough

Sensei — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Pizza Dough

Instruments:

a breakfast cup

a mixing bowl

a wooden spoon

a teaspoon

a kitchen duster

...and ingredients:

500g of Type 0 (or type 400) flour

a yeast cube (25g)

extra-virgin olive oil

salt

Starting
Today we learn how to prepare pizza dough.
This recipe alone let you brew good flat bread, but we'll use this dough for other recipes too.

Dose for 2 baking tins, 4/6 people

Take the cup (fig.1) and pour inside 200cc of warm water (fig.2)
Not too hot, otherwise it will kill the yeast.

Take the yeast (fig.3), put it in the cup (all, or 3/4 of it) (fig.4) and, using the teaspoon, melt it completely with the water (fig.5).

Pour 480g of flour in the mixing bowl, pur some oil (fig.6), add some salt as you need, one or two teaspoons should be enough.

Pour the water/yeast mix in the bowl, and mix with the wood spoon until you get a raw knead (fig.7) using all the flour in the bowl.
During this operation could be necessary to add some water (if the knead is too dry) or some flour (if the knead is too wet).

Now, put flour in your hands, put some flour on the knead and take it in your hands.
Knead it by hands for 5/10 minutes (watch the video) until it's malleable and homogeneous and does not stick to your hands anymore.

Made a ball out of that, put that in the bowl (fig.8) and cover it with the duster (fig.9).

Let it raise for 2/3 hours or more in a warm location (20°C/30°C).

Your dough is ready! It should have doubled it's volume at least (fig.10).

Images & Videos

Video ('.3GP' For QuickTime viewing)

Windows 2003 Batch Delete Files older then X days

Sensei — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 026
Managing backup on a Windows 2003 Server you may need to delete a set of files, after the backup is done, older then a specified number of days.
If your Backup Tools does not implements this feature, you can use a simple .bat file with this command:

Forfiles -p c:\backup -s -m *.* -d -5 -c "cmd /c del /q @path"

Not that the -5 parameter is the number of days you want to start deleting from.

More details in the author page.

Commercials ;)

Sensei — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Break 14.23
My Myspace ;)
http://www.myspace.com/fabioflute

Having problem with disks and audio?

Sensei — Sat, 2 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 025
Using Windows XP, you may eventually experience a fast sistem slow down.
It'll seem windows try every second to access the disk, and use a lot of resources.
You'll eventually find your audio files run not smootly anymore...
What's that? Is it time to reinstall windows? Maybe, but first of all try to reset the DMA channels. It's a known issue that Windows XP has problems with them as time goes by.

Just save this script to the desktop, run it, press OK and reboot the system.

You'll find the complete article here.

Hope this helps.

Hammurabi

Sensei — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Break 10.25

SQL "object reference not set to an instance on an object" error during CreatePublication - createpubwizard()

Sensei — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 024
If you ever experience this problem (I don't hope so), be sure your SQL Server is all installed in tghe same language. If you by chance installed SQL2005 English and then Sql2005Sp1 in Italian or other language, it may be corrupted, so here you have two options:

1. Reinstall SQL and patches coerently

2. Script the operation you want to do on another (working) server and launch it on the server with the problem.

It worked for me

Vita vissuta

Sensei — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 00:00:00 +0100

Break 16.48
Cliente: Pronto? Salve, posso chiedere a lei per un problema…

Io: certo dica pure!

Cliente: Sto provando a importare un file di dettaglio nel portale ma…mi da un errore strano…"Valore sospeso non ammissibile!"

Io: (penso) arghhh, che cazzo è? (dico): Ha controllato che non ci sia scritto "sospeso" in qualche cella del file da importare?

Cliente: ma no, non è possibile, sono tutti numeri le assicuro!

Io: …

Cliente: …

Io: …

Cliente: …qui c'è scritto "sospeso", devo cancellarlo?

LG 8630 and Installed Game Error

Sensei — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 023
To anyone who has got the ["java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError"] Error running a midlet on the phone.

First, test the midlet on your PC using this beautiful program, Midp2Exe, available for free here: http://home.kimo.com.tw/kwyshell/

If a game runs with this emulator on your PC, I'll likely run on your LG too. That's because the midp2exe supports only j2me2 and not java3d, just like LG 8360 etc...and have a nokia emulator inside (so let's you run all nokia games too).

Note that, if a game is for Nokia, LG does not support it natively. You must transfer it to your phone using GThing: it will convert the midlet for you transferring it to the phone and it will work. Installing Nokia native games from T-Flash Card will result in the error above...

Have fun.

Have you ever listend to MIDI (2) ?

Sensei — Tue, 30 May 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Break 10.37
Listening to MIDI again?
I know it's quite a creepy hobby for me...
Anyway, if you still DARE to listen ot midi files, you MAY want to increase you listening experience.
Last time i suggested you Timidity player.
A good freeware but with some big limitations.

Right now I'm using SynthFont instead...a complete MIDI player based on soundfonts (sf2, dls) with editor capability, VST instuments and effects support and a lot of good features!

Bye

Great Freeware site dudes!!!

Sensei — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Break 11.51
A great collection of freeware programs. Get a grip on various softwares you would have not ever thought they could be so useful...

From design to programming to image conversion...too much to withstand ;) My heart is just weak enough! :D

http://jansfreeware.com/

PodCasting

Sensei — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Break 17.55
Have you ever heard about PodCasts?
It's a quite new way to blog...but instead of pages and pages of words, you download an audio file ;)

Listening Versus Reading????

Right now I really think these are complementary.

So, enjoy this PodCast directory out:
www.podcast.net

You'll probably need a podcast aggregator (yes, PodCastes usually use RSS xml feed too) to download and manage you favourite PodCast: i use the Freeware one "Juice". A good, clean and useful tool to aggregate your podcasts.

Ok, let's begin with PodCasts recommendations: Today I'm going to focus on PodCasts useful to improve mid-knowk languages.

Let's start ^^

English as a Second Language

TOEFL exam

Learn Japanese

Let's Talk

Repair a corrupted NTFS

Sensei — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 023
This is my every-two-years-coming-hi-tech-damage-week!
This week I have
- burst a laptop (yes...burst)
- Ruin the FAT of my Backup Hard Disk.

My laptop is on service right now...hope it'll come back soon ;)

Anyway. Today Lesson.
How to REPAIR (or at least get back data from) an Hard disk not readable from Windows nor from Knoppix (linux)????
I tried a lot of software but no one worked in the end....except for this flawless piece of software:
GetDataBack

Buy It, it's really worth the money.

----------------------------------------
Indeed I should have run a farm!

Anche se...

Sensei — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Anche se....
Anche se... non sto scrivendo grancheè sul blog, avrete pur notato che le lezioni e i break vivono una seconda giovinezza ;)
Have fun!

Comic Strips

Sensei — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Break 13.33
Check out this cool Comic Strips site.
Is't not like you'll understand all of the strips...indeed the humor is quite original... but trying is free isn't it? ;)

http://www.cheston.com/pbf/archive.html

IIS and Windows XP Home

Sensei — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 021
I successfolly installed IIS 5.1 on my Windows XP HOME Notebook.

This tutorial was really helpful ;)

You dare defy BROCCOLI?

Sensei — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Break 13.10
I have to admit, I'm not a fan of Liquid Television or Cartoon Sushi. But.
It was years ago (5 or 6)...i was watching MTV and here comes a cartoon! It was a short one, only two minutes or so, but in the end I was totally ROTFL!

In italy it came translaed, and quite well to I must say!

Today I downloaded it.
With emule (It's untrackable in other ways).

Cartoon Sushi - Science Facts: Broccoli has an IQ of 10!

(emule file name)

I'll try my best to put online an Italian translation of the most important sentences...because I'm not so smart to understand strict American so well ;)

In the meanwhile...Download and enjoy it! It's really something!

Here some BROCCOLI shoots:

I'm BROCCOLI!
You dare defy BROCCOLI? I'm right, you're wrong!
I've got an IQ of 10, damn TEN!!!!!
I'll destroy Humankind!

Firefox and Windows Integrated Authentication

Sensei — Mon, 6 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 020
You cannot access your localhost sites due to Firefox not authenticating you?

Just type about:config in your FF address bar, search for the
network.automatic-ntlm-auth.trusted-uris
key, and modify the value (double click) inserting "localhost".

Other sites separator is "comma".

Done!

Project 2003 RepublishAssignments problem

Sensei — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 019
Problems using RepublishAssignments function iterating/cycling projects in MSProject?
I tried it all, but the only solution for having it work is:

Create a VB6, C#/VB.NET program.
Iterating the project on the Project 2003 Server,
The program must open/close the entire Winproj application for each project. Otherwise the RepublishAssignments will create strange problems due to (I'm sure of it) some memory not released correctly by project when closing a file just published.

So, Here the main body of the program to use (vb.net version) for iterating the RepublishAssignments in some project on the prj server.

Have fun

Sensei

Code Example

Programming MSProject OLE (2)

Sensei — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 018
Again with Project (You'll have to bear with my nonense talking for a while ;) ) OLE automation Programming. I'm posting these lessons mainly because it has been very difficult for me to find a solution. Neither Google or his groups helps sometimes.

***************** (Greek)

Just discovered: the MailSendProjectMail method is not available via OLE. You can use the Application PublishNewAndChangedAssignments one, but if you need the Overwrite Actuals flag, you have to use the Application RepublishAssignments method.

Notice that you MUST be using a project opened from the Server (with the "<>\projectname.version" sintax in the application FileOpen method) otherwise the execution of the method will throw an Exception.

Any question?

Programming MSProject OLE

Sensei — Tue, 8 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 017
It has taken all the day to solve a problem my application begun to raise.
In the end, I noticed it was not my fault...it's just that the OLE Automation MSProject object, cycling items in the TimeScaleData method of an Assignments collection, was not fast enough to free the object from memory to put ther the nex one. And It caused me random exception all the day.

The workaround I found is as simple as I thought: just call System.GC.Collect() each iteraction.

Really helped me this one:
ProjectServerExperts

Exec sql file in batch

Sensei — Wed, 2 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 016
If you have hundreds of .sql files and you want to execute all of them, I suggest you to check out the OSQL.EXE Documentation.
A batch (bat) file can still be helpful sometimes ;)

Nullreference Error and WebServices

Sensei — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 015
You start implementing a SOAP interface to some WebService (.NET developing, with Visual Studio, either C# or VB.NET): in this special case, I was trying to user PDS Project Server 2003 Extensions.
You download the Microsoft example and it seems to run very smoothly...it just seems!
After a while, even if you do not touch a single key and do not generate events, the program throws a "Null reference Exception". It seems some object has became null and you tryied to access it...even if you did not generate events!

The reason?

The WebService KeepAlive property tryes to keep the soap connection alive...and after the timeout it generates that error!

In the autogenerated code of the WebService, you can add the override of the method WebRequest as stated here and fix this problem.

It seems to me just an hack, but it works well.

Bye

Sensei's Recipes

Sensei — Sun, 28 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Sensei's Recipes
Welcome to my new section: Sensei's Recipes!
Here I'll post some of my recipes, from pizza to pasta, passing through year-old calf with tuna sauce!

Recipes will be posted first in Italian Language. I'll translate them as soon as I become confident with specifical terms.

N.B. No difficult recipes here, just some tasteful fun!

We'll start soon, don't miss it!

Pasta per pizza

Sensei — Sun, 28 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Pasta per pizza

Pasta per Pizza

Gli strumenti:

una tazza da colazione

una terrina

un mestolo di legno

un cucchiaino

un canovaccio

...e gli ingredienti:

500g di farina tipo 0

un panetto di lievito di birra (25g)

olio extra vergine di oliva

sale

Iniziamo
Oggi impariamo a fare la pasta per pizza. Questa ricetta da sola permette giusto di fare buone focacce, ma pian piano vedrete che troveremo un modo per
farla fruttare in altre bontà!

Dose per: 2 teglie di pizza, 4/6 persone.

Prendete una tazza (fig.1) e metteteci circa 200cc di acqua calda (fig.2).
(N.B. non bollente, altrimenti il lievito muore...e la pasta andrà a marengo ^^).

Prendete un panetto di lievito (fig.3), mettetelo nella tazza (fig.4) e, usando il cucchiaino, scioglietelo completamente (fig.5).

Versate 480g di farina nella terrina, spruzzate di olio (fig.6) e mettete sale a piacimento. Un cucchiaio raso la renderà già abbastanza salata.

Versate il composto acqua/lievito nella terrina e girate con il cucchiaio di legno fino ad ottenre un impasto grezzo (fig.7) contenente però tutta la farina. Durante questa operazione potrebbe essere necessario aggiungere acqua tiepida (se l'impasto è tropo secco) o farina (se è troppo bagnato).

A questo punto infarinatevi per bene le mani, spruzzate di farina l'impasto e prendetelo in mano. Impastatelo a mano per 5/10 minuti (Video) fino a renderlo
malleabile ed omogeneo.

Fate una pallina, mettetela nella terrina (fig.8) e coprite con un canovaccio (fig.9).

Lasciate lievitare per 3/4 ore a temperatura ambiente. Per velocizzare questo processo (a volte basta 1,5/3h) potete mettere la terrina su una fonte di calore come un calorifero o un asse da stiro riscaldata. Attenzione perchè se la fonte è troppo calda rischia di seccare la pasta.

Ecco fatto, la nostra pasta per pizza pronta avrà raddoppiato li suo volume (fig.10).

Images & Videos

Video ('.3GP' For QuickTime viewing)

MsSQL Database Log too Large?

Sensei — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 014
It happened again, a log file of one of my SQL Database grew over 2Gb! And a strange error begin to happen in my website...

Anyway, to empty a Log File just open "Query Analyzer" and paste the following code:

--************** code
BACKUP LOG [database_name] WITH TRUNCATE_ONLY
DBCC SHRINKFILE ([logical_logfile_name], 0)
--************** end code

Change the [database_name] and [logica_logfile_name] as you need and execute the code.
The Log File is now only 1Mb (min size).

Now you can adjust the max size of the Log File:
Open "Enterprise Manager" and select the DB. "Right Click" and select "Properties".
Now Select the Log file TAB and set the max size!
Done!

What a useful lesson today :)

Show desktop disappeared?

Sensei — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 013
Has it happened to you too? The Show Desktop Icon disappeared form your Quick Launch Bar!

Just create a Simple Text file and paste inside the followind code (without stars):
*********
[Shell]
Command=2
IconFile=explorer.exe,3
[Taskbar]
Command=ToggleDesktop
*********

Save the file and rename it "Show Desktop.scf" or "Mostra Desktop.scf" (<- italian users)

Try It! If it does work, put the file in the folder:
C:\Documents and Settings\username\application data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch
or
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Dati applicazioni\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch (<- for italian users)

Google Maps

Sensei — Fri, 24 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Break 11.30
What do I have to say more?
http://maps.google.com

A good break: BLOG

Sensei — Tue, 21 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Break 12.55
Just check out this good Italian Blog:

http://goebbels.splinder.com/

CPU, RAM & Motherboard info?

Sensei — Tue, 31 May 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 012
No need to open you chassis anymore!
You'll simply have to download the Freeware software CPU-Z (no installation needed) and you'll have all the info you need!

Have you ever listen to midi?

Sensei — Mon, 16 May 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Break 15.31
The MIDI format it's one of the anchestor in term of music portability and, sometimes, quality.
The only thing it lacks is voice and the "smoothness" tipical of live music.

I used to compose some midi music too, back the end of 90's.

Today, moved by an urge feeling to listen to some Final fantasy midi with decent quality, I found an awesome program! It's Freeware! It's maybe THE BEST MIDI PLAYER i used in so many years of listening!

It comes with his own set of sounds, so the sound will not depend from the soundcard anymore! The sound set is very good too, and there are a few others to download for free!
Moreover, this little piece of software lets you convert midi to wave/ogg/mp3 etc...

Totally astonished right now.

It seems the first time I listen this music.

Thanks to TiMIDIty++ for this super software!

Need a webcam on your web site?

Sensei — Tue, 1 Mar 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 011
Anyone ever tried to put a simple webcam shot image in their own web site?
Usually you have to configure a program that take the screenshot every N seconds and send it to an ftp site. That's exactly what I always do using WebCamFirst that's such a program (and it's freeware of course).

A trivial matter: if you think of using it as a service (for example to lwt a server desktop manage the webcam) you may not find useful WebCamFirst because it's not able to run as a service.
But here there is Sensei's solution: the cool WebCamService, a freeware .NET developed service to manage webcam on a server!

Remember to install correctly your WebCam Drivers before installing any the softwares above.

Now you have to simply create an html page with the webcamshot visualized inside. Put the code
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="30;URL=AlertPosizioni.aspx"> in the html page so that it refresh every 30 seconds!

My own oldies

Sensei — Fri, 11 Feb 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Break 11.08
This one is quite an advertising Break :D
I used to write some crappy techno music years ago...and so today I'm posting you two song ^^
Note: I don't actually love techno right now...even music tastes change with time and age :p

The first one is dated 19 May 1999 and titled "Heavy Winds" because of the stereo chimes moving from left to right channel. I spent some days arranging the good slow part in the middle.

The second one I wrote the first month of year 2000 and is titled "Music through the mind". This title was suggested by Lucia and I thought it was quite cute...so I adopted it! The style of this song is quite strange...I like some piano pieces i wrote for it...and the continuous beat on the base...

Anyway, I did stop composing, since I found out how much poor I am. You really need a lot of harmonic teachings before you can even start do something self-grateful....and I do not have the time right not. So....let's take a break as long as a life...

Favicon

Sensei — Wed, 9 Feb 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 010
If you read the "Break 10.31" you maybe would like to know how the hell they put that icon in their site!I'm wondering too, so here I'll teach you a little trick to attach an icon to your site that will be displayed in the client favourite list!

Starting from I.E. 5 you can associate to an item in the "favourite" a specific icon. This icon MUST be a 16x16 pixels icon with extension .ico and 256 colors. You can create your icon with free tools program or even with tools online.
Save the icon as "favicon.ico".

Now that your icon is ready to use, just insert in your HTML page, between the <head> and </head> elements, the following link tag:
<LINK REL="shortcut icon" HREF="http://www.mysitename.suffix/favicon.ico">

Publish your web page and try it out!!!!

This one thanks to GDesign and Batman!

Tight VNC

Sensei — Mon, 7 Feb 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 009
Have you ever needed to manage your home computer from office or any location?
If so, you just need a good free VNC server and a his alter-ego client ^^
With VNC, you can actually control your PC via his IP (it MUST have a public internet IP tough)!

Just an example: you have a DSL line at home and a little Server PC always connected to download everything. At work, you barely manage to use the HTTP service, because the company policy forbid any Internet use other then Webmails...but you're lucky and you find out the VNC port to be opend!
So, you install the VNC server at home, you install the VNC client at work...and you can use anytime your home PC to do all the stuff you're forbidden to do at work :D
Funny isn't it! but do not abuse of your boss patience :P

Anyway, here is a link to one of the free VNC server-client on the net: tightVNC
I use it a lot and find it very helpful!

Isn't it a Simpson?

Sensei — Fri, 4 Feb 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Break 10.31
Today I checked the http://www.atm-mi.it site (It's an Italian site so you'll maybe not understand what's written!) with FireFox....and just see what they're using as Site Icon °_____°

No words.

Click in the thumbnail to open full size Image in a new window!

The fantastic world of GO!!!

Sensei — Thu, 3 Feb 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Break 12.05
This one is a break about a game, the most ancient game still played with original rules since 4000 a.c.!!!
And the game is the asian game of "GO" (Baduk [kr], WeiQi/Wei-Ch'i [chi], Igo [jp]), an incredible game in which you have to battle with your opponent to gain territory (yes, you do not win by detroying your opponent, but simply by having more territory of him at the end of the game!
The game rules are very simple, but the game itself is a never-ending-learning game! You can study it for a life and keep on learning new strategies!
The extreme complexity of the game of GO is far ahead from games like Chess or Reversi...you'll eventually notice by yourself ^^
Anyway, just some good link to find out what GO is and why I'll start playing it tomorrow!

Italian Links:
http://www.nipponico.com/dizionario/g/go.php
http://www.figg.org

English Links:
http://www.goban.demon.co.uk/go/main.html

About GO Complexity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(board_game)

Here a good online interactive tutorial!
http://playgo.to/interactive

I forgot to tell you WHY I know this game quite well: ther's a beautiful Japanese Manga called "Hikaru no Go" about the GO game, translated by fans some years ago... It's a must read ^^

That's all folks!

What is this damn RSS?

Sensei — Wed, 2 Feb 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 008
RSS is a format for syndicating news and the content of news-like sites, including major news sites like Wired, news-oriented community sites like Slashdot, and personal weblogs. But it's not just for news. Pretty much anything that can be broken down into discrete items can be syndicated via RSS: the "recent changes" page of a wiki, a changelog of CVS checkins, even the revision history of a book. Once information about each item is in RSS format, an RSS-aware program can check the feed for changes and react to the changes in an appropriate way.

RSS-aware programs called news aggregators are popular in the weblogging community. Many weblogs make content available in RSS. A news aggregator can help you keep up with all your favorite weblogs by checking their RSS feeds and displaying new items from each of them.
[...]

A good Freeware Aggregator I use is SharpReader. Try it out!

Read the entire article here:
www.xml.com

How to choose a digital camera

Sensei — Tue, 1 Feb 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 007
I'm writing today lesson expecially for those (and they're a lot!!!) who harass me when they have to buy one of those digital cameras ^^

First of all, you have to know wich are the most important features to check out choosing a camera:

MegaPixels: More they'are and usually better quality photos is possible to do! For a NON professional use I suggest a range from 3 to 5Mp.
Just think that a normal 3Mp Camera let you stamp your photos in an A4 paper format with a good quality.
Optical Zoom: This is one of the most important thing to me. Usually, for a non PRO user, it's having an Optical zoom from 3x to 6x. The Optical Zoom uses LENS to zoom objects, so you HAVE NOT a quality loss in the photo and results are very good!
: You will read everywhere that "that camera" has a 10x Digital Zoom: I say now, Digital Zoom is useless! Even if it's a 100000000x one! Remember it! The last thing you want is to have you photo pixels blurred! You can do the Digital Zoom job on the photo even better with a normal PC program like Paint Shop Pro, ACDsee and Photoshop.
Shutter Time:The shutter time is not a simple matter to explain. When you take a photo you need to catch the right amount of light, or else it'll be too dark! If you need to catch a bigger amount of light (to impress correctly the CCD in your Digital Camer) you can do that only by letting the shutter opened for a long time. For example during a night session without flash you'll need some seconds shutter time to have good photos. and you'll need to stay immobile during that time...or the photo will be just good to throw in the bin. A good shutter time range for a non PRO user is from 1/500 to 2-4 seconds.
Manual vs Auto: Some cameras are more user friendly and others are more features oriented. You will have to choose if you want an easy to use camera with less control over features (exposure, focus and so on) or a difficult one with total user control!
Lens quality: The quality of the Lens is a topic matter. Having good photos will depend from it too!I suggest brand "Carl Zeiss" or "Pentax".
Brand: Sony (which mounts CZ lens for high end cameras) or Pentax are my favourite. Even Fuji is not bad at all!
Photo quality: You better serch internet for examples of photos done with the Digital Camera you choose to buy! And look for comments in google groups or in specialized sites too!

Anyway, this is the end of today lesson. Hope you liked it!
Remember that you can use the Contacts link to write me.

Just some talk about mobile phones ^^

Sensei — Tue, 1 Feb 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Break 16.23
Maybe the time has arrived and I'll have to add a sort of "blog" section to this site too...but I'm not so followed yet, and so I'll use the Breaks section for some personal talk too!

I like mobile phones a lot and I just bought a fantastic Siemens Sx1! Anyway, I'm very fonded to it but I'd like to buy the new Motorola A1000 too °___° I like the design and the features as well! It's a Symbian (UIQ) phone and so It would be so much similar to my actual Sx1....I really can't understand myself sometimes...actually I DON'T need any mobile phone...

However, I'll talk about the fabolous Siemens Sx1 next break...maybe...

I have to add:
I'm very disappointed with you guys behavoir last break, you know that
YOU-MUST-NOT-RUN-IN-THE-HALLWAY! Be polite.

Come back!

Sensei — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 00:00:00 +0100

Break 16.45
Ok, I did not update this site a lot recently, but I'm back and I promise I'll do!!!
So enjoy yourself and wait for some lesson again!

Understanding NTLDR

Sensei — Sun, 31 Oct 2004 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 006
NTLDR

Short for NT loader, NTLDR is a program loaded from the hard drive boot sector that displays the Microsoft Windows NT startup menu and helps Microsoft Windows NT/2000/XP load.
This program is an hidden file in the root directory of your Operating System drive.

Sometimes, whe you're installing windows 2000/XP over an Hard Disk coded with FAT32 you wuold experience a problem booting your system as if your NTLDR file does not exist.

At boot appers the error:

"NTLDR is missing
Press any key to restart"

You can correct this problem by booting the PC using the Windows XP CDROM.

- After the beginning of the Windows XP installation process press "R" to run the "Recovery Console"
Click to see image

- Now choose the Windows Installation to repair (usually just the number 1) Click to see image

- Enter the Administrator password

-now you can write on the Command Window (MS-DOS text window) [from now on "cddrive" will be the letter of your CD-ROM drive] Click to see image

- type "copy cddrive:\i386\ntldr c:" and press ENTER

- type "copy cddrive:\i386\ntdetect.com c:" and press ENTER

It could solve the problem.

Unfortunately I can't say if it can cause loss of data. So backup all you need before trying it.

Try it at your own risk.

A search engine...better than Google in some ways!!!

Sensei — Mon, 4 Oct 2004 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 005
Some years ago one of my University Teacher told me about a new Search engine:
http://vivisimo.com/.
Today I read a news that it's declaring war to google...not that google will have any problem I think, but Vivisimo has something very cool.
1. It's a good Search Engine
2. It cluster the results so you can directly check for the result you're looking for in the left navigation bar.

Try it, you'll not regret.

Another P2P client...

Sensei — Mon, 4 Oct 2004 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 004
What's this? Another P2P????
Yes...but this is quite different. First of all, it does not require a registration.
Second, it does all the download stuff quite quietly.
In one word? Simple!
So check the site
http://www.bittorrent.com/
and download it.
Then you'll need some place to find the BT links you need to start the download. A good place is
www.suprnova.org but you can use even google if you want. click on the .torrent file and choose where to download it.
For esample:
1. go to google
2. type "anime filetype:torrent"
You'll find a lot of .torrent file to click at containing the term "anime".

Remember: this is the main format actually used to share anime and manga.

BT alone is simpe to use but it lacks some feature, for example you can't put a download in the System Tray :( Luckily there are some improved BT interface to use: I use http://bittornado.com/ and I reccomend it, but there are others available for Windows, Mac, Linux and so on...

Remember, download ONLY during lessons breaks.

P2P uses 2 much RAM?

Sensei — Mon, 4 Oct 2004 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 003
Your Emule, DirectConnect, Bittorrent or Soulseek uses too much memory during download?
That's quite a big issue I solve just some months ago.
Here there's a free program that helps you to analyze and optimize you system memory.
FreeRAM XP Pro 1.40 runs as a System tray and let's you know in REAL TIME how much system memory is used. Then you can run the AutoFree Feature to free the RAM of quite all the garbage.
I found this program very helpful especially with P2P programs...so...check the site, download and install it ^^
And be sure to check all the options it provides, there are a lot.

Unknown band

Sensei — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 00:00:00 +0100

Break 19:23
And here I am again talking about music.
Today the band of my brother Luca did another big step: they appeared on the national magazine "TuttoMusica" (page 102) as the best Band of the "Saturday Live CLUB" competition.
There were more than 40 bands...so it's not bad at all!
I give you an advice: as soon as they release their first album, buy it! You'll regret if you miss it!
Any way, check www.itsthesun.tk , their official site.

Some manga I would like to share with you

Sensei — Mon, 27 Sep 2004 00:00:00 +0100

Break 22.35
So, if you like manga check these fan-translations out:
1. Hajime no Ippo: this is a manga about Boxing...even if you don't like boxe (like me) you'll be sucked into it ^^
www.snoopycool.com - Volumes 1 to 36 done - Still serializing in Japan
2. Angel Densetsu: this manga is about a sweet-heart boy with a very cruel face. Never louughed so much in years.
www.manga-sketchbook.org - Volumes 1 to 9 done - Still serializing in Japan
3. Beck: quite strange, a serious manga based on a rock band...but It's addicting! DO NOT MISS THIS!
www.mangascreener.com (/mirror.htm if you want to dwn their mangas) - Volume 1 to 18 done - SS in Japan
4. Any Urosawa Manga: 20th Century Boys, Monster, Happy, Pluto...maybe they're all masterpieces. Don't miss MONSTER (all 18 volumes completed)
www.mangascrener.com - www.hawks.com

Right now that's all for you manga fans...I'll post an Anime Break ASAP :D

Some music again...Ocean Colour Scene

Sensei — Mon, 27 Sep 2004 00:00:00 +0100

Break 22:30
?Who are they?
I begin to listen to this band about a year ago. I have to thank my brother Luca because he bring home some OCS mp3 :D
So, OCS is a Brit-rock band: just last month Nolan Gallagher said that's probabily the best Brit band right now (anyway, I don't like Oasis at all...).
If you like Brit-rock (and maybe even if you don't like?) just try the "Songs from the front row - The Best Of" Album.
You'll find something new and worth for sure.

Just a break advice by your Sensei ^^

Lezione di vita

Sensei — Mon, 27 Sep 2004 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 002
Language: Italian
Oggi è il mio compleanno, ma non è assolutamente detto che le cose debbano andare bene:
1. Ho un mal di testa inetto
2. Per fare uno scherzo al gatto sono inciampato nel modem ADSL rompendo in un colpo solo lui e pure la porta USB del mio Laptop (questa la ho messa a posto alla bell'e meglio, ma il modem è distrutto). Almeno 50€ da spendere.
3. Da qualche mese a questa parte stavo lavorando per costituire una azienda...oggi il nostro socio di capitali se ne è andato lasciandoci nella merda. Non mi dilungo in dettagli, ma il tutto mi costerà qualche centinaio di € ancora.

Certi giorni la vita è proprio una merda.

Language: English
Today is my birthday, but it doesn't mean life takes a break with all the shit it has.
1. My head hurts as hell
2. Due to my stupid cat I broke my ADSL modem (50€ fee) and one of my Laptop USB ports.
3. Various problems with a company I was bringing life. It'll cost me some hundreds euro.

Some days life is really shit.

Some classic music for you

Sensei — Sun, 26 Sep 2004 00:00:00 +0100

Break 11:30
I'll give you and advice: if you like Mozart and if you like me :P you can download here a video (size approx. 30Mb) of ME playing solo 'Mozart - Andante in C'.
Just an old video, but you can enjoy it if you like music.

The Sensei Word

Sensei — Wed, 22 Sep 2004 00:00:00 +0100

Lesson 001
The Japanese word Sensei means "teacher" and is written with the following two kanji:
Sen [ON reading] - saki (KUN reading)
Means "what stay ahead, first of all"
Sei [ON reading] - i(kiru) [KUN reading]
Means "to live"

So the word is written like this:
And means something like "Someone who live ahead".
If you're not dumb, you just understood the reason of this Web Design.

Ah, the word SenSei is spoken like "Sensee". Thanks to Tsubaki for the advice ^^