Friday, December 28, 2007

FireFox tools for our English

By Puntino

How many times have you made a spelling mistake?
It could be lots of times, after you posted your comments or wrote a mail and so on.
In this case, a tool provided by FireFox (FF) could be very useful: Dictionary
To add it to your FireFox, you have only to click on the world "install" of chosen dictionary and let FireFox install it, then you need to restart FireFox.
The dictionary checks the spelling of the words and when they are wrong written it suggests possible solutions (right click on the word and it will appear some possible correctrections , look at the picture below, I wrote "word" badly)
From now on your spelling mistakes will be fix for ever :)




Another utility that can help us, but has nothing to do with the spelling check, is Backwards, the developers state the following features:

*Translate an English word into French, German, Spanish, Russian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Traditional or Simplified Chinese when mouse cursor hovers over it.
*With one click,
remember all context of the word, such as URL of the page and the paragraph which the word belongs to.
*Get Pronunciation of the word with a flash.

*Write a note for the word.

*Search more explanation of the word with one click.

*Review all words and context collected on a build-in page.

I add that the translation function is a bit shallow but useful to get, just in time, the gist of the unknown word and it is easier to use, indeed you need only to place the pointer near the world that you desire to translate.
At the first use, you have to point out which language to put the English words in.
  1. Go to Tool (FF' s tool bar)->Add-ons.
  2. You'll find Backwards-> click on "option" button.
  3. Choose the language in "Dictionary".

If it seems not to work you need to enable it, you should find a little grey cross in the right low corner of FF (take a look at the snapshot below), double click on it, the cross turn into green from that point on Backward is enabled but sometime it could disable on its own and you need to click on the cross again, instead by turning the cross from green into grey you can disable it when, for example, it's annoying you .



Backwords has a helpful feature that allows the user to make a note of the meaning of the word and check it in the future, you have just to click on, respectively, the red cross and the "B" letter that appear when you place the pointer near the word.



That's all

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Merry Christmas

Dear readers,

Christmas is coming up, Santa Claus is preparing gifts for everyone and like Paul McCarty says:
we'd just like to wish everything you wish yourself for Christmas

TopGun&Puntino

Thursday, December 20, 2007

For the series "Delicacies from Naples", now on air : Struffoli !

By Puntino

Last time I spoke about Baba, which I called the "King of the sweets" now I'm going to write about the little princes of the sweets, Struffoli.
They are homemade sweets cooked only at Christmas time and their recipe is easy and needs few ingredients: eggs, honey, flour, strong liquor (e.g. limoncello).
After making the dough, you shape it in little balls which will be fried.
At the end of the process you'll get little gold tasty balls that you'll wet with hot honey and dust with colored
confectioners' sugar.
The rumor says that their origins are Greek and their name means "cut as little balls".
Listen to me, after you pick the first Struffolo, you
will not be able to stop eating them and sooner or later you'll pick another one, another one yet and so on.... your fingers will be covered with honey and you take pleasure in licking them...I love them

Thank Zsofia for correcting me

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

My little Presepio

By Puntino

We start decorating the inside of our houses on December 8th with the Christmas tree and objects with Christmas motives, but for us, I mean the people of Naples, it's very important to
show in our houses the
Presepio (Christmas nativity).
Naples is very famous for its long Presepio manufacture tradition, we have an area in the city centre, called S.Gregorio Armeno, dedicated to the developing of the Presepios, there you can see and buy every kind of Presepios you want, little, big, with lights, with an artificial river with classic and new characters...
Some people, here, who are good at shaping woods, make their Presepio on their own.
When I was a child, helped by my father, I made some
marvellous Presepios that I rebuilt from the beginning every year .
This year, my father had a very original idea... He developed a small and nice Presepio into a coconut skin which symbolizes only the holy family, the nativity, look at the photo, he added a little light into the coconut too!!.
So you can understand how creative the people are here.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Which Friends Character Are You?



Which Friends Character Are You?

You are part Ross. You're intelligent and adored by your parents. However, your lack of social skills causes you to talk too much and try too hard. While your friends pick on you for your nerdiness, they better watch our for your rage.
You are part Chandler. You're funny and that's why people like to have you around. You're also a great friend, and when someone you care about is in trouble, they know to come to you for some level-headed advice followed by some sharp sarcasm.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

The Monthy Phyton: The Meaning of life

By Puntino

Yesterday I watched a movie in English (with subtitles) called "The meaning of life" by Monthy
Phyton.
I discovered them thanks to Grazia's me&Dublin blog, who posted their short scene in her blog so I got curious and I wanted to watch at least one of their movies.
The meaning of life is a funny and sarcastic movie, which tends to explain, as its name suggests,
the meaning of life through short musicals, satirical and comic scenes.
The movie, divided into six parts, tells the life cycle of the man, from his birth to the death, while different characters take part, some of them are funny others encourage you to reflect about the life with sharp gags.

Honestly before I watched them I was afraid to face a movie seasoned with the "English humor" that for us is hard to understand and doesn't make us laugh very much, but scene by scene I was surprised how enjoyable the movie was.

I can't explain what sort of movie it belongs to, because it's a mixture of different genres and I'm not an expert.
I also think it is a useful movie to improve your English skills because the actors don't always speak quickly and sometimes there are short pauses among the gags which allow you to take a
breath and understand the meaning of the gags, a short sample....

My thanks to Zsofia for corrections


Monday, December 10, 2007

Italian Television vs Swedish Television


I like to surf around the web.
I love it!

One of these days I found an interesting blog, Stellan Kinberg.
It is an interesting blog.

Stellan lived for many years in Italy and now he has this fantastic blog about Italy, seen from the point of view of an Italian\Swedish person.

Surfing this blog I found out an interesting post about a show broadcasted on Swedish Televison, Solens mat.
I don't know what Solens mat means in Swedish but I love that program.

Central themes of this program are Italian food and Italian cooking.
A journey in the Italian traditions across traditional small Italian "comuni".
Solens mat leads us through marvellous countryside showing the real Italian tradition.
A time travel in the history and in the present too.

You can watch Solens mat online.
it is simple bcause the 90% of the dialogues are in Italian with Swedish subtitles.


I hope you like it. I like it so much. Solens mat lets me know how much Swedish people love Italy and Italian tradition.
I'm really proud of that.
(I hope Swedish are proud of my love for Sweden too :p).

Why "Rai" ,the Italian Television, doesn't produce a show about Sweden???

Enjoy.


Thanks to Bondola for supervision

Why this Blog?

"I opened this Blog,
the English version of Aviatore Sopra Il Mare,

to improve my English writing skills according with my friend Puntino.
Now he has his own Blog but the target remain the same.
Improve my English."

TopGun