oracle instant client

seems to be a nice thingy. just download Instant Client Package - Basic Lite and Instant Client Package - SQL*Plus (oh, and bugmenot, please);
unzip onto c: drive and it just works. supposedly.

...it's not working for me :( i did everything that was asked from instructions - updated %path%, copied over my tnsnames.ora, made sure the ora service is actually running on server... and it still does not work. throws back the "ORA-12154: TNS:could not resolve the connect identifier specified". WTF?

svchost eating up all cpu resources

now this is ridiculous! when i boot my laptop, it hangs for several minutes: svchost.exe process uses almost all 100% of CPU utilization.
it turns out that it's Windows Update "feature" in the act.
my solution was simple -- look up "Automatic Updates" service in your Services list and change it's startup option to manual. that should do it.

full coverege of the problem here, with links to Microsoft KB and stuff.

cannot open e-book (*.chm file)

this was another headacke for me the other day... i downloaded couple e-books and everything looked fine, until when i copied those files to different PC. they simply could not be opened normally, instead i was getting this "cannot display the website" message. as if i was trying to browse web!? obviously i was the first to run in situation like this.

it turned out that problem was with the folder name, in which the chm files resided. it contained characted "#" and it was screwing up the xml parser or something...

unfortunately i've lost a link to the original page where i found solution/explanation for this stupid problem. it actually deseve to be linked, to earn higher search engine rank...

but here's different link -- with quite extensive explanation of possible chm problems

loosely related -- Can't open CHM file/ CHM topics are blank (kb 896054)

cubase sx3 installation

this weeks # 1 stupid problem -- cubase won't install.
installation hangs at 97%, last file being copied: ra3228_8.dll
and here's the solution