Welcome to Dani’s Homepage

Last change: 1st february 2008



What can you find on this page?





First of all some words about me

My name is Danilo. But, please, without ‘e’ like Danielo! Many peoples write it wrong, maybe because of Daniel, even if I have spelled it correct. It is the Slavic form of Daniel - Russian or Serbocroatian, depending on the source of information. But it is used in Italy as well very much. It is said that my father wanted a Slavic name and also a (more) rarely used one. Well, the first criteria he could fulfil - but the second one ... almost: According to an Italian book about first names I found in a library once, in Italy the Italian form Daniele is more rare (about 30,000) than the Slavic form Danilo (about 38,000)! Well ...

Who likes it short or wants to avoid the ‘e-problem’: just Dani. But with a short a, just as [da'ni:lo].

Yet some words to the origin: In a source (written in German!) you can find the following:

Daniel:
Origin language Hebrew
Meaning God is my judge
in the Bible Daniel is a great prophet
Words : dan = the judge ; el = God
Female form : Daniela
Variants : male female Language
Daniel German, French, English, Polish, Czech
Dana, Daniella German
Dan English
Dani Spanish
Daniele Daniele Italian
Danielle French
Danny English
Daniil Russian
Danijel Danijela Slavic
Danilo Danila Slavic
Danijjel Hebrew (old/original form of the name)


On 15 december 1960, the book (register) of birth note under number 8648/1960 the time 3.30 p. m., I was born in the women’s hospital of Stuttgart. Two weeks too late - and it is said that I was already a little bit bluish. But apparently ‘fit’! At least my mother, remembering to that time, always complains of my ‘sporting activities’ until my birth. But this I can’t affirm: At least since my birth I am a unathletic type! And the little bit basketball I played in a club and at school is not a scrap of evidence!

I have an Italian passport, my descent is a mixture of Austrian-Trentino (Italian) on the part of my father and Bulgarian on my mother’s part. To make it not too simple my mother was grown up in Argentina where my sister was born.
To be more exact: My father was born in Villa Lagarina north of the Lake Garda, a more inconspicuous little town, except that there is living an aristocratical family from whom at the beginning of the 19th century one was bishop of Salzburg (Austria) and builder of the cathedral there, or at least its todays appearance comes from him. Well, something like this, as I know from somewhere. And in ‘Villa’ the church is build like this cathedral. My mother was born in Sofia, but at an age of three she emigrated to Argentine. - also ihre Eltern taten es, zusammen mit ihr. To Buenos Aires.


His mother is from Austrian origin. It is said that her ancestors were coming from Vienna in the 19th century, to take part in a bridge-building. At that time the beautiful Trentino was yet part of the Habsburg monarchy until World War I, and this for almost one thousand years.

And in the Andes both became acquainted with each other: she was going down and he up ... or was it opposite? In any case later, in ‘Bariloche’ - to be more precisely: San Carlos de Bariloche - my sister was born.
Sometime they went back over the Big Pond, back to the Old World. With sojourn in Italy.

And then, in Stuttgart, I came into this world and I am living here since that time - that is very simple and uncomplicated. Or just boring ...


Now nobody should think: Ich kann ja Deutsch sprechen. - Posso pur parlare italiano. - Puedo aun hablar español. - Нали мога да говоря български. (Nali moga da govorya bâlgarski.)

Well, as a child one is lazy. Or has something better to do. And if the parents don’t push and pull and and and ... And therefore it is just a nice dream of having and knowing four native tongues. And my ‘school languages’ English and Française - well, French you can, in the meantime, also forget!

Well, a little bit I know from these languages, but not very much. And this although at home it could be very ‘wild’: My parents have communicated in Spanish, father and daughter have spoken Italian with each other, or better in a Trentinian dialect, my mother used German with her children, rarely Italian with her daughter. Well, thus the custom at table was accordingly ‘horrible’: When my mother was speaking with me, sitting at her right side, in German ... and then was looking more and more to the left, changing to Italian, even in the middle of the sentence ... then on and on to the left until my father’s place: Now I ‘understood just Spanish’, as a German way of saying is. And me? ‘Mama, you are talking to me! Please speak German otherwise I can’t understand anything’ ...


For getting my daily bread, once I have studied computer science (the German title is ‘Dipl.-Inform.’) at the technical university of Stuttgart. The main subject was and yet is the development of applications with databases (IMS, DB2, Access, Oracle, SQL Server) on hosts and on personal computers (client-server as well), using COBOL and a little bit FORTRAN, today mainly C or sometimes C++, as programming languages. Sometimes also VBA (Access and Excel).
After having work in database applications at test benches in the automotive industry, I am now working in a database application for part lists and part documentation of the same manufacturer. Due to a lot of restructuring at my job (outsourcing and so on) and due to the mass of young competitors (writing these lines I am 47 years old and therefore for a lot of German employers just ‘waste’!), I have decided to go ‘back to the roots’: I am returned to host software development: Here there is enough demand for (The dead are living simply longer than expected!) and the ‘saurians’ are among themselves; in any case the ‘less’ Indian competitors in COBOL programming is much more easy to survey than the German competitors in VB and Java programming are!

Although everywhere you can find ‘MS’ I am indeed no fan of this abbreviation: It shows too much ‘blue screen’ and goes too much ‘to Dr. Watson’ and successors! In this situation I prefer more Linux - but until now just for private use, also from ‘virological view’. And with OpenOffice.org and Opera or Konquerer (KDE), which I prefer regarding MS Office resp. the Internet Explorer, I have applications, I can continue using as well with Linux. And in the meantime the Linux applications are legion, like The GIMP (picture proxessing), XEphem (astronomy) and a lot of more...
And now I am a Palm fan! Oh no, really not a pocket PC: that would be again „MS“! I have a Zire 72. And my most important applications on it are Quartus Forth (programming), MobiSystems Database 7 (datenbase on PDA and desktop) and Astromist (astronomy).
For scheduling and task management I have a lot of changing applications: Beginning somewhen with Palm OS, continuing with Life Balance and GTD oriented applications like Note Studio and now ThinkingRock. The last one is Java based and therefore usable on Windows and Linux. The only missing point is the direct usability on Palm OS, thus I need PDF export.
My actual interests, though more private, are XML and Tcl/Tk being more independent of computer technology and operating system. And because of my interest in languages Unicode must be used! I do a lot using bash, sed and awk.
In the meantime I seem to have found for me (privately) an overall solution:
  • As user interface I am using Tk resp. libraries basing on it, but as well PHP (in connection with XAMP),
  • for programming Tcl , but as well Python (espacially with Note Studio) and PHP,
  • for data storage XML ,
  • for data service and maintenance SQL,
  • for just displaying and for printing also HTML combined with XML and XSL and further accompanying specifications .
  • All this will be underlied by Unicode for international usage.


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About my hobbies and interests



In astronomical activities I am taking part in the clubs ‘ Schwäbischen Sternwarte e. V. ’ (Swabian Observatory) and
at the beginning (foundation and a couple of years after) in the ‘ Sternwarte Zollern-Alb, Rosenfeld-Brittheim e. V. ’ (an observatory on about the half way between Stuttgart and Switzerland)
and furthermore I am member in the society of ‘ Vereinigung der Sternfreunde e. V. (VdS) ’ (a club of amateur astronomers in all over Germany)
and in the club of the ‘ Astronomischen Arbeitskreis Salzkammergut (AAS) .


‘Late’ in my life, not before 1996 (disco fox) and 1997/98 (beginner’s course and so on untill ‘gold star’, including examinations), but at least surely, I learned dancing (for fun), the courses at Tanzschule (dancing school) Burger-Schäfer .
Until that time I was just watching dancing on TV, but with enthusiasm: German, European and world championships. Until a collegue took me with her. It started in 1996 in Stuttgart with the ‘Landespresseball’, a ball of the ‘province’ (‘Land’) I am living in (Baden-Württemberg), followed by another dancing ball in the ‘Liederhalle’ and, in december of the same year, we took part in a disco fox course, first part.
In january 1997 I became acquainted with a new member of the astronomical club in Stuttgart. With her I started in february with the general beginner’s course, which endet on 27 july 1998 with the ‘Deutschen Tanzabzeichen in Gold und Goldstar’ (examination).
It's a pity but after this we went different ways and I had no luck with other partners. If I yet can dance?


Further interests are geography and ethnology, languages and calligrafy. But due to less time I can’t do as much as I would like to do. Main interest concerns

China and the chinese culture as well as

the ancient orient,

linguistics, more precisely the development of languages and phonetics, and

the development of writing

resp. calligrafy.


Strictly speaking just on the side I am collecting stamps via subscription from the Peoples Republic of China and from Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea? In the north of Australia! The country with those much nations, almost just as much languages, and with the very colorful world of birds.
Unfortunately since already a long time I have not any more the time to work at this topic and to create pretty albums.


It is a long time ago that I was drawing using just pensil and coloured pensils. Like calligrafy this were a nice way to spend the free time and the most something other and relaxing!

If I am thinking back to my school time, in geography, when we should draw just a map from America and Africa, and I copied it out from my atlas - of course without tracing over, but - just knowing a way - after drawing the co-ordinate grid, copying square by square. I am yet knowing it because I was measuring at that time: Drawing the map of North and South America on paper of each DIN A4 (297 x 210 mm), I needed about eight hours each.

Or in biology: In my exercise-book you could find at the beginning of the topic a Neanderthal human being according to the topic ‘Is human being descending from the ape?’.


I am not watching very much TV. Usually I am watching besides the daily news just documentary film, especially of animal and ethnological kind. But it is already a long time ago that ‘Der Weltspiegel’ and ‘Auslandsjournal’ (both magazins with news from all around the world) were a weekly ‘must’ and that then the sporting activity in the club I did just forced.

But: At that time, yet going to school, these both programs and other as well where accompanied by my ‘Knaurs Großer Weltatlas’ (original title: The Times Atlas of the World) lying on my knees, for that I could ‘be’ just in time at the shown place, at least with my fingers on the map.

The atlas was one of my first books: I am remembering to be thirteen and it was a present together for my birthday and for christmas, and my mother was swallowing quite utterly: I had looked for the very best of the atlasses and which is, on my opinion, yet today the very best. And even at that time it was costing the high amount of 298 marks!


Music? - All kind ... well, almost - I must like it. I can hear traditional music from Far East as well as those from African nations, but especially I like the bagpipe. My favourite music is classic and ‘older’ music (swing, jazz from the the 30th until 50th). And more over I like ‘mixed’ music: classic played in modern style (instruments) and modern titles interpreted by philhamonic orchestras.
As I went to dancing school for ‘right’ dancing, but I wasn’t it all along, I am not a fan of discotheque. Smoke (I am nonsmoker), noice, overcrowded (I’m not a Sardine!) ...


About my hobbies and interests - and especially astronomy

The actual world time: 

To my astronomical activities are belonging, except the work in the clubs, especially filming with a normal camcorder (at the beginning 8mm, in the meantime digital), but all is just in the beginning (Corresponding pages with reports and pictures are yet in work!). I am interesting in movements on the sky, whether eclipses, movements and occultations, not only of the moon, and so on. In the meantime and with the technical development I have as well a webcam for astronomical usage and a CCD camera.

The actual lunar phase


For the following observations the corresponding pages with descriptions and pictures are yet in work!

Until now I have fixed three successful lunar eclipses (Stuttgart on 27 september 1996 and on 16 september 1997 as well as in Hüttengesäß close to Frankfort on the Main on 9 january 2001 during an excursion for a lunar eclipse of a star)
as well as




on video.
a succesful (Curaçao on 26 february 1997), a spoiled by rain eclipse (Stuttgart on 11 august 1999), and another succesful solar eclipse (Lusaka/Zambia on 9 july 2001)
I also had first trial with filming through teleskops: protuberances of the sun
And the next movies will surely come ...


Oh yes: It is really fun: In this way one get around all over the world! 1998: Curaçao - Caribean See, America, 1999: Stuttgart - Germany, Europe, 2001: Zambia - Africa, 2005: Spain - Europe, 2006: Turkey - Asia (Minor) ...
And there is yet the 22 july 2009: China! A must for me: as I am interested in China, and because of a duration of the eclipse of over six and a half minutes!
And the 21 august 2017: Right accross the USA, from Oregon at the Pacific to South Carolina at the Atlantic Ocean! A trip for the whole family: comfortable and during school vacations!

Furthermore I have startet in the last years to take part at certain astronomical events as far as I have time:

There is the ‘Würzburger Frühjahrstagung’ , a meeting in Würzburg (Bavaria, Germany) in spring,
the Astronomical Workshop on the Gahberg in the Salzkammergut near Salzburg (Austria),
the ‘Violauer Planeten- und Kometentagung’ , a meeting in Violau (Bavaria, Germany) in spring,
the International Teleskop Meeting on the Vogelsberg in Hesse (Germany) (ITV),
the International Teleskop Meeting on the Emberger Alm in Kärnten (Austria) (ITT) with accommodation in the ‘Fichtenheim’ and
the Swabian Amateur and Teleskop Meeting on the Roßberg in Baden-Württemberg (Germany) (S.A.F.T.).
Furthermore there are interesting evening lectures in the planetarium of Stuttgart, organized together by the ‘ Schwäbischen Sternwarte e. V. ’, the ‘ Carl-Zeiss-Planetarium Stuttgart ’ and the ‘ Kepler-Gesellschaft Weil der Stadt e. V. ’.

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I hope you did enjoy my homepage a little bit. Criticism is welcome! Good one and even such one dashing me to the ground! ... well, should dashing me ... :-) (My e-mail address is following!)

I also want to apologize for my bad English, better: my ‘German-style English’, but it is not my native language ...


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© 2008, 2002, 2001, 1999 Danilo Baroni

Disclaimer : Although I have controlled the content carefully I do not assume del credere liability for the content of external links. For the contents of the linked sites only their carriers are responsible.