Last week I wrote a tool, in c# to convert SQLServer create table scripts to a format that could be used by PostgreSQL.  

Why did I write the tool and not just do it by hand? Well, there are over 250 tables (266 to be exact) in the database we need to migrate. 

Why not use a tool? Ha, I wish!
I am working on a secure network and getting an application that on the network takes FORE_EVER!
Not only has the application have to be approved to be on the network, getting a paid license takes months and then we have to get it installed. All in all, the process would take 6 months if we were lucky.  

So I figured out what had to be changed and wrote an app that uses regular expressions to find/replace the reserved words and data types and output a new file, one for each table. The app took 2 days to write and a day to run. Now my new database has 226 empty tables. 

On to the next problem... 

I have spent this week working on a tool, yes another one, in c#, to migrate the data from the SQLServer db to the ready and waiting PostgreSQL db. Why am I writing a tool when many exist? See the above reason for that tool and you will get the idea, again.  

Yes, there is an ODBC driver which would allow me to use the SQLServer tools to push it from our SQLServer db into the new PostgresDB.   But we are having 'problems' getting that installed too.

SO write the app I did.  
I started it Wednesday and was completed yesterday afternoon.  I have done some preliminary test and so far it looks like it will do the job. Monday, I will start to test with one table and if that works, I will run it against the entire db.  

In other news - 
And I am still playing with Electron. I am now looking at framework that uses the React Javascript library - "React is a declarative, efficient, and flexible JavaScript library for building user interfaces."

And to that end I have installed the framework named Electron-Forge with the --template=react parameter. Now I have to learn how to use it. And while that is going on I have selected the NoSQL/JSON package named lowdb I will use for the database storage.   Time to get back to the codesmithing

I was planning on visiting Elisa of Scotland (see the pictures in the banner above) in Scotland next month. It has been almost 5, yes FIVE, years since I visited and it was time for one more visit.

Elisa and I started to plan this trip last October and we figured that late April / early May would be a good time to visit as there would be almost NO chance of snow but it would be cool; the tourist season would not have started making it a great time for a wee side trip to Glasgow. 

And here we are with 35 days until my scheduled departure and "we" canceled the trip and visit. 

As I wrote yesterday, Elisa is in the throws of Shingles Saga herself. It has been almost 2 months since it began and despite the fact that she is healing, she isn't feeling all that well at the moment and add the fact that she has CFS, we don't expect her to be up to a visit in a month either.  

Thus the decision to void the visit and vacation was made. And a good thing we did this now versus next week. When you cross that 30 day limit with award miles, the cost of cancelling is much higher. But the award miles are back in my account and come May of this year I can look at booking the trip, again, for next April. 

 I never blogged about it but I had a mild case of shingles back in September; along my left arm (that was part 1). Yes, I know most people get shingles along the torso but trust me, you can get a chase of shingles anywhere.   If you don't know, shingles is caused by the chicken pox virus which lays dormant in your nerves, waiting for an opportunity to re-awaken when your immune system is weak. Go look it up, it's not pretty. 

IF you catch it early, you can get anti-virals to lessen it. If you approaching 60, your insurance should cover the vaccination - more on this later.  Or if you don't catch it early, you have to ride it out, which I did and as I said, I had a mild case but trust me; it was not fun. 

Now, 6 months later with no other flare ups I was able to get the vaccination to (help) prevent another flare up. There are NO certainties that you won't but the vaccine, reduces it greatly. The chances you will get it again, without it are much higher.

But getting the vaccine was so stressful, I was worried I was going to get another flare up. My doctor said I should get it but she could not give it to me as the vaccine is LIVE, so it must be kept frozen and the office had no way to handle it. I was given a prescription and told to go to the pharmacy, and they could give it to me. BUT they would charge me $200, despite the insurance, yet despite my doctor saying it was 100% 'covered' because they would give me the shot.  So then the question was raised if I could I get it at the pharmacy, and then my doctor gives me the shot - again the pharmacy said it was a 'prescription' thus they would charge me $200. 

I finally called my insurance and after much explaining and waiting they said to go to a pharmacy with a clinic and that they would have the vaccine and could administer it - all 100% covered since it was a medical and not a prescription. So after more questions as to where this could be done, I was given the name of the clinic at the CVS Clinic about 20 miles way. So I made a reservation and left the house to go there and get it. 

But I could not.

For what ever reason, the info my insurance carrier had was "wrong' as the clinic did not have it even though the pharmacy was next to it (inside the CVS store) had it in stock. So after much discussion the Physician's assistant went with me to the pharmacy to find out how we could do it. Luckily I had mentioned that the insurance rep had said "medical" and the pharmacy realized that they could submit the claim NOT as a prescription but as MEDICAL which is maybe what the pharmacy tech did not know the first time.  I handed over my 'prescription' and I was able to get the vaccination and did not have to pay anything. 

Now, lets discuss the vaccination. IT is ALIVE!!! it is, a mild form of the shingles (herpes zoster) vaccine. Which means that you can have various side effects as your body works to create (more) anti-bodies.
What are they? How about - injection site reactions (redness, itching, swelling, warmth, bruising, and pain), headache, diarrhea, joint or muscle pain, or skin rash. Most of which I am going through right now. YUCK. 

And to top it all off, Elisa of Scotland also got a case of shingles over 6 weeks ago. She caught it early and the doctor prescribed the anti-viral medications but with her chronic-fatigue-syndrome, it has not been easy on her. I can only image how, when she it clear,how  the vaccination will affect her. 

SO, if you are 60 years of age and/or have a comprised immune system GO talk to your doctor about the vaccination. The shot, even if you get the side effects certainly out way getting one or more shingles outbreaks.
Really -  
Go,
GO NOW!

11 days and many, many hours later, my first Electron application is (almost) done. 
I have just finished 2 days of work on figuring out how to make a portable executable.
As I build out the application, I created a new code branch which started where the last one left off. That is so if anyone want to look at it all, step by step, it is all there. This is a link to the repository.

So what have I learned along the way?

• How to code with Node JS which is what Electron is built upon.
• How to use Electron package/framework to create an application, build the menu, call other pages, write middle ware to respond to events.
• How to submit bugs to GitHub.. I found 4 long the way.
• How to use the Atom text editor which I like; 
• How to use the Sublime text editor, which I don't.
• Using NPM - the package installer for Node.
• The documentation on many of these open source packages can be rather lacking!

So what's next? I am going to investigate a framework package (Photon) to add into Electron which can make my life easier and a NOSQL database in preparation for the actual application I want to write.

 ​Here is a picture of my application.

I am now working on my first Electron application.  If NodeJS and these other frameworks (EmberJS, ExpressJS, AngularJS, etc.) allow you to create OS agnostic web sites and applications; someone pondered......
"H..................mm............, why can't you do an OS agnostic application too?"

And thus we now have Electron. Which by the way, is how the Atom editor was created too; and many other applications as well.

So I am now taking my little Ember Bcrypt tool and making it a desk top application.  I am writing it on my Windows 10 laptop and when I am done, I will test it on my Mac. Then at the day job, I can get a co-worker to test it on a Linux box we have.

Stay tuned!

I have finished my first NodeJS and ExpressJS project.  Along the way I learned a lot about Atom and the packages that can be installed to make writing code easier.  Then I set up an account on GitHub and added/uploaded my code. 

So what did I code? It is a small web application, written in using NodeJS with ExpressJS that will encrypt a password using the Bcrypt algorithm and it will also validate an encrypted password against a plain text password. 

My goals for this little project was to not only learn the basics of Node and Express but to implement an Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern without using a package that creates an MVC environment. 

It isn't pretty but it works! The code can be downloaded from the repo BcryptTool.

My next project is to do the same tool but using Electron, which is a desktop application

Way back in the olden days of yore, I learned to program in Algol, Cobal and Fortran IV - with punch cars on a Univac 1108.  And I HATED IT.
I may have been due to having aixelsyd (that's dyslexia, to a dyslexic) or maybe what we were being taugh had no connection to my current situation and thus I couldn't relate to it. It was, what it was. 

Then back in the early 90's I purchased a copy of Visual Basis and I learned the basics of it in about a week. YES, I found that I actually liked writing code and could do it well. 

Fast forward 20+ years to now and I am still working with Microsoft technologies with a bit of Oracle, PostgreSQL, Photoshop, Illustrator, XML, JavaScript and more thrown in. 

But the world of code is changing and I must too. For the past month or so I have been learning the new JavaScript technologies which allow applications and websites to be portable to any operating system.  I so far have focused on Node JS, and Express JS and along the way the Atom editor.  I have also written my first mini website in Node and Express using Bcrypt which is a tool to encrypt and validate passwords. Hey, I even pushed it to GitHub where I am now learning about projects and issues.  Whew! 

Next I am going to expand my skill set with AngularJS - a web framework; NoSQL - which is another database type of which I have to select a specific implementation; and then Electron - a way to create desktop application using Node JS technologies that will run on almost any desktop.

WHY - hey, I got ideas for a few applications and this seems a good way to get two things done at once!