It’s as fair as they let me make a referral link.

https://www.binance.com/en/register?ref=TY6OTNDW

You get 10% Commission, I get 10% Commission so don’t sign up if you don’t have a referral! If you find this misleading leave a comment and I’ll research it.

If you appreciate anything I put on this site; or just want to be a nice person; please sign up under my account and you get 10% commission on your spending (please verify) and so I would get the same. Many referral link take all 20% but I figure fairest way is 50-50 and maybe someone I don’t know will help me and help themselves if they got no referral.

And I’m not rich, we lost our house due to housing market collapse but we are recovering not crying but could use a break so if you’re a whale- and you sign up- I pretty much will love you.

Bitcoin, Ethereum, How to Buy, Easiest Place to Buy, Best Bitcoin Brokerage, 50% Referral Split, Python, Programming, Block Chain. Powerbuilder

Non-IT people could offer helpful feedback

• I never thought of this until now which means I’m probably over thinking it.
• I think it’s find to send mail no matter the time, but becoming more ‘aware’ of surroundings w age.

MY Belief System Today – 3 a.m. Email Sending

Disclaimer: Based on my perceptions- not scientific

Email is ‘non-intrusive’ 

We can typically ignore it during non-business hours. This is the most important assumption…

Therefore, send emails at any time of the day and don’t think twice.  ( My vote )

Text & Business I.M.’s are intrusive comm’s 

A response is expected soon, therefore it is disruptive.

We shouldn’t be afraid to use it (reminding myself)

We tend to be more empathetic (probably shy) and not as comfortable interrupting, and we revert to mail (the worst at conveying ideas)

Phone Call are destructive comm’s (unplanned kinds)

Calling a developer, unplanned, one of the worst use of developers time. You pay us well- use us wisely.

We will oblige with smile, you are paying the bill

At least we under bill our hours & try making up the lost time b/c we’re good

Engineers juggle things, for complex projects it might take 30 minutes just to re-acclimate to where you were.

Boss asks for TPS reports, you can’t save your code since there’s syntax error you leave it; windows reboots or you forget- start over tomorrow. It happens more than not.

Not a rant- it’s sharing what I think are facts that get ignored.

Wow this turned from a question to rant.

Not going to delete it now- fire away….

Comments? Thoughts?  Is anyone out there (phil collins?)

Rich out.

]]> http://displacedguy.com/sending-email-at-3-a-m-lose-sleep-over-or-will-they/feed 0 http://displacedguy.com/writing-an-important-email http://displacedguy.com/writing-an-important-email#respond Wed, 19 Feb 2020 18:48:12 +0000 http://displacedguy.com/?p=2943 I decided to use this Blog as more of a notebook because who hast time to put together an article, and make it good? 99% of the time it just isn’t going to happen especially when there’s no compensation.

When I need to write/send an important email/letter

Write the letter obviously

The next step depends on how much time you have, can the letter wait a few days? If not this strategy won’t work well, perhaps scale it down. Send the letter to yourself and set the delivery to when you arrive at work. The key is to look at the letter as the unsuspecting reader. The more you can fool yourself into not remembering your letter the better, receive the mail at night when you are tired.

When reading the letter in-the-same-mind as the reader you gain insight on how it might be interpreted, and how clear it really is.

That’s it. Hoping by writing this I’ll remember myself & if anyone gains benefit, cool beans. Rich out.

The PowerBuilder Contract Specifics:

Location: Boise, Idaho

Start: January, 2017

Type: C2C, 1099

Rate: $50 / hour – senior or lower for mid-level PB developers having Oracle experience

Duration: 6 months

Required Skills:

• PowerBuilder 11.5
• PowerBuilder Foundation Classes (PFC)
• Oracle SQL, PL*SQL, Procedures, Triggers

The contract is on-site only for experienced PB developer with PB 11.5, PFC and Oracle experience. The PowerBuilder contract is being offered to US Citizens only as we are not able to sponsor green cards.

How to apply for the job

Email rich at the domain of this website and put “PowerBuilder Contract Opportunity” in the subject line.

The program is a drug-half life elimination charting tool. It plots the drug plasma levels of various drugs as they are eliminated based on half life hours.

Drug Half Life Elimination TaperTool

I have the program running on my basic linux server, and for now it is running on port 8080, I need to learn how to make it run on port 80, but along with all my other websites that are being served from Apache on the same port. So now if you go to http://www.warm-turkey.com for the Drug Half-Life Elimination Tool you will be forwarded to the temporary location using port 8080.

If anyone knows how I can set this up please leave a comment!

http://www.warm-turkey.com/HalfLife  <– TRY IT OUT HERE

[important]Note: I had to configure port 8080 to map to port 80 incoming using the httpd.conf file. So incoming requests on port 80 are handled by Apache, and if they are a request for a Java application, then Apache automatically forwards the request to Tomcat 8 using port 8080, and when Tomcat 8 passes info back to Apache it uses port 80 so that you don’t need to see an ugly url like http://www.warm-turkey.com:8080/HalfLife.[/important]

Why?

A while back I promised to complete one of my small applications I was working on using WaveMaker. I finally got the job finished. The app uses a database for the drug list, half life hours, and there are other tables for storing reports that were run, and some advanced features.

The administration login allows for changing users, drugs, and other lookup data for the application. There is an administrator and basic user logon role right now. This is my second completed WaveMaker application. I plan to refine this one over the next few weeks, I may write an article about the other WaveMaker application soon, but I have learned that WaveMaker is faster than PowerBuilder when it comes to building *web* applications. This statement assumes you are using PowerBuilder alone and not Appeon or another third party add-on to PowerBuilder.

This will replace a similar program that I wrote using Silverlight, this will run on any machine unlike the Silverlight tool.

The program also uses the built in wavemaker security, and the page is monetized using Google Adsense.

Silverlight Drug Half-Life Taper Charting Tool vs WaveMaker Drug Half-Life Taper Charting Tool

The Silverlight tool required that Silverlight be on the client computer. It also does not use a database. The NEW WaveMaker (Java) Half-Life Taper Charting Tool will run on any computer that runs Java, and will work for any drug, or addictive substance that can be measured, and has a half-life.

The OLD: Silverlight version of the tool on Subotex.com.

vs

Drug Half Life Elimination TaperTool

The NEW: WaveMaker (Java) version of the tool on http://www.warm-turkey.com (not cold-turkey… )

The purpose of both is to help people taper off addictive drugs, alcohol, or anything measurable and having a half-life hours. If you get a chance check them out and let me know if you have suggestions or feedback. The new WaveMaker version is database driven (MySQL) so the drug info and other lookup data is available. Also I’ll be adding features to allow saving your own personal taper plans under your logon id for later use. There will be advanced features that let you plan the best taper with the amount of remaining drug you have. So if the drug were unavailable due to major hurricane and you had 150 mg, the tool would help you plan the easiest taper using the 150mg that you have.

How I Published The WaveMaker Application

The application is running on my run-of-the-mill linux hosting provider.

• I installed Tomcat 8 to go along with the Apache that was already installed.
• I installed the Java Development Kit on the server
• Upon completing the application in WaveMaker, I deployed it to a WAR file.
• I ran the Tomcat manager program, and loaded the War file created by WaveMaker
• I created the database (MySQL) to match what I was using locally, including the database user
• Viola, everything worked like magic on the first try. I am really getting the hang of WaveMaker and enjoying it a lot. Look for more on WaveMaker in the coming weeks. I’ve got another completed application besides this one that I’ll be showing.

I have some recent articles on WaveMaker, basically getting started with it.

Introduction

We will be taking the first steps in creating a working WaveMaker application in this step. This includes creating a MySQL database, and creating a new project in WaveMaker. You’ll also learn how to use the Import & Export function so that you can import the completed project and export your own projects. This is the third part in a series, if you missed the first two parts you can jump to the beginning here.

Project Components Window – This is the primary info the application stores

The project we’ll be creating is a simple code management type system for saving snippets of code, article parts, script, account information, or anything that you might want to re-use. The idea is to not have to re-invent the wheel and search for information again, the hard way.

Note: This project was created as a sample for WaveMaker and is not coded using generally acceptable coding practices, for example the database design is not complete and/or de-normalized. There are some missing look-up tables for status codes, etc.. The object names inside of the WaveMaker tool are not consistent and they don’t follow a good naming convention.

Downloads

MySQL DDL File: XREF_DG_DB20140616.SQL

WaveMaker Code: XREF_DG_20140616.ZIP

Creating the MySQL Database

You should have MySQL installed along with the MySQL Workbench, if not please refer back to part two of this series.

• Open the MySQL Workbench
• Open the downloaded MySQL script
• Run the script, rerun if needed
• Create a new database user ‘xref_user’ with password of ‘password’
• Give the new user permissions to the new dg_db schema
• Give update rights to the new user for the dg_db schema

Importing the Project Into WaveMaker

If you’ve installed WaveMaker, you can import the ZIP file now. If you haven’t created the user in the database then you’ll need to go into the Services tab in WaveMaker, then select the database and click the icon that looks like a wrench to open the connection information, then update the user and password as needed

• Launch WaveMaker
• Use menu item File –> Import…
• Click the import zip-file button
• Select the downloaded zip file

Running the Project in WaveMaker

If the project has imported successfully, you can run it by clicking the “Run” button at the top of the WaveMaker window.

Summary

You should now have a working WaveMaker project. In the next article we’ll step back and go through the steps that were taken to get to this point. I have spent about a half-day getting to this point (4 hours) and I’m pretty green at WaveMaker. Feel free to look around at the code and experiment, we can re-import the zip-file if anything breaks.

If you notice any problems with either of the download files please leave a comment below and I’ll get it corrected as soon as possible.

PS – New Drug Half-Life Elimination Taper Planning Tool Application

I just rewrote my old Drug Half Life Elimination Taper Charting Tool, it is written in Silverlight and the new one is written entirely in WaveMaker (Java). You can check it out by going to: http://www.warm-turkey.com , it is in testing phase now so if you find bugs please let me know in the comments. The program uses WaveMaker security and has an administrative login for editing users, drugs, and other lookup tables.

The new tool…

Drug Half Life Elimination TaperTool

This will eventually replace the Silverlight version of the tool on Subotex.com. This one will live on http://www.warm-turkey.com (not cold-turkey… ) and will help people taper off addictive drugs, alcohol, or any addictive substance that is measurable, and has a half-life.

So it could be used for alcohol, calories, hours on the internet or whatever you are addicted to.

Introduction

We’ll be installing the tools that will be used in building a new WaveMaker and MySQL web application. The application will be used as a very simple content management slash note taking type application for storing code snippets, article parts, articles, account information, documentation, links, or anything else that you think you might need to use again to maximize the DRY principle. The application is being built by me, a PowerBuilder & .NET developer for the purposes of giving WaveMaker a test-drive and to see how much effort is involved in making the switch to the Java based WaveMaker tool. When completed you’ll have all the tools you need to begin with development, and database creation. If you missed the WaveMaker part one then go back here.

If you’d like to check out another application, a Drug Half-Life Elimination Taper Planning Tool that I just completed using WaveMaker you can check out this WaveMaker article.

Installing WaveMaker Studio

We’ll be using WaveMaker Studio 6.7 to build the developer registry web application, so if you are following along you’ll want to install it now. The community edition is completely free. WaveMaker supports Windows, Linux & Mac (intel), so choose the proper installation for your favorite development operating system. I’ll be using WaveMaker Windows version 6.7.0. WaveMaker Downloads Page

WaveMaker Pre-requisites

The WaveMaker installation program will assist you in installing any missing components. The first time you run WaveMaker, you might be prompted for the location of the JDK. You’ll also be prompted for a program folder for your projects.

Installing the Database (MySQL)

WaveMaker comes with a built in HSQL database but we’ll be using MySQL for the project. Specifically I’m using the MySQL Community Edition for Windows, but you may install which-ever flavor (Linux, Mac) you like. The software is free for personal or instructional use. MySQL provides an all-inclusive installation for all products, you can choose the database server and workbench during the installation. Otherwise download and install them separately, the Workbench isn’t required but it will make following along and running the included DDL more difficult. MySQL Community All Inclusive Installation Page

Summary

You should now have a working database, a database development workbench and the WaveMaker Studio tool installed on your computer. Next we’ll work on creation of the MySQL database, the DDL will be made available for simplicity. Start creating your database here.

In the next step, we’ll get started with database and application creation, move to WaveMaker for PB Developers Part 3 next.

Overview

Considering that PowerBuilder 15 (beta) is not publicly available without a special SAP login id for existing customers, I decided to take the time to build a WaveMaker web application and see how it compares to PowerBuilder. We’ll also find out how difficult, or easy it is for a PowerBuilder developer to develop with when they have had no formal WaveMaker training. WaveMaker is now 100% Open Source including the multi-tenant and commercial database functionality.

FYI – I just completed another WaveMaker application, and hosted it on this web server. You can check it out on my first WaveMaker application article. This app is unrelated to the series.

This article is the first in a series covering the creation of a web application using WaveMaker with mySQL.

WaveMaker Studio Overview

The first objective is to provide a high level overview of WaveMaker and point out the main differences between WaveMaker and PowerBuilder. Next we’ll provide step-by-step instructions for building a functional WaveMaker & mySQL application (many to many) that will be used as a simple content management database for storing code snippets, article snippets, links, code documentation, or anything you might use more than once, and associate it with a project, a language type (PowerBuilder, JavaScript, HTML, Plain English Text, etc.). The program is intended to assist someone who’s memory is starting to get a few null pointers, and to maximize the DRY principle. The instructions will be tailored towards a PowerBuilder developer. The DDL and code will be provided as the development progresses and the finished program will be hosted so that you can try it out.

Quick History & Opinions of WaveMaker

In short, WaveMaker is a Java based rapid application development tool similar to PowerBuilder. The tool has gone through at least two ownership changes in the last five years, it was recently acquired by Pramati Technologies, a business incubator and enterprise software company founded in the 1990′s.

If you’d like a to read more about WaveMaker first you can take a look at some of my previous articles or see the WaveMaker About Page which has a nice summary of the tool history.

• WaveMaker it might be the next PowerBuilder for AJAX and Web Applications
• Wavemaker delivers for the cloud like PowerBuilder did for client server
• WaveMaker – Take Two – PowerBuilder Pro Reaction, OMG
• WaveMaker – Revisited Part 2 – Perspective of a PowerBuilder developer

Differences between WaveMaker and PowerBuilder

At a very high level, here are the main differences between PowerBuilder & WaveMaker.

• WaveMaker is designed to develop web/cloud applications using Java, and other Open Source technologies. PowerBuilder is designed to develop client-server & web based applications using proprietary & .NET technology.
• WaveMaker does not have a datawindow, nor does the IDE have any obvious support for object oriented design. WaveMaker being Java based should support OOP however the development tool doesn’t appear to provide any support for inheritance that is built into PowerBuilder, this observation may be a result of my minimal experience with WaveMaker.
• WaveMaker generates Java, JavaScript, Spring, Dojo Framework code, so the resultant code could be used as a starting-point to a typical Java project, or to learn/study Java development. PowerBuilder generates compiled (p-code or machine-code) and proprietary source code files that require (generally speaking) the PowerBuilder IDE to modify and re-compile.
• WaveMaker has an impressive list of customers but has never reached critical mass becoming a mainstream tool like PowerBuilder did in the ’90’s.

Features of WaveMaker Development

This quick list of features is based on my opinion. Some shops may view them differently, specifically open-source technologies which is not embraced by some large companies. PowerBuilder shares many of these or is capable of sharing most with the exception of responsive screen layouts and open-source.

• Visual Development (similar to PB)
• Smart Layouts for Devices (aka Responsive)
• Re-usable API Prefabs that can be published for use by others
• One-click deployment to many environments
• App-Store Integration for applications or API prefabs
• Collaboration & Release Management
• Standards based, uses open source technologies

WaveMaker Videos

Here are a few WaveMaker videos that will show you the basic features, and new API prefab functionality. If you haven’t used WaveMaker before you may want to watch a few of them.

WaveMaker Studio – The Grid Designer

WaveMaker Studio – Creating a Database From Within WaveMaker

WaveMaker Studio 7.0 – API Prefabs

Summary

We learned that WaveMaker is an application development tool used for building web & cloud based applications. The development IDE offers drag-and-drop visual development similar to that in PowerBuilder. WaveMaker is Java based and uses many open-source technologies such as Spring, Dojo Framework & Struts. WaveMaker builds a stand-alone Java application, and the source code can be opened in any Java development IDE.

This was the first in a series of articles that cover creation of a working web application used as a developer registry. Next we’ll make sure we have all the necessary tools and begin development.

[important]Part two of the series is now available, WaveMaker Series Part II. [/important]

Do you have any comments or suggestions? Is there anything specific that you’d like to see in future articles, just leave a comment, no registration is necessary and you can enter a fake email address if you’d like.

I’ve been using the Askimet plugin to eliminate spam-comments for almost four years on several blogs. It works great and is free for personal use. I am feeling guilty about not paying to use Askimet and figured that promoting the tool was the least that I can do.

According to their website, the tool has zapped 145 billion spam comments.

Askimet Site

Are you tired of deleting spam-comments from your blog?

I am not associated with Askimet in any way other than being a user of the plugin. I highly recommend using it on all of your WordPress blogs because it works well, is free, and will save you a lot of time.

In the four years that I’ve used the WorePress plug-in there hasn’t been a single problem. You’d think that spam comments wouldn’t be a problem if you use spam prevention tools like CAPTHA forms, but somehow spammers are able to defeat these.

Askimet Stats Screen – Shown in the WordPress Dashboard

As of June 11, 2014, Askimet removed roughly 125,000 spam comments which equates to around 21,000 per-month and 700 per-day. Assuming you work a ten hour day, you’d need to review and delete around 70 per hour without deleting legitimate comments by mistake! Even with the tool, a handful of bad comments will slide through every day but it is manageable.

Askimet Blog Comment De-Spammer Promotion

How do you use the Askimet WordPress plugin?

Using the plugin is very simple, though it does require that you create an account. Considering the tool is free this is an acceptable request.

• Install & Activate the Asimet plugin
• Get your free Askimet account, and application key
• Go to Settings –> Askimet and enter your key (see screen print below)

That’s all you need to do!

Assigning the Askimet API Key

Askimet Settings

This is where you enter the API key that you received when signing up for a free account. Once you enter the key, everything works like magic.

Viewing your Askimet statistics

You can view the stats screen by going to the Askimet settings screen via Settings –> Askimet.

Leave a comment?

The SEO Guy…

If you have any questions or comments please leave one below, and you are welcome to promote your own blog if you want as long as the promotion is secondary to the comment.

Comments are free, they don’t require registration, and you can use a fake email address if you want to remain anonymous to everyone except the NSA.

PowerBuilder History, Version 3.0

Rewind to 1993, and explore PowerBuilder Version 3.0. This was a big release for PowerBuilder, a historic release in my mind. I felt like PB3 had demonstrated it had enough maturity & stability to be worthy of consideration for application development in the corporate environment. It was definitely a safe bet for department-level application development and showed potential for large and complex mission critical application development.

Launching Pad To The Future

PB3 was the stepping stone away from the mainframe world, where corporate applications were written using second generation, procedural languages like Cobol and CICS. PB3 included robust reporting from the beginning which was typically handled using complex, archaic mainframe reporting tools like Easytrieve.

PB3 was so impressive that calling it a stepping stone is a massive understatement. It was more like a launching pad, catapulting business applications into the future, which at that time was client server. Client server development leveraged the power of the desktop allowing corporate apps to evolve into modern, robust, attractive and intuitive business applications.

Dream Come True For Everyone

PowerSoft invested a substantial amount of money in the marketing of PowerBuilder. It usually takes an exceptionally good salesperson to sell software to Fortune 500 companies, but this was not the case when it came to PowerBuilder.

A child could have sold PowerBuilder to 499 of the 500 companies in the Fortune 500. An exaggeration… yes, but the tool pretty much sold itself in the first ten minutes of a PB demonstration. Anything beyond the first ten minutes of a demo was entertainment for the developers anxious to get their hands on the software. Developers were salivating at the opportunity to develop using such an advanced tool, one that they saw as being historically significant. The developer instincts were correct because PB has not only become historically significant but it has written many chapters in the history of information technology over the last few decades.

The PB System Tables Soap Opera

Any shop large enough to have dedicated DBA’s likely went through several iterations of corporate politics before coming to an agreement about the internal PB system tables (pbcatcol, etc.). PB created the system tables automatically when running the tool for the first time but it required SYSTEM credentials to the database. Connecting to the database as SYSTEM by developers is something that is not going to happen in a corporate IT shop. If you’ve gone through this phase than you know exactly what I’m talking about.

The General Protection Fault, or GPF

This summary wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the general protection fault (GPF). A GPF to PowerBuilder is analogous to the blue-screen-of-death and early versions of Microsoft Windows. It happened when the PowerBuilder IDE would crash without warning and any unsaved work lost. The GPF is something the veteran PB developer lived with, learned to work around, and gained a few grey hairs because of them. PB3 was a pretty solid IDE but it was leading edge software, so crashes were part of the cost of doing business. Most developers learned the “problem” areas and were able to minimize the negative impact of GPF’s.

PB3, The Specifics

Release Date

Some time in 1994. Please leave a comment if you know a more accurate date.

Notable Enhancements & Fixes

Version three was the first one used by me so I am not aware of any notable enhancements or fixes.

Notable Problems

There were no serious problems with PB3, however the dreaded GPF was something that a busy developer might see several times per day. Repeated GPF’s would precipitate the need to reboot Windows and get some fresh, clean memory allocated.

Market Share & Trend

Add sales numbers here, or other notable statistics.

PB3 Visual Flashback

These images are near and dear to my heart. I poured a lot of sweat & tears into learning PowerBuilder, and developing applications using it. I don’t think I’ll ever forget how the splash screen looks in PB3, it is burned into my memory forever.

Marketing Media

Install Packaging

PowerBuilder Marketing Media Version 3

“Everything you asked for” image was provided by Bruce Armstrong. Bruce has been using PowerBuilder since version 1.0b. He is the senior editor for the PowerBuilder Developer’s Journal in which he has authored numerous articles and has a monthly news column. He was one of the editors and authors for PowerBuilder 9: Advanced Client/Server Development by SAMS.

[adrotate banner=”35″]

Splash Screens

Would you help fill in the blanks in the PB Memory Lane article? Learn how right here.

IDE Images

Would you help fill in the blanks in the PB Memory Lane article? Learn how right here.

PB3, Looking Forward

PowerBuilder 3 was an amazing tool, but good things don’t last forever. I can not think of any specific goals that PowerSoft had looking forward to version 4 & 5. I suspect that adding more native database interfaces was a goal at this point because early versions of PowerBuilder lacked native drivers for Microsoft SQL Server and Informix.

Early versions of PB lacked some of the datawindow object types that exist in new versions, such as the tree view dataobject, not to be confused with the tree-view control.

This document is one part of many belonging to the PowerBuilder trip down memory lane document started here, and that has had contributions by many PowerBuilder experts from around the world. If you have information or images that would improve this article, and are willing to share them please leave a comment below. Also indicate if you’d like attribution, and how you’d like it done. I am happy to promote your personal blogs in return for helping to make this a better document for everyone.

Here is the link to the main PowerBuilder, Trip Down Memory Lane page.