Due to the pandemic, school is closed again and I have to babysit during the day. Then I have to catching up day work at night. The .NET app development is on hold. I don't like this, but the situation is not something I can control or manipulate. I kinda like the fact that I can accompany one of the kid during the day and help out with their school attendance. But the schedule impact is making me nervous as it cuts into my personal time. Again, the social situation is out of everyone's control. Anyways, I am coping as best as I can. The day's work is being interesting. And I have made great progress with it. Hopefully I can return to the old ways of living soon.

What I am thinking is that maybe the life ahead will be different from the old one. And there is no turning back.

There is not much going on for the past couple days. I started a new program. A .NET program using NAudio. It has to play the sound wave file and record sound file. It is boring except that I never used NAudio. That part is kinda fun. And the day work is interesting so I didn't do much at night. I did play two nights of Dragon Quest XI (11/13, 11/14). I think I finished Chapter 7 of the game.

The NAudio stuff will be a tutorial. I will finish the program first. It will require a week. It is boring work, I just have to finish it. It is important. Anyways, I have a list of tutorials to finish for this site and I am slowly catching up. I will get to them eventually. Anyways, I will not re-iterate these tutorial again here. Recently things are just getting really slowed because of the social situations. Hopefully, I will have something better to show in my next update.

Spent two days on writing a sample program. It is not working and nearly driven me mad. It is funny how it is resolved at the very end. One post in stackoverflow described that using host name localhost the security based session will no longer to be created. So the get around is using 127.0.0.1 instead. I tried this fix and it did work. And this answer is so obscure that it is almost impossible for me find it. I am sure I am not the only one, and I wonder how many people missed this answer.

Anyways, I will add blog post for this. On a side note, I was playing Dragon Quest XI on Saturday night. I killed another metal slime. When I played Dragon Quest on the pad, I never did kill any metal slime. Now I have done it twice, I think I can do it over and over again. I found a few ways to make the game more fun, like how to farm perfectionist pearl, and how to use them to upgrade all the characters' gears. The grinding for experience is not so bad. But the bright color and repetitive music are giving me some headaches (real headaches). I am not playing this again until the sample program is completed.

Yesterday, I looked at my published list for this year, and it disappointed me. There were only six articles, not seven. I thought I had seven articles. I was wrong. I like to have seven articles published. So I took the blog post for the Thymeleaf integration, did some clean up. and sent to codeproject. Now I have seven published.

There are some new ideas I am considering. The newest one is form validation with AngularJS, I just had a hard time coding something with this. There is no good tutorial out there. And this is one of the weak point I have with AngularJS. Create an in-depth tutorial would help me and everyone else.

Another one would be multi-resource uploading. Something that I can use in the future projects. And I should get back to learning Redis, and at least publish one tutorial on it. There are a lot I must do, And I will get to them eventually. The problem was time, there are only two hours of the day I can do some work for this. So everything goes slowly. At this point, I don't even care if I move as fast as the technologies (of course the technology move faster than I can, because there are lots of people who do work on them). I just want to get good at things I am interested in,

Refining one's skill at one specific area is way better and way more efficient than the pursue of many things all at once.

The tutorial write-up is completed. I have corrected all the misspells. After I proof read the tutorial, I sent it to codeproject. Yesterday I used the sample program one more time. I was very psyched about how good it was. Seems to be a waste if I leave it aside to collect dust. Maybe I should do another big project with it. It shouldn't be wasted.

The benefit of doing projects is that it can help develop ideas, ideas of how to do things better, efficient. One does not get such when sitting idle. I find that the work would also help shape one's thinking on how things can be done. It was most beneficial. I am trying to strike a balance between repeating old work, and creating new. There are some old work needed redo. And some ideas as well, I can't reveal them yet. And I am not starting these because I am a bit afraid that once I started, I get no break out of them.

I have been thinking of a new laptop to put Linux on it. But a decent one costs more than $800, I am a bit hesitant to commit to such a purchase.

As for Dragon Quest XI, I was in the desert now, the levels are pretty high. I was still grinding for experience. Recently I encountered a metal slime and defeated it. But let two more escaped. That was pretty fun. I play it once a week for 2 to 3 hours and I didn't get addicted. It is because the projects kept me focus, game play is not as fun.

It is been six days since the last update. I have been busy. The day work was getting tough. I had no time to exercise after being busy for a week. The situation is kinda crazy. I hope it will improve next week. I have been working on the codeproject tutorial on the reusable html editor. It will be my last one for 2020 (this is the seventh one). And I am trying to make it a hit.

It is a complicated component, I have spent three days on the tutorial and it will be a couple more days. Afterwards, I will do a simple application using ES6 script syntax. I found ES6 script exciting. Redis is another matter. It is easy enough, and I was able to get a sample application working, but in order to get anything meaningful working, it will take a lot more effort. I have to learn how to use Redis and take advantage of it. I don't know how I will learn it. It is tough that I don't work with technology directly. I guess I will dig harder with search engine. And there is a lot to learn on Redis.

Maybe I can do something different this time. I can do a small blog post for every small thing I learned on Redis. It has to wait. I won't start this until the tutorial is done.That is my plan.

Two days ago, I decided to give ES6 Script a try. I wanted to to develop a simple application with Angular JS and ES6 Script. This is 2020, it should be a lot easier to do this now than 3 years ago. I found an example and I tried. Just like the few other simple tutorial I have in the past couple weeks, it didn't work initially. I got some syntax errors. And before I logged off, I checked the web, seemed I need to use Babel and Node.js to convert the ES6 Script based code into JavaScript.

Yesterday, I played a little game, and didn't work on this little program. Today, I finally picked it back up. I was about to go get Babel and setup Node.js for this. And I was not convinced this is right. This is 2020, ES6 Script should work in the browser without any translation. Turned out, I am right. I don't need to translate. And the error I was getting was from the wrong path to the file. Another problem I had is with the ES6 Script syntax. Once I fixed both, the little program worked. A little more research I was able to get the program working as expected. Man! 10/17 is a pretty good day. I will create another tutorial for this site.

We went to see a creek (there are so many in Pennsylvania) and little water fall. It was lovely. I had a few good photography ideas with the place. Maybe I will do some more photography projects in Pennsylvania.

I put in another fix for this site. I noticed that whenever I add an image to a post or in an update, I need to add a center aligned DIV, then in it the image. I have type all these by myself. It is better to add a command shortcut. So I did.

Also, when I use the command shortcut to add an unordered list or ordered list. The place holder lines would have this annoying "<". It was added by accident. So I had to delete all that extra "<" characters.

Lastly, the place holder for the title attribute, the word "descrition" was misspelled. I cannot stand it. So I took this opportunity to fix it. Anyways, I had a little tough time adding the command shortcut to for site update section. I fixed at the end of last night (10/14).

Yay! 18 issues fixed since the site came online. This is great!

I just got Redis on my PC. I was amazed how small the server is, All the binary files added up is less than 1MB. If I use the default configuration, the server starts right up. It must be written in C. I was able to add a key and value in the storage. And retrieve it. When I shut down the server, the data was lost. I was not able to get it work with the the auto save. Turned out there is a better way, on the CLI, if I invoke command SAVE, the change will be persisted to disk. After I turn off the server and restarted again I was able to see the key value again.

The next step is to write a small Java program to exercise the functionality with redis. I like the simplicity with this NoSQL database. I think I like to learn as much as I can about this. Again, I was thrilled that this thing is so simple. The server executable is so small. It is so easy to run it with a default configuration. And so easy to save the key value pair to file.

Writing coding tutorial takes a lot of time. I spent at least three days on it, and it is still unfinished. I really don't like to do this. It is fun to figure out how things works. But write it all out takes time, Maybe I need to change the work style a little bit. I am not sure what to do with this. All I know is that documenting the tutorial takes too much of time. I need to find a way to make this more efficient.

Anyways, the tutorial is almost done. I will do one more push to finish it. Then I have to proof read it before it can be published at this site. As said before, lots of work. I can do this now. If I push myself for another big project. I won't be able to push out this tutorial as much. This is the reason I only allocate five articles per year, leaves lots of time on the development of this site. Anyways, now this is completed. I have a little more time to do tutorial. I still don't like it. Must find a way to make this easy.

On Saturday 10/10/2020, I played Dragon Quest XI for two hours. It was fun. I figured out the attraction of this game. It has no pressure for a player, and the success is almost guaranteed. So it is very easy to get the endorphin as reward. This is how a player can get hooked to play this game nonstop. This is dangerous. I was unaffected because I have discipline, From time to time, I would still play over the time. Anyways, I will get better control over time.

I took some good pictures this weekend, of Sunflowers. Maybe I will post one later.

I just started the write up of a simple tutorial on Thymeleaf. This tutorial will be simple and exclusive for my site. I have uploaded the project to bitbucket in a separated source repo. As long as I have the source code, I will be able to reproduce the same exact effect at a later date. The pain of documenting the usage is just to share information with the public. I don't event expect increase of traffic to the site. The details I will share is already available on other sites.

Write it and share is mostly for me. I will read it again to to figure out what I did before. This is just a simple application that accomplished what I have done before. I will create another sample application to have Spring Security added. Again this is retrace the work I have done before but will use Thymeleaf for page rendering. I will also add tutorial for global exception handling. It sis something I have just learned recently. For the next project, this little technique will be used. Anyways, it will be found for the next two months. The Angular HTML editor piece is still shelved somewhere, which I will document for codeproject as last one for this year.

Learning new things means I want to move forward. I used to hold grudges on certain technologies. Then a while later I find myself giving up such grudge. I explore the these new things which I don't think are right. I don't like them but I find myself use them all right. And I don't find myself betraying my own believes (although it does looks like I betray myself), I am surviving by adapting. When you feel the same thing, you don't have to hate yourself. Just tell yourself you have to survive and you have to adapt.

This time, I was learning Thymeleaf. I needed it because I need a replacement to the taglib jars. They will not be usable with the newest Java compiler. This is the best alternative. I will use it if there is no other choice. And I heard good things about ThymeLeaf. It took some research, And I was able to create a very simple application. It exercises the minimum set of requirements I have. I have not yet made it work with Spring Security. First I will add Bootstrap 3.3.7 to it. Then make a small tutorial, Post it here and possibly for codeproject. Then I will move on with Spring Security.

I returned to Spring Boot programming two days ago. First, I decided to learn how to use ThymeLeaf. I was using JSF, and TagLib. But both implementations are getting old. They will not work with Java version above 8. As of now, the warning does not prevent the application from running. But I cannot guarantee this would be the case five years from now. I need a replacement. This site is not affected now, but if needed, I can rip all that out replace the old code with ThymeLeaf.

But I hit some issue which took me two hours to resolve. This really made me feel getting old. It was a silly mistake, It was eventually resolved. But it annoyed me pretty bad. I put that in the past. Today, I did some code design with the ConrollerAdvice, a way of catch all the exceptions, then return either a web page or a JSON message. The coding was smooth sailing. The thing is, since I have done this web site, I was not as focused. I do the spare time work while watching TV. And I just don't see some of the tiny mistakes I made, and that would waste time chasing these mistakes - focus is important.

It has been a week, with no new updates. What is wrong with me? Here are some catching up:

• I completed the prototype of the Android application. It took a while but I still got it. I loaded the application on to an Android pad and it work just as I expected. There are more to be done. I will put it aside and will pick it when time comes.
• I played Dragon Quest XIfor a while. The main character got to level 10, and met the dragon. Got second companion. The luscious colors of the game gave me headaches. I heard this is the reason the Japanese version thanks the actual player for stop playing and rest.
• I was working on a project page where I list out all the places I have visited since birth, it turned out to be a long list. I have been to a lot of places since the immigration. It is truly an adventure. I will keep exploring... This list is still in progress.

Yesterday, I finally returned to writing web application again. Here is my thought, the application development technology is old. Eventually, some of the libraries will not be working in the mix. The new things even though I hate, will be supplementing the old ones I like. I used to dislike Spring Boot. Now I used it like my left hand. It was just convenient. The new things I am exploring will be just like Spring Boot. I will get the first simple program working, then write a codeproject tutorial, then expand with more functionalities. Hopefully, by the end of the year, I have enough materials for some potential new projects.

Game Image, Used under nonprofit/fair use/educational purposes.

On Sunday (yesterday), the water heater was dead, only lukewarm water available. The whole family didn't shower. Turned out, the ignition of the water heater was off. And there is a way to re-ignite the spark. And I was able to turn it on. Disaster avoided, Then the Monday went through smoothly. It was one of these days when one thing worked, everything worked.

I played some game on Sunday. First I was playing No Man's Sky. And I finally got sick of it. So I switched to Dragon Quest XI. I hope it wouldn't be a mistake as it will take a lot of work to play through. The truth is that I am a bit scared of Days Gone. And Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is a bit annoying with all the jumps and acrobats. I would eventually get back to Fallen Order. For now I will enjoy some simple game play.

The Android application is almost done. I just added some extra code to prevent pop up dialog to close, And I added the text resources to display at different stages. Finally I got Pixel C pad emulator and got the application run on it and it looked OK. So it would work with a phone and with a larger pad. The time to test it completely is almost there. I am happy with the progress,

It has been five days since my last update. A lot has happened. I just want t summarize here before I go and play games. First, the black car's left head light was not working, And the fuel door cannot pop open. The car dealer fixed the head light, but not fixed the fuel door. It is probably because the mechanic couldn't reproduce the issue. They clean the fuel door compartment and call it fixed. I was not too happy about it. When I was about to bring the car back in for another fix, I found a temporary solution. There is an manual release, I used it to open the fuel door. And now it can be popped open. Unfortunately, I tried again on 9/19/2020 morning, it was stuck again. Good thing the manual release still works.

I was working on an Android application. It took five nights, And I have it running now. I need to do some clean up, add some new functionality, then it can be deployed for testing. I can't reveal too much of this application. I am happy about the progress I have made. I have not done Android application for at least 10 years. And I picked it up right up no problem. I learned more from this than I did 10 years ago.

I mistaken a router as network extender. It was ridiculous. And I had to make another purchase. Hopefully, it will be the right ones. And I still forgot to buy the steel metal plate for the phone (used with a magnet to put on the car dash board). I guess I will try remember next time. I download and installed TikTok, just in case the ban prevent future installation of the app.