Josh Adams's Blog

Adios, Flash Player! (or How I Uninstalled Flash Player and Got Away with It)

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 05:55:00 GMT

When I worked at Adobe, people would often tell me they knew of Adobe because "that's the thing that is always telling me I have to update on my computer." Those comments have echoed in my mind of late after the release of 3 security updates for Flash Player in February 2013. Now here's the thing: I appreciate that Adobe takes pains to plug the security holes discovered in Flash Player and in this sense, these updates are a good thing. Additionally, I know that Flash Player is one of the most widely distributed pieces of software in the world and as such it makes sense that it would be a popular attack target for the bad guys out there. And finally, I know that making perfect software is simply impossible. Still, it's an unavoidable fact that if Flash Player didn't have these security holes in the first place, it wouldn't need all these security updates. When I mentioned on Facebook my perturbation with having to install these frequent Flash Player updates on my MacBook Air (every time I install a Flash Player update, I have to restart all my browsers which is inconvenient), my friend John Mason suggested I simply remove Flash Player, saying "you'll be surprised how many sites have already moved on." And so I thought about it: I do a lot of web browsing on my iPad and I essentially never have issues with my web experience as a result of the lack of Flash Player on the device (and of course, it's worth noting that it is precisely this lack of Flash Player on iOS devices that is the reason why many sites have, in John's words, "moved on" from Flash content). So I realized maybe I could live without Flash Player on my MacBook Air--and when I thought about the fact that on my MacBook Air, Flash Player has a tendency to use up massive amounts of resources for no apparent reason (don't get me wrong: I know this issue isn't entirely Flash Player's fault but that in fact the developers of the Flash content delivered to my MacBook Air have a role in this issue too--but it doesn't matter who is responsible for the issue, what's pertinent is that the issue exists), it became pretty clear that John's suggestion seemed to have a lot of merit. And so I uninstalled Flash Player. But I also have Google Chrome installed on my system and Google Chrome has its own built-in version of Flash Player so I had to disable that instance of Flash Player too (disabling Flash Player in Chrome is as easy as browsing to chrome://plugins and selecting the Disable link in the Adobe Flash Player listing on the page). And how did my web experience change? For the most part, it didn't: as I mentioned was already the case with my iPad, by and large I can use the web just fine without Flash Player. Every now and then, I have to use a little deception to make that happen (don't worry: I'm only deceiving servers, not people!). Let me explain: I've noticed that YouTube will sometimes tell me that I have to have Flash Player to view a video (it's my understanding that this has to do with advertising but the reason isn't of any actual importance so I'm not going to look into it further)--yet these same videos work just fine on my iPad. Why is this the case? Well, without doing all the work required to be able to give a definitive answer, I'll give an answer in which I have complete confidence: YouTube knows that I could have Flash Player on my MacBook Air if I wanted to but on my iPad, Flash Player cannot be installed; accordingly, YouTube tells me on my MacBook Air to install Flash Player but on my iPad it simply serves up an alternative format of the video. So where does the deception come in? I installed the User-Agent Switcher for Chrome extension to Chrome and that allows me to set Chrome to "masquerade" as another browser; when YouTube tells me that I need to install Flash Player, I simply use User-Agent Switcher for Chrome to have Chrome masquerade as an iPad and I'm able to view the video I want to watch just fine in Chrome. So far I've only done this for YouTube but I expect I'll use this same trick from time to time for other video sites. So great! But it's all well and good to trick a site into giving me another format of a video but let's say some part of a site's functionality is in Flash and there's no alternative functionality I can use; if I need to use that functionality, what do I do then? The great news is that enabling the Flash Player plug-in in Chrome is as easy as disabling the Flash Player plug-in (you just browse to chrome://plugins and select the Enable link in the Adobe Flash Player listing on the page) and the changes take effect immediately without Chrome needing to be restarted. So if I need to view any Flash content, I just enable the Flash Player plug-in in Chrome and when I'm done with my need for the plug-in, I again disable it in Chrome. Since you can do this same thing for any plug-in, I recommend disabling other plug-ins in Chrome you don't expect to need frequently. On my MacBook Air, I disabled the Java plug-in Chrome in addition to Flash Player and I recommend you disable the Java plug-in in Chrome too: chances are slim that you'll have greater need for Java than you do Flash Player so you may as well turn it off and preclude it using resources and creating security holes (I'm not giving Java top billing here because I didn't actually go to the point of uninstalling it from my MacBook Air completely...yet!). If you're on Windows, the same holds true for the Silverlight plug-in in Chrome. Let's say you don't currently use Google Chrome: what then? Well, install it! You don't have to use it all the time: you can keep it on "standby" and use it only when you need a browser with Flash Player. Now, I personally do use Chrome as my main browser because it won me over with its ability to sync bookmarks and open tabs across devices and perhaps you too will find this capability makes it worth giving Chrome a look. One other thing I recommend you do while you're adjusting Chrome's settings is set the Plug-ins for "Click to Play" (browse to chrome://settings/content and choose the "Click to Play" radio button on the page); this option precludes any plug-ins from running content unless you specifically click on the area for the content (you can do a similar thing in many other browsers; I leave it to you to search out the details for your browser of choice). With this option on, Flash content, like all plug-in content, won't play even with the Flash Player plug-in enabled unless you click on an area for Flash content (thereby expressly indicating you want that specific content to play); this gives you granular control over Flash content at such times as you do choose to enable the Flash Player plug-in. So why not just use this and not disable the Flash Player plug-in? First, I just don't want Flash Player there at all where it can use up resources (though I suspect that with "Click to Play" set for plug-ins, Flash Player wouldn't use significant resources). Second, I want my browser to tell sites I don't have Flash because that way they'll send me any alternative content they may deliver to clients without Flash Player (and remember, all iOS clients are Flash Player-free so alternative content for Flash Player-free browsers is a very real and common thing for sites to deliver).

iOS Messages App Handles Replies to Group Messages Completely Wrong

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 21:45:00 GMT

Imagine if you will an email program in which Reply All is not only the default reply option but also the only reply option. Most annoying thing ever? Nope: a text application that works like that would be the most annoying thing ever--and as it happens, that's exactly how the iOS Messages application works: if you receive a group message (or group MMS or group SMS or group iMessage message or whatever else) on an iOS device, you can reply to all the recipients of that message but you cannot reply directly to only the sender*. I'm shocked that Apple--that anyone--would implement Reply All as the default for replying to a group message and I'm even more dumbfounded that this is the only reply option available: surely it is not unimaginable to Apple that some users might value the ability to reply back only to the sender of any given group message as a per-message option.** But hey: mistakes and bad decisions are made by all of us in life; it's not the end of the world! But it sure would be nice if it were fixed: Apple, please recognize the disaster that this implementation is (if by no other means than by way of all the annoying group text replies that your employees themselves surely receive as a result of this implementation) and fix it. My thanks! *Workaround (albeit one that, as well as I can tell, pretty much no one ever uses): create a brand new message to only the sender. The keyword there is "workaround": it is not by any means a justification for not enabling a direct "reply to sender" functionality in the Messages app. **There is apparently the ability to turn off group messages at a global level in iOS. This apparently prevents you from being able to send group messages; I do not know if it prevents you from receiving group messages or not. Going back to the earlier email analogy, this would be like an email program that won't let you put more than a single recipient on any given email and potentially like an email program that won't let you receive emails unless you're the only recipient on them.

The Times They Are A-Changin': New Baby, New Job

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 14:00:00 GMT

Well! These past 2 days have been rather action-packed! First things first: I am pleased to announce that yesterday afternoon, my beautiful wife Kendall delivered our first child. Our daughter Hallie Elizabeth Adams was born into the world at 12:14 PM EST on Sunday, January 6, 2013. She is being monitored for some kidney issues we already knew about from prenatal ultrasounds but otherwise is healthy and doing very well. We posted a picture of our happy family on the post we added on our family blog. As if that wasn't enough activity for one day, I started a new job today as well! I'm honored and excited to have accepted a role as a Senior Solution Consultant with Ariba, an SAP company. It's interesting how sometimes things come full-circle: Ariba is the leader in business commerce and corporate procurement, an industry in which I worked at the start of my career over 15 years ago! Ariba has been very understanding about the near-simultaneous timing of these 2 wonderful events and they are allowing me to ease into the job slowly, which I very much appreciate. I think I'm going to be just a little bit busy for a little while... :)

My New Job: Senior Solution Consultant at Ariba

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 14:00:00 GMT

I am pleased to announce that I started a new job today: I'm honored and excited to have accepted a role as a Senior Solution Consultant with Ariba, an SAP company. It's interesting how sometimes things come full-circle: Ariba is the leader in business commerce and corporate procurement, an industry in which I worked at the start of my career over 15 years ago!

Recommendation for First-time Expectant Fathers: Boot Camp for New Dads

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 04:55:00 GMT

A couple of weeks back I took a Boot Camp for New Dads class at Northside Hospital and it was awesome! I didn't realize it at the time, but it turns out that Boot Camp for New Dads is a national and even international organization! So if you're in the Atlanta area, you can participate in a class at Northside or (at least ostensibly) a class at Kennestone and if you're elsewhere, the Boot Camp for New Dads site will help you find information on classes in your area. At Northside the class was a mere $35 and I felt like it was money extremely well-spent in helping me learn practical and useful information regarding what to expect as I get ready for fatherhood. I'm not saying this class, or any class, is sufficient for one to learn everything one needs to be a father, I'm just saying for me it was very beneficial and I highly recommend it. If you'd like a copy of the notes I took in the class, request one in a comment on this blog post and I'll see about shooting you off a copy via email. By the way, our little girl is now due in only 1 more month! :)

Lindsey Buckingham's Holiday Road (from National Lampoon's Vacation) on CD: A Hollywood Christmas

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 03:20:00 GMT

I'm reticent to post this because, topically speaking, it's extremely out of character for my blog, which up to now has been pretty much exclusively about technology with the occasional personal post. However, in my experience this is difficult information to find--and detailing hard-to-find information is very much in keeping with the character of my blog! Hopefully this post will be found by others searching for the song on CD in the future. So with that: onward! If you're a fan of the National Lampoon's Vacation film series, you'll doubtlessly be familiar with Lindsey Buckingham's seminal "Holiday Road." Now, let's say you want to enjoy this song on CD or download a legitimate digital version of it--well, it turns out it's not so easy to find! As well as I can tell, as of this writing, it's not available for legitimate digital download at all (well, there's a live version readily available but I can't find the version used in the film). And when it comes to finding a legitimate CD with the song on it, I've only been able to find it on one: A Hollywood Christmas. I had a lot of difficulty in finding the existence of this song on this CD by searching for the song on places like Google and Amazon; I was only able to find it via AllMusic. What about soundtracks for the films? There are claims that "Holiday Road" was made available on CD via a limited CD run of the soundtrack for National Lampoon's Vacation as well as via a limited CD run of the soundtrack for National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. The research I've done leads me to believe that these CDs are merely bootlegs for which someone has created a compelling faux backstory. As far as legitimate soundtracks for these films go: there was a soundtrack for National Lampoon's Vacation released on vinyl and maybe cassette but not CD (it was released with the film in 1983 and not everything--or much of anything I think--was released on CD at that time; I like vinyl and all but it's not what I'm looking for here). As for National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, it appears it never had a soundtrack released on any media. Incidentally, "Holiday Road" is in no way a Christmas song--and in fact, the irony is that it's so much not a Christmas song that, from what I've read, the only one of the four major Vacation films that doesn't include the song is Christmas Vacation (a fact that makes the purported limited run soundtrack for that film all the more suspect as there is no reason it should include "Holiday Road" if the song wasn't even in the film). So it is odd that it appears on A Hollywood Christmas. I suspect that someone at WEA knew it wasn't available on CD and took A Hollywood Christmas as an opportunity to rectify that situation, even though it wasn't exactly a perfect fit. But whatever the reason, I'm glad it's there!

My Savings War

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 20:40:00 GMT

I'm fighting a war on "savings." Not savings the concept, but "savings" the word: I'm fighting to get it back, back from all the marketing and advertising people who have stolen it from us. Raise your hand if you believe that saving and savings are good. Now wave at everyone who is looking at you and wondering why you raised your hand while reading from your computer (or mobile device or whatever you're using). You may look silly with your hand raised, but the point here is that everyone believes that saving and savings are good and so if everyone else reading this participated as well as you, you wouldn't be the only one looking silly right now. Now, raise your hand if you believe that you can save money when buying things, like perhaps due to a sale a store is having. If you're again looking silly with your hand raised, this time I'm hoping you're not in good company. But take heart: untold amounts of money have been spent by marketers and advertisers who want you to believe that you can save money when buying things. Unfortunately, this leaves you...wait for it...looking silly. Here's the deal: we have all been taught that saving and savings are good things; these are values that are instilled in us. And saving and savings--real saving and real savings--are good things! Now, let's talk about spending: no, the point isn't that spending is, by contrast with saving, bad. Spending is necessary, at least for the vast majority of us. What spending always is, however, is the complete opposite of saving! So: if go into a store and come out with stuff, you have spent money and you have not saved money. What's wrong with that? In and of itself, nothing: as I said, spending is necessary. But what's good about spending? Well, when you're buying things you need, that's a good thing (or at least, if you're able to afford the necessities of your life, that's a good thing). But...well, the truth for many of us is that we don't actually need most of what we buy. Now, we all know that marketers and advertisers work to convince us that we need things we really don't need and they're good at this. But there's always something there we can argue against. So you know what an even better strategy for them is? Divert our attention away from that issue and instead focus on something we all believe in: saving money! So that's exactly what they do: they tell us how much we can "save" by buying from them during whatever sales promotion it is they're doing. And we get all excited because we get what we want (whatever they're selling) and we get to "save" (which we value). It's subtle--and brilliant. It's brilliant because it works. And it works so well that they've managed to steal "savings" from us and completely redefine it. Take a look the last paragraph of this ABC News article and you'll see an example (I tried to post a comment about this subject to this article but I guess it wasn't approved; well, fine: I'll just include a link to their article here in my blog post instead). You may think how we define "savings" is mere semantics and a trivial issue but it's not: because of the fact that we value savings, it's psychologically important for us to define it properly. So let's take "savings" back--and lets use it to refer to holding onto our money, not spending it.

Adobe Adventures, the Final Chapter: Moving on

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 22:20:00 GMT

It is with great excitement that I announce that I have left Adobe to seek new opportunities. My 4.5+ years at Adobe were amazing: joining Adobe was a great choice--in fact, it was without a doubt the best choice I could have made at the time. I am leaving very much better for the experience than when I arrived and I have incredible customers and partners as well as great colleagues past and present to thank for that. So thank you! I joined Adobe in February 2008 as the Senior Solutions Consultant for ColdFusion for North America (see this blog post). At the beginning of this fiscal year, I was moved to a new team, the Web Experience Management Solutions Consulting team, and I worked with CQ and Scene7. Both of these roles were wonderful experiences and I gained so much from them. However, due to some organizational changes at Adobe combined with a number of extremely encouraging conversations with external organizations, I chose to leave Adobe at the end of September. Leaving Adobe is certainly bittersweet for me: as I mentioned above, joining Adobe was a great choice and I'm leaving very much better for the experience and I will miss so many people I had the pleasure of interacting with in my roles at Adobe. Getting to be the ColdFusion SC was a dream job and the opportunity to work with CQ and Scene7 was tremendous as well. However, as I also mentioned above, the conversations I've had about external opportunities have me feeling very excited and encouraged about what comes next for me and it just appears at this point that the best fit is going to be outside Adobe. I was initially going to hold posting about my departure from Adobe until such time as I have made a choice as to what the next thing is going to be--but I decided to get this on out there now while I'm still investigating my options because it's always possible that someone reading this will know about an opportunity that is even better than the great opportunities I am already considering. :) So: if you have available or know of any opportunities I should know about, please let me know! The best way to reach me is to fill out my contact form. Thanks! I look forward to updating you very soon about my next adventure!

We're Having a Baby Girl!

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 16:12:12 GMT

As posted on our family blog, we're having a baby girl!

Adobe ColdFusion 10 and Adobe ColdFusion Builder 2.0.1 - Available Now!

Wed, 16 May 2012 03:50:00 GMT

Exciting news: Adobe ColdFusion 10 was released earlier today (sorry for the delay in posting: busy day!). Check it out at http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion-family.html. ColdFusion 10 (previously known by its codename, Zeus) has various exciting features such as HTML5 websockets, HTML5 charting, security enhancements, Tomcat integration, improved Web Services support through Axis 2, and more. Thanks to the ColdFusion Engineering Team for building a great ColdFusion 10! Also released today was ColdFusion Builder 2, Update 1 (brings ColdFusion Builder 2 up to ColdFusion Builder 2.0.1). This is a free update for ColdFusion Builder 2. Get it at http://www.adobe.com/support/coldfusion/downloads_updates.html#cfb2. And check out the official ColdFusion Product Team blog at http://blogs.coldfusion.com for posts from the engineers who built the features of ColdFusion 10 as well as announcements about eSeminars and other events where you can learn more about ColdFusion 10.

Setting Firefox to Open External Links in a New Window

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 20:45:00 GMT

I finally got fed up with Firefox (I'm using Firefox 11.0) opening external links (that is, links launched from other programs, such as by clicking a link in an email in Outlook) in a new tab in the current window instead of in a new window and so I figured out the setting to change to make external links instead open in a new window: browser.link.open_newwindow.override.external. I can't find this documented well anywhere and thus I'm writing this blog post in the hope it helps future searchers for the solution to this same issue. In my install of Firefox, the value of browser.link.open_newwindow.override.external was by default -1. After some trial and error, I found that by setting it to 2, external links open in a new tab. And to be clear, this is in the situation where I have Firefox set so that new pages opened from within Firefox open in new tabs (except in the case of popup windows: there's another setting for those). If you simply want all new pages to always open in new windows instead of new tabs, you don't need to set browser.link.open_newwindow.override.external: all you have to do is uncheck "Open new windows in a new tab" in the Tabs tab of Preferences and you'll be set to have ALL new pages always open in new windows, no matter if they're opened from within Firefox or from external sources (again, with the exception of popups for which there is another setting, specifically browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction). If you don't know how to access these settings I'm talking about, the short story is that you type about:config in your Firefox's address bar. The longer story can be found at http://kb.mozillazine.org/About:config. By the way, I make use of multiple tabs in Firefox, I just don't use them for random collections of pages: I use multiple tabs to open multiple pages related in a way I deem important. For multiple pages that are not related in a way I deem important, I use different windows. This keeps things organized effectively in Firefox for me. So since, more often than not, the new pages being opened in new tabs are not related to the other tabs in said windows, it makes more sense to open them in new windows than it does to open them in a new tab in an existing window.

Company & Product Recommendation: ZAGG & the ZAGGfolio

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 13:50:00 GMT

The product recommendation:
The ZAGGfolio for iPad 2. If you're going to get The new iPad (you may refer to it as the iPad 3; Apple isn't referring to it that way, however), you're covered too: ZAGG is already selling the ZAGGfolio for The new iPad and I'm sure it's just as awesome, maybe even more so, as the ZAGGfolio for iPad 2. And Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 users, there's a ZAGGfolio for Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 too. The backstory:
When Adobe issued me an iPad 2 to use in my job, I...well, I really didn't care. See, I'm not a technology for technology's sake type of person; to the contrary, I'm only interested in technology that can really provide value to me and I just didn't see a tablet doing that. In fact, I already had a tablet, a 7" Samsung Galaxy Tab (also issued to me by Adobe), that I didn't use much. You may be thinking "well, that's an Android device and iOS is the only way to go"; for me this is not true: for me, both iOS and Android have their pros/cons; I have an Android phone (the Motorola Atrix) and so I'm comfortable in Android and my non-use of my 7" Samsung Galaxy Tab was in no way because it is an Android device. You may be thinking "well, a 7" tablet is too small, that's why you didn't use it" and that's not it for me either: to the contrary, the interesting thing is that, for me, one of the great attributes of a tablet to me is portability and because a 7" tablet is more portable than a 10" tablet (I can fit it in the side pocket of my cargo shorts!), I anticipated that the 7" Samsung Galaxy Tab would be my tablet of choice whenever I did use a tablet--so I thought that I would use the iPad 2 even less than the 7" Samsung Galaxy Tab. The issue for me isn't screen size and the issue for me isn't operating system--the issue for me is whether or not the device has a keyboard I can use approximately as well as a full-size physical keyboard. When consuming content (such as when clicking around the Internet), a tablet is all I need. But when creating content, I need a device with a keyboard--a real keyboard, not a software keyboard on the screen. Both Android tablets and iPads allow the use of any Bluetooth keyboard. However, as previously mentioned, portability is for me one of the key attributes of a tablet and so what I needed was something that would bundle up my iPad2 and a Bluetooth keyboard all in one convenient package. And that's exactly wha the ZAGGfolio for iPad 2 provides. Before buying the ZAGGfolio, I did a lot of online research into iPad2 cases that include a Bluetooth keyboard. There are quite a large number of them available and most of them cost less than the ZAGGfolio. But only the ZAGGfolio has what I consider to be a faithful recreation of a MacBook keyboard and that was critical to me. You may say "well, I'm a Windows person so I don't care if my tablet Bluetooth keyboard is laid out like a Mac keyboard or not" but I'm pretty sure that if you compare your keyboard to a Mac keyboard, you'll see that they're very similar whereas if you compare your keyboard to the Bluetooth keyboards that come with some of these other iPad2 cases, you'll see that certain keys on those Bluetooth keyboards are shifted around. This made those other keyboards all non-starters for me. So, encouraged by a couple of online reviews calling the ZAGGfolio the best typing experience among iPad 2 cases with a Bluetooth keyboard, I purchased the the ZAGGfolio for iPad 2. As you can tell from the fact that I'm writing this review, I've been very pleased with the ZAGGfolio--so pleased that when my dad got an iPad 2, I bought him a ZAGGfolio too (and in the spirit of full disclosure I will note that the price of the ZAGGfolio for my iPad 2 was covered by Adobe as a business expense; however, the key point is that I like my ZAGGfolio so much that when paying out of my own pocket for a case for my father, I bought him the ZAGGfolio as well). In regards to comparison with other cases on the market, I can only provide this one small note: my uncle has another iPad 2 case with a Bluetooth keyboard and I used it briefly one day and the mucked-up keyboard layout definitely caused me trouble. UPDATE 2012-07-27: after seeing and using my ZAGGfolio, my uncle expressed interest in one so I bought him one for his birthday and he's loving it and he says it's much better than his previous iPad 2 case+keyboard (which, again, I already knew but the point is that he is very glad he made the switch). Having the ZAGGfolio has made a night-and-day difference in my use of the iPad 2: far from rarely using it, I use it constantly now. In fact, I typed most of this blog post on it, something I wouldn't dream of doing on the iPad 2 without a good physical keyboard. And, because it's so portable, I take it with me pretty much everywhere I go--in fact, my wife has been known to ask me if I'm really going to take it to such-and-such place that we're going (the answer: sometimes yes, sometimes no). I've been taking notes during church for years by hand but now I've switched to typing them, again something I wouldn't have dreamed about doing on the iPad 2 without a good physical keyboard. Speaking of notes, if I'm not presenting at a business meeting but rather am just taking notes, I'll leave my MacBook Pro behind and just use my iPad2 (by the way, I highly recommend Notability: it's a great note-taking and note-management app that can do a lot of cool things including recording audio and synching it up with the notes you type; last I knew, Notability was a mere $0.99). What about that 7" Samsung Galaxy Tab? Well, it still has the advantage that it fits in my cargo shorts so it might get some use here and there but since it doesn't have a physical keyboard, it pretty much just sits around. I will note, however, that if you just want to consume content, not create it, the 7" size is really great: it fits in one hand nicely (well, okay, my big hand at least) and it's a lot bigger than a mobile phone and definitely provides a much nicer user experience than a mobile phone--so if you're ruling out 7" tablets without ever using one because you think they're too small, check them out before you dismiss them so quickly. One last note: if you're thinking that all this sounds well and good but you'll just use your laptop, thank you very much: more power to you! It certainly can be hard to justify the cost of a tablet if you own a laptop. But a tablet does bring increased portability. And don't overlook battery life: my iPad 2 will get 10 hours easily on a single charge whereas my MacBook Pro can't go more than a few hours on a charge. Now, I hear that the MacBook Air with a solid state drive can go a really long time on a single charge and given its size and weight, the portability argument for an iPad is weakened for MacBook Air owners. In regards to user experience: I personally find that it can be more enjoyable to do certain things on a tablet (for instance, I prefer the Weather Channel iPad app over their website though for Windows users they do have a Windows app that looks very similar to the iPad app) and on the flip side, other things are more enjoyable to do on a desktop/laptop; sometimes one being preferable to the other is due to the paradigm of the OS itself but many times it is due to app considerations (as with the example above where Weather Channel has an iPad app but not, at the time of this writing, a Mac OS X app). Note that ZAGG has run some promos in the past to sweeten the pot a little on the ZAGGfolios so you might look around for those (if you contact me I may be able to see what I can do to help you find a promo).

The company recommendation:
ZAGG The backstory:
It's important that I broaden things out a little bit to a general company recommendation, not just a product recommendation, because I've had a really good experience with the folks at ZAGG. My nephew accidentally broke a key on my dad's ZAGGfolio; I emailed ZAGG about it, asking if I could get a replacement key and not only did they email me back quickly, they sent me a free replacement key! Now that's a company that stands behind its products! It was through no fault of their workmanship that the ZAGGfolio broke but they went to time and expense to help me get it fixed anyway. I'm tempted to say "that's how business should be done" but I think it's better than that: it would have been perfectly fine for them to charge a reasonable few dollars for shipping & handling. But instead, they went over and above and I think that really speaks highly of ZAGG. UPDATE 2012-07-27: my dad learned his lesson about letting my nephew use the iPad while it's in the ZAGGfolio--yet somehow my nephew got hold of the iPad in the ZAGGfolio and broke some more keys so dad got in touch with ZAGG and once again they came through with free keys. Awesome! But dad certainly doesn't want to take advantage of the generosity of ZAGG so here's to hoping he can keep the ZAGGfolio away from my nephew!

Outlook 2011 for Mac Email Reply Name Is Wrong + Changing Registration Name for Office 2011 for Mac

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 05:05:00 GMT

I recently wrote a blog post about Outlook 2011 for Mac showing my name as "Default User Nam" in replies. I had no idea why Outlook 2011 for Mac was using "Default User Nam" so I presumed that, in keeping with the name itself, it was a program default. But then I noticed something: when any of the Office 2011 for Mac apps loaded on my machine, they showed that "Default User Nam" in the load banner. Maybe that's what you get if you install Office 2011 for Mac and don't put something else in--but maybe it's just what ended up in there specifically in my case when Adobe IT did this install. But in any case, it makes one thing pretty clear: in my case, the name that shows on the load banner for Office 2011 for Mac programs (you might also refer to this as the name used to register Office 2011 for Mac) is the name that was used to create the initial contact for "me" in Outlook 2011 for Mac. So, for what it's worth, that's certainly how the issue I described in my referenced blog post above (the issue of Outlook 2011 for Mac showing "Default User Nam" for me when writing an email reply) came about. Now, if you want to change the name to which Office 2011 for Mac is actually registered, check out this forum thread. This will change what appears in those Office 2011 for Mac load banners. However, I strongly suspect that this won't fix the issue with Outlook 2011 for Mac using the incorrect name for you when you write a reply--but the good news is that the instructions in my blog post linked above will help you fix that issue. And note that while in my case there is strong evidence that the two issues were related, they don't have to be. So you might have your name properly entered for Office 2011 for Mac such that it shows up correctly in the load banners and yet you still might be getting the right name showing up for yourself in reply emails--well, that's okay: my blog post linked above will still help you solve that issue. It doesn't matter if you're getting "Default User Nam" as the wrong name for yourself when replying to email or if you're getting some other random wrong name or even if you're getting the name of one of your real contacts: it's all ultimately the same situation and going through the instructions on my blog post linked above will help you.

Outlook 2011 for Mac "Default User Nam"

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 16:45:00 GMT

As of the time of the writing of this post, there is no other information about this situation anywhere online I can find--and that's exactly why I'm writing this post! So hopefully, going forward, if you search for "Outlook Default User Nam" or "Default User Nam Outlook" or some other similar thing, you end up here. 2012-02-28 UPDATE: I can see that this post has already been indexed by some search engines and is appearing first in the results for the relevant searches. Great!

The problem:

When you create a reply to a message in Outlook 2011 for Mac, in the included message (that is, the part beneath where the message you're composing is, the part that shows the message that was sent to you, the message thread), where it shows your information, it shows your name as "Default User Nam" (or perhaps for you it is showing something different but still wrong; this post will help you too) in a manner such as this:


From: Kendall Adams <kendall@whateverdomainyouuse.com>
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2012 08:30:00 -0800
To: Default User Nam <josh@whateverdomainyouuse.com>

See that instead of "Josh Adams" it says "Default User Nam" for me? Not cool. So why does this happen--and most importantly, how do you fix it? You'd think it would be as simple as changing the name associated with your email account; it's not. But I figured out what you need to do--read on!

The solution:

If you don't already have On My Computer folders turned on, do the following:

Click the Outlook menu and then choose Preferences...
In the Outlook Preferences dialog box, choose the General item in the Personal Settings section.
In the General dialog box, clear the checkbox next to Hide On My Computer folders (that is, make sure that checkbox is not checked).
Close the dialog box (use the red circle/x in the upper left corner).

Once you can see On My Computer folders, here's what you do to actually fix the problem:

Go to Contacts.
You should see My Contacts in the navigation view (the tree view) and one of the items in that view should be On My Computer; click On My Computer.
In the list of Contacts, you will see the culprit: a contact with the name "Default User Nam" (it might be the only thing listed, particularly if you're using Exchange because in that situation generally the rest of your contacts are kept on the Exchange server, not on your computer).
Now you either simply change the name on that contact to your name or, if like me you already have a contact for yourself set up, you can tell Outlook that the contact for you is in fact you by clicking on your contact then clicking on the Contact menu and then choosing This Contact Is Me. Note that after you do this, you'll want to delete the offending "Default User Nam" contact. Also note that Outlook won't let you choose This Contact Is Me for contacts on an Exchange server; however, you can copy your contact for yourself from the Exchange server to On My Computer: find your contact for yourself and hold down the alt key while you drag & drop it onto On My Computer.

If you have any problems with the instructions above, please let me know via a comment. I want this post to be helpful to people so if you hit a snag with it, please let me know so that I can help you work through it.

Twitterfeed

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 00:20:00 GMT

Twitterfeed (http://twitterfeed.com) is a service that publishes tweets on your behalf (that is, using your Twitter account) from feeds (for instance, from your blog) you provide to it. This is cool but the really nice thing is that its name paints a more restrictive picture than is reality: Twitterfeed can also publish updates on your behalf to Facebook and LinkedIn. And each of these is optional so you can publish to any or all of Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I've chosen to set up Twitterfeed to publish to all of Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. So that means that a notification about this, my first blog post written since I began using Twitterfeed, should get published out to my Twitter account, my Facebook account, and my LinkedIn account. Cool, huh? How do you get updates about your blog posts out to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn?

Super Shuttle Interferes with MiFi

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 22:20:00 GMT

I just had the weirdest experience: my devices connected fine to my Verizon 4G LTE MiFi hotspot immediately before and then also immediately after my ride in a Super Shuttle but during the time I was in the Super Shuttle none of the devices (and I tried 3) would connect to the hotspot. The WiFi network of the hotspot was still there and detected by the devices and upon choosing to connect, I would be prompted for the WiFi password but after entering it, I would get a connection timeout. So strange. What in a Super Shuttle could cause that?!? I should have done a WiFi analysis--that was a missed opportunity! I have previously experienced where in a WiFi-heavy area the hotspot simply did not broadcast an SSID. I later searched for information on this issue and found others have experienced it as well (see https://community.verizonwireless.com/thread/666385) and they, like me, consider it a bug that needs to be fixed but in the meantime, the workaround is to set the device to use a specific channel, which I did. Maybe that channel was overwhelmed or something. Is that possible? Is there a circumstance around that issue where I'd be able to see the WiFi network but not connect to it? Anyway, if you too hit this issue, know that you're not alone. And if you have any thoughts as to how to deal with it, let me know. Fortunately, I have no plans to ride in Super Shuttle again any time soon. But avoiding Super Shuttle in and of itself is all well and good--but there's nothing that says that this issue couldn't crop up somewhere else too, which is why I'd sure love to get to the bottom of it.

ColdFusion IDE Survey

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:15:00 GMT

The ColdFusion team is conducting a survey on ColdFusion IDEs. From the survey:

We are conducting a survey to understand the the IDE that you use to build your Adobe ColdFusion applications. Your feedback is valuable for us. It will take less than a minute to answer this simple two question survey.

Would you be so kind as to provide your feedback? You can find the survey at http://svy.mk/yEvFtH.

Adobe ColdFusion 10 beta and Adobe ColdFusion Builder 2.0.1 beta - Available Now!

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 20:30:00 GMT

The beta releases of Adobe ColdFusion 10 and Adobe ColdFusion Builder 2.0.1 are now available on Adobe Labs at http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/coldfusion10. Check them out and give us your feedback! ColdFusion 10 (previously known by its codename, Zeus) has various exciting features such as HTML5 websockets, HTML5 charting, security enhancements, Tomcat integration, improved Web Services support through Axis 2, and more. Thanks to the ColdFusion Engineering Team for building a great ColdFusion 10. And check out the official ColdFusion Product Team blog at http://blog.coldfusion.com for posts from the engineers who built the features of ColdFusion 10 as well as announcements about eSeminars and other events where you can learn more about ColdFusion 10.

ColdFusion 9 and FusionReactor Offer

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:50:00 GMT

I received the following information from my friends at Intergral: ---- Intergral (makers of FusionReactor Server Monitor) are currently running a promotion together with Adobe. If you purchase either a new or upgrade license to ColdFusion 9 Enterprise, you will receive FusionReactor Enterprise Server Monitor 1 Year Subscription, absolutely free. If you purchase a new license of ColdFusion 9 Standard, we'll give you a copy of FusionReactor Standard 1 Year Subscription. Our prices for ColdFusion are also very competitive, so this is really a great deal. If you purchase Platinum Support with your new ColdFusion license, then you are entitled to receive all upgrades and updates to ColdFusion in the next 12 months following your purchase this means that if Adobe releases the next release of ColdFusion [note from Josh: the next release of ColdFusion is currently known by the codename Zeus and you can find more information on it by Googling for "Coldfusion Zeus"] within the next 12 months [note from Josh: Adobe has stated that the next release of ColdFusion will be in 2012, so certainly within the next 12 months], you will receive it as part of your Platinum Support contract. As support only costs 20% of the license purchase price, this is a fantastic offer to ensure you stay on the latest version of ColdFusion. These offers are only available until Jan 31st 2012! See all our offers here: http://www.fusion-reactor.com/adobe ---- This is great stuff! Thanks for making this great offer available to ColdFusion customers, Intergral!

Your Website + Mobile Devices

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 21:00:00 GMT

When I first got an iPhone in 2008, mobile websites weren't all that common--and this was perfectly fine because the browser on an iPhone is very capable of working with "regular" websites (save those using Flash, of course). But in the time since, mobile websites have become all the rage. This is a very good thing as mobile-optimized websites are certainly more convenient on mobile devices than are sites that are designed for desktop browsers. But the vast majority of mobile-optimized websites only present a fraction of the content of the full website. So what's a visitor to do if he/she wants to get content that's on the full website but isn't on the mobile-optimized site (or, due simply to personal preference, just wants to use the full website on his/her mobile device)? The obvious answer is "visit the full website" but that's where things get tricky: it has been my experience that more frequently than not, mobile-optimized sites "trap" you and disallow you from getting to the full site. Trapped on a mobile site--how does this happen? Well, let's talk about how you get there in the first place: you don't go to something like mobile.mysite.com, do you? No, you just go to www.mysite.com just like you would on your computer; either that directly presents mobile content to you or it redirects you somewhere like mobile.mysite.com. How does the redirection happen? The site is developed such that the User-Agent value in the request header is inspected and when it is determined that the value provided corresponds to a mobile browser, the site serves up the mobile content or redirects you to the mobile site. You're probably then starting to see the "how" of getting trapped on a mobile site: because the site always does this header inspection, you always go the mobile site, no matter how hard you try to get to the full site. Trapped on a mobile site--why does this happen? This is a bit more of a complex question. The simple answer is the "how" answer. But why are sites developed this way to begin with? The intent is good: referencing back to the first paragraph, mobile-optimized websites are certainly more convenient on mobile devices and so site developers and owners want to give you the most convenient content for your device. But what so many of these site developers and owners are missing is the other things I said in the first paragraph: there's (generally) content on their full site users might want to access plus some users might just simply prefer to use the full site, even on a mobile device. Look, it's your site and you can do what you want. But if what you want is to serve your site's visitors in the way they like best, don't trap them in your mobile site. It appears that many mobile-optimized sites don't even consider this: they don't give you a link to get to the full site and, due to the aforementioned User-Agent request header analysis, they trap you in the mobile site no matter how hard you try to get to the full site. But there's another class of mobile-optimized sites that trap you and these are in a sense far more discouraging: the sites that do give you a link to the full site--but don't bother to test that it actually works. This is discouraging because it starts with a greater understanding as compared to the other class of sites that trap you--specifically, the understanding that site visitors might want to get to content on the full site--it's just not followed through effectively and as a result, it's vastly more frustrating because they leave you hitting their "visit full site" button in futility, looking like a fool. And this is by no means rare--I see this all the time. Folks, you have to test this stuff! Some of you probably think you do: but using an emulator/simulator isn't sufficient (clearly!). I understand: it's hard to test mobile sites properly because you have to actually use a mobile device and that's a pain. But whipping out a mobile device and pressing the "visit full site" button on your site, isn't all that difficult, is it? Testing is always mandatory, of course, but testing something broken is only going to prove to you it's broken--and if your site always inspects the User-Agent request header and serves the mobile content or redirects to the mobile site, your site is broken (in regards to allowing users to get to your full site). So if you're inspecting the User-Agent request header and serving the mobile content or redirecting to the mobile site in all circumstances, you don't need to test: first you need to make some code changes (and then you need to test those). If you don't have a "visit full site" link on your mobile site, this is complicated--how then do you know if the user wants to be on the mobile site or the full site? Serving the mobile site to mobile browsers by default and providing a "visit full site" link is the best approach. And if you're doing that then the code changes you need to make are to implement a system whereby if the user actually clicks that link, it supersedes the action taken to supply the mobile content based on the User-Agent request header. There are lots of approaches you can take for this but make sure whatever you do, it's permanent, at least for the duration of the user's session. That means you can't simply add something like a URL parameter of "fullsite=true" and expect that to be good enough because then when the user actually clicks on a link within the full site, he/she will be right back to mobile site. Using a URL parameter like "fullsite=true" is a good idea but you need to implement a system to allow the user to stay on the full site until he/she indicates he/she wants to get back to the mobile site (and, by the way, just as it is the best approach to give users a "visit full site" link on the mobile site, you need to give mobile users on the full site a "visit mobile site" link so they don't end up trapped in your full site). You can do this however you see fit--dynamically add something like "fullsite=true" to all the full site URLs, use a cookie variable that you inspect on every request, whatever you want--but be sure you do something or you're only going to create an even more frustrating experience than if you prevent the user from visiting the full site to begin with (and yes, I've seen this issue too). Bear in mind that you're not in the clear here just because you're only providing the content to software that someone else developed: just today I was looking at a Wordpress site and while it provided a "visit full site" link, even when I clicked on it, I still ended up redirected back to the mobile site. In fact, experiencing this issue in such a widely used system as Wordpress was the catalyst for me to write this post. I guess if you've made these same mistakes as a developer you can console yourself with the fact that even such well-known software has this issue (or at least did as of whatever version it was that was used by the site I was on). I know I sound crotchety here but a) I guess I am, sorry--I'm just truly flabbergasted as to how often this issue occurs b) seriously, I run into this issue all. the. time. c) did I mention that I see this frequently? and d) I really am trying to help (it took a long time to write this--I didn't do it complain, I did it to shed light on the issue so readers will get this right on their sites). 2012-01-23 UPDATE: I was hoping this post would generate more views, comments, and general traction that it apparently has. I guess it's that I don't have a good mechanism for socializing it properly. But please help me out: if you read this post and agree with it, send the URL to offending sites (via the Contact Us page or whatever)!

ColdFusion: Staying the Course

Mon, 14 Nov 2011 17:55:00 GMT

Following on the heels of the slew of Adobe announcements of last week, Adobe evangelist Terry Ryan released a blog post stating that ColdFusion Zeus is still under development and on schedule. We're still here--same leadership, engineers, and sales team as before last week--and we're still selling ColdFusion 9 and working hard on the next version of ColdFusion, codenamed ColdFusion Zeus. If you're interested in more on ColdFusion Zeus, your best bet at this point is to search "ColdFusion Zeus" but know that we'll be releasing more official information as the release draws closer (the official information we are able to disclose at this point is that we will be releasing Zeus sometime in 2012). If you have any questions or need licenses for ColdFusion 9, please feel free to post a comment here or to contact me directly.

ColdFusion 9 + Solr: Upcoming ColdFusion 9 eSeminar

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 15:35:00 GMT

One of the exciting new features in ColdFusion 9 is Apache Lucene Solr integration. Solr is an open source enterprise search server that you can use in place of Verity in ColdFusion 9 with few limitations? Want to learn more? I'm excited to announce that Adobe's own Ray Camden will be presenting an Adobe eSeminar on this top on Thursday, September 8, 2011 @ 10:00 AM PT (1700 GMT). For more details and to register, please visit http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=detail&id=1864016. If you'd like to read about ColdFusion 9's Solr integration, please visit http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/9.0/Developing/WS2B335964-A0DA-4add-B9FE-4041464EC9E1.html.

Getting Started with ColdFusion: Upcoming ColdFusion 9 eSeminars

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 15:00:00 GMT

The Adobe ColdFusion team has set up a 2-part eSeminar series that I will be presenting to help those new to ColdFusion get started. The first of these sessions is geared towards those who have never done any development but who are familiar with the basics of HTML. The second session builds on the first and is the perfect time for those who have done previous development but are new to ColdFusion to jump in. The sessions have been scheduled for a week apart so that attendees at the first session have a little time to practice their skills on their own after the first session in preparation for the second session. Join us! Here is the information on these sessions:

ColdFusion 9: Ridiculously Easy: The Basics - Tuesday, August 30, 2011 @ 10:00 AM PT (1700 GMT)
- Full details and registration: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=detail&id=1844274
ColdFusion 9: Ridiculously Easy: Web Applications - Tuesday, September 6, 2011 @ 10:00 AM PT (1700 GMT)
- Full details and registration: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=detail&id=1864012

Purchasing a ColdFusion Builder 2 + Flash Builder 4.5 Bundle

Tue, 31 May 2011 21:00:00 GMT

If you purchase either ColdFusion Builder 2 or Flash Builder 4.5 Premium as a standalone product (that is, not part of a Creative Suite 5.5 product bundle), you will get a license for both ColdFusion Builder 2 and Flash Builder 4.5 as follows:

ColdFusion Builder 2 includes a license for Flash Builder 4.5 Standard.
Flash Builder 4.5 Premium includes a license for ColdFusion Builder 2.

So these products then are actually mini-bundles, hence the title of this post. :) Two important notes:

While Creative Suite 5.5 Web Premium and Creative Suite 5.5 Master Collection both include a license for Flash Builder 4.5 Premium, neither includes a license for ColdFusion Builder 2. However, if you purchase Creative Suite 5.5 Web Premium or Creative Suite 5.5 Master Collection, you can purchase an upgrade license for ColdFusion Builder 2 (that is, you're eligible for upgrade pricing for ColdFusion Builder 2; you don't have to buy the full version of ColdFusion Builder 2).
Flash Builder 4.5 Standard does not include a license for ColdFusion Builder 2 and as well as I am aware upgrade pricing is not available for ColdFusion Builder 2 (that is, you are not eligible for upgrade pricing for ColdFusion Builder 2; you do have to buy the full version of ColdFusion Builder 2).

Speaking of upgrade pricing, there is (of course!) upgrade pricing available for those looking to move to ColdFusion Builder 2 from ColdFusion Builder 1 (at the time it was released, it wasn't called ColdFusion Builder 1, it was merely called ColdFusion Builder, but now that ColdFusion Builder 2 has been released, we often refer to the first release of ColdFusion Builder as ColdFusion Builder 1). And there is also upgrade pricing available for those looking to move to Flash Builder 4.5 or one of the Creative Suite 5.5 bundles from earlier versions of those products. So let's see if I can create a helpful little chart here:

Product	ColdFusion Builder 2 License	Flash Builder 4.5 License
ColdFusion Builder 2	Included	Standard Included Upgrade to Premium Available
Flash Builder 4.5 Standard	NOT Included No Upgrade Available*	Standard Included Upgrade to Premium Available
Flash Builder 4.5 Premium	Included	Premium Included
Creative Suite 5.5 Web Premium	NOT Included Upgrade Available	Premium Included
Creative Suite 5.5 Master Collection	NOT Included Upgrade Available	Premium Included

* Note that while you cannot purchase an upgrade license for ColdFusion Builder 2 from Flash Builder 4.5 Standard, you will get ColdFusion Builder 2 if you upgrade Flash Builder 4.5 Standard to Flash Builder 4.5 Premium. 2011-06-06 UPDATE: There is no mention made of the type of license (that is, full or upgrade) required when buying Flash Builder 4.5 Premium or ColdFusion Builder 2 in order to get the "mini-bundle" benefit because that benefit applies to both the full and upgrade versions of Flash Builder 4.5 and ColdFusion Builder 2. That is to say, if you're upgrading to Flash Builder 4.5 Premium, you do in that case get a license for ColdFusion Builder 2 just as you do if you buy the full version of Flash Builder 4.5 Premium; if you're upgrading to ColdFusion Builder 2, you do in that case get a license for Flash Builder 4.5 Standard (I suppose the one exception to this may be if you're upgrading from Creative Suite 5.5 Master Collection or Creative Suite 5.5 Web Premium, since these already include Flash Builder 4.5 Premium), just as you do if you buy the full version of ColdFusion Builder 2.

Entering a Serial Number into the ColdFusion 9 Administrator

Wed, 04 May 2011 00:45:00 GMT

Although this post is written for ColdFusion 9, the majority of information in this post applies to most releases of ColdFusion. When you install ColdFusion 9, you can (but are not required to) enter your serial number (sometimes also referred to as a license key) during the installation (there's one caveat to this: there's a known issue with the 64-bit Linux installers not accepting ColdFusion 9 Standard serial numbers; see the related post listed below for more information). I'm not going to cover that in this post because there's no need: you just put your serial number in when prompted. What I'm going to cover here is entering a serial number into the ColdFusion 9 Administrator; you might need to do this for reasons including, but not limited to, not entering it during installation of ColdFusion 9. Okay, so here we go:

Log into the ColdFusion Administrator:
Once you're logged in, click the System Information icon in the upper right; in the screenshot below, I've circled it in red:
From there it's pretty easy; just put your serial number in the New License text box then press the Submit Changes button:
That's it! The page will refresh and you can scroll down and see the information on your Edition of ColdFusion and the serial number you just entered (I've redacted mine in the screenshot below for reasons I think are fairly obvious):

ColdFusion Builder 2 Is Now Available!

Tue, 03 May 2011 23:00:00 GMT

Two months after the beta hit Adobe Labs, ColdFusion Builder 2 is now available! You can find information and links to learn lots more about it, to try it, and to buy it at http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion-builder.html. And be sure to check out the ColdFusion Builder team's blog at http://blogs.adobe.com/cfbuilder. ColdFusion Builder 2 now comes in a free edition called ColdFusion Builder 2 Express! I'm not seeing much in the way of details ColdFusion Builder 2 Express listed on the Adobe site but Ray Camden's blog post about it and Ben Forta's blog post about it are good places to get a bit of information. 2012-01-08: given the age and content of this post, it is difficult at this point to conceive of a legitimate comment that could be posted. Yet comments continue to be posted: spam. So it seems wise to me then to stop the insanity by closing comments to this post. Should you have a legitimate comment you wish to post here, please contact me via the contact form here on my blog. Thanks!

Kendall and I Are Married!

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 21:30:00 GMT

Kendall and I are married! And as such, I really, really need to update our blog at blog.kendallandjosh.com! Oh--and I should also point out that since the end of November 2010, she too works for Adobe. She's an Account Manager for the Omniture Business Unit so we're a happy little Adobe family. :)

Beating Microsoft (specifically Exchange) at the Out of Office Game

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 23:00:00 GMT

I have a bunch of rules set up for Exchange (they filter messages directly to certain folders and such). I like my rules: they do what I want them to do which fundamentally is keep out of my Inbox stuff that isn't addressed directly to me. The stuff in the Inbox is the stuff I really care about. Today I needed to set up an Out of Office message. Guess for what messages I wanted it to fire? Only those that actually make it to the Inbox of course! It turns out that this is FAR from a trivial matter. It apparently used to be that the Out of Office "rule" fired, it fired only AFTER all the other rules. This is exactly what I wanted but it seems that back in 2006, Microsoft deemed this a bug and "fixed" it. I can certainly understand that some would want their Out of Office rule to fire first and therefore be applicable to all incoming messages--but can't Microsoft understand that some of us wouldn't want that? Didn't they design the feature the initial way intentionally? Even if not, couldn't they find some users happy with it? What I'm driving at is this: it's not a bad idea to accommodate users who didn't like the initial behavior but it is, however, a terrible idea to stop accommodating users who do like the initial behavior! And it didn't have to be an either/or thing: if they would have just provided a simple flag (checkbox) in the Out of Office Assistant that allows us to choose to apply our regular rules prior to the Out of Office rule if that's how we want it or to apply our regular rules after the Out of Office rule, I'd be in fine shape right now. Come on, Microsoft!!! But since I don't have such a flag, I had to come up with a system for beating Exchange at the Out of Office game. There are two main approaches you can take if you're in this situation (and neither is anywhere near perfect): 2011-04-21 UPDATE: you actually can't beat Exchange at the Out of Office game. You're stuck. You can read what I originally wrote below this paragraph but, for reasons I will give in a moment, I don't recommend following those approaches. The best thing to do is just set the external Out of Office message and hope it doesn't cause problems. Of course the actual best thing would be for Microsoft to make it such that your regular rules can be applied before your Out of Office rule. But until they do that, you need to set the external Out of Office message and live with the results--and if you can't live with the results then don't set an Out of Office message. But definitely do not use a regular rule that replies to every message you receive--if you do this, you run the risk of completely filling up your mailbox. The reason is that some irresponsible senders (I'm talking about you E*Trade!) will send you messages that, when replied to, generate another message to you (perhaps, as was the case with my E*Trade situation, it will tell you that the email box to which you sent your message is not monitored). If such a message were generated only once per incoming sender (which is the way that Out of Office messages work), this would not be irresponsible--it would in that case be informative and helpful. But when the message is sent out in response to every single message then it's irresponsible because what it creates is the possibility of filling up a recipient's email box because it creates an infinite loop of the recipient's rule sending a message and the irresponsible sender's server responding back with a message which causes the recipient's rule to send another message which causes the irresponsible sender's server to respond back with another message and so on and so forth. Fortunately, I happened to check my email and see this happening fairly soon after it started and then, by marking the offending E*Trade sender as a Junk Mail sender, I was able to terminate the loop after a "mere" 498 messages were sent to me. But it could have been a lot worse and if the point is to be able to not have to monitor your email box (as it was for me--I just got lucky in my timing) then it's not a risk to which you want to expose yourself. So anyway, all that said, read on if you want to but unfortunately, you won't find any info that's really practical to use as long as there are irresponsible senders in the world. 1. Do not use Out of Office at all; use a regular rule instead. Instead, add a regular rule after all your others that sends out a template that, while not an actual Out of Office message, at least conveys the same info. Out of Office is specifically designed to fire only 1 time for every sender (that too should be configurable) and this approach cannot emulate that: it sends the reply every time the rule's conditions are met and if that's a problem for you then this approach won't work. 2. Use Out of Office plus a regular rule. Remember, my ideal is that my Out of Office message fires only on those message that have already made it past my other rules. And this means that in my ideal approach, my Out of Office would never be sent to an internal distribution list or an external mailing list because my rules handle all mail sent to internal distribution lists and external mailing lists. But if I turn on Out of Office, it's going to fire off prior to my regular rules--and that means it's going to send Out of Office messages to internal distribution lists and external mailing lists, right? The answer to both parts is not necessarily. On the first part, internal distribution lists: when you turn on the Out of Office assistant, it will send Out of Office messages to senders from within your organization and so yes, messages could be sent to internal distribution lists. However, if your Exchange administrator sets the SuppressOOFsToDistributionLists flag on the Exchange Server, such messages won't be sent. In my case, I figured if the Exchange admins don't have that flag set, it must not be too big of a deal if my Out of Office messages go to internal distribution lists. If that is a big deal to you then you really have no choice but to use a regular rule as described in option 1 (you can use 2 rules, 1 for internal people and 1 for external people; keep reading to see how I set my rule to not fire for internal people; you could do that on the first rule with "stop processing more rules" then create basically the same rule again, but with different content for the internal people, and put it after the first rule). So what about external mailing lists? I don't believe setting that flag prevents the sending of Out of Office messages to external mailing lists so you have to take a different approach. It turns out that you can turn off/on the sending of Out of Office messages to senders outside your organization even when you've turned your Out of Office message on (so you can send to just those inside your organization or to both those inside and outside your organization; however, you can't send to just those outside your organization; this too makes utterly no sense to me) and if you do this then you have the opportunity to set up either a regular rule as in the manner described in approach 1 or you can set up a special Out of Office rule in the Out of Office Assistant: it turns out these rules fire AFTER your regular rules, the net of which is that they're like setting a regular rule at the bottom of your other rules, it's just that these rules are turned off/on with your Out of Office, which is nice. The problem with the special Out of Office rules, however, is that they aren't as sophisticated as regular rules. So what I had to do was set up a regular rule as described in option 1 plus I added one condition to the rule: it doesn't fire for any message with "adobe.com" in the sender's address. Thus, the result of all this is that internal people get the internal Out of Office message (and because it's a normal Out of Office message, they get it only 1 time, not every time they send me a message) and external people get a template that conveys the same info as an Out of Office message, but they get it every time they send me a message. I'm actually fine with external people getting the message every time they send me one as that will remind them I'm out in cases where there's a gap of time between their emails and they might have forgotten--and I'm okay with holding internal people to a higher standard of remembering that I'm out after being notified once! Note that in my case, I needed the internal people at the external people to receive different content anyway but of course the content of both messages could be the same if that's what you want in your situation.

ColdFusion Builder 2 Public Beta Is Now Available on Adobe Labs

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 05:12:00 GMT

The public beta for ColdFusion Builder 2 is now available on Adobe Labs! Check it out at http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/coldfusionbuilder2!

Upgrading from ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 8 to ColdFusion 9

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:46:00 GMT

http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/upgrade

The ColdFusion team has worked very hard to maintain backward-compatibility in ColdFusion 9 for applications coded for previous versions of ColdFusion: in many cases, your code will simply run without any changes when you move it to ColdFusion 9. But of course you shouldn't just deploy your production applications to ColdFusion 9 and hope they work: you should test your applications fully before deploying them to production. And to get you started with the greatest chance of success, you should first use the ColdFusion Code Compatibility Analyzer to determine if your code is valid for ColdFusion 9:

I recommend reviewing the tag and function changes to ColdFusion. Be sure to note the addition of functions with names that collide with user-defined functions in your code (for instance, ColdFusion 9 introduced the SpreadsheetNew() function; if your code has a user-defined function called SpreadsheetNew() you will need to change the name of that user-defined function and all references to it in your code before upgrading to ColdFusion 9):

It's very important to read the release notes for ColdFusion 9.0.1 and ColdFusion 9 in case some might apply to your environment:

There are a couple of blog posts that, while written for moving to previous releases of ColdFusion, are certainly worth perusing:

When you're ready to install ColdFusion 9, make sure your environment is in compliance with the ColdFusion 9 system requirements and systems support matrix, then review my blog post on the installers for ColdFusion 9, and then review the "Installing Adobe ColdFusion 9" documentation:

http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/systemreqs
http://blog.joshuaadams.com/index.cfm/2010/6/3/ColdFusion-8-and-9-ColdFusion-Builder-and-Flash-Builder-4-Installers
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/9.0/Installing/index.html (HTML version, containing comments from users and Adobe employees)
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/9.0/Installing/coldfusion_9_install.pdf (PDF version with no comments)

Once you have installed ColdFusion 9, you'll want to install ColdFusion 9 Update 1 to bring your install up to ColdFusion 9.0.1; for more information, including links to additional information and the installer, on this free update for ColdFusion 9, see the following FAQ:

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/849/cpsid_84973.html

Next you'll want to check out the Hot Fixes and Cumulative Hot Fixes available for ColdFusion 9.0.1:

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/529/cpsid_52967.html

And finally, it's extremely important that you check out the security bulletins and advisories for ColdFusion and apply any relevant security Hotfixes--and while you're at it, consider signing up to receive security notifications via the Security Notification Service so you don't miss any security bulletins or advisories for ColdFusion in the future:

Adobe has worked hard to make the upgrade process as smooth and easy as possible. The process involved varies depending on:

Your current product version and edition as well as, in the case of ColdFusion Enterprise, your current deployment type.
Your desired product version and edition as well as, in the case of ColdFusion Enterprise, your desired deployment type.

To upgrade to ColdFusion 9 Enterprise from ColdFusion 9 Standard while maintaining a Server (a.k.a. standalone) installation:

Enter your license key for ColdFusion 9 Enterprise (or your ColdFusion 9 Enterprise upgrade license key valid for upgrading from ColdFusion 9 Standard) in the ColdFusion Administrator in the System Information section accessible via the link marked with an "i" Information icon in the upper-right. No reinstall of ColdFusion 9 is required and, since you will be using the same installation of ColdFusion 9, you will not need to import any settings (they'll already be there). This works this way because there is a single runtime (per platform and language; the same is true for the installer) for ColdFusion 9 which acts as a particular edition based on what license key(s) are entered: if you enter a license key for ColdFusion 9 Enterprise (or a valid combination of ColdFusion 9 Enterprise upgrade license key and appropriate upgradeable ColdFusion license key), the runtime will act as ColdFusion 9 Enterprise; if you enter a license key for ColdFusion 9 Standard (or a valid combination of ColdFusion 9 Standard upgrade license key and appropriate upgradeable ColdFusion license key), the runtime will act as ColdFusion 9 Standard.

To upgrade to a Server (a.k.a. standalone) installation of ColdFusion 9 from a Server installation of any release of ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 8 (NOTE: the process is the same for Server installations of both ColdFusion Enterprise and ColdFusion Standard):

Run the ColdFusion 9 installer to install ColdFusion 9
Browse to the ColdFusion 9 Administrator to launch the Configuration Wizard and allow it to import the settings from ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 8

To upgrade to ColdFusion 9 Enterprise from multi-server and J2EE installations of any release of ColdFusion MX, follow this documentation and TechNote (written for upgrading from ColdFusion MX 7 to ColdFusion 8 but the principles apply for upgrading from ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 8 to ColdFusion 9):

If as a part of your upgrade to ColdFusion 9 you wish to switch to an installation type you are not currently using (for instance, if you wish to switch to a Multi-Server installation from a Server installation), you must perform a new installation of your chosen ColdFusion 9 installation type and then manually migrate your settings from your current ColdFusion installation. As long as you choose to use the built-in web server during installation of ColdFusion 9, your installation of ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 8 will not be altered or removed by the installation of ColdFusion 9. You will therefore be able to continue running ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 8 while you test your new ColdFusion 9 installation. If during installation of ColdFusion 9 you choose to use the same external web server as you are using for ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 9, note that the CFIDE and CFDOCS directories in the root of your external web server will be replaced by the CFIDE and CFDOCS directories for ColdFusion 9. If you wish to avoid this, you must instead choose to use the built-in web server during installation of ColdFusion 9. As Michael Collins explains in the following blog post, you can later use the Web Server Configuration Tool to configure your external web server for ColdFusion 9:

http://blogs.adobe.com/mcollins/2007/11/test.html

If you wish to configure your external web server to work properly with both ColdFusion MX 7 and/or ColdFusion 8 and ColdFusion 9 on an ongoing basis (as opposed to working with only one release of ColdFusion), you can do so, but you will need to do some manual configuration of your web server; see the following blog post by Adobe Community Expert Charlie Arehart for more information (even if you're not using Microsoft IIS and Microsoft Windows XP, the principles described will apply):

http://carehart.org/blog/client/index.cfm/2007/8/21/multiple_cf_versions_on_IIS_XP

Installing ColdFusion 9 will not uninstall ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 8; this is by design: it is possible, and desirable in some circumstances, to run multiple versions of ColdFusion at once. There is no need for you to uninstall ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 8 once you are no longer using it (note that if you simply stop it from running, the only resource it uses is some space on your hard drive). However, if you wish to uninstall ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 8 after installing ColdFusion 9, you should first make a backup copy of the CFIDE and cfdocs directories in your web root folder because the uninstallation of ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 8 can remove these directories. After you uninstall ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 8, simply restore these directories from backup. The uninstallation of ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 8 can also remove "index.cfm" from the list of default documents in your web server. Therefore, if having "index.cfm" listed in your web server as one of the default document is required for your ColdFusion application, you may have to add this listing to your web server after the uninstallation of ColdFusion MX 7 or ColdFusion 8. See your web server's documentation for information on adding default document listings. Alternatively, you may be able to use the ColdFusion 9 Web Server Configuration Tool to do it for you:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/9.0/Admin/WSc3ff6d0ea77859461172e0811cbf364104-7fd6.html

Still have questions? First, visit the Installation section of the ColdFusion Support Center. If you can't find your answer there, feel free to contact me or, particularly if your question is one you believe would benefit other readers of this post, add a comment on this post. One final note: Adobe offers implementation consulting for a fee and in addition, we have a number of partners who can help you with implementation and troubleshooting; if you would like more information on these offerings, please contact me.

Migrating from ColdFusion MX or Earlier to ColdFusion 9

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:45:00 GMT

ColdFusion 9 is the best release of ColdFusion ever--so of course you want to run your ColdFusion applications on it! :) But how do you get there from where you are now? It depends on what release of ColdFusion you're on currently; this blog post is for those on ColdFusion MX (the releases variously known as ColdFusion MX, ColdFusion MX 6, ColdFusion MX 6.1) or earlier (releases such as ColdFusion 5, ColdFusion 4.5, ColdFusion 4, etc.). If you're on ColdFusion MX 7 (the releases variously known as ColdFusion MX 7, ColdFusion MX 7.0.1, ColdFusion MX 7.0.2, ColdFusion 7, ColdFusion 7.0.1, and ColdFusion 7.0.2) or ColdFusion 8 (the releases variously known as ColdFusion 8, ColdFusion 8.0, and ColdFusion 8.0.1), you should check out the companion blog post to this one. Since the valid upgrade paths to ColdFusion 9 are from ColdFusion MX 7 and ColdFusion 8, if you are on ColdFusion MX or earlier you cannot upgrade to ColdFusion 9. However, you can still migrate your ColdFusion applications from ColdFusion MX or earlier to ColdFusion 9. Note that unlike the valid upgrade paths available for moving to ColdFusion 9, migrating from ColdFusion MX or earlier to ColdFusion 9 does not allow for automated migration of ColdFusion settings like datasources, mappings, custom tag paths, and so on; instead, you must migrate your ColdFusion MX or earlier settings to ColdFusion 9 manually. There are two great resources you should check out if you're on ColdFusion 5 or earlier; these were not updated for ColdFusion 9, to a large extent because there really wasn't any need: the concerns involved when migrating from ColdFusion 5 to ColdFusion 9 are generally the same as those involved when migrating from ColdFusion 5 to ColdFusion MX or ColdFusion MX 7. The two resources are the "Migrating ColdFusion 5 Applications" section of the ColdFusion MX LiveDocs and "Migrating Applications to ColdFusion MX 7":

It's very important to read the release notes for ColdFusion 9.0.1 and ColdFusion 9 in case some might apply to your environment:

There are a couple of blog posts that, while written for moving to previous releases of ColdFusion, are certainly worth perusing:

http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/systemreqs
http://blog.joshuaadams.com/index.cfm/2010/6/3/ColdFusion-8-and-9-ColdFusion-Builder-and-Flash-Builder-4-Installers
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/9.0/Installing/index.html (HTML version, containing comments from users and Adobe employees)
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/9.0/Installing/coldfusion_9_install.pdf (PDF version with no comments)

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/849/cpsid_84973.html

Next you'll want to check out the Hot Fixes and Cumulative Hot Fixes available for ColdFusion 9.0.1:

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/529/cpsid_52967.html

Once you have completed the installation of ColdFusion 9, you will need to manually migrate your settings from your ColdFusion MX or earlier installation to your ColdFusion 9 installation. As long as you choose to use the built-in web server during installation of ColdFusion 9, your installation of ColdFusion MX or earlier will not be altered or removed by the installation of ColdFusion 9. You will therefore be able to continue running ColdFusion MX or earlier while you test your new ColdFusion 9 installation. If during installation of ColdFusion 9 you choose to use the same external web server as you are using for ColdFusion MX or earlier, note that the CFIDE and CFDOCS directories in the root of your external web server will be replaced by the CFIDE and CFDOCS directories for ColdFusion 9. If you wish to avoid this, you must instead choose to use the built-in web server during installation of ColdFusion 9. As Michael Collins explains in the following blog post, you can later use the Web Server Configuration Tool to configure your external web server for ColdFusion 9:

http://blogs.adobe.com/mcollins/2007/11/test.html

If you wish to configure your external web server to work properly with both ColdFusion MX or earlier and ColdFusion 9 on an ongoing basis (as opposed to working with only one release of ColdFusion), you can do so, but you will need to do some manual configuration of your web server; see the following blog post by Adobe Community Expert Charlie Arehart for more information (even if you're not using Microsoft IIS and Microsoft Windows XP, the principles described will apply):

http://carehart.org/blog/client/index.cfm/2007/8/21/multiple_cf_versions_on_IIS_XP

Installing ColdFusion 9 will not uninstall ColdFusion MX or earlier; this is by design: it is possible, and desirable in some circumstances, to run multiple versions of ColdFusion at once. There is no need for you to uninstall ColdFusion MX or earlier once you are no longer using it (note that if you simply stop it from running, the only resource it uses is some space on your hard drive). However, if you wish to uninstall ColdFusion MX or earlier after installing ColdFusion 9, you should first make a backup copy of the CFIDE and cfdocs directories in your web root folder because the uninstallation of ColdFusion MX or earlier can remove these directories. After you uninstall ColdFusion MX or earlier, simply restore these directories from backup. The uninstallation of ColdFusion MX or earlier can also remove "index.cfm" from the list of default documents in your web server. Therefore, if having "index.cfm" listed in your web server as one of the default document is required for your ColdFusion application, you may have to add this listing to your web server after the uninstallation of ColdFusion MX or earlier. See your web server's documentation for information on adding default document listings. Alternatively, you may be able to use the ColdFusion 9 Web Server Configuration Tool to do it for you:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/9.0/Admin/WSc3ff6d0ea77859461172e0811cbf364104-7fd6.html

WhirlyBirthday + Engagement Celebration: Friday, August 27, 2010

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 18:12:00 GMT

http://www.joshuaadams.com/bday It's almost time for my 12th annual WhirlyBirthday--and this year there's a new celebration to add: my engagement to Kendall! Everyone is invited. Yep, everyone (and if you don't live in Atlanta, you're additionally invited to crash with me while you're here). I'd love to have you, your friends, your family, etc! It's not just about WhirlyBall--after all, there's dinner beforehand. But really, it's about hanging out too and there will be a great group there so don't worry about it if you don't know many or any others who are coming--you'll meet people. So come on: check out the details and RSVP that you'll join us via this URL: http://www.joshuaadams.com/bday I hope to see you there! It will be a ton of fun--and it will be better with you there! Please join us! Josh

Kendall and I Are Engaged!

Sat, 14 Aug 2010 23:00:00 GMT

Kendall and I are engaged! I've posted all the details on the blog I have set up for us at http://blog.kendallandjosh.com!

Must Have Administrative Rights on Windows to Run Adobe Updater

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:30:00 GMT

Well, okay, so I don't know that the title of this post is strictly true: you may be able to run the Adobe Updater even if you're not logged into Windows as a user with administrative rights--but I don't know how you launch Adobe Updater other than from the Help menu of an Adobe product and the point I'm really making in this post is that if you aren't logged into Windows with administrative rights, you either won't have the menu option "Check for Updates" (this was the behavior I observed in Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader) or the menu option "Adobe [Product Name] Updates" will be "grayed out" and unavailable to be selected (this was the behavior I observed in Adobe ColdFusion Builder). So the point is this: make sure you're logged into Windows with administrative rights if you want to update your Adobe products! If you find this same behavior on another operating system, please post a comment to let me know. I'm posting this because when I searched to figure out what the problem was, I couldn't find anything; fortunately, it dawned on me what the issue was. But some keywords for search engine indexing are in order here: Adobe Check for Updates menu item not shown, Adobe Check for Updates menu item not available, Adobe Check for Updates menu item not there, Adobe Check for Updates menu item missing, cannot run Adobe Updater.

ColdFusion 8 and 9, ColdFusion Builder, and Flash Builder 4 Installers

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 22:50:00 GMT

I am commonly asked questions about the installers for ColdFusion 8 and 9, ColdFusion Builder, and Flash Builder 4 so I thought I'd make my long-overdue return to the world of blogging by compiling here some details that are hard to ascertain elsewhere. Before I get into the details: you can find the EULAs for all the Adobe products mentioned here at http://www.adobe.com/products/eulas. Regardless of what the technical limitations are or aren't with any of this software, you're bound to the terms of the EULA for whatever product you're using. Okay, now let's get on with it.

ColdFusion 8 and 9 Installers

For ColdFusion 8 and ColdFusion 9 (the following facts are actually true for certain earlier versions as well but as all earlier versions and their corresponding installers are no longer available from Adobe, I'm not going to concern myself with them here), there is for any given platform and language (e.g. Windows 32-bit English, Windows 64-bit Japanese, Solaris 64-bit English, etc.) only a single installer for ColdFusion. This means that no matter if you want Enterprise, Standard, Trial, or Developer, you use the same installer--the way the download links are labeled may seem to imply otherwise, but do not be mislead! Take Windows 64-bit for example: there is only 1 installer for Windows 64-bit English (and then another for Windows 64-bit Japanese), not separate installers for Enterprise, Standard, Trial, and Developer. It doesn't matter where or from whom you purchased ColdFusion nor does it matter via which sales program you purchased: you still use this same single installer for your platform. How ColdFusion behaves (that is, which of Enterprise, Standard, Trial, or Developer it acts as) once installed is dependent on choices you make during installation. If you supply your Enterprise license key (a.k.a. serial number) during installation, you get the Enterprise edition and if you supply your Standard license key during installation, you get the Standard edition. If you do not supply your license key during installation, you can choose either to have ColdFusion install as the Trial edition or the Developer edition. If you've supplied an Enterprise license key or chosen either the Trial edition or the Developer edition, you'll then be given the choice to install ColdFusion in the Server (a.k.a. "standalone") configuration, the Multi-server configuration, or the J2EE configuration. If you have supplied your Standard license key, you will only be able to install in the Server configuration (Multi-server and J2EE configurations are only available for Enterprise, Trial, and Developer). So this single installer for your platform then allows you to install any of the following:

Enterprise in the Server configuration
Enterprise in the Multi-server configuration
Enterprise in the J2EE configuration
Standard in the Server configuration (Standard does not allow the Muti-server or J2EE configurations)
Trial in the Server configuration
Trial in the Multi-server configuration
Trial in the J2EE configuration
Developer in the Server configuration
Developer in the Multi-server configuration
Developer in the J2EE configuration

The ColdFusion 9 installers can be accessed via http://www.adobe.com/go/trycoldfusion. The ColdFusion 8 installers can be accessed via http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=coldfusion8. Two important notes:

ColdFusion 8 Standard is only available for the 32-bit platforms on which ColdFusion 8 is supported (even for the Server configuration). If you install a 64-bit version of ColdFusion 8, you must supply a ColdFusion 8 Enterprise license key. If you try to supply a Standard license key, the key will not be accepted.
Though ColdFusion 9 Standard is available for 64-bit Linux, there is a known issue with ColdFusion 9 not accepting standard license keys during installation on 64-bit Linux. But this is only an issue during installation: you can apply the key after installation via the ColdFusion Administrator.

UPDATE: The story is much the same for the ColdFusion 9 Update 1 installers (these bring your ColdFusion installation up to ColdFusion 9.0.1): there is only a single installer per platform (this single installer is for all languages on the given platform); these installers can be found at http://www.adobe.com/support/coldfusion/downloads_updates.html#cf9. For more information on this free update for ColdFusion 9, see the FAQ available at http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/849/cpsid_84973.html.

ColdFusion Builder Installers

For ColdFusion Builder, the story is much the same: there is for any given platform and language (Windows English, Mac English, Windows Japanese, and Mac Japanese) only a single installer for ColdFusion Builder; how ColdFusion Builder behaves once installed is dependent on the license key (a.k.a. serial number) you apply. It doesn't matter if you want to do a Standalone installation or if you want to install ColdFusion Builder as a plug-in to Flash Builder or any other Eclipse installation--you use the same installer either way. When you fire up ColdFusion Builder, you'll be asked for a license key and if you don't supply one, you'll get the Trial edition, which is a fully functioning version of ColdFusion Builder that can be used for 60 days after installation. To keep rolling along beyond 60d ays, you'll just need to supply (after legally acquiring, of course) a valid license key when starting ColdFusion Builder. Here too it doesn't matter where or from whom you purchased ColdFusion Builder nor does it matter via which sales program you purchased: you still use the same installer; there really is only one installer for any given supported platform and language. The ColdFusion Builder installers can be accessed via http://www.adobe.com/go/trycoldfusionbuilder. Incidentally, if you're installing both ColdFusion Builder and Flash Builder 4 and/or any other Eclipse plug-ins in the same eclipse environment on Windows, my recommendation is that you install ColdFusion Builder in the Standalone configuration and then install Flash Builder 4 and/or the other Eclipse plug-ins as plug-ins to the ColdFusion Builder installation. The reason for this is that when it is the base install, you can have ColdFusion Builder associate ColdFusion files (.cfm, .cfc, and so on) in Windows so that when you open one of these files from Windows, it will open properly in ColdFusion Builder. This may not sound like much but trust me: this is actually a nifty little feature for an Eclipse-based IDE. Speaking of Flash Builder 4...

Flash Builder 4 Installers

For Flash Builder 4, the story is much the same but there is an important difference: for any given platform and language (and there are numerous languages available), there is one installer to use if you're doing a Standalone installation and another to use if you're doing an Eclipse Plug-in installation. So for any given platform and language, there are two installers and you need to choose the right one for the installation type you're going to perform. But note that there are not separate installers for Flash Builder 4 Standard and Flash Builder 4 Premium: just as ColdFusion 8 and 9 behave as Standard if you supply a Standard license key and Enterprise if you supply an Enterprise license key, so too does Flash Builder 4 behave as Standard if you supply a Standard license key and Premium if you supply a Premium license key. Like ColdFusion Builder, when you fire up Flash Builder, you'll be asked for a license key and if you don't supply one, you'll get the Trial edition, which is a fully functioning version of Flash Builder 4 Premium that can be used for 60 days after installation. To keep rolling along beyond 60 days, you'll just need to supply (again, after legally acquiring, of course) a valid license key when starting Flash Builder 4. Here too it doesn't matter where or from whom you purchased Flash Builder 4 nor does it matter via which sales program you purchased: you still use one of the same two installers (the Standalone installer if you want to do a Standalone installation or the Eclipse Plug-in installer if you want to install Flash Builder 4 as a plug-in to ColdFusion Builder or any other Eclipse installation) for your platform and language. The Flash Builder 4 installers can be accessed via http://www.adobe.com/go/try_flashbuilder.

ColdFusion Builder Beta 3 Available on Adobe Labs

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:15:00 GMT

ColdFusion Builder Beta 3 is available on Adobe Labs: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/coldfusionbuilder Download it, install it, rock it!

ColdFusion Builder Frozen, Consuming Large Amounts of RAM

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 04:11:00 GMT

I just had an experience where every time I would launch ColdFusion Builder beta 2, it would consume as much RAM as it could get. ColdFusion Builder seemed to launch properly but I couldn't interact with it: it was unresponsive as it went about its rampant RAM consumption and I had no choice but to kill the process. I have Flash Builder 4 beta 2 installed as a plug-in and I was running it in Trial mode and accordingly every time I launched ColdFusion Builder, Flash Builder presented me with a registration screen. Normally, I'd have to clear this screen before ColdFusion Builder would launch completely but during the time when ColdFusion Builder was getting all whacked out on RAM, it was launching completely even while presenting this screen. But the good news is that I got ColdFusion Builder working again by removing my "Adobe ColdFusion Builder workspace" directory; ColdFusion Builder then created a new one on its next launch and all was well. This is a drastic step that effectively completely resets ColdFusion Builder--but of course, that's a lot better than what I was dealing with. But actually, I was able to bail myself out on that and perhaps this will work for you too: rather than completely deleting my "Adobe ColdFusion Builder workspace" directory, I just renamed it (you could of course also move it) and then when the new one was created upon my next restart, I did a folder comparison of the 2 and I copied over a number of directories and files. By and large, what I copied over were those directories and files that were missing from the new directory, not those that were simply changed. In the end, as well as I could tell, when I next launched ColdFusion Builder, it not only launched properly but it was back in the state I wanted it in.

ColdFusion 9 Training in Washington, DC on December 22, 2009 from Fig Leaf

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:05:00 GMT

My friends at Fig Leaf have developed the Advanced ColdFusion 9 Development class that will be rolling out soon and they have a special offer (call it a Christmas present!): participate in their 1-day beta class on December 22, 2009 in Washington, DC for only $99! They'll get validation of their class exercises, you'll get the full benefit of the training at this great, one-time-only price. Click here for full info and to register.

403 Forbidden Error on SharePoint Images (Images Broken, Won't Load)

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:30:00 GMT

Some terms for indexing purposes: SharePoint broken images, SharePoint images broken, SharePoint won't load images, SharePoint images won't load, SharePoint not loading images, SharePoint images not loading, SharePoint red X images, SharePoint images red X. Well, when I ran into this issue I searched like crazy for a solution and came up empty. I don't want that to happen to the next person who runs into the issue so hence this blog post. Here's the scenario: I did a new installation of SharePoint Server 2007 on Windows Server 2008 R2. Incidentally, this process itself was a major pain in the butt, but I finally got it done--only to find that none of the standard images (those located in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\TEMPLATE\IMAGES and mapped in IIS so they load from http://[server]/_layouts/images) would load due to 403 Forbidden errors. Now, these 403 errors are not immediately obvious--all you see at first is that the images are broken (that is, they won't load: instead you see a "red X" in place of the images). When you dig, you figure out the actual URLs being requested are in http://[server]/_layouts/images and that these requests are resulting in 403 errors. For purposes of search engine indexing (that is, so others affected can find this post), here's the exact text displayed in the browser when you make a direct request for one of these images:


The website declined to show this webpage
HTTP 403

Most likely causes:
" This website requires you to log in.

What you can try:
Go back to the previous page.

More information
This error (HTTP 403 Forbidden) means that Internet Explorer was able to connect to the website, but it does not have permission to view the webpage.

For more information about HTTP errors, see Help.

As you may know, 403 errors are those that indicate that the requested file is present, you just can't get to it (the displayed message makes that pretty clear). So I knew I was dealing with a permissions issue--I just didn't know precisely what caused that issue. And to be honest, I never really figured it out. But what's important is that I did figure out--okay, stumble upon--a way to solve it: in IIS, for each SharePoint Web Site, there's a Virtual Directory for _layouts and inside of that is an Application for images; I simply deleted and recreated that Application for images and all was well. I had to do this for each SharePoint Web Site and in each case it fixed the problem so I am certain that this is reliably solves the issue. UPDATE 2010-06-02: I just ran into a similar problem. I came back here to this blog post and followed my own instructions--only to find that it didn't work. The problem this time was that I could get to resources using http://127.0.0.1 but not using http://. Well, technically I could get to resources using http://, I just couldn't authenticate successfully. So how exactly did this cause broken images? Well, even when referencing a page itself as http://127.0.0.1, SharePoint has a penchant for using http:// for image URLs included in the page--and so the page itself would load fine but the images wouldn't because of the authentication issue. The problem turned out to be that I had misspelled "Administrator" as "Adminstrator" so watch out for stupid spelling mistakes causing you to waste lots of time! I don't have any reason to believe this had anything to do with the issue this blog post is about, but since it manifested similar symptoms, I thought it was worth including here.

PDF Portfolios & ColdFusion 9

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:50:00 GMT

I think that one of the coolest features in ColdFusion 9 is the ability to create PDF Portfolios. But this feature isn't one that I hear anyone talking about. Why? Well, I find that most ColdFusion developers--and I've talked to a whole lot about this--have never heard of PDF Portfolios. So what I need to do here first is point you to some info about PDF Portfolios themselves. The best place to start is with this Adobe Acrobat 9 help documentation. Check out all those cool features! Let's say you need ColdFusion 9 to send multiple pieces of content via email. Your options:

Attach all the items to the email. This is messy.
Put the items in a ZIP file and attach it to the email. Good luck getting this through email filters!
Put the items in a PDF Package and attach it to the email. Your user gets a single attached file, opens it with Adobe Acrobat 9 or Adobe Reader 9 and browses through the content, even previewing it directly within Adobe Acrobat 9 or Adobe Reader 9!

Let's say you need a user to be able to get multiple logically connected pieces of content from your ColdFusion 9 web app; perhaps you even need to allow the user to select the pieces of content himself/herself. Your options:

Display links to all the content; have your user click the link for each piece of content he/she wants. This is messy, plus the user has to do the work to keep the content logically connected when saving the content locally.
Put the items in a ZIP file and display a link to it. This works and in certain situations may be the best approach, however the display of a ZIP file is rather bland.
Put the items in a PDF Package and display a link to it. Your user gets a single file and, in many browsers, this file will open automatically for viewing with Adobe Acrobat 9 or Adobe Reader 9.

Starting to see how cool and useful PDF Packages can be? Want to see their use in action? Check out the related post linked below: you'll see that I have provided a link to the code for the PresentasticPlus app (and yes, that code is in a ZIP file but that's because ZIP files make sense for code) and in that app there is functionality for dynamically creating a PDF Package based on a user's selection(s). I should point out that ColdFusion 9 creates a sub-type of a PDF Portfolio known as a PDF Package. Really, the main difference is that PDF Portfolios can have a custom user interface and PDF Packages can't (for more information on this, see this blog post from the LiveCycle Doc team). This is a cool feature and I recommend you learn more about how you can use it with Adobe Acrobat 9 (see Joel Geraci on Adobe TV).

Issue with ColdFusion 9 Accepting Standard License Keys during Installation on 64-bit Linux

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:30:00 GMT

We've recently seen an issue where the ColdFusion 9 installation program on 64-bit Linux will not accept (will reject) valid ColdFusion 9 Standard license keys (a.k.a serial numbers). You may see the following fail (failure) message: The serial number that you entered is invalid The workaround for this issue is to install ColdFusion 9 as Trial--that is, do not enter the license key (a.k.a. serial number) during installation--and then enter the license key (a.k.a serial number) via the ColdFusion Administrator after the installation has completed. This issue only applies to ColdFusion 9 Standard license keys (a.k.a serial numbers); we have not seen any issue with the ColdFusion 9 installation program on 64-bit Linux accepting valid ColdFusion 9 Enterprise license keys (a.k.a. serial numbers). 2009-12-02 UPDATE: There is now an Adobe TechNote for this issue.

Short URLs for ColdFusion and ColdFusion Builder Bugtrackers

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:20:00 GMT

Good news: we now have short URLs for the public bugtrackers for ColdFusion and ColdFusion Builder. Here they are: ColdFusion: http://www.adobe.com/go/CF_bugs
ColdFusion Builder: http://www.adobe.com/go/CFB_bugs Tell all your friends! :)

Getting Started with ColdFusion

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:25:00 GMT

I'm giving the Getting Started with ColdFusion Lab at Adobe MAX 2009. You can get my presentation for it by clicking this link.

Presentastic: Working with PowerPoint Files in ColdFusion 9

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 02:22:00 GMT

Presentastic is a demo app I created to show off how easy it is to take advantage of ColdFusion's cool capabilities for working with PowerPoint files. The instructions for creating Presentastic are available via this link. Check it out! 2009-11-19 UPDATE: You asked for it, you got it: The actual code file for PresentasticPlus is available via this link. PresentasticPlus is the version of the app that implements the PDF Portfolio creation functionality referenced at the end of the instruction document. 2009-12-01 UPDATE: The one cool new ColdFusion 9 feature for working with PowerPoint files that the original app didn't showcase was converting HTML to PPT--so in order to showcase this feature, I created a new version: PresentasticGold. The code file for PresentasticGold is available via this link.

The Scoop on Scoping

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:25:00 GMT

I did a presentation called "The Scoop on Scoping" and it's high time I post it here. It has a lot of good information, however, if you don't plan to read it, let me at least give you the Golden Rule of ColdFusion Scoping: Scope all references to all variables all the time (where ColdFusion allows it) In ColdFusion 9, with the introduction of the "Local" keyword to identify the function local scope, there really won't be any good excuse to not refer to scopes by name all the time and so that "(where ColdFusion allows it)" part can pretty much go away. :) The PDF version of the presentation is available via this link.

Getting Started with iPhone Development

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 07:00:00 GMT

My CFUnited presentation "iPhone Apps + Adobe ColdFusion," is about so much more than just using iPhone Apps and Adobe ColdFusion together! It's a really good place to start when you're looking to get into iPhone development, regardless of whether or not you're interested in making calls to a remote ColdFusion server. Certainly there is great information in the presentation for anyone who wants to make calls to a remote server, particularly a ColdFusion server, but you don't have to be interested in making remote calls from your iPhone apps to find the information in the presentation useful. So check it out! The related link for this blog post gives the link to my blog post "iPhone Apps + Adobe ColdFusion" from Friday containing links to the presentation in PDF format and to the code resources in a ZIP file.

iPhone Apps + Adobe ColdFusion

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 19:00:00 GMT

I'm presenting "iPhone Apps + Adobe ColdFusion" right now (well, right now as this post is going live anyway). And in this post, I am making the PDF version of my presentation file available via this link (note: the file location and link may change in the future but on this post on my blog itself the link will always be kept current). UPDATE: I've been asked for my code samples from the presentation; you can find them here. To use them with NimbleKit, you'll need to create a new NimbleKit project in Xcode then drop these resources into wherever it is that you put the NimbleKit project; you'll need to overwrite the project's main.html file with this one. Note that the sayHello.cfc and sayHello.cfm files are not needed for your NimbleKit project; they are included so you can see what they do and so that you can deploy them to your own web server (of course, in that situation you'll need to change the NimbleKit code to make its calls to the server where you put the files).

Flash Player on Mobile Devices

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:25:00 GMT

I'm at CFUnited. If you're not here, we miss you! Last night I attended the Birds of a Feather session (for those not familiar, this is a session that is a bit more of an open forum than it is a presentation) on iPhone development and those present asked me lots of questions about if and when Flash Player will be on the iPhone. That's outside my Adobe arena so I didn't have great answers for them (though I'm relatively certain that even if I did have great answers, I wouldn't have been authorized to share them). But I did do some asking and some research and so I give you: The official(ish) statement:

We would like to work with Apple to bring Flash to the iPhone, meanwhile we continue to work towards bringing the full Flash Player to Symbian, Windows Mobile, Android and other smartphones enabling a more complete web experience.

Now, as I know that's not particularly enlightening, here are some blog posts I ran across which you may find of interest:

WhirlyBirthday Time is (Nearly) Here Again!

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:00:00 GMT

http://www.joshuaadams.com/bday It's almost time for a birthday anniversary: the 10th anniversary of my 1st WhirlyBirthday! I'll be getting out the word via email as always, but this year for the first time I'll also be using social networking to spread the word which will hopefully mean that people who might not have heard about it via email will hear about it via facebook, twitter, my blog, etc. This is a good thing because everyone is invited. Yep, everyone--and if you don't live in Atlanta, you're additionally invited to crash with me while you're here. So come on: check out the details and RSVP that you'll join us via this URL: http://www.joshuaadams.com/bday I hope to see you there! Josh

Hang/Hook/Hold/Stick/Mount Portable Hard Drive to Laptop/Notebook Lid/Top/Case with Suction Cup

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 22:40:00 GMT

Eh...sorry if the title of this post is a little hard to read--it's because I really want others to be able to find this info when they do an Internet search 'cause I sure couldn't find any info about anything like this! I wanted a way to hang/hook/hold/stick/mount/something! my portable hard drive onto the back of my MacBook Pro's lid/top/case/display/whatever. I wanted something that I could attach and remove quickly and easily and that, when removed, wouldn't leave any traces of its presence on the laptop (so no modifications of any type to the laptop). I was more open to modifying the portable hard drive case, but I wasn't wild about that. Really, that left me only 2 options: suction and hanging hooks--and what I discovered is that the best approach is a combination of both: suction for the portable hard drive and a hook to hang it all from the laptop lid. :) I found a wreath hook at Jo-Ann that is perfect! Check it out:

ColdFusion 9 & ColdFusion Builder Public Betas Now Available!

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 04:01:00 GMT

Breaking news: the ColdFusion 9 and ColdFusion Builder public beta releases are now available for download on Adobe Labs. For ColdFusion 9, go to http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/coldfusion9 and for ColdFusion Builder, go to http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/coldfusionbuilder. ColdFusion 9, previously codenamed Centaur, is the planned next major release of ColdFusion. ColdFusion Builder, previously codenamed Bolt, is the highly-anticipated first ColdFusion IDE from Adobe. What are you waiting for? Go check 'em out!!!

ColdFusion 8 Security Bulletin Has Been Posted re: FCKEditor Security Vulnerability

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 06:25:00 GMT

As Ben Forta has posted on his blog, a Hotfix for the ColdFusion 8 FCKEditor Security Vulnerability has been posted. You can read more about it in the accompanying security bulletin available at http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb09-09.html. Please take time to read this security bulletin--as Ben notes in his post, this is must-read material!

Adobe ColdFusion eSeminar in Dutch - Wednesday, July 7, 2009

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:45:00 GMT

Join us as we present our first (well, if it's not the first, it's the first in a very long time!) Adobe ColdFusion eSeminar in Dutch! The topic is "ColdFusion Powered Flex Application Development" and you can find more details and register at http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=detail&id=1345643. Note: if you are unable to attend or if you read this post after the eSeminar is over, be sure to check the Adobe ColdFusion OnDemand eSeminars listing to see if we have posted the recording there (no promises as to how quickly, but hopefully we will get the recording posted there when it is available).

Adobe eSeminar: UCF (Ultimate ColdFusion) for the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship)

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:40:00 GMT

The UFC is red hot--and so are their online applications powered with ColdFusion! Join us tomorrow, Wednesday, July 8, 2009 at 11:00 AM PDT for a customer showcase where we'll hear all about how the UFC, the New England Patriots, and other sports giants use ColdFusion to power high-traffic applications. The eSeminar is called Ultimate ColdFusion: High Performance, Scalability and Features and you can find more information and register for it at http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=detail&id=1345643. Note: if you are unable to attend or if you read this post after the eSeminar is over, be sure to check the Adobe ColdFusion OnDemand eSeminars listing to see if we have posted the recording there (no promises as to how quickly, but hopefully we will get the recording posted there when it is available).

Questions about the FCKEditor Vulnerability in ColdFusion

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:06:00 GMT

Adobe Platform Evangelist Terry Ryan has a new post in regards to Questions about the FCKEditor Vulnerability in ColdFusion. Be sure to read it!

Bye Bye Clear!

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 07:55:00 GMT

Wow: Clear, operator of registered traveler lines in many airports around the country, has ceased operations. For more (what little there is) visit http://www.flyclear.com. I liked Clear and I'm disappointed it has shut down. There are numerous new stories about the shut down and most of them indicate that the Clear lines were idle much of the time. When you're using them, they are, by virtue of your usage, not idle--but still, thinking back on it now, there were times when I was the only person going through. So why were the Clear lanes idle so much of the time? Because their value proposition wasn't clear (pun intended; ha ha!) for enough people. As mentioned in an Atlanta Business Chronicle article the wait time at the "regular" lanes here in Atlanta is rarely more than 10 minutes; I didn't note any other statistics for other airports in any of the other articles I read, but many of them did mention in general terms that security wait times are generally modest these days. And, as numerous of the news articles indicate, the Clear security screening process itself is no easier or quicker than the regular security screening process--rather it is the same process as in all other security lines. So if you aren't saving hassle with the actual security screening and you aren't saving significant waiting time, what are you really getting from Clear? It seems most people answered that question with one word: "nothing." Hence, even a clear (I can't help myself!) path through the Clear lines wasn't good enough to attract new customers. And I'm sure that as they looked to prospects for the future, what they saw is that the worst part was that if they had somehow been able to grow, the reality is that they would have only been able to handle a certain amount of growth (at least without expanded capacity) before they'd actually have found themselves in a situation where their wait times frequently exceeded those of the regular lanes! So with this all being the case, why was I a Clear member? Well, when I joined last year, regular security lines were generally longer than they are now. Why has this changed? Since that time, the economy has weakened and less people are flying, and at some airports like Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, additional regular security lanes have been added, plus it seems that people are moving through security faster than they did last year (I'm not entirely sure if this is true or if it is, why it is, but kudos to TSA for any role they've had in the matter). But regardless of the reasons for the reduced wait times in the regular lines, I was contemplating not renewing at the end of my current membership period as a result of those reduced wait times. And you may find it surprising to find that I was actually leaning towards renewing. Why? Because even if Clear didn't provide actual speed advantages over the regular lanes, it did provide certainty of speed. That is to say, it provided a certainty that you'd get through security fast. So now the position I'm in is that when I go to the airport on Wednesday morning, I'm probably going to get through security quickly--but since I no longer can rely on that, I'm going to have to arrive earlier than I would have if I were able to use Clear--and the worst part is that I'll still be at greater risk of missing my flight! And that, my friends, is why I will miss Clear. P.S. Although Clear ceasing operations rips off any existing Clear member, the good news for me is that although I had a bit more than 5 months of membership left on my term, I did still get much of the expected value out of my Clear membership: I purchased a 1-year membership in March of 2008 and had gotten additional bonus time from a pre-Atlanta-Clear-lanes opening special and from others using my Clear referral code. But surely there are some people who only recently had paid for Clear memberships; such people were supremely ripped off. But it pales in comparison to the investors who lost millions, right? Well, if Clear intentionally deceived those investors then yes--but otherwise, those investors simply invested in a company which just didn't pan out, they weren't ripped off like we Clear members were. P.P.S. On a slightly related note: once, during the course of normal use of the Clear website (that is to say, not during a web application security penetration test), I stumbled upon a web application security vulnerability through which an attacker could have harvested Clear customer email addresses (to be clear, the attacker would only have been able to do this harvesting of email addresses one by one, not en masse; as for other details, well, as Forrest says, that's all I have to say about that). I always was amused by the irony of a company which went to great lengths to keep personal data safe having such a hole on their website! And I always wondered when Clear would discover the hole and patch it (but that certainly appears to be a moot point now!). I believe a good web application security assessment would have revealed this vulnerability and so I therefore find it doubtful that Clear authorized such an assessment. But regardless, this vulnerability just goes to show that even companies like Clear are not sufficiently adept at precluding unauthorized access to customer data. Feel free to shudder.

Heading to Estonia!

Fri, 29 May 2009 16:00:00 GMT

I'm heading out today on a short-term mission trip to Estonia! You can read more about it at http://www.estoniax.com/josh and you can follow our team's blog (hosted by my good friends at FusionLink and running on Mango Blog) at http://blog.estoniax.com. But don't worry--I'll be back to Atlanta in time for the ColdFusion 9 + Flex 4 User Group Tour meeting with Ben Forta!

ColdFusion 8 Enterprise or Standard?

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:15:00 GMT

How do you decide between ColdFusion 8 Enterprise and ColdFusion 8 Standard? Start by attending my Adobe eSeminar "The Right Fit: Adobe ColdFusion 8 Enterprise or Standard" to be held on Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 11:00 AM PST. I hope to see you there!

Learn about ColdFusion + the Flash Platform (including Flex & AIR) LIVE in DC!

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 19:50:00 GMT

Want to learn more about ColdFusion + the Adobe Flash Platform? If you're in (or can be in) Washington, D.C. on this Thursday, February 10, 2009, check out the Adobe Day we're holding @ Hotel Palomar in Washington, D.C. starting @ 10:00 AM. For more information and to RSVP, visit this URL: http://www.adoberegistrations.com/adobedays/2009/DC/AdobeDay_DC_CF.html Unfortunately, they don't have the schedule at that URL but good news: I have that information! Here is what is currently planned:

9:15 AM - 10:00 AM - Registration and Continental Breakfast
10:00 AM - 10:15 AM - Kickoff and Introductions
10:15 AM - noon - Adobe Flash Platform - Overview and Demos
noon - 12:30 PM - Lunch
12:30 PM - 1:00 PM - Leveraging ColdFusion and Flex To Create RIAs
1:00 PM - 1:45 PM - ROI of Rich Internet Applications and Success Stories
1:45 PM - 2:00 PM - Q&A and Best Practices

Adobe Platform Evangelist Ryan Stewart is currently scheduled to be driving the content of the event.

Adobe eSeminars for 2009 Quarter 1

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 22:18:00 GMT

One of my roles at Adobe is to present eSeminars (online seminars via Adobe Acrobat Connect) related to ColdFusion. Join me, won't you? I will be presenting the Adobe ColdFusion 8 eSeminar Series for 2009 Quarter 1 over the next couple of months; details for dates, times, and topics can be found via this URL: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=detail&id=1345643 Speaking of eSeminars: you might also be interested in the Adobe Flash Platform eSeminar series for Adobe AIR and Flex developers; details can be found via this URL: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=detail&id=462539 If there are any topics you'd like us to consider for future eSeminars, please let me know via a Comment on this entry.

Book One-Way Airline Tickets Instead of Multi-Destination Tickets

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 08:00:00 GMT

Okay, this one is way off-topic in relation to what I usually blog about, but I fully believe it's going to prevent someone who reads it from making the same mistake I made. Specifically, I believe it is going to prevent someone from booking a multi-destination ticket in the situation where, for the very same total price, that person could instead book each leg of the journey separately. So why is it a mistake to book a multi-leg itinerary instead of booking separate one-ways, if the cost of the two is the same? I'll get to that in just a moment, but before I do you should know that in the majority of cases I have seen for the last many years, at least in regards to travel within the United States, both types of booking do in fact cost the same. That could vary from market to market, but in my experience, market is not generally a concern. Okay, so let's talk about why you always want to go with booking your flights separately, so long as it doesn't cost you any more than booking them as a multi-leg trip (actually, after you read this post, you might decide it is even worth paying a little bit more in some situations): because it gives you more flexibility to alter your travel without incurring airline change fees. And if you haven't tasted any of the change fees being charged by airlines these days, let me just tell you that they taste very, very bitter and you very, very much want to avoid incurring them. I believe that most airlines are now charging $150 for any change. Here's the deal: if you change a particular flight on an itinerary, the effect is that every flight from that point onward on the ticket has to change too. That doesn't mean you have to make any changes to any other flights, it just means that they get priced as if they were changed. And that means that if those flights have become more expensive, you have to pay the difference between what you paid and what the new rate is. So to be clear, even if you aren't changing any subsequent flights, they "act" as if they are being changed and the price for them gets recalculated and you pay the difference between the new price and what you paid. So you should already see where it benefits you to book separate flights: if you change a one-way flight, there are no subsequent flights so you won't have to pay any fare increases that affect flights you don't actually want to change. So if you book an outbound flight and a separate return flight and then you change the outbound flight, while you'll have to pay $150 plus any fare increase for changing that outbound flight, you won't get stuck paying any fare increase for the return flight. To make this perfectly clear, let's consider a simple example: you pay $300 for an outbound flight and separately you pay $200 for a return flight. Then you need to make a change to your outbound flight. Unfortunately, the fare for the new flight is $350; you now have to pay the additional $50 that this new flight costs over what you paid. In addition, you have to pay $150 to make the change. Ugh. You're out $200! But what if you'd booked a round-trip? The answer is that, best-case scenario, you'd be out the same $200 because of the same fees; worst-case scenario you'd be out not only that $200 but also much more because you would also have to pay any fare increases affecting the return flight: let's say that instead of $200, that same flight now costs $250; you'd have to pay the $50 that the return flight--the same return flight, mind you--costs over what you paid for it previously. This is an absolutely ridiculous policy, by the way. But it is in fact the policy. Ah, but it gets worse: there's another policy that says that if you don't take a flight on a ticket, all other flights on that itinerary are cancelled (you get to keep their value, minus that same hefty change fee, but you can't actually fly them as scheduled). Why does this matter? Because in the world of $150 change fees, sometimes it makes the most sense to simply bail on a scheduled flight and book a new one. Think about it: if it costs you $150 to change a flight then so long as you can buy a replacement flight for less than $150, aren't you better off buying the replacement flight and simply not taking the existing flight? Of course you are. And with multiple one-way tickets, you have the flexibility to do that in all cases; with multi-leg trips, you can only do it where it won't be a negative impact to cancel all remaining flights on the ticket (so for instance, for the last flight on a ticket). By the way, the fact that you can't take a flight in an itinerary simply because you missed other flights in that itinerary is yet another ridiculous policy, but here again, it is in fact the policy. So another example: let's say you pay $100 for an outbound flight and $200 for a return flight then you need to make a change to your outbound flight. Good news: the new flight also costs $100; you won't have to pay an increased fare. But should you change that outbound flight? No way! You should simply skip it and book the new flight you want for $100! Why pay $150 when for $100 you can achieve the same desired result (which is a ticket on the new flight you want)? But of course, if you have other flights on that ticket (that is, if you booked a multi-leg instead of multiple separate one-ways), you can't do that because they won't let you get on any flight on an itinerary on which you have missed a preceding flight. That means that if you really want to make the change, you have to pay the $150 change fee--but remember, you also have to pay an additional increase in the fare of your return flight, even if you don't change your return flight in any way. So, let's say that return flight is now $275 instead of $200; you have to pay not only the $150 change fee, you also have to pay the $75 by which the return fare has increased. That means you're coming out paying $225 additional--and this to change a ticket that originally cost you only $300! But if you'd booked separate tickets, you'd have paid only $100 because you'd have simply bailed on your original outbound ticket and bought a new outbound ticket. I'm actually in very much this situation right now: if I had separate tickets for an upcoming trip, I could bail on the outbound ticket and buy the flight I actually want for $105, but if I change the round-trip ticket I have it will cost me $235. It actually would cost me less money, a total of $210 for a $25 savings, to go ahead and take my original flight then immediately take the first flight back home--and the logistics of doing that actually would work out for me. Now, you may say "don't be crazy--spend the $25 extra and save yourself the hassle of the travel. And it's a valid point because while I, like everyone, would rather get something for my money, in this case I don't need it and it's actually more of a hassle to use it than it is to not use it. Ah, but by using it, there is something I would get: miles. And those miles, coming as they would at the beginning of the year (a.k.a. the point at which earning miles for elite status resets), could months down the line be just what I need to achieve the next level of elite status (and at the very least, they would get added to my total available for redemption for award travel). So in summary, there are two places where in making changes to airline tickets you can get zinged by having bought a multi-leg ticket instead of multiple separate one-way tickets:

In having to pay the change fee where you would like instead to replace a flight in the itinerary with one costing less than the change fee, but where such a replacement would mean that subsequent flights in the itinerary that you do not want to change and do want to take would be automatically cancelled when you missed your originally scheduled flight.
In having to pay for the increased fare of flights for which you are not actually making any changes, simply because these flights have their fares recalculated every time a change is made to any preceding flight.

So...book multiple one-ways instead of multi-legs. Enjoy the flexibility! QED. I do want to make it explicitly clear that it is only in the case where you want to change a flight in an itinerary that has subsequent flights you do not want to change where it is to your advantage to have booked those flights separately rather than as part of a single ticket; in cases where you only want to change the final flight on an itinerary, it makes no difference whether that flight is a one-way or part of a multi-leg. The reason is that effectively, the final flight for an itinerary is a one-way: changes to it don't cause you to be subject to paying the fare increases of subsequent flights because there are no subsequent flights and if you bail on it, there are no ramifications in regards to the automatic cancellation of subsequent flights because again, there are no subsequent flights. Now, if you need to change multiple flights on the same itinerary, you may well be better off if you bought all of those flights as part of the same ticket because you will only be charged a single change fee to change them whereas if they were on separate tickets, you would be charged a change fee for each ticket. However, I think it is a lot more common that you need to change only a single flight than it is that you need to change more than one flight on an itinerary so I believe that it will more often benefit you to book each leg of a journey separately than it will to book those legs together.

Movie Review: "Eagle Eye"

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 06:30:00 GMT

I've never written a movie review before. And I may well never write another. But I saw "Eagle Eye" at one of those pre-screenings on Wednesday night and as such I saw it before most everyone else so I thought I'd take a minute here to let you know what I thought about it in the hopes it might be informative to you. Now, my goal here isn't to be objective or to evaluate the movie on any particular set of criteria--I'm simply going to tell you my thoughts. Note that I cannot be held responsible for any irreparable damage this may cause. ;P Here's the thing about this movie: the villain is a computer. Specifically, the antagonist is a computer that has become too smart for its own good and is now trying to do things that the humans in the movie consider to be nefarious. These include wearing white shoes after Labor Day, swimming immediately after eating, and killing people. Silly computer--tricks are for kids! Okay, so the computer doesn't have feet on which to wear shoes and it doesn't appear to have any interest in either eating or swimming, but it sure ain't kidding around on that whole killing people thing! Let me say this: I like Terminator as much as the next guy. But that's set way in the future. And that machine at least acts like a dude. The computer in Eagle Eye, on the other hand, isn't all that different from the computers we're all used to, only except this one is ginormous, has these befuddling infrared innards which Hollywood apparently thinks will impress people with their complexity, and oh yeah--is trying to kill people (and I don't want to hear about how your computer seems to be trying to ruin your life by crashing at all the wrong times--it's not the same thing). The computer in Eagle Eye isn't at all like a dude--it does talk, but it has no face, no body, and it can't move around under its own power. Actually, it does have a bit of a thing for car chases so maybe it's a little like a dude after all. So anyway, much as I like Terminator, I don't like movies set in the present day where the main difference between our actual world and the world depicted in the movie is that in the movie there's a crazed computer bent on destruction. Eh, I suppose that if the crazed computer were some minor plot line, I could hang with it if the rest of the movie were interesting, but when the crazed computer is core the entire story of the movie, I'm pretty much done. Because I was with my girlfriend and I simply don't like giving up on things, I hung in there with Eagle Eye for a bit after it became clear that the villain was a computer. But the film is so predictable that there wasn't anything even interesting to keep my attention, and so it got to the point where I just couldn't wait for it to end. To the film's credit, it at least didn't drag things out. If you like movies where the antagonist is a computer, have at it. But if you're like me and such movies aren't your thing, skip this one. And remember, computers don't kill people, people kill people. Or something. 2011-04-21: given the age of this post, it seems unlikely to receive further legitimate comments. Yet comments continue to be posted: spam. Accordingly, it seems wise to me then to stop the insanity by closing comments to this post. Should you have a legitimate comment you wish to post here, please contact me via the the contact form here on my blog. Thanks!

ColdFusion @ Adobe MAX 2008

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 06:25:00 GMT

Adobe MAX 2008 figures to be the best MAX ever. But did you know that there are a ton of great ColdFusion sessions on tap? I don't know specifics, but I know there are more sessions planned this year than in at least the recent past. So...hopefully you have heard only good things about Adobe MAX, but if you instead heard something about there not being enough ColdFusion content, put that thought to rest! But don't just take my word for it, check out the Adobe MAX 2008 North America Session Locator and see for yourself (as Charlie Arehart pointed out to me, it's important to notice that the tool includes a Product selection and by choosing "ColdFusion" you will see over 30 distinct sessions, not including repeats, pertaining to ColdFusion)! Then check out all the great information and register on the Adobe MAX 2008 North America website. Speaking of registration: for the best possible price, you need a special code--and I may be able to provide one; contact me for more information.

Unsupported ColdFusion Configurations

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 06:05:00 GMT

I guess you could say this is the unofficial thread on unofficial ColdFusion configurations. :) But before we get to that, I need to make this statement: I recommend running ColdFusion in a supported configuration as specified here: http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/systemreqs ANY deviation from these System Requirements is strictly at your own risk! Among the risks is a lack of support from Adobe--Adobe only supports configurations meeting the System Requirements! Now, let me explain things a little further: the System Requirements information indicates tested and supported configurations for ColdFusion; it does not (at least necessarily) contain definitive information on what configurations will run ColdFusion. That is to say, there may well be configurations not listed that will run ColdFusion, but Adobe cannot and will not make any comments about these and again I must stress that, most importantly, Adobe will not support such configurations. I hope the information I have just shared is enlightening in and of itself; I think it will be because I'm regularly asked questions on the subject, usually in the form of "will xxx work with ColdFusion." But for those questions to which I have to answer "it is not supported, but as to whether or not it will work, I cannot say" my hope here is that others will be able to share their experiences with these unsupported configurations. My intention is in no way to encourage the use of ColdFusion with unsupported configurations; my only desire is to help those who choose to use such configurations knowingly and with a full understanding the implications of using such configurations. So...if you have a question about an unsupported ColdFusion configuration, ask away in a comment! If your experience has been that ColdFusion either does or does not work with a certain unsupported configuration, please note it in a comment! When commenting, please specify as much information as possible about your configuration, certainly including your version of ColdFusion.

Adobe eSeminars

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 21:30:00 GMT

One of my roles at Adobe is to present eSeminars (online seminars via Adobe Acrobat Connect) related to ColdFusion. Join me, won't you? I will be presenting the Adobe ColdFusion 8 eSeminar Series over the next couple of months; details can be found via this URL: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=detail&id=1345643 Speaking of eSeminars: you might also be interested in the Adobe Flex eSeminar Series for Developers; details can be found via this URL: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/event/index.cfm?event=detail&id=462539

Upgrading from ColdFusion MX to ColdFusion 8

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 20:50:00 GMT

Just as I am frequently asked about the process of migrating from ColdFusion 5 or older to ColdFusion 8, I am also regularly asked about the process of upgrading from ColdFusion MX (the releases variously known as ColdFusion MX, ColdFusion MX 6, ColdFusion MX 6.1, ColdFusion MX 7, ColdFusion MX 7.0.1, ColdFusion MX 7.0.2, ColdFusion 7, ColdFusion 7.0.1, and ColdFusion 7.0.2) to ColdFusion 8 (at the time of this posting, the current release of ColdFusion 8 is ColdFusion 8.0.1). And so here too I have compiled some helpful information: First and foremost, to set things up: as noted in the following link, ColdFusion MX to ColdFusion 8 is a valid upgrade path (upgrading to ColdFusion 8 is supported for the 2 most recent previous major releases of ColdFusion):

http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/upgrade [UPDATE: with the release of ColdFusion 9, this link has been updated to pertain to upgrading to ColdFusion 9--please consider migrating or upgrading to ColdFusion 9!]

You can use the ColdFusion Code Compatibility Analyzer to determine if your code is valid for ColdFusion 8:

I recommend reviewing the tag and function changes to ColdFusion. Be sure to note the addition of functions with names that collide with user-defined functions in your code (for instance, ColdFusion 8 introduced the isImage() function; if your code has a user-defined function called isImage() you will need to change the name of that user-defined function and all references to it in your code before upgrading to ColdFusion 8):

You may also wish to check the CFML Language History:

http://www.adobe.com/go/tn_18791 [UPDATE: this link is no longer active.]

It's very important to read the release notes in case some might apply to your environment:

http://www.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/coldfusion/releasenotes.html

Many of these upgrading best practices from Adobe's Sarge Sargent's blog will certainly apply:

http://www.sargeway.com/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=6DBD3FC6-C29F-05EC-8BC78715AD424685

For even more helpful info, visit this blog post from Charlie Arehart:

http://www.carehart.org/blog/client/index.cfm/2009/8/10/cf8_migration_resources

When you're ready to install ColdFusion 8, you'll want to review the "Installing and Using ColdFusion" documentation:

http://livedocs.adobe.com/coldfusion/8/htmldocs/Part_1_Installing_1.html (HTML LiveDocs version, containing comments from users and Adobe employees)
http://livedocs.adobe.com/coldfusion/8/install.pdf (PDF version with no comments)

Adobe has worked hard to make the upgrade process as smooth and easy as possible. The process involved varies depending on:

Your current product version and edition as well as, in the case of ColdFusion Enterprise, your current deployment type.
Your desired product version and edition as well as, in the case of ColdFusion Enterprise, your desired deployment type.

To upgrade to ColdFusion 8 Enterprise from ColdFusion 8 Standard:

Enter your license key for ColdFusion 8 Enterprise in the ColdFusion Administrator in the System Information section accessible via the link marked with an "i" Information icon in the upper-right. No reinstall of ColdFusion 8 is required. This is true because there is a single runtime (per platform; the same is true for the installer) for ColdFusion 8 which acts as a particular edition based on what license key(s) are entered--if you enter a license key for ColdFusion 8 Enterprise, the runtime will act as ColdFusion 8 Enterprise; if you enter a license key for ColdFusion 8 Standard, the runtime will act as ColdFusion 8 Standard. Note that both ColdFusion 8 Trial and ColdFusion 8 Developer are the same as ColdFusion 8 Enterprise, with the notable exception that neither is licensed for production use, Trial becomes Developer after 30 days, and Developer accepts connections only from a limited number of IP addresses.

To upgrade to ColdFusion 8 from standalone installations of any release of ColdFusion MX (NOTE: the process is the same for standalone installations of both ColdFusion Enterprise and ColdFusion Standard):

Run the ColdFusion 8 installation wizard to install ColdFusion 8
Browse to the ColdFusion Administrator to launch the Configuration Wizard and allow it to import the settings from ColdFusion MX

To upgrade to ColdFusion 8 Enterprise from multi-server and J2EE installations of any release of ColdFusion MX, follow this TechNote:

http://www.adobe.com/go/kb405205

As long as you choose to use the built-in web server during installation of ColdFusion 8, your installation of ColdFusion MX will not be altered or removed by the installation of ColdFusion 8. You will therefore be able to continue running ColdFusion MX while you test your new ColdFusion 8 installation. If during installation of ColdFusion 8 you choose to use the same external web server as you are using for ColdFusion MX, note that the CFIDE and CFDOCS directories in the root of your external web server will be replaced by the CFIDE and CFDOCS directories for ColdFusion 8. If you wish to avoid this, you must instead choose to use the built-in web server during installation of ColdFusion 8. As Adobe Technical Account Manager Michael Collins explains in the following blog post, you can later use the Web Server Configuration Tool to configure your external web server for ColdFusion 8:

http://blogs.adobe.com/mcollins/2007/11/test.html

If you wish to configure your external web server to work properly with both ColdFusion MX and ColdFusion 8 on an ongoing basis (as opposed to working with only one version or the other), you can do so, but you will need to do some manual configuration of your web server; see the following blog post by Adobe Community Expert Charlie Arehart for more information (even if you're not using Microsoft IIS and Microsoft Windows XP, the principles described will apply):

http://carehart.org/blog/client/index.cfm/2007/8/21/multiple_cf_versions_on_IIS_XP

There is no need for you to uninstall ColdFusion MX once you are no longer using it, but you may do so if you would like. However, if you wish to uninstall any release of ColdFusion MX, please view the following TechNote (which is written for the uninstallation of ColdFusion MX after upgrading to ColdFusion MX 7, but is also applicable to the uninstallation of any release of ColdFusion MX after upgrading to ColdFusion 8) before uninstalling ColdFusion MX:

http://www.adobe.com/go/b41d02c5

Still have questions? First, visit the Installation section of the ColdFusion Support Center. If you can't find your answer there, feel free to contact me or, particularly if your question is one you believe would benefit other readers of this post, add a comment on this post. One final note: Adobe offers implementation consulting for a fee; if you would like more information on this offering, please contact me.

Migrating from ColdFusion 5 or Earlier to ColdFusion 8

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 01:40:00 GMT

I am regularly asked about the process of moving applications from ColdFusion 5 or earlier releases (ColdFusion 4.5, ColdFusion 4, etc.) to ColdFusion 8. Nowhere else is there good consolidated information on the subject so, with some help from the excellent Adobe ColdFusion Support Team, I have compiled this information: First and foremost, to set things up: as noted in the following link, ColdFusion 5 or earlier to ColdFusion 8 is not a valid upgrade path:

http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/upgrade [UPDATE: with the release of ColdFusion 9, this link has been updated to pertain to upgrading to ColdFusion 9--please consider migrating or upgrading to ColdFusion 9!]

However, you can still migrate your ColdFusion applications from ColdFusion 5 to ColdFusion 8. Note that unlike the valid upgrade paths available for moving from ColdFusion MX 6.x and 7.x to ColdFusion 8, migrating from ColdFusion 5 to ColdFusion 8 does not allow for automated migration of ColdFusion settings like datasources, mappings, custom tag paths, and so on; instead, you must migrate your ColdFusion 5 settings to ColdFusion 8 manually. Below you will find a number of resources that will be helpful in the process of migrating from ColdFusion 5 to ColdFusion 8: "Migrating Applications to ColdFusion MX 7" is an incredibly valuable resource and although it was unfortunately not updated for ColdFusion 8, to a large extent that's because there really wasn't any need: the concerns involved when migrating from ColdFusion 5 to ColdFusion 8 are (with possibly some small exceptions that don't come to mind right now) the same as those involved when migrating from ColdFusion 5 to ColdFusion MX 7:

http://download.macromedia.com/pub/documentation/en/coldfusion/mx7/cfmx7_migrating.pdf

Although this article was written for migration to ColdFusion MX, which is 2 full releases earlier than ColdFusion 8, many of the topics covered will apply to ColdFusion 8 as well:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/coldfusion/articles/migration_overview.html [UPDATE: this link is no longer active.]

The previous link also mentions the Code Compatibility Analyzer. You can use the ColdFusion Code Compatibility Analyzer to determine if your code is valid for ColdFusion 8:

I recommend also this link for ensuring your migration from ColdFusion 5 will at least be compatible with ColdFusion MX:

http://livedocs.adobe.com/coldfusion/6/Migrating_ColdFusion_5_Applications/cf_migration_guide.htm

I recommend reviewing the tag and function changes to ColdFusion. Be sure to note the addition of functions with names that collide with user-defined functions in your code (for instance, ColdFusion 8 introduced the isImage() function; if your code has a user-defined function called isImage() you will need to change the name of that user-defined function and all references to it in your code before upgrading to ColdFusion 8):

You may also wish to check the CFML Language History:

http://www.adobe.com/go/tn_18791 [UPDATE: this link is no longer active.]

It's very important to read the release notes in case some might apply to your environment:

http://www.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/coldfusion/releasenotes.html

Many of these upgrading best practices from Adobe's Sarge Sargent's blog will certainly apply:

http://www.sargeway.com/blog/index.cfm?mode=entry&entry=6DBD3FC6-C29F-05EC-8BC78715AD424685

For even more helpful info, visit this blog post from Charlie Arehart:

http://www.carehart.org/blog/client/index.cfm/2009/8/10/cf8_migration_resources

And finally, when you're ready to install ColdFusion 8, you'll want to review the "Installing and Using ColdFusion" documentation:

http://livedocs.adobe.com/coldfusion/8/htmldocs/Part_1_Installing_1.html (HTML LiveDocs version, containing comments from users and Adobe employees)
http://livedocs.adobe.com/coldfusion/8/install.pdf (PDF version with no comments)

Still have questions? First, visit the Installation section of the ColdFusion Support Center. If you can't find your answer there, feel free to contact me or, particularly if your question is one you believe would benefit other readers of this post, add a comment on this post. One final note: Adobe offers implementation consulting for a fee; if you would like more information on this offering, please contact me.

ColdFusion 8 Enterprise Now FREE for Qualifying Educational Use

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 04:35:00 GMT

As announced at CFUnited 2008, ColdFusion 8 Enterprise is now FREE for qualifying educational use! One big point I want to make up front: ColdFusion 8 Enterprise in a production environment at even a qualifying institution still requires a commercial license. For more details on this andother important program details, please see the following links:

Adobe ColdFusion 8 for Eduction site
Adobe ColdFusion Product Marketing Manager Kristen Schofield's press announcement
The Adobe ColdFusion 8 FAQ (note in particular the section entitled "Free ColdFusion Enterprise for education")

Bad Marketing, Part 1

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:20:00 GMT

I find myself regularly surprised at some of the downright confounding marketing decisions I see made out there. Now, I'm a detail-oriented person so I sometimes catch things that most people wouldn't, but some of these things are glaring. Everyone makes mistakes, but when it's something like a TV commercial, I would think that there would be multiple content reviewers to prevent those mistakes from making it out into the wild. Yet today, I heard this in a commercial:

Don't shop around, call [offending company] first.

So much for content reviewers! Maybe it's just me, but the first thing I thought was "why are they telling me not to shop around?" Well, actually the first thing I thought was how arrogant it is that they would presume to tell me what to do, but once I moved past that I was left with the aforementioned question, to which I could only conclude that they have something to hide. Now, maybe they do have something to hide and maybe they don't--it doesn't really matter because at this point they have put the seed of doubt in my mind and I don't trust them. And that's what I call Bad Marketing.

Make Sure USB Connection Not Interrupted When Updating iPhone

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:50:00 GMT

I just plugged my iPhone into my MacBook Pro via USB and was immediately informed that there was a new version of the iPhone software available and I was asked if I wanted to install that software. I clicked yes and the process started. While it was doing its thing, I moved over into my Windows XP instance running in VMWare Fusion. Well, part of the process of updating the iPhone involved the iPhone restarting and when it restarted, because I was using VMWare Fusion, VMWare Fusion grabbed the USB connection and this completely hosed the iPhone. Let me be clear: it didn't just mess up the update, it hosed the iPhone--meaning it wouldn't work at all. It isn't that the iPhone connecting to the Windows XP instance in VMWare Fusion hoses the iPhone inherently; in fact, in a normal circumstance, connecting the iPhone to the Windows XP instance in VMWare Fusion would be no problem at all. What is a problem, however, is the iPhone losing the connection to iTunes in the middle of the update process. So my only choice was to restore the iPhone to factory settings and from there to restore the phone's settings from a backup. I'm not sure that before beginning the update iTunes bothers to do a backup of your iPhone (if it doesn't, it sure should and I recommend that you do your own backup before letting iTunes do a software update), but in any case it seems I was able to restore from a recent enough backup that I didn't lose much, if anything. Because I'm using over-the-air Exchange synchronization, my most imporant data (Contacts, Calendar, Email) are not synced via iTunes so fortunately there was no risk of losing any of that data. But even though in the end I lost little to nothing, the whole process of restoring is long and a rather big pain in the butt. So for that reason alone, I highly recommend avoiding it at all costs--and that means making sure the USB connection between your machine and your iPhone is not interrupted when you're updating the iPhone's software! Incidentally, even after restoring from a backup, I had to completely re-do my settings for my Adobe Exchange account (I'm guessing that the certificate for the phone can't be backed up). Also, although my setting for syncing an image directory on the MacBook Pro to the iPhone was still present, the image in the directory (I only have 1 image in that directory) was not on the iPhone until I did another sync and, because I use that image as my Wallpaper, I had to reset my Wallpaper after I synced the image back to the iPhone.

Creating an RSS Feed Using <cffeed> with a Structure

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 05:35:00 GMT

The Adobe ColdFusion 8 documentation has a ton of great information on the <cffeed> tag, including a nice example of how to create an RSS feed using <cffeed> with a structure. There's no need to rehash that information, but I do want to expound on it to explain how you specify categories and enclosures as well as guid info for an item in a feed because I think specifying these for an item in a feed is a little tricky. So what I'm going to do is take the above example as a starting point, adding in the code that demonstrates how to specify categories and enclosures and guid info for an item and removing some non-essential code so as not to overly complicate things:





	/* Create the feed data structure and add the metadata. */
	myStruct = StructNew();
	myStruct.link = "http://" & CGI.HTTP_HOST & CGI.SCRIPT_NAME;
	myStruct.title = "My RSS Feed";
	myStruct.description = "A demonstration of ";
	myStruct.pubDate = Now();
	myStruct.version = "rss_2.0";
	
	/* Add the feed items. A more sophisticated application would use dynamic variables
		and support varying numbers of items. */
	myStruct.item = ArrayNew(1);
	myStruct.item[1] = StructNew();
	myStruct.item[1].category = ArrayNew(1);
	myStruct.item[1].category[1] = StructNew();
	myStruct.item[1].category[1].value = "Cat1";
	myStruct.item[1].enclosure = ArrayNew(1);
	myStruct.item[1].enclosure[1] = StructNew();
	myStruct.item[1].enclosure[1].url = "http://" & CGI.HTTP_HOST & "enc/myenclosure.mp3";
	myStruct.item[1].enclosure[1].length = 1212;
	myStruct.item[1].enclosure[1].type = "audio/mp3";
	myStruct.item[1].description = StructNew();
	myStruct.item[1].description.value = "The first item in the feed";
	myStruct.item[1].guid = StructNew();
	myStruct.item[1].guid.isPermaLink = "Yes";
	myStruct.item[1].guid.value = "http://" & CGI.HTTP_HOST;
	myStruct.item[1].title = "Item 1";
	myStruct.item[2] = StructNew();
	myStruct.item[2].category = ArrayNew(1);
	myStruct.item[2].category[1] = StructNew();
	myStruct.item[2].category[1].value = "Cat1";
	myStruct.item[2].category[2] = StructNew();
	myStruct.item[2].category[2].value = "Cat2";
	myStruct.item[2].description = StructNew();
	myStruct.item[2].description.value = "The second item in the feed";
	myStruct.item[2].guid = StructNew();
	myStruct.item[2].guid.isPermaLink = "Yes";
	myStruct.item[2].guid.value = "http://" & CGI.HTTP_HOST;
	myStruct.item[2].title = "Item 2";




#myXML#

Please note the following:

The code was specifically written without external dependencies so that it will work on any ColdFusion 8 installation.
<cfsetting showdebugoutput="no"> can be a lifesaver when working with <cffeed>--I was tearing my hair out for a bit until I had that head-slapping moment when it dawned on me why I kept being told by the browser that the feed was invalid.
I consider it good coding practice to always scope variables, even those in the Variables scope. The only reason the above code doesn't use scoped variables is to keep it as similar as possible to the example code referenced at the top of this post.
If you're looking for information on the metadata properties for the feed itself, see Ray Camden's blog post on the subject.

Emulating Task Lists on iPhone with Calendars

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 21:00:00 GMT

Without any implication that it's at all okay that Apple hasn't bothered to implement a Task List application on the iPhone, here's a method I thought up to emulate task lists using the Calendar application:

In your computer's Exchange client (you can't do it on the iPhone; you have to use Outlook or Entourage or whatever on your computer), create a new sub-directory of your current Calendar (and make sure you set it to be of the Calendar type). Call it Tasks.
Repeat the above step with the exception that this time call the sub-directory Completed Tasks.

Pretty simple, huh? So how do you use it? Well, when you enter the Calendar application on the iPhone, you'll be able to view the calendars for your Exchange account (when you're in the Calendar app looking at the main view, you should see in the upper left-hand corner a button labeled "Calendars" that will take you to view the calendars). You'll see that you can view just one calendar or all of your calendars; as you may also know, your main view choices include List--so you can choose to view the "Tasks" calendar and view it as a List, very much as you would expect to view tasks in a Task List application. And of course you add a new task by creating a new calendar item in the Tasks calendar. Unfortunately, there's no way to designate a calendar item as complete; that's why I use the second calendar called Completed Tasks. But there's one more unfortunate thing (referenced in my iPhone 2.0 Insights blog post) that comes into play here: you can't move calendar items from one calendar to another on the iPhone. Totally inexplicable pain in the butt, but it isn't the end of the world to just move the items over on your computer (if you don't care about completed tasks, you can always just delete them on either the iPhone or your computer and not worry about the Completed Tasks calendar). Using 2 directories and calling them "Tasks" and "Completed Tasks" is just my choice: obviously, you can change the names of the calendar sub-directories as you see fit and you can create more than just 2 if you'd like. Note: this definitely works with iPhone synched up over the air with Exchange; it may or may not work in other configurations (all I can say is that prior to synching over the air with Exchange, I was not aware of any way to synch with multiple calendars nor to view multiple calendars on the iPhone). Note: I am aware that there are 3rd party Task List applications available for iPhone, however, given that none of those are able to synch with Exchange, they do not suit my purposes. I also don't know if any of those can alert me like calendars items can.

Fixing Inverted Caps Lock on VMWare Fusion, Parallels, or Remote Desktop

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:05:00 GMT

UPDATE: although this post was originally written in regards to running Windows in VMWare Fusion, as pointed out by multiple kind people who have commented on this post, this information is also useful for those accessing Windows through means other than VMWare Fusion including Parallels and Remote Desktop. Accordingly, I have changed the title of the post to include Parallels and Remote Desktop. I use a MacBook Pro and on it I run VMWare Fusion on top of which I run Windows XP. Normally, when Caps Lock is on in the Mac, it's on in the Windows XP instance and when Caps Lock is off in the Mac, it's off in the Windows XP instance. However, from time to time, on the Windows XP instance Caps Lock becomes "inverted"--that is, Caps Lock on the Windows XP instance is reversed from what it is on the Mac. So on the Mac, Caps Lock will be off and on the Windows XP instance, Caps Lock will be on. Or, the Mac Caps Lock will be on--and so will be the light on the Caps Lock key--yet the Windows XP instance Caps Lock will be off. Okay, now that I've established the problem, I'll go ahead and explain the solution, then for those interested, I'll backtrack into the details. UPDATE: there is, at least in VMWare Fusion 2.0, a simpler solution than I originally detailed in this blog post (that original solution and my explanation of the cause of the problem are still included below): go to the Virtual Machine menu in VMWare Fusion and choose Send Key ==> Caps Lock. You'll note while you're there that there are a number of other keys you can send as well; I discovered this whole capability tonight while looking around to try to find a way to send the Insert key (Insert had gotten toggled on in Internet Explorer and I wanted to toggle it back off) which I didn't know how to do directly because the MacBook Pro keyboard has no Insert key. UPDATE: as pointed out by Bob in one of the Comments to this entry, another simple solution is to launch the On-screen Keyboard application (generally this can be done by choosing Start ==> All Programs ==> Accessories ==> Accessibility ==> On-screen Keyboard; as noted by DrFooMod2 in a comment below, you can also bring up the On-screen Keyboard by typing "osk" without the quotes in the Windows Run... box) and toggle Caps Lock by clicking on the virtual "lock" button in the application. The On-screen Keyboard application shows--and can change--the state of Caps Lock in the Windows XP instance without any regard to the state of Caps Lock on the Mac itself. So here is the solution: in the Windows XP instance, open an application that can toggle Caps Lock (didn't know Windows apps could do such a thing? Surprise!) such as Microsoft Word and go into whatever context is required for the app to toggle Caps Lock (in Word, that means typing in a document). Make sure Caps Lock on the Mac is off; this will mean that Caps Lock in the Windows XP instance is on. Start typing normally (that is, as if Caps Lock in the Windows XP instance is off); if you try to type "Hello" what you'll get instead is "hELLO" but as soon as you hit the space bar, the app will "correct" what you typed to "Hello" and toggle the Windows XP instance Caps Lock off--and as a result, Caps Lock will be back in synch between the Mac and the Windows XP instance. :) Why does this problem happen in the first place? You've probably figured at least part of that out already: when you use an app that can toggle the Windows XP Caps Lock and you have Caps Lock on but type in a way that the app thinks indicates Caps Lock is on unintentionally, it "helps" you by "correcting" what you typed and turning off Caps Lock on the Windows XP instance for you. This isn't necessarily a bad thing--in a standalone Windows XP instance. However, with consideration to the fact that in this case it causes the Windows XP instance to toggle its Caps Lock but doesn't do the same for the Mac such that the Windows XP Caps Lock and the Mac Caps Lock become out of synch, it's not good. And why doesn't the toggling of Caps Lock in the Mac instance cascade up to the Mac anyway? As well as I can tell, Mac applications do not have the ability to toggle Caps Lock on and off (side note: this makes complete sense when you note the difference between what Windows & Mac do when you press the shift key while Caps Lock is on: on Windows, it's sort of a "double negative" type of thing such that the result is a lowercase letter whereas on Mac, the result is still an uppercase letter--so then it wouldn't make sense for the app to toggle Caps Lock) which means that VMWare Fusion can't toggle Caps Lock on the Mac when it is toggled in the Windows instance (now, I'm not even sure that VMWare Fusion can detect Caps Lock being toggled in the Windows instance but if VWWare Fusion can't toggle it on the Mac then really it's a moot point whether or not it can detect it being toggled in the Windows instance). One note of interest: the behavior here makes it clear that the Mac-VMWare Fusion-Windows XP instance communication isn't along the lines of "Caps Lock on" or "Caps Lock off" but rather "toggle Caps Lock." See, you'll note that I didn't indicate that to fix the problem you just have to hit the Caps Lock key on the Mac and it will get things back in synch--that would work if the communication were "Caps Lock on" or "Caps Lock off" but since it's just "toggle Caps Lock" all that happens is that the Caps Lock gets reversed the other way around! UPDATE 2012-07-27: this blog post is 2 days shy of being 4 years old and it's still generating comments! One such comment below states "Here is a simple solution (work around) that worked for me for inverted caps lock (same for num lock). When you are on VM or NXClient press 'alt'+'ctl'+'del', then press the caps lock(same for num lock). Then press 'escape'. Hope this works." I haven't tried this but wanted to pull it up here in the blog post in case it's of help to you. Thanks for the tip, Partha.

iPhone 2.0 Insights

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:47:00 GMT

UPDATE 7/13/2009: The iPhone 3.0 Firmware is now out and it has a bunch of great new feature. Unfortunately, many of the things I felt were lacking in the iPhone 2.0 Firmware were not addressed. But one was and so I've updated the information below accordingly. Look for the "UPDATE" tags. I thought some of you might be considering iPhone 2.0 and so I thought I'd post these insights (to add, I'm sure, to all those insights others have posted of late). For those who like executive summaries, here you go: I recommend iPhone 2.0. I am using earlier generation hardware with the new 2.0 firmware so I can't review 3G for you or any other new features of the iPhone 2.0 hardware. Major Pros of 2.0 Firmware:

Data push. This works really well for calendar, contacts, and email. I've never had a phone with data push before so I can't make comparisons (my main point of comparison is to Palm and synching locally to Outlook). My favorite features are multi-contacts groups and multi-calendars--I have always wanted this in order to keep my business contacts separate from my personal contacts and to keep my business calendar items separate from my personal calendar items. In iPhone Contacts and Calendar you can choose to view all or just one particular contacts group or calendar, respectively.
Directory lookup. This is the other part of Exchange integration: you can look up any contact in the Adobe directory.
Extensibility via add-on apps obtainable with the App Store application. There are numerous useful apps available, many of which are free.

There are also existing pros like the browser, the Google Maps app, the solid camera, the in-phone voice mail control, and the chat-style text message conversation threads. Major Cons of 2.0 Firmware:

If you set the view of Contacts or Calendar to a particular contacts group or calendar, respectively, then exit the application, the view sometimes changes to all when you re-launch the application.
While there is a way to set the default calendar for new calendar items and there is a way to set the calendar for a new calendar item when it is created, there is no way to move a contact or calendar from one group to another and there is no way to set the default contact group for new contacts and there is no way to set the contact group for a contact when it is created (instead it automatically goes into the contact group you're viewing or, if you're viewing all, it goes into the top-level Contacts group).
There is no support for Tasks. There are some 3rd party apps available, some even free, but these do not synch with Exchange Tasks.
There is no copy and paste. Word has it that Apple just doesn't see this as a priority. Unfathomable. UPDATE: Copy and paste is now present in the 3.0 Firmware!
There is no "quick text" for SMS...and since there's no copy and paste, there's absolutely no way to send a text message without typing the whole thing in. UPDATE: Well, at least you can copy and paste in 3.0 Firmware, which is better than nothing.
No trial period for add-on apps that cost money (ditto for add-on apps that are free, but of course that's a moot point).
No ability to configure how many recent calls are stored. You're stuck with the default, which is something like 50 or 100. I would like to see a configurable setting for number of recent calls displayed and I would like for one of the options to be "all" so that there is no limit. This device has gobs and gobs of storage space--it has 1000 times the storage space of my Kyocera QCP-6035 that I bought in 2001 and that device could be configured to store up to 999 recent calls with no problem--so storing an effectively limitless amount of recent call information should not be an issue--and just to be safe, it could be programmed so that if space did fill up, the last item went out every time a new item needed to come in.
No ability to replicate contacts, calendar items, etc. This would be really useful, particularly on calendar items. When you go to the dentist, do you make your next appointment? I think most of us do. And so you put it immediately into your iPhone. Well, you're standing there looking at the item that got you there that day; wouldn't it be nice to copy it and just change the date and time for the new appointment? Obviously the dentist is just one of many examples of how useful this functionality would be.

Determining if a USB Flash Drive is USB 2.0

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Well, I published this post for about 5 minutes, then realized it wasn't entirely accurate so I pulled it down so I could have some time to revise it. I was hoping (and frankly, thinking) no one had actually seen it--then I looked in my own blog reader and found out it had consumed my feed. Doh! Sorry to anyone else who got the feed with the original post and then couldn't even link out to the post because it was no longer live. Yes, indeed it is true: I am posting to my blog. :) If you're like me, you are given USB flash drives from time to time. Now, when you buy a USB flash drive, at least at retail here in the US, it comes in packaging that tells you if it supports USB 2.0. But when someone gives you a USB flash drive, it very often doesn't come with any packaging at all--and that leaves you wondering a) how big it is and b) whether or not it supports USB 2.0. Unfortunately, many of the USB flash drives that are giveaways do not supports USB 2.0 (I presume this is because USB 2.0 flash drives are more expensive to buy, and probably produce, than USB 1.1 flash drives and so giving away USB 1.1 flash drives therefore saves the givers money). But...some USB flash drives given away do support USB 2.0, so you can't just assume when you receive a flash drive that it doesn't support USB 2.0. What's it really matter, you may ask? Well, USB 2.0 is considerably faster than any previous USB edition. And to be brutally honest, the deal is that when someone gives you a slower USB flash drive and you're in the situation I'm in where you already have a couple of USB 2.0 flash drives, you want to know whether or not the flash drive you've been given is worth keeping or not. So...how do you tell if a USB flash drive supports USB 2.0? I wish I knew! I've poked around on both Mac and Windows XP and I've searched extensively online and I can't find any method that will definitively provide that information. At this point, the best I have is that sometimes you can get at least an idea on Windows XP as follows:

Connect your flash drive to one of your PC's USB 2.0 ports. If your PC doesn't have 2.0 ports there is good news: if you connect a USB 2.0 device to a USB 1.1 port, Windows XP will often (possibly always) present you with a message that says the device can perform faster if you connect it to a USB 2.0 port. Perhaps this is in fact the best way to ascertain on Windows XP whether or not a device supports USB 2.0.
Open Device Manager. This can be accomplished by right-clicking My Computer on the desktop and selecting Properties to open System Properties, clicking on the Hardware tab, then clicking the Device Manager button.
Expand the Disk Drives item.
Take note of the name listed for your device: as you can see in the image below, the name may tell the tale: in the image, you'll see that one of my devices is called "USB 2.0 Flash Disk USB Device." Now, that name could be misleading; just having "USB 2.0" in the name may not guarantee that the device supports USB 2.0--but I'm thinking it's probably a pretty good guess that if "USB 2.0" is in the name then the device does indeed support USB 2.0. The problem, though, is that even if the inclusion of "USB 2.0" in a device name does definitively mean that a device supports USB 2.0, it appears that the lack of the inclusion of "USB 2.0" in a device name does not definitively mean that a device is not USB 2.0: I connected another of my USB flash drives that has USB 2.0 actually stamped on it and the description displayed was "Memorex TD Classic 003B USB Device"--nothing there about "USB 2.0." That said, I think sometimes the lack of "USB 2.0" in the name can be enlightening: in the image, you can see that there is a device called "USB Flash Disk Device;" in light of the fact that this description is so similar to the description of the other device, excepting the conspicuous absence of "2.0," I think it's safe to assume that device isn't USB 2.0--but ultimately, that's still an assumption. I later connected another of my USB flash drives and it was called "Generic Flash Disk USB Device"--I'm guessing that one too isn't USB 2.0, but again, that's only a guess.

In the end, this post isn't as helpful as I hoped it would be because I have not been able to provide a definitive methodology for determining whether or not a device supports USB 2.0. If you have insights on this subject, please take the time to post a comment.

Redirecting RSS feeds

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 08:10:00 GMT

After my last post (about my blog's move) generated a whopping 3 views (possibly all by me!), I began to believe that my suspicions that RSS readers may not like HTTP 302 redirects might be well-founded. So I checked out Full As a Goog and sure enough, it wasn't showing my new post some many hours after I posted it. So I did a little digging into the matter of redirecting RSS feeds and I found that an HTTP 302 redirect (which is what I was using) should temporarily redirect the feed. I'm not sure why that wasn't working. But it doesn't really matter because I don't truly want a temporary redirect, I want a permanent redirect. For that it appears there are two choices: use an HTTP 301 redirect or use an XML level redirect (further info on both is given at the above link). It is possible to generate either using ColdFusion (for the former, you would use <cfheader> and for the latter you just put the appropriate XML into your RSS XML output). The latter struck me as a more interesting approach so that is the one I am now using. Does it work? I'm not sure--you tell me! If you were consuming the feed from its old location at http://www.joshuaadams.com/blog and your reader is now consuming the feed from its new location at http://blog.joshuaadams.com then yep, it worked for you. But if you're still showing the old feed, then no, it isn't working for you (although that then begs the question of how you ended up here). Comments letting me know if it worked for you are appreciated; comments letting me know it didn't work for you are even more appreciated.

My blog has moved!

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 01:30:00 GMT

I have made a slight change in the location of my blog: previously it was at http://www.joshuaadams.com/blog and now it can be found at http://blog.joshuaadams.com. So is that old location given above now a broken link? Nope--if you hit a page in its old location, you will be redirected to its new location. Note that this is true not just for the main page of the blog but for any page. How does it work? Just a few lines of code for ColdFusion 8. Stay tuned for more details.... What I'm not sure about is how consumers of RSS feeds will react to this change--the RSS feed isn't present in its old location but requests for it in its old location will be redirected to its new location. However, I'm not sure how well readers will handle this. Please leave me a comment and let me know how yours does.

ColdFusion 8: more great features than you realize

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 05:50:00 GMT

Lest I become one of those people who has a blog but never posts: ColdFusion has more great features than you realize. Well, okay, I can't legimately claim to know what you realize. But as I am coming up to speed in my job as ColdFusion Specialist, it strikes me just how many great features there are in ColdFusion 8. And my guess is I'm not the only one who would have that reaction. Rather than expound on all these great features myself, let me instead point you to adobe.com for this list of new features in ColdFusion 8. In time I expect to post additional information and code samples for some of these features. Are you interested in learning more about any features in particular? If so, post a comment and let me know!

And the new Adobe ColdFusion Specialist is...me!

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 23:30:00 GMT

I am pleased to announce that I have accepted a Systems Engineer position in the role of ColdFusion Specialist with Adobe Systems, Inc. I am excited about working for Adobe and about the role as ColdFusion Specialist. What has me so jazzed up? Getting to work with ColdFusion (and also Flex, AIR, LiveCycle, and the many other great tools from Adobe) and at the same time with you, the ColdFusion user. I love ColdFusion, but what I love even more is working with ColdFusion users as they do new, better, bigger, and innovative things with ColdFusion! And that's exactly what I have been hired to do. Over the past several years, I have had the pleasure of getting to know so many in the ColdFusion user community at conferences, user group meetings, and other events. I'm excited for this opportunity to focus on continuing those relationships and forging new ones. Because for me, that's the greatest thing about my job: I am here for you! If there is anything that you need from Adobe in regards to ColdFusion, I'm your man. So don't be shy--get in touch! I'm still in ramp up mode so I'm not going to list contact information here, but you can simply add a comment to this post or use the Contact link at the bottom of the page to send me a message. I look forward to hearing from you soon! One more thing: not to make this sound too much like an awards acceptance speech, but the reality is that there are a number of people who deserve my thanks for their role in helping me get to the point where I was able to land this position. But rather than try to cover them all and risk missing any, I will instead turn my thanks to the Atlanta ColdFusion User Group as so many of those deserving my thanks are people I know through my involvement in ACFUG. Thanks ACFUG and those I know because of it--I appreciate you! If you're reading this and you're serious about your career and you're not attending meetings of your local user group, you need to start. If there is no local user group, you need to start one. And another great option--and the place to turn if absolutely no one lives near you such that any user group you would start would be a user group of one--is the Online ColdFusion Meetup. 2010-12-22: given the age and content of this post, it is difficult at this point to conceive of a legitimate comment that could be posted. Yet comments continue to be posted: spam. And it's strange because it is this blog post more than any other that receives these spam comments (I think it might be because this post is linked from Ben Forta's blog). So it seems wise to me then to stop the insanity by closing comments to this post. Should you have a legitimate comment you wish to post here, please contact me via the contact form here on my blog. Thanks!

Quality costs money

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 18:11:00 GMT

Look, there are exceptions to every rule, but generally, quality costs money--and the more quality, the more money it costs. Today I was asked if I could DJ for 60% less than my minimum price for a wedding reception. My response in short was yes--if the budget is a shoestring with the event at a rec center and the frills at a minimum. I said, however, that if she is willing and able to pay for a nice venue, nice food, nice flowers, and so on, then if she wants me to DJ for her, she's also going to have to pay my rate, the rate of a nice DJ. The truth is that, from the perspective of my materials costs, I could justify the lower price. However, time is a precious resource: if I'm doing a job for you, how much time it takes me is an important consideration in how much I charge for that job. And I invest a large amount of time in DJing a wedding reception because that's what it takes to do it right. Now, that doesn't mean that anyone has to be willing to pay me what I ask. But people hire me. And they do pay me what I ask because they understand that quality costs money and what I'm asking is a great price for the value I deliver. (NOTE: again, there are exceptions to the "quality costs money" rule; for instance, maybe this particular prospect can find a DJ of equal or better quality for the price she wants to pay. But any DJ who charges what she wants and delivers quality on par with what I deliver is, in all truth, doing bad business--he/she isn't charging enough for his/her services...and time!) What's this have to do with ColdFusion? Well, it reminds me of a great blog post about ColdFusion (see--you thought I'd put this post in the wrong category, didn't you?) from Jason Delmore. Give it a read if you haven't already.

Thinking in the shower

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 17:53:00 GMT

Are you one of those people who does some of his/her best thinking in the shower? I am. And for longer than I can remember, every now and then, I've had a thought to which my response was "hey--I need to put up a blog so I can post about that." Today's thought? "I have a blog now--I can post that!" Of course, now I can't remember what any of those other thoughts were. ;)

Is this thing on?!?

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 06:30:00 GMT

Or maybe I should call it "hello world." No--I'll opt for the DJ reference over the geek reference. But in any event, yes, indeed--this thing is on. And so okay, fine: hello, world. I hope you're happy now. Oh, and one more thing: no, right now it ain't pretty. Hey--for now let's just be satisfied that it's there at all!