Josh Adams's Blog

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 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; how ColdFusion behaves once installed is dependent on the installation type you choose and the license key (a.k.a. serial number) you apply. So no matter if you want Enterprise, Standard, Trial (in which case you apply no license key), or Developer (in which case you apply no license key), 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. And it doesn't matter where or from whom you purchased ColdFusion 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. If you don't supply a license key and you choose Trial, you get the Trial edition, which is effectively the Enterprise edition for 30 days and after that point it becomes the Developer edition, which is effectively the Enterprise edition with technical limitations on access by external IP addresses. In addition, both Trial and Developer have additional EULA restrictions so be sure to check those out. 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. When you install ColdFusion 8 or ColdFusion 9, you are given the choice to install it in any of the following configurations: Server (a.k.a. "standalone"), Multi-server, and J2EE. Please note that if you have a Standard license key, you must choose the Server configuration; Multi-server and J2EE installations will not accept Standard license keys. If you choose to supply your license key during installation and you supply a Standard license key, you will only be able to choose the Server configuration. 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.

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 into 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 us 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.

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 versions 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--why not upgrade 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

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 both standalone installations of 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 install any release of ColdFusion MX and you have ColdFusion configured to use an external web server, 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 older 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 older 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 to ColdFusion 8 is not a valid upgrade path:

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

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

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

You may also wish to check the CFML Language History:

http://www.adobe.com/go/tn_18791

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)

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

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 17:05:00 GMT

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 2: 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) 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!

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.

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!