CFMXPlus fans: I'm now blogging at carehart.org

For those reading my cfmxplus.blogspot.com blog, I should update you that I have news since my previous post below, written nearly 3 years ago exactly. :-) At that time, I was announcing that I'd joined New Atlanta.

But this April (2006) I announced that I had left that role but forgot to indicate that here on cfmxplus.

I've also created a new site, called carehart.org, and I'll be blogging there. I'm not sure if I'll keep blogging here (blogspot and blogger are great services), or if I'll do all my blogging on carehart.org. We shall see. But at least those visiting here will know the scoop.

And as I said below, either way I will keep this cfmxplus.blogspot.com blog open as it still gets a lot of traffic due to the content that's been here so long. Cheers.

Check out my new blog, bluedragon.blog-city.com

Folks, after posting here at cfmxplus.blogspot.com for over a year, I've now created a new blog, http://bluedragon.blog-city.com. While it's focused primarily on BlueDragon (given my role as CTO of New Atlanta and chief evangelist for BlueDragon), it will of course offer tips of value to all CFML developers. As such, I'll not likely be updating this blog too often anymore.

But I will leave it for posterity, since I know it's linked to by so many. And it's also rich with hundreds of valuable CFML tips (of value to both CFMX and BlueDragon and even CF 4/5 developers). So enjoy it, and if you like the kinds of tips I offer, come on over to the new blog.

I'll add that the blogging tool there at blog-city.com (which happens to run atop BlueDragon I might add) is really well done, and there are lots of features there that I didn't have here at blogger/blogspot, including a calendar interface and lots more.

Indeed, with the ability to group/categorize blog entries, I'll be able to mark which blog entries are of generic value to all CFML developers, so that you can (if you're bent on it) ignore the BlueDragon posts. Still, I'd hope you'd go ahead and read those BlueDragon posts. It's a really cool environment and a great solution to many problems for CFML developers. Since you can run both CF and BD at the same time, why not give it a try?

And for those of you who've bookmarked CFMXPlus, or who are getting RSS feeds, please consider doing the same with the new blog. I think you'll find it worthwhile. I tell you how to get the RSS feed in one of the blog entries, and I'm working to make it still better than it is at present.

And I'll "see you on the flip side".

/charlie

Having problems with CFMX not starting on reboot?

Lots of folks (myself included) have reported problems with CFMX not starting when we reboot our machines. Indeed, there has been a vigorous discussion of the issue on CF-Talk June 6 (tried to publish this blog item then but for some reason it didn't take).

Anyway, Dan Switzer offered a solution that has worked (most of the time) for me. See his blog entry of 4/17/03. Great stuff, Dan.

Various caching articles at MM CF support site

I also just happened along a page at the MM CF support site that lists several articles focusing on various ways of doing caching in CFML. Check it out.

Supporting Trusted Connections for SQL Server in CFMX

Someone asked me at the MXOnTheRocks event last week how to support use of trusted connections in SQL Server. I'm sorry I can't recall who it was, and at the time I was not aware of a solution, but I happened upon a technote on the very subject today. In case it interests him or others, see Enabling Microsoft SQL Server trusted connections.

"ColdFusion MX Bible" getting great early reviews

Folks, some of you know that I was a co-author of the new ColdFusion MX Bible, from Wiley (the same folks and in the same style as the JavaScript, Flash, and other Bibles), along with my esteemed colleagues Adam and David Churvis and Hal Helms.

There have been some very good early reviews at the Amazon site for the book. I'll admit I've been reluctant to say much about it since (like a movie) you never really know how such things will turn out once through production. I've still not been able to read it yet myself (publisher has been held up in delivering our review copies, and it's too new to be in many bookstores). I was, of course, worried that perhaps the world didn't need "yet another CF book". The reviews here suggest that we may well have struck a chord in the otherwise crowded market.

With many other excellent books by folks I admire and respect, that word from the reading public is certainly very heartwarming to hear. Then again, we can't judge the overall reaction by just these first couple of reviews. I know we can't have pleased everyone. But I thought I'd share this word of early good news. If you're looking for a book on CFMX and more (just like the name of this blog), check it out.

How to enable secure FTP login from Dreamweaver MX

Need to support SSH enabled secure FTP access from Dreamweaver MX? You can, integrating either MacSSH or PuTTY for Windows, to allow for SSH enabled secure transfer of login information. To learn more, see the Macromedia TechNotes on secure FTP for Mac users and for Windows users.

I've accepted a new position as CTO of New Atlanta, to Evangelize BlueDragon

By now you may have heard that I've accepted an offer to take on the role of CTO for New Atlanta, the folks who make Blue Dragon, an alternative for running CFML on J2EE and .NET platforms. I know that this news will shock many, but after watching the company for a year+ and seeing the great strides they've made, it was hard to ignore them.

If you're not familiar with BlueDragon, I'll point you here to various resources to help get you up to speed. But for those who are already familiar with them, or haven't looked at what they've been doing recently, here's what I saw that I liked a lot:

• their J2EE deployment capability is more straightforward and streamlined than Macromedia's CFMX for J2EE
  
• their upcoming .NET deployment capability is truly unique, the only way to natively integrate CFML and .NET applications
  
• those two products help solve important problems for organizations being forced to move off of Macromedia ColdFusion and/or unwilling or unable to move to ColdFusion MX
  
• their base server version is offered free for development AND deployment
  
• the CFML implementation is very close to being completely compatible with CF5
  
• support for CFMX tags and functions is in development
  
• their responsiveness to customer (and prospective customer) requests has been superlative
  
• I could go on
  

I think they've got a great niche. The goal isn't to take business from MM, but instead to catch business that would have left MM, for clients being told to move off of CF. Now they don't have to, and BlueDragon can give them greater integration options.

Two of the New Atlanta partners (it's a privately held company) have long wished to have me as their evangelist, and I'd kept them at bay for a variety of reasons. But they finally made me an offer too good to refuse, even making my independent training and consulting pursuits not as attractive. I really look forward to the challenge of helping spread the gospel for them, and helping people see BlueDragon (and the future of CFML) in a new light. Of course, those who know me know that it's what I'm built for! :-)

Of course, some will ask why Macromedia never gave me any sort of position even approaching this. I did apply for the community manager job, both times, but was not selected (despite support from inside various quarters at Macromedia). And while I've been named to Team Macromedia and the Customer Advisory Board, both of which I am honored by, those were not positions that I could really leverage for profit in my business. They were certainly ways for me to continue to give back to the CF community that I've served for 6 years. And I plan to continue to do that in this new role.

I've put together a FAQ to answer what I think will be some common questions both about BlueDragon, my move, and its impact on various activities I'm involved in. I also welcome your feedback at Charlie@NewAtlanta.com. (Carehart@systemanage.com still works.)

Have you got the google toolbar?

This is indeed off the subject of CF, but since we so often are doing searching on google to help us in our day to day work, I thought you may appreciate this info. Are you using the Google toolbar yet? It's at (http://toolbar.google.com/). It's really nifty and offers several benefits.

First, and most straightforward, is that it adds a google search prompt to your browser toolbar. Sure, you can monkey with most browsers to make them use google as the search engine, but that's not all. Besides just making it drop-dead easy to do searches really quickly with google (type in the words and press enter to search the web), the toolbar adds another useful option that I find I use everyday. If you study the google search options, you'll find that one option is to use the "site:" keyword to name a domain in which to limit searches. Well the google toolbar has that as a button:



Makes it really easy when visiting a site to say, "where do they discuss x?"

There's still more. Check out the news, page rank, page info, and other links that provide additional google-oriented info on whatever page you're looking at.

There are a few other elements of that toolbar that aren't really google-search oriented at all. Just neat additions useful on any page you browse. First, the "up" button is also frequently useful, if you're looking at a page and want to see the directory above it. No more editing the url to remove the filename. Just click "up". Of course, not all pages will have something useful in response to that, but when it makes sense, it's a really useful addition (that technically has nothing to do with google).

And those last two buttons in the toolbar above are a way to highlight words on the page that you've used in the search field of the toolbar. And technically, it doesn't matter if you did a search and are looking at google results or just looking at any page. By typing words into the search field, these last two options allow you to find the words on the page you're looking at. The first, called highlight, literally changes the colors of the text in the found page to highlight the searched words in yellow. Again, this is not about looking at a google "cached" version of the page. It will work on any page.

They've just found a way to modify the display of the page even though it's the showing the page as found using its original HTML (magic?). And the last button (tahiti in the example above) is actually going to be the word (or each word) that you typed in that search field. Clicking it will instead jump down in the found page to show you were the word occurs. Both quite useful (though I don't use either as often, myself).

One other thing it adds is a right-click context menu to any link on any page in the browser (again, whether the page is found via google or not). It offers 4 features for the page that the link is pointing to:

- backward links
- cached snapshot of page
- similar pages
- translate page

Those are 4 very interesting options! Of course, each is something you can request using google keywords, if you know how. But most tend to think of google only for searching, rather than for these kind of page-oriented manipulations/analyses that are possible . Check 'em out.

Here's one very practical application: some may already know about the "cached snapshot" option because when you see results from google, one of the options is to link not to the page itself but the cached version. this is useful when either the page has changes, or been removed, or the site is dead (it's how I got hold of Vern Veihe's blog as discussed in a previous blog entry here, even though the front page of his site now shows it to no longer have links).

But another use is when a site is temporarily down. You can go to google, do a search, and see the cached version. One of the mild annoyances of that, though, is that the links off the page all go back to the original site, so if the site's down (or you know the pages in the cached version are no longer really there), then in this case you'll want to see the cached versions of each link. That's what the "cached snapshot" right-click context menu option comes in really handy.

Check it all out!

Resolving the change in Updater 3 that disables web services from Flash Remoting

In my article (and in the release notes) about Updater 3 you'll find that one of the big changes is the disabling by default of support for calling web services from Flash Remoting by way of your CFMX Updater 3 server. This is not about calling web services on that server itself from Flash (because you'll typically call the CFCs directly instead), but more about the fact that you could call any web service at all from Flash by way of the remoting gateway in your (or anyone's) server. But if you do want to re-enable that feature, you can. See the new technote at http://www.macromedia.com/support/coldfusion/ts/documents/enable_flash_webservices.htm/

Highlights of what's new and different in the CFMX Updater 3

Folks, for those interested in an overview of what's new and different in the new CFMX updater 3 (discussed in a few recent entries here), I've put together an article for the May CFDJ. Until that comes out, you can read a preview of it at my "previews" site. There's really quite a lot to this updater and some changes that may surprise you. Indeed, even the previous two updaters may have made changes you didn't know about. I highlight those as well. In fact, if you don't know what release you're running, see the code offered there for telling you.

BTW, if you visit the page and the article, "CFMX Updaters, 1-2-3", is no longer there, it's because it's now available online and as I point out on the previews page, you can find all such articles at http://www.systemanage.com/articles/.

New resources for learning about XML processing in CFMX and CFMx error handling

Interested in learning more about XML processing and error handling in CFMX? Simon Horwith has posted a chapter on each of these subjects from a book that didn't get published. See http://www.how2cf.com/.

Some big announcements from MM in the flash world toda

There were some big announcements from Macromedia in the Flash world today:

Flash Comm 1.5 is available: many improvements, biggest news may be free developer edition (finally) and http tunneling (ability to communicate over port 80 to get around firewall issues)
- http://www.macromedia.com/go/commserver/

Flash on Pocket PC 2002
- http://www.macromedia.com/go/fp6_ppc/

New Product/Service/Concept: Macromedia Central (visit the site, read the whitepaper, etc.)
- http://www.macromedia.com/go/central/

Want to access your PC remotely (or from another machine in your firewall)? Free?

You may have heard about tools like GoToMyPC, or PCAnywhere, or LapLink to be able to access one PC from another, but I just learned of a free tool that's cross-platform. You may want to access a machine remotely (like your home machine when you're on the road or in your office) or even just within your network (such as to access a Linux box from your Windows workstation, or vice-versa), or as in my case I simply wanted to be able to access my main workstation from my laptop within my home/office network. Of course, Windows XP also offers a Remote Desktop feature as well, but both machines have to be XP (I understand).

I just learned of RealVNC (also sometimes called WinVNC, but it's definitely for more than Windows). It's free, at realvnc.com, and it worked flawlessly. Since I'm only using it within my firewall, I'm not too worried about any security risks. It operates on its own port, and offers various forms of mild security who might choose to open that for access from out on the net. Of course, some may want to carefully review the docs about security and other settings.

But the bottom line is that within 2 minutes, I was able to install the server on the workstation and the "viewer" on the laptop, and I was reading email on the workstation's Outlook while sitting in front of the TV watching my Alma Mater in the NCAA tournament. Hurray! :-)

And if I wanted to setup a Linux box now, I could easily access it just as well. Or a Mac. And either of those can be clients, as can a Palm or WinCE client (see the diagram depicting this).

Here's an update on 3/26: take note that, for the downloads of the Windows Client at least, the exe offered is the real program, not an installer program. What I mean is that if you click on it to download/execute it, it will run but if you're not paying attention, when you close it (or restart your machine), you'll find that it's not installed anywhere on your machine! (It was executed out of a temporary directory on your machine.) You need to instead save it to someplace in your file system (like c:\program files), and then setup a shortcut in your Start Programs or desktop in order to run it again. Actually, the server is an installer and does do all that. Curious that they chose to not go that route for the client. There is a zip file offered as well, but it's got just the same executable so you have the same dilemma if you simply run the client program from within the zip file. Just trying to save you the hassle I experienced.

Updater 3 requires recompilation of all templates: be aware of a few things, and here's a better compiler

One of the things updater 3 does is change the underlying compiler in CFMX. As such, the installer needs to clear out all the existing compiled class files in the cfusionmx\wwwroot\WEB-INF\cfclasses directory (note that's cfclasses, not classes). The good news is that the installer is supposed to solve that problem by simply renaming your current cfclasses directory to cfclasses_backup.

There are a couple of ramifications of this to be aware of:

1) this means that all first attempts to run CF templates will experience the delay of compiling (which happens only once when code is created or edited, but now needs to happen this once because to CF, it appears to be new code)

2) MM points out in the release notes you can help alleviate that burden by precompiling the code. This is new, as previously the only precompilers were those that folks passed around to each other (as I have in the past). They discuss this issue and their compiler in the release notes, specifically at this point,

3) The precompiler they use is pretty simplistic. It only compiles code "under the web root". That may not suit you. So I have a more complete compiler in my 12/10/02 entry.

4) If you experience any strange errors, it would probably be safe to simply rename the cfclasses directory or delete it (while the CFMX service is stopped). On restarting it, CFMX will create the cfclasses directory when you first execute a CF template.

Installing the Updater: One caution about CFIDE location

This isn't really new for the CFMX updater, but it's something worth paying attention: when installing the CFMX updater, pay attention to the step where you indicate the location of the CFIDE directory. This is where the administrator is located, as well as the RDS and CFC exploring features and the javascript and java files for CFFILE and more.

Anyway, the point is that if you install CFMX with the built-in web server, and then upgrade to using IIS or Apache, you may find that you end up moving the CFIDE out of the cfusionmx\wwwroot to the inetpub\wwwroot. Or you may choose to move it elsewhere for other security reasons.

Anyway, the installer (in my case at least) does not detect that I no longer have CFIDE in the CFusionMX directory, yet it tries to put it there by default. I was aware of this issue and changed the installer during that step to point to the correct location where I have the CFIDE. The problem is that you may not notice this.

Now, someone suggested that the installer wouldn't have let me proceed if I had let the installer try to put the CFIDE in a directory where it didn't already exist. Fair enough. But what if you had copied rather than moved the directory to the new location (as you might when changing from the built-in web server to IIS/Apache, not worrying about it remaining in the cfusionmx\wwwroot where it shouldn't be executed anyway)?

Again, this is just a warning in case the problem might strike anyone else.

Updated version of CFMX Version Checker

Folks, I've got an updated version of my CFMX version checker that I'd last offered on 1/29. This one accounts for the new Updater 3. Save it as getCFMXVersion.cfm and run it in your environment. Enjoy.

<!--- 

Name: getCFMXVersion.cfm

Author: Charlie Arehart

Version: 3/26/03

Published in the May 2003 CFDJ

--->

<h2>CF Version Analysis:</h2>



<cfscript>

versinfo = arraynew(1);

versinfo[1] = structnew();

versinfo[1].name = "the base version, with no updater";

versinfo[1].number = 48097;



versinfo[2] = structnew();

versinfo[2].name = "Updater 1";

versinfo[2].number = 52311;



versinfo[3] = structnew();

versinfo[3].name = "Updater 2";

versinfo[3].number = 55693;



versinfo[4] = structnew();

versinfo[4].name = "Updater 3";

versinfo[4].number = 58500;



curversion = listlast(Server.ColdFusion.ProductVersion);

</cfscript>



<cfoutput>

This server is running <b>#Server.ColdFusion.ProductName#, #server.coldfusion.ProductLevel#</b>

<p>

The current version number is <b>#Server.ColdFusion.ProductVersion#</b>

<cfif left(Server.ColdFusion.ProductVersion,5) is "6,0,0" >

	which means it's running with

	<cfif server.coldfusion.appserver is "j2ee" and curversion is 58096>

			Updater 3 on ColdFusion MX for J2EE.

	<cfelse>

		<cfloop from="1" to="#arraylen(versinfo)#" index="i">

			<cfif curversion eq versinfo[i].number>

				<b>#versinfo[i].name#</b>. 

				<cfbreak>

			<cfelseif curversion lt versinfo[i].number>

				<b>patches not yet up to the final release of #versinfo[i].name#</b>

				<cfbreak>

			<cfelseif i is arraylen(versinfo)>

			    a version <b>greater than  the final release of

			     #versinfo[arraylen(versinfo)].name#</b>. 

			    This tool has not been updated yet to recognize that version number.

			</cfif>

		</cfloop>

	</cfif>

<cfelse>

	<!--- there were no updaters for CF 5 or before, so there's no reason to try to report on them 

	prior to CFMX, and this program will not report on any version greater than CFMX 

	(productversion > 6) --->

</cfif>

<p>

There are updaters for CFMX available at 

<a href="http://www.macromedia.com/software/coldfusion/special/updater/faq/">

http://www.macromedia.com/software/coldfusion/special/updater/faq/</a>.

</cfoutput>

---

Actually, the code above is yet another update over a version (below) that I'd first offered here in this posting on 3/19. The version above is just a little better organized than the code below. They produce the same result.I offer the code below for "posterity". :-)

<cfoutput>
<h2>CF Version Analysis:</h2>

This server is running <b>#Server.ColdFusion.ProductName#, #server.coldfusion.PRoductLevel#</b>
<p>
The current version number is <b>#Server.ColdFusion.ProductVersion#</b>
<cfif listfirst(Server.ColdFusion.ProductVersion) is 6>
   which means it's running with
   <cfif listlast(Server.ColdFusion.ProductVersion) le 48097>
     <b>no updater</b>.
   <cfelseif listlast(Server.ColdFusion.ProductVersion) lt 52311>
     <b>patches above the base version but not yet up to the final release of updater 1</b>.
   <cfelseif listlast(Server.ColdFusion.ProductVersion) eq 52311>
     <b>updater 1</b>.
   <cfelseif listlast(Server.ColdFusion.ProductVersion) lt 55693>
     <b>patches above updater 1 but not yet up to the final release of updater 2</b>.
   <cfelseif listlast(Server.ColdFusion.ProductVersion) eq 55693>
     <b>updater 2</b>.
   <cfelseif listlast(Server.ColdFusion.ProductVersion) eq 58096 and Server.ColdFusion.ProductName contains "j2ee">
     <b>updater 3 for #Server.ColdFusion.ProductName#</b>.
   <cfelseif listlast(Server.ColdFusion.ProductVersion) lt 58500>
     <b>patches above updater 2 but not yet up to the final release of updater 3</b>.
   <cfelseif listlast(Server.ColdFusion.ProductVersion) eq 58500>
     <b>updater 3</b>.
   <cfelse>
     a version <b>greater than the final release of updater 3</b>. This tool has not been updated yet to recognize that version number.
   </cfif>
  <cfelse>
     <!--- there were no updaters for CF 5 or before, so there's no reason to try to report on them prior to CFMX, and this program will not report on any version greater than CFMX (prodcutversion > 6) --->
  </cfif>
<p>
There are updaters for CFMX available at <a href="http://www.macromedia.com/software/coldfusion/special/updater/faq/">
http://www.macromedia.com/software/coldfusion/special/updater/faq/</a>.

</cfoutput>

Updater 3 for CFMX is Out

Updater 3 for CFMX is out. I'll have more news to share soon on some surprising hidden gems in the updater.

CFMX Updater 3 Released March 20, 2003
http://www.macromedia.com/software/coldfusion/special/updater/faq/

CFMX Updater3 Release Notes
http://www.macromedia.com/support/coldfusion/releasenotes/mx/releasenotes_mx_updater.html

MM DevNet User-supplied Tip Library

One of the new aspects of the new MM DevNet is a new location for user-supplied tips, with categories for all the MM products. Pretty nifty. I don't recall seeing this on the old DesDev site, so if it's not really new, let me just point it out for those to whom it IS new. :-) It's at http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/tipsubmission/main.cfm. There are links there for all the products, a highlight of both the "highest rated" tips and the newest tips, and of course a place to enter your own tips. As for that "rating" feature, you can rate a tip when you view it. It may not be obvious, but you mouse over the stars that show the "average rating" and on clicking a star, you're giving it at that rating.

While you're on that page, take note of the separate "tip of the week" link, which takes you to a page with a large number of video tips. These quicktime videos walk through using various features in a variety of MM products. These have been around for a while, though many may have never seen them. Check 'em out!

Multiple independent CFMX Instances--how to support them on CFMX for JRun

If you've wondered about setting up multiple independent CFMX instances on a single server, which isn't currently possible with the base CFMX product, there is a MM technote about doing it on CFMX for JRun that's detailed and interesting. You might want to check it out.