Archives for Month: March 2009 ::
WebOS SE :: The Conceptual Scope
Posted on :: Mar 31
I've been coping with the thought of WebOS SE. The reason why I say coping is because in my mind there is a great deal of things I want to enable the system to do and use. Below are my inital thoughts on the development of the SE Version:
IPhone Detection Scripts
Posted on :: Mar 31
With iPhones being all the rage these days, I am wondering if mobile versions of your pages might be useful. Viewing a site on an iPhone looks exactly as it does on your desktop. This is all well and good, but sometimes pages can be bloated with images, javascript libraries, and other markup that is not as important to your visitors. I am also a bit upset that the iPhone ignores the css media type of handheld. I wish there were an option to force Safari to render handheld styles as default, but I could not find any option for it. So I set out on a quest to find some alternatives for my iPhone experience.
ColdFusion 9:: Codename Centaur
Posted on :: Mar 31
Adobe ColdFusion 9 and a New CF IDE
Posted on :: Mar 31
The first bits of ColdFusion information appeared on Adobe Labs this morning. This is certainly exciting for ColdFusion developers as Adobe has finally given information not only on the next version of ColdFusion, but also announced the much anticipated official ColdFusion IDE.
ColdFusion 9 (Centaur)
First, Adobe has released information about the upcoming version of ColdFusion (which is currently codenamed Centaur). This version has some exciting features including (pulled from the labs page):
The Future of ColdFusion
Posted on :: Mar 31
The CFUnited Keynote usually gives a good insight into the future of ColdFusion and this year was no different. What a great way to kick off the event so lets get right into what was talked about. Ben started off at 9:00 AM talking about the state of ColdFusion today. With no actual numbers to report he did say that sales are superb and that the numbers are the best they have ever been for Adobe. That right there should just let any doubters know that CF is not going anywhere.
ColdFusion 9 - The Details
Posted on :: Mar 31
As I write, the CFUnited 2008 conference is underway in Washington, DC. This morning's keynote from Adobe brought out some really great details about ColdFusion 9 and how the new ColdFusion / Flex / AIR integration will play out. I am not present at CFUnited this year, but I have compiled some of the details. If you are a Flex / AIR developer who hasn't considered ColdFusion - you might want to reconsider upon the release of ColdFusion 9.
Disclaimer: All of these details have been compiled from blogs and from people who are currently at the conference - there is a possibility that there might be some things that are inaccurate.
ColdFusion 9 - What We Know (so far)
Posted on :: Mar 31
Since I got the obligatory pricing rant out of the way (well, ok, it was more complicated than that), I figured it was time to focus on the features we have already heard about regarding ColdFusion 9 (codenamed Centaur). Most of what we know so far was revealed during this year's CFUnited Adobe Keynote, though a couple items were made public during the extremely brief cf.Objective() Adobe Keynote. Let me start by saying that I think everything we have learned leads me to believe that the ColdFusion team is on the right track. Of course a lot rides on the actual implementation of the features, but all signs are pointing in a very positive direction. Also, keep in mind that, as they say, these are only plans and plans can change (as in, while these features are likely there are no guarantees).
Creat a ColdFusion collection with the cfcollection tag
Posted on :: Mar 31
On occasion a developer may not have access to ColdFusion Administrator, for
example, if you use a virtual hosting company. If you want your ColdFusion
application to be able to create, delete, and maintain a collection you will
need to use the cfcollection tag. The following will show you how to create a
collection index it then index it to include a MS Access database this code
works great for use with a serch function for your shopping cart site. You will
need to create an Access database with a table named Products and you will need
the following fields ItemID, ProductID, ProductName, BriefDescription, Details.Understanding and Using CFCs (with OOP and database interaction)
Posted on :: Mar 31
First off, this is a rather long and detailed tutorial. In this tutorial we will go over the basics of creating CFCs. This tutorial was created mostly in part because it seemed to me there was a very limited number of articles and tutorials addressing the subject of practacle CFC development.
I will be using a number of terms in this tutorial that are common in the world of Object Oriented Programming (or OOP). Even though CFCs do not share all aspects of objects in true OOP languages, we can benefit by using those aspects that are available.
Dynamic thumbnails from websites
Posted on :: Mar 31
Since Alexa stopped offering their free thumbnail service last year a lot of thumbnail services are available now. Some of them offering limited free services and others only a paid premium version. On of the bigger and better services is Girafa, a thumbnail service with a free service and also premium services for users with more then 2000 image requests a month.
Create custom backups from your website using cURL (PHP Tutorial)
Posted on :: Mar 25
These days I needed a script to backup only a part of a customers website using a CRON. Most of the control panels I know allow only a complete website backup and this is not what I needed. While plaaning the script, I thought about a solution for webmaster without full SSH access to their hosting account. A typical situation could be:
- A shared hosting account that allows only backups for the whole site incl. database, emails and other settings
- No administration rights via SSH
- A FTP host for the storage of the the backup files
- Support for cURL and a default PHP5 configuration (sorry no more code for PHP4).
Using ColdFusion's CFDBInfo to Dynamically Output Database Columns and Tables
Posted on :: Mar 23
The ColdFusion tag CFDBInfo was introduced in ColdFusion 8. I finally got around to playing with it and thought someone other than me might find this useful. I was thinking of using it for creating a dynamic SQL dump for some of my projects I'm currently writting, and thought I should share it with the world.
There are a ton of uses for this excellent CF Tag, and I've included a few samples below.
When will cfqueryparam NOT protect me?
Posted on :: Mar 23
Guess what, Using CFPARAM in your ColdFusion code, may not always save you from SQL Injection.
"How?", you may ask. Let me give you an example of an SQL injection attack that's not caught by cfqueryparam.
SQL injection can occur any time cautions are not taken to completely separate your SQL code from its parameters and the parameters being passed in are allowed to flow into the SQL statement itself. SQL injection can also occur when building the SQL statement's table and column names dynamically.Creating PDFs that automatically print via CFPDF and DDXCreating PDFs that automatically print via CFPDF and DDX
Posted on :: Mar 23
Here's the situation. A user is viewing a report online. The business owner of the application decided to provide a nice PDF format of the data, all the user needs to do is click a button, perhaps named "print". The CF server generates the PDF, hands it off to the browser through either CFLOCATION or CFCONTENT. So now the user has the PDF loaded in a secondary window and have to go hunt for the print button again. But fear not, dear user! We'll save you by judicious use of XML, Javascript, and ColdFusion.
URL Rewritting in PHP
Posted on :: Mar 15
In my endeavors to optimize the projects and sites I've worked on, I developed a simple snipplet of code that will easily adapt your long urls into an easier to remeber and easier to use method.
Let's take for example the url: http://yourdomain.com/index.cfm?view=blogid=4
Using the Code snipplet below we'll make that url look like this:
http://yourdomain.com/index.cfm/view/blog/blogid/4/Uploading Files Like GMail Attachments
Posted on :: Mar 15
Ever wanted to upload files using AJAX like in GMAIL, without reloading the page? Now you can. Cross browser method to upload files using AJAX in only 1Kb of code, it is indeed similiar to my Previous Post Uploading Files Like Gmail Attachements in PHP except this version uses HTML & JavaScript and is not dependant upon a Server Side Language (however i imagine you could easily apply it to any language).
Uploading Files Like GMail Attachments
Posted on :: Mar 13
Asynchronous file uploads is quote popular feature in modern AJAX web-applications. However standard AJAX classes (XmlHttpRequest) does not have capabilities to process or send files selected with "file dialog" (input type="file"). This article contains example application (trivial file-sharing service, like rapidshare, megaupload or yousendit) which uses embedded frames (IFRAME) to upload file. While file is uploaded to hidden frame, user can still access web-page and fill "file description" field.
URL Rewritting in Coldfusion
Posted on :: Mar 12
In my endeavors to optimize the projects and sites I've worked on, I developed a simple snipplet of code that will easily adapt your long urls into an easier to remeber and easier to use method.
File upload gotcha: PDFs get different mime types per browser
Posted on :: Mar 11
When you upload a PDF in IE, the file you receive has what I believe is the correct mime type: "application/pdf" however when you upload the same PDF file using the same code, in Firefox (tested in FF 2 and 3), the mime type is "application/download". I can't explain it. I have no idea why it's wrong. But it is, and consistently so. Could this be the one thing that is implemented correctly in IE and incorrectly in Firefox?
Easily Cache the Return Value of Any Function
Posted on :: Mar 9
Work in web development long enough, and you'll run into caching. When done appropriately, it can be a real life saver. In CFML, we have several caching tools at our disposal.
The built in cfcache function will cache an entire page, and there are a bunch of projects on RIA Forge (search for "cache") that deal with caching of whole pages, partial pages, and specific data; and use various methods from memcached to underlying java caching. And of course, you can always roll your own cache using a persistent scope (application, session, client, or cookie) and some date comparison.
After about the 100th time of rolling my own custom caching, I decided it was time to wrap it up in a nice little UDF.
ColdFusion Export to Excel
Posted on :: Mar 7