Posted By : Dan Wilson     May 6, 2009 5:25 PM

I was emailing back and forth with a very smart group of people this morning and had a thought that seemed worth repeating. ColdFusion is the most elegant language to express business solutions.

Need charts for your dashboard? No problem.

Want to export a report to PDF? No problem.

Want to intake data via PDF forms and generate Presentations with the data? No problem.

Want to write a Flex application that adds meetings to Microsoft Exchange servers? No problem.

The list goes on and on and on and on and on.

ColdFusion is often lumped in with PHP and other general web scripting languages, and it can certainly fit there. However, the ColdFusion team over the years has worked very hard to put useful, relevant functionality for business applications. As a result, ColdFusion is the most elegant expression of business solutions on the market today!

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     May 3, 2009 11:56 PM

Now Hear This!

This is a public service announcement. If you hard code scopes inside your CFCs (request, application, session), stop today.

I know it might be 'easier' or 'cleaner' or less lines of code, but you are really painting yourself into a corner when you do this.

An object (CFC) should not know or have access to ANYTHING outside of itself, its configuration and its immediate dependent objects.

If you want to question/argue with me on this, go for it. (Just go Read Up On Information Hiding before you do).

That Is All

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     May 3, 2009 5:13 PM

The ColdFusion community is full of bright people who have built really neat libraries and widgets to make better features and functions for applications. One of my favorites, CFUniform (a rich forms library) lets you build consistent, feature rich forms with very minimal code. I use this library all the time to make my applications snazzier and more maintainable. There are plenty of cool projects I've not yet used and while working on some Model-Glue features this weekend, I had an idea.

See, I've been working on the scaffolding feature in Model-Glue. This feature is a great way to get a jump start on a data-centric application. Simply configure Model-Glue and your ORM of choice and Model-Glue will generate everything needed to Administrate your data. Forms, Lists, delete screens, Bam, it'll generate the whole thing for you in seconds. Of course, the generated code is easily customized to fit the need of the application, but because it is generated from the database, the functionality is generic and the look and feel is somewhat limited.

What if we had a real easy way to plug in some of these rich libraries into Model-Glue? Forms libraries, Ajax widgets, Grids, Rich tables, all these could be as simple as adding a few characters into an XML file. Sounds fun, right?

What I want is to talk to a few of the folks behind some of the coolest libraries to explore how I can provide the best integrations. If you are the author or maintainer of some library or widget, or you use something that you are really fond of, let me know by leaving a comment. We might be able to work together to provide some really neat, useful functionality for the community.

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     April 29, 2009 2:14 AM

Ha, made you look!

Seriously, Jim Priest and I have been kicking around the idea of hosting a 1 day ColdFusion conference in the Triangle area. We've had good support from the Universities in the area about lending us some space as well as good response from other sponsors. What we want to know is how many attendees we could realistically get.

So figure a 1 day conference with 6 sessions and a lunch. All this for 50$. Would you come? Please answer why or why not in the comments below. Anonymous answers are ok. We just wanna know the word on the street.

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     April 28, 2009 5:05 PM

Scotch On The Road is bringing the conference to you! The European tour makes Scotch the most affordable way to get your annual intake of all things CFML, Flex and AIR.

Adam Lehman, Terrance Ryan, Andy Allan, Sean Corfield & Serge Jespers are some of the fantastic speakers lined up to present interesting topics for developers of all levels.

Price includes Lunch and 2 drinks, plus up to 7 session. Don't miss the Lighting Sessions where anyone can present anything they want for short amount time.

The folks behind Scotch are committed to making this an event for Developers by Developers. The fun, laid back environment the best and truly only way to learn the SotR way.

Dates:

June 1st: London, The Sway Bar
June 3rd: Manchester, TigerTiger
June 5th: Edinburgh, The Caves

Munich, Brussels and Amsterdam to be confirmed!

Prices:

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     April 23, 2009 10:44 PM

I'm super stoked to announce I've been nominated as an Adobe Community Expert for ColdFusion. I really appreciate the recognition from the mother ship (Adobe) and will continue to contribute for the development of the community.

As you know, the Adobe Community Experts Program is a community based program made up of Adobe customers who share their product expertise with the world-wide Adobe community. The end goal is to help reward and enable those who share and contribute to the Adobe community at large.

The Adobe Community Expert group is chock full of excellent, talented folks. I'm humbled and pleased to be counted among them. I'd like to thank my mom and dad who helped me be the person I am today. I'd like to thank my 7th grade history teacher....

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     April 20, 2009 6:17 PM

I started a blog so I could share interesting stuff I learned with others. This altruistic motive (and the thousands of adoring fans, of course) drive me to write, rewrite, edit, learn and otherwise put in work for more blogging. If there is a downside to blogging, it is comment spam.

Blog Comments themselves are wonderful outlets to continue the conversation and let others take part. Maybe some agree, maybe they disagree, maybe they have some important factual correction, Blog Comments are the blog authors way of allowing others to take part and contribute.

Blog Comment Spam is when a person or organization adds a comment to a blog article for the sole purpose of promoting some unrelated product or service. As a blog author, Blog Comment Spam on my blog feels like vandalism. Like some snot-nosed kid spray painted their name on the side of my house. In real life, if I caught the snot-nosed kid spray painting on my house, I'm turn him into a bloody-nosed kid in a New York Minute, KnowWhatIMeanVern?

I've got a number of comment spam protections on my blog and they work really well. The only thing I can do at this point to trim the spam submissions would be to block entire continents. A bit drastic, but I've definitely considered it. I mean, I know China has over a billion people, but do any of them actually read this blog?

These days, the only comment spam I actually get is promoting WoW. Apparently, people care about this video game so much they'll spend real money to get fake money so they can buy fake things for their fake character. I thought we lived in a materialistic society, but to contemplate what it means to have an entire industry around playing a video game to get fake money to sell to real people for real money so they can by fake things for their fake characters, is absolutely mind-blowing.

As an entrepreneur, I've hatched plenty of money making ventures. Had I thought about selling fake, electronic gold for real money, I'd have laughed myself out of the room. Yet, there are legions of people who troll around the Internet looking for blogs to vandalize to promote their WoW Gold.

For the record, I'll delete immediately any blog spam that happens to get through my layers of protection. So if you sell WoW gold, I recommend you get a life, a real job and get off this blog.

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     April 8, 2009 7:49 PM

Mark Mandel turned me on to this flash game. I don't usually play games at all, but this one has my interest.

The way it works is you can create a character and pit your character against other characters in fights. The fights are completely automated so there is no skill involved. It is strangely entertaining though.

The character can only fight a few times per day before the character has to rest. That means as far as time wasters go, this one is minimal, only requiring 5 minutes per day or less.

Wanna try it? Jump in the ring! If you don't like it, I'll refund your money. ( LOL just kidding, it doesn't cost anything )

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     April 7, 2009 3:34 AM

I'm blogging this before I forget what I did. Sorry if this is jumbled.

I was trying updating Flex Builder (Eclipse) and got an error message:

Fix For Eclipse RCP Patch 2 for 3.3.1 (3.3.1.v20071204_331) requires feature "org.eclipse.rcp (3.3.1)

The current configuration contains errors and this operation can have unpredictable results. Eclipse RCP Patch 2 for 3.3.1 (3.3.1.v20071204_331) requires feature "org.eclipse.rcp (3.3.1.R33x_r20070802-8y8eE8sEV3Fz0z0GlHJrXvTAUS)". Eclipse RCP Patch 3 for 3.3.1 (3.3.1.v20080102_331) requires feature "org.eclipse.rcp (3.3.1.R33x_r20070802-8y8eE8sEV3Fz0z0GlHJrXvTAUS)"

No matter what I tried to update/install, I'd get these errors and there seemed to be no way around them.

Sometimes I feel like an idiot trying to decipher these error messages because there is no clear way to find out how the heck to update the RCP stuff anyways. The good news is I did find a solution. Here's what you do to resolve this:

1. In Eclipse (or Flex Builder) go to Help -> Software Updates -> Manage Configuration
2. When the Product Configuration box pops up, expand the tree until you see the plugins listed. Some will have red error icons next to them. These are the ones we want to disable.
3. Click each product identified with a red icon, and click the disable link in the right hand pane.
4. Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

Once you disable the products with red icons, go try to run your update/install once again. It will work this time!

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     April 1, 2009 6:35 PM

If you have not yet heard of FreeCycle, you might be missing out. FreeCycle is a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It's all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills.

This worked out perfectly for me because I had some items that were too valuable to throw away, and too annoying to keep around. I spent a few minutes posting the requisite OFFER: emails and sent them to freecycle.

In a matter of hours, I was able to get rid of a Working Oven, Working dishwasher, Working Refrigerator, 2 Dell servers, 1 21" monitor, an old Laser Printer, a Keyboard and a Scanner. The folks who showed up were punctual, appreciative and very nice. Not only is my garage now perfectly in order, but some unwanted items have found a welcome new home.

I'd originally wanted to give the Appliances to a charity, but they wouldn't take them because the appliances were more than 10 years old. The FreeCycle people weren't so choosy, so we all win! FreeCycle FTW!!!

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