Always seeking more speakers

The 2008 Topics and Speakers

• 12/4/08 - "Hack-Proofing Your ColdFusion Powered Sites", with Scott Stroz
  Description, Recording
• 11/13/08 - "Iterating Business Objects - Who Needs Them?", with Peter Bell
  Description, Recording
• 10/23/08 - "Setting Up A Solid Local Development Environment", with Kurt Wiersma
  Description, Recording
• 10/16/08 - "Intermediate ColdSpring: Remote CFCs", with Tom Chiverton
  Description, Recording
• 10/16/08 - "DataFaucet: Do It Yourself Plumbing", with S. Isaac Dealey
  Description, Recording
• 10/02/08 - "Internals of the Adobe ColdFusion Server", with Elliott Sprehn
  Description, Recording
• 9/02/08 - "CFUniform: Build Feature-Rich Forms in ColdFusion", with Dan Wilson
  Description, Recording
• 9/18/08 - "What's New in Transfer 1.0 (and 1.1)?", with Mark Mandel
  Description, Recording
• 9/18/08 - "WebLoad: Professional and open source load testing", with Dean Ghanem
  Description, Recording
• 9/11/08 - "CF Free Clinic 2", with Charlie Arehart
  Description, Recording
• 9/11/08 - "CF Free Clinic 1", with Charlie Arehart
  Description, Recording
• 8/28/08 - "Refactoring in ColdFusion: From Procedural to OO", with Dan Wilson
  Description, Recording
• 8/21/08 - "Fun with ColdSpring", with Dan Wilson
  Description, Recording
• 8/21/08 - "CFC 201", with Ray Camden
  Description, Recording
• 7/17/08 - "Creatively Stop Form Spam", with Jacob Munson
  Description, Recording
• 7/17/08 - "Database Patterns for Unit Testing", with Bill Shelton
  Description, Recording
• 7/10/08 - "DataFaucet ORM... relax, have a drink", with Isaac Dealey
  Description, Recording
• 6/12/08 - CFUnited Preview, "Continuous Integration with SVN, ANT, CFUnit and Selenium" with Qasim Rasheed
  Description, Recording
• 6/5/08 - "Introduction to Building Applications with Transfer ORM", with Mark Mandel
  Description, Recording
• 6/5/08 - "5-Minute CRUD Magic with ColdFusion, Flex and LCDS", with Nick Kwiatkowski
  Description, Recording
• 5/22/08 - "ColdFusion and Flex", with Dale Fraser
  Description, Recording
• 5/01/08 - "CFInterface", with Robin Hilliard
  Description, Recording
• 5/01/08 - "Leveraging RDS in Eclipse, DW, and HS+: Secure, Useful", with Charlie Arehart
  Description, Recording
• 4/24/08 - "Cleveland CFUG Simulcast: cf.Objective() Preview", with 3 Speakers
  Description, Recording
• 4/17/08 - "Introducing SEBForms", with Steve Bryant
  Description, Recording
• 4/10/08 - "Unit Testing w/MXUnit - Part 2, In Action or In The Weeds", with Bill Shelton
  Description, Recording
• 3/20/08 "Introduction to ANT", with Jim Priest
  Description, Recording
• 3/13/08 "CF8 Image Manipulation", with Ray Camden
  Description, Recording
• 3/6/08 "XML and ColdFusion", with Nic Tunney
  Description, Recording
• 3/6/08 "Unit Testing w/MXUnit - Jump Start", with Bill Shelton
  Description, Recording
• 2/28/08 "BlazeDS Revealed!", with Tom Jordahl
  Description, Recording
• 2/28/08 "ANT on the Wire: Using FTP, Email, SVN, and VSS", with Marc Esher
  Description, Recording
• 2/21/08 "Testing with cfcUnit", with John Mason
  Description, Recording
• 2/7/08 "Practical Code Generation", with Peter Bell (CFunited Europe Preview)
  Description, Recording
• 2/7/08 "Amazon Web Services: the Next Wave", with Mike Culver
  Description, Recording

• 1/31/08 "The new Adobe Dev. Connection: Content, Code and Community", with Jonathan Wall
  Description, Recording
• 1/31/08 "File processing with Directory Watcher Gateway", with Dave Ferguson
  Description, Recording
• 1/24/08"Using FLiP as a sole developer", with Christian Ready (CFunited Europe Preview)
  Description, Recording
• 1/24/08 "Building ColdFusion based Flex applications using ZoomFlex", with Grant Straker
  Description, Recording
• 01/17/08 "Practical Code Generation" with Peter Bell (CFunited Europe Preview)
  Description
  No recording due to technical difficulties (poor connection at speaker's end).
  Rescheduled for Feb 7 at 6pm
• 01/17/08 "Fusebox Scaffolding" with Kevin Roche (CFunited Europe Preview)
  Description, Recording

If you're curious about other talks we've had, see the list of talks in 2007.

Again, thanks to all the speakers and attendees, and here's to much more in 2009. We already have several speakers lined up for January, and I'll be announcing them soon.

Yes, it's a MS resource: don't let that keep you away

Now, some will see this is from Microsoft and flinch, but don't let that scare you away. It's a set of introductory resources that could help any beginning web developer, and while the first 2 and last 2 of the 14 sections are MS-specific, the rest are not.

And besides the web-oriented topics above (HTML, CSS, Javascript, and more), there are also sections introducing basic programming concepts like problem solving, processing and storing data, even introducing OO (again, with no reference to C# or anything .NET), and more.

For each of the 14 topics, there is both an article-level discussion and either an audio or video version.

Yes, it's in a resource center about VWD. Don't let that scare you away, either

I'll note that beyond being "from MS", it's also indeed specifically part of a resource center for their Visual Web Developer IDE. Again, most of the content offered in this beginner resource is not really specific to that editor or to .NET.

And frankly, I wouldn't hold it against a CF developer to consider using the editor. Hey, it's free, and consider also that sometimes you may have to do some editing on a server with nothing but Notepad available. Perhaps you're not a fan of Eclipse, don't have an available license for DW/HS, and you want more than just Notepad. (Yes, I do also know about the many other available free (and some commercial) editor alternatives. I list them in my CF411 site category of Editors/IDEs.)

(And if you're ever stuck in a situation where you're unwilling or not allowed to install any new editor on your server, just last week I wrote about a tip for using Notepad if you ever find that you can't use the Goto Line feature.)

Anyway, the point is I'm not making a pitch here for VWD nor any statement against CFE. Let's not go there. :-) Indeed, to any who may want to take the chance to comment here in scorn or to deride the VWD editor or MS, or to point out some other editor alternative, let's not go there, either.

The point of this entry is the free learning resources for beginning web developers that I found on the MS site. I hope it may help some people.

• Working with tempdb in SQL Server 2005 - a 21-page Microsoft TechNet article, with lots of info on understanding, configuring, maintaining, and troubleshooting problems with tempdb. While written for SQL Server 2005, it could be useful for those on 2000 or 2008 as well. (Should that link ever fail, here's another.)
• Troubleshooting Insufficient Disk Space in tempdb
• For more on how its usage has increased for SQL Server 2005, see Capacity Planning for tempdb
• Finally, for more on managing its growth, see Optimizing tempdb Performanc

You may want to check out several other equally useful TechNet articles on SQL Server (like the first one above, but available on a wide range of issues).

Hope that's helpful to someone.

Well, the fix is a pretty simple one, but one may miss it. In case any of my readers (or those googling for a solution) need the help, it's that you can right-click on the area where the menu should be (not on a tab, nor in the address bar above it) and you should see a pop-up set of context menu options to include "menu bar", "links", and "status" among other things.

You want to enable the "menu bar"

You'll notice that the "menu bar" option has no check mark next to it. Click on it, to set it, which will enable the menus. The "menu bar" is indeed what shows the File, Edit, View, and other menu commands. Hope that solves the problem for you, and if so, consider it my little Christmas gift to you.

If that option is already checked, then it may instead be that somehow hidden or moved. One tip is that there is also a "lock toolbars" option on the context menu mentioned above. If you de-select that, some of the various menu items will now show a small gray dotted vertical bar, which you can click on to move the particular toolbar. You may find somehow that the menu bar, if enabled but not visible, has somehow been moved or hidden.

Finally, once you have enabled the menu bar, you can use that "lock toolbars" to make it less likely that you or anyone else will cause it to disappear. Hope that helps.

Sure, there are many DB monitoring tools out there, but Ignite focuses on tracking, analyzing, reporting, and explaining wait events within the database--and you'd be amazed how often waits caused by your code, that of others, or from other operations in the DB are the explanation for poor performance. It can help target exactly what SQL statement or other operation is a cause of significant waits.

The tool presents the data aggregated over time, so you can view it per hour, day, week, etc. Great for both drilling down to find hot spots, and for viewing how coding/config improvements (resulting from your responding to the analyses) have led to performance improvements over time.

The tool runs with low overhead: it reads data that the DB provides, storing it in a database and providing a web-based interface to view that data. The process to read the data and create the repository (and present the web-based interface) can (and should) be done on a server separate from the server being monitored.

Here's a nice 2-minute demo. There's also a free trial, of course, and it's pretty quick and easy to install and benefit from.

As I noted in the title, it works with SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, or Sybase (sorry, not MySQL. Don't know why). And while it's a commercial product, it's not a ridiculously high price (as for some tools). I just learned of it in the past few weeks, and one customer of mine who tried it has been just thrilled with the results. I hope to write more about it later, but wanted to at least get this info out for folks to consider.

Turns out it's pretty simple: just turn off wrapping (Format>Word Wrap). Doh! I've missed it for years, so am passing it along.

I know some will want to jump in and say "why are you using NotePad anyway?" Please save the smart remarks (and let's see if someone skips reading this and comments anyway).

I'm well aware of the many alternative text editors, as well as alternative file viewers (two of over 100 categories in my CF411 list).

But there are times when one may find themselves working on a Windows server where perhaps they're not free to install an alternative editor, or perhaps they just need to view/edit one file quickly so don't want to bother.

For those folks, I hope the tip above may help.

But to be clear, there have been many improvements made to it in each release/point release and CHFs since then (whether bug fixes, minor improvements, or even some modest ones).

For those interested, just search for "report" in the following documents (to find references to cfreport and report builder):

• 7.01 release notes
• 7.02 release notes
• 7.02 CHF 1-3 release notes
• 8 release notes
• 8.01 release notes
• 8.01 CHF 1-3 release notes

I do realize that many may think there's still plenty more to be updated, but at least it shows it's not really been "little to no attention". :-)

Not picking a fight with anyone. I really think most just haven't noticed, so thought this may be helpful.

Of course, another way to get involved in the next release is to apply for the prerelease program (which has its own different bug/feature reporting form). More on that program in a moment, too. And I'll note that while this is a page for reporting features/bugs on all Adobe products (not just CF), it's also not a true bug tracking system (more on that in a moment, too).

Hoping this makes it easier for people to find

First, as for this public form, even those who do know about it may find it hard to find (via searching) when they need it (if they've not bookmarked it).

Part of the problem comes from the fact that the URL for this form includes wishform, and some may then connect that in their mind (as I did) with the term "cfwish". Sadly, a Google search for that won't find a link to the form above; instead it will find references to pages mentioning email addresses that used to be used in the past to submit such requests: cfwish@allaire.com and cfwish@macromedia.com. Those, of course, are no longer useful.

But even a search for "coldfusion feature request" didn't find a link to the form within the first 30 Google results (though a search for "coldfusion bug report" found it first). Until Adobe might put wording on that form to make it be found for these keywords, I'm hoping that perhaps this entry may be picked up to more readily to help people find the form. :-) Of course, you can find links to it from the Adobe site, too.

Hope for an Updated Bug Tracker

Some might say I was remiss in pointing people to that form without recognizing that it's not perfect. There's no real tracking of items: you don't get any sort of tracking number (I'm referring to the public form above, not the beta form), and there's no way to list all items you've submitted. Of course, you also don't get to see the items others have submitted, nor can you vote on them, etc.

The subject of an updated bug tracker has been discussed many times, such as here, and as mentioned in a comment there, Adobe has said that one is coming. Some have noted that Adobe already has a better bug tracking system, at http://bugs.adobe.com/, and it would seem that could be easily opened for CF, but so far, no go.

Consider also registering for the Centaur beta

Of course, if you really want to get involved in forming the next release of CF (Centaur/CF9), note that applications for the prerelease program are now being taken. Again, prerelease programs have yet another feature/request form, as well as discussion forums. That's about all I can say, and I'm hoping no one will mind me saying even that. "What's the first rule about betas? You don't talk about participation in betas."

One last point: I should note that there has for several years been yet another CF bug reporting alternative: http://cfbughunt.org/. Unfortunately, at least as of this writing, it does not seem to have been updated for quite a while.

Check out the substantial table of contents on each of the following:

• http://www.learn-mysql-tutorial.com/
• http://www.learn-coldfusion-tutorial.com/
• http://www.learn-ajax-tutorial.com/
• http://www.learn-sql-tutorial.com/

The CF tutorial, for instance, has 14 chapters, each with several subtopics, and they range from basics to intermediate concepts. (It does not seem to have been updated for CF 8, but does reference some CF7 topics, like Application.cfc.) For many, it's seems it would be a great resource.

Many other topics

But maybe you know all about the CF topics listed. Fair enough. There are several other similarly substantial topics, listed on the left of each page, after the table of contents for that class. Besides the MySQL, SQL, and Ajax topics mentioned above, they include PHP, CSS, HTML, Javascript, XML, XSLT, and more.

In fact, this is how I found the resource. I was helping someone needing some info on MySQL Performance tuning, and while there are many great resources (books, docs, blogs like mysqlperformanceblog.com, and more), he really wasn't looking to become an expert in the topic. He was just suffering one problem and hadn't been shown any of the features in MySQL to help solve such problems.

I happened upon the MySQL tutorial here and saw that the topics ranged from fundamentals of installing and using it (and SQL) all the way up to chapters on Optimizing and Tuning Queries, Optimizing Databases and Their Objects, Tuning MySQL for Performance, and Administering MySQL. The topics were covered with just the level of info that I thought would really suit him (easy to digest in just several minutes, and yet would leave him a lot better educated). I passed the info along to him, but then thought I ought to share the rest with everyone here.

Check them out for yourself

All that said, I haven't actually read through any of them in detail. Still, they're from a training company (which teaches full-length classes on the same topics), and I'm confident that they've worked hard to make the materials accurate. One might wish they offered a place for clear feedback/comments, in case readers might be able to help improve things, but it's their call if they want to manage that sort of effort, of course.

The only real negative (some may feel) is that the "solutions" to various exercises are not offered online. Instead, the link for them indicates that the class materials can be licensed. Of course, the free online courseware is clearly a loss-leader, a promotional effort to bring you to their site to learn more about their many training offers.

Seems a fair trade to me.