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Announcing CF411.com: your place to find the 411 on things related to CF

Posted At : September 3, 2008 10:23 AM | Posted By : Charlie Arehart
Related Categories: resource lists
Next time you have (or see someone ask) a question about finding some resource or tool related to CF, first check out CF411.com. :-) It's a list of more than 700 tools and resources in over 100 categories. You might find not just one but many alternatives. I hope this will help folks who might otherwise ask or answer questions on mailing lists, forums, and blog comments where such requests frequently appear.

So what's in it?

It's not a FAQ. Rather, some will recognize this as my long-existing list of tools and resources, which this weekend I decided to rechristen it as CF411. The domain name above simple redirects to that part of my site, now also called: CF411.

Far more than just tools, it also has dozens of categories of resources: CF job resources, self-help resources, professional assistance resources, tutorial sites, conferences, hosting alternatives, certification prep resources, other sites listing CF resources, and much more.

And the tools list has several dozen categories, both those written in CFML (like caching, debugging, file uploading, and code generating tools, as well as CMSs, all the frameworks, and all the CFML engines, to name just a few), and just as many tools not written in CFML but useful for us (including database tools, editors, http debugging, log analysis, load testing, monitoring, and source code tools, to name a few), whether free or commercial.

Like my UGTV, I offer CF411 as a contribution to the community, to save people spending a lot of time looking/asking around for stuff. I hope it becomes another one-stop shop for people to find what they need (well, I use the term "shop" loosely. As always, it's all free).

What's in a name?

I hope the new name will just be easier for people to remember/think of the next time they see a question asked that they know is (or think may be) answered on my list, telling folks: "You should check out CF411."

I was torn about bothering with a new domain name. I didn't need to bother with my UGTV site: you can google that phrase and my site comes up first (even with Microsoft having launched their own UGTV), but I just figured it might be easier for people to reference in conversation, and some might naturally look for a domain name.

As always, I welcome contributions if you think of something (a category or a tool/resource) that I've not listed.

I'll begin blogging again soon to highlight more of the many categories.

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That's a pretty HUGE list of stuff :) Charlie rocks.
# Posted By Ben Nadel | 9/3/08 11:09 AM
Great Resources list Charlie it will be very useful for ColdFusion Community.
# Posted By Akbar | 9/3/08 11:35 AM
Thanks, Ben.

You know, it strikes me now that while I did say I hope people would mention the resource in lists, forums, and blog comments, where questions come up, they do need to know it exists first. :-) So any assistance by my fellow bloggers in spreading the word (even if you read this days or weeks later) would be appreciated. It's hard to get a new resource off the ground, but I hope eventually it would save many a lot of time.
# Posted By Charlie Arehart | 9/3/08 11:36 AM
And thank you, Akbar. Sorry, I was writing my reply to Ben as you were sending your comment. Just saw it after posting. I'd appreciate your posting news of the site as well in your blog, which I enjoy also, if you're interested.
# Posted By Charlie Arehart | 9/3/08 11:58 AM
Wow - I can't imagine how long it took to type that lot in, let alone find them all! Great resource :)
You might want to add Google's Chrome browser to the list (www.google.com/chrome).
# Posted By John Whish | 9/3/08 12:00 PM
Congratulations Charlie!
Excellent work in community ColdFusion! :-D
# Posted By Francisco Paulino - Tofinha | 9/3/08 12:22 PM
Well, John, it's actually the accumulation of several years of work. :-) Though, as I explain at the top of the page, I've started updating it in earnest (and frequently) since last year.

Anyway, thanks for the kind words, and for the suggestion of Chrome (now added). Thank you, too, Francisco.

Please spread the word. A resource like this is only as useful if it's read and reused widely. :-)
# Posted By Charlie Arehart | 9/3/08 1:24 PM
Good work!!
# Posted By Pedro Claudio | 9/3/08 1:46 PM
Added article about it to my blog. Great stuff as usual, man! Much appreciated.
# Posted By Sid Wing | 9/4/08 9:21 PM
Thanks, Pedro and Sid, and thanks to you Sid, Francisco, John, and Akbar for blogging about it. If Ben and Pedro may be waiting a while to post if (if indeed they will), that's fine. It's good to spread out the announcements rather than have them all show up in the blogosphere at once. :-)

Sid called it an "information station". I like that :-) Thanks for the encouragement, everyone.

Funny how it's all in a name. The resource has existed for along time, and I've blogged of it often, but it seems there's nothing like simple URL to capture attention. :-)
# Posted By Charlie Arehart | 9/5/08 11:15 AM
Thanks for maintaining this list over the years Charlie. Also the cf411.com shortcut is handy.
# Posted By Pete Freitag | 9/12/08 12:24 PM
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