I thought some others might be concerned about something odd I just noticed, regarding the "recent CF technote" feed I just blogged about. I'm noticing that several of these "recent" technotes (even a couple months old) don't show up on the pages that purport to list all the CF technotes! Yikes. That means that if you're not following the feed, you may not otherwise have any way to know that there are new tech notes.

And sadly, the feed lists only the 10 latest, so there may be others you could have missed out on if you've not been getting the feed. What's up with that?

Perhaps the HTML page is just out of synch with the feed but then I'd wonder where the feed is getting its source information? and why isn't the technote page updated immediately with that same info?

Here are a couple of examples that show up (as of today at least) on the recent CF technote feed list but do not show up on the page listing technotes (more on this below):

• Updated ColdFusion 8.0.1 ServerMonitorUI.swf
• CFDocument not compatible with TrueType Collection Fonts (TTC) (ColdFusion MX 7, ColdFusion 8)
• Determine Version Information for ColdFusion 8

I couldn't find any HTML page that listed those (and links to them) on any of the following expected pages.

Not on the Hot Fixes page

Curiously, all three offered a link back to the CF 8 Hotfixes page, but they're not technically hotfixes. Anyway, to my point, they're not listed on the hot fixes page.

(I'll say, for those worried most about hot fixes, that all the technotes I saw listed in the "recent feed" that really were hotfixes are indeed listed on the hotfixes page, so it seems that's kept udpated.)

Not on the Tech Notes page(s)

But the above are indeed technotes, and could be important to some, yet they are not listed on the pages that purport to list CF technotes: the CF Support page and the CF Technote Index page have no mention of these. (Indeed, that 2nd technote index page seems quite old, mentioning nothing of CF8 on it.) These are where I'd expect they should be listed, so it seems that these pages are not being kept updated.

And it's not like the technotes above from the recent feeds are really that new. The one on the ServerMonitorUI.swf, for example, is from May. It should be listed on the technotes page by now, shouldn't it?

Or if it's that these pages aren't meant to be the one all-encompassing list of all CF technotes, then what is?

Not found via searching

Just to make sure I wasn't missing some other meta-list of CF technotes, I used the Adobe site search, and even Google and Yahoo, to search for pages referring to the page titles above. I couldn't find any pages that had these listed. I could only find the individual pages themselves (in other words, short of the feed, I'd only find them by searching for them directly).

The problem restated: any solution?

So again my point is: the recent feeds page has technotes that are not offered in any list anywhere else on the Adobe site. Shouldn't a feed supplement a page that otherwise has the info? Does it make sense that if you don't follow the feed, you have no other way of knowing that the page exists (short of lucking out on finding it via a search on the topic)? Some of us would like very much to be able to always find and review a list of all known tech notes. The pages referred to above would seem by most to be expected to do that, but clearly they don't.

And given that the feed only shows 10 entries, the problem gets worse as new entries are added to the feed. What about those who have only just learned of it? How are they to know of items that are just old enough to no longer be listed on the feed?

Maybe someone needs to set up a page that saves the feed data. (There are other pages that show what's coming from the feed, but when the feed changes, they do too.) I'm talking about something that captures the feed output and keeps old entries while adding any that are new. But should we have to do that?

Any way to get the feed to list more than 10?

Finally, in the meantime, since the "recent feed" stops at listing 10 items, does anyone know a way to get it to list more? That would help us to find more that we might otherwise have missed (and would certainly aid in a tool to capture as many as we can).

I tried adding "?entries=20", as a guess, but to no avail.

Another feed-related problem, if Adobe catches wind of this page

As a PS, as long as this may get the attention of folks responsible for the Adobe feeds and pages, I pointed out in the last entry as well that sadly, the feed link at the bottom and right nav bar of the CF DevCenter page goes to http://www.adobe.com/go/rss_coldfusion, which redirects instead to http://weblogs.macromedia.com/product_feeds/archives/coldfusion/index.rdf, which is an old CF7 feed. It should instead (I assume) redirect to this "recent tutorials" feed.

Ever wish you could be notified when there's a new CF technote, hotfix, security bulletin, or DevCenter CF article? You can be, whether via your favorite RSS reader or by email (more below). There are feeds for each of the following:

• CF Technotes and Hotfixes:A feed of recent ColdFusion tech notes and hot fixes is offered here:

  http://rss.adobe.com/www/support/recent/recent_cf.xml

  There is also a top issues feed. (FWIW, the recent_cf.xml page seems identical to the info offered via this URL.)

• DevCenter CF articles: A feed of recent ColdFusion Dev Center articles is offered here:

  http://feeds.feedburner.com/developer_center_coldfusion_tutorials

  (Sadly, the feed link at the bottom and right nav bar of the CF DevCenter page goes to http://www.adobe.com/go/rss_coldfusion, which redirects instead to http://weblogs.macromedia.com/product_feeds/archives/coldfusion/index.rdf, which is an old CF7 feed.)

• CF Security Bulletins: While you can't get a feed of recent ColdFusion security bulletins, you can at least sign up to receive notification of new bulletins by email. Just note that the email will be for all Adobe products which have bulletins, not just for CF.

Don't have an RSS feed reader? Get them by email

If you don't have an RSS feed reader, or you simply prefer to receive such things by email, you can. Check out the various RSS-to-Email tools (all free) which I list in my category, "RSS to Email Tools", in my list of over 100 tools and resources for CFers.

Adobe Feeds for Other Products

If you're interested, you can find many other feeds across all Adobe products at http://www.adobe.com/support/rss/.

Beware of older CF feeds

One last FYI: you may find reference on the web to the following old technote URLs, which do still work but have not been updated since CF 7: http://www.macromedia.com/go/rss_coldfusion and http://weblogs.macromedia.com/product_feeds/archives/coldfusion/index.rdf.

Also, the Adobe feed site above lists this other "ColdFusion news" feed, but it also seems to be mostly older stuff.

Today's first category from my Tools and Resources to Consider for CF developers is from the Resources section, and it's "CFML Documentation/Help Tools and Resources".

CFML Documentation/Help Tools and Resources

While the Adobe docs are the best source for CFML documentation, there are online versions of that both from Adobe and others, providing access to the docs in various ways. Please note, though, that while most of the other resources show only the CFML reference, the actual Adobe docs contain more than just the CFML Reference, including a Developer's Guide, Installation Guide, Administration Guide, and more. See the Livedocs for more on those.

• Adobe Livedocs, for CF7
• Adobe Livedocs, for CF8
• CFQuickDocs, by Jacob Munson
• CF Docs on Air, by Brian Love (If not working, try google cache version)
• CFML Docs for IPod, by Randy Nielsen of the Adobe docs team
• CF8 Help files for Eclipse, from Adobe
• ColdFusionDocs, by Anuj Gakhar
• Complete List of CF tags, for 7 and 8, by Andy Jarrett
• Pete Frietag's ColdFusion Cheat Sheet
• I welcome additions/corrections/feedback.

About this series

This entry is part of an ongoing series, sharing each of the 100+ categories and the tools and resources I (and others) have identified. They're designed to answer the questions we hear, like , "does anyone know of tools or resources to help with ...?"

I've decided to start offering each category here as a blog entry, to give the list more exposure and to make sure I'm not missing anything. For now I'm offering each day one list from the resources and then another from the tools categories. To see the list of all categories, see Part 1 of this series. I may in the future offer an RSS feed of any updates made to the list.

I hope people will get great value out of the lists, here or on the tools and resources page. Please try to remember to point the list out to people you see asking for these kind of tools and resources. Thanks.

Additions/Corrections

The tools/resources list is a perpetual work in progress. I definitely welcome additions or corrections to it. If you have any to offer, you can leave them here as a comment on this blog entry and I'll move them to the list on my site.

BTW, before you offer an update here, please do check the category on the real list. I won't be coming back here to update these blog entries to sync them if I add new items to the real list.

Next up later today will be CFML Caching Tools.

The following conferences have some, if not an entire, focus on ColdFusion and CFML.

• Adobe Max, organized by Adobe (location varies)
• cf.objective(), organized by Jared Rypka-Hauer, et al (Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN, USA)
• CFDevCon, organized by Russ Michaels (London, England)
• CFUnited, organized by Michael Smith et al (Washington, DC, USA)
• Scotch on the Rocks, organized by Andy Allan, et al (Edinburgh, Scotland)
• Spring
  , organized by Dave Hannum, et al (Athens, OH, USA)
• WebDU, organized by Geoff Bowers, et al (Sydney, Australia)
• WebManiacs, organized by Steve Drucker et al (Washington, DC, USA)
• See also Teratech's list of Upcoming CFML conferences

About this series

This entry is part of an ongoing series, sharing each of the 100+ categories and the tools and resources I (and others) have identified. They're designed to answer the questions we hear, like , "does anyone know of tools or resources to help with ...?"

I've decided to start offering each category here as a blog entry, to give the list more exposure and to make sure I'm not missing anything. For now I'm offering each day one list from the resources and then another from the tools categories. To see the list of all categories, see Part 1 of this series. I may in the future offer an RSS feed of any updates made to the list.

I hope people will get great value out of the lists, here or on the tools and resources page.

Additions/Corrections

The tools/resources list is a perpetual work in progress. I definitely welcome additions or corrections to it. If you have any to offer, you can leave them here as a comment on this blog entry and I'll move them to the list on my site.

BTW, before you offer an update here, please do check the category on the real list. I won't be coming back here to update these blog entries to sync them if I add new items to the real list.

Next up later today will be CFMAIL Replacements/Enhancements.

As some may know, I keep a list of over 700 tools and resources of interest to CFers, broken into more than 100 categories. I've decided to start offering each category here as a blog entry. To see the list of all categories, see Part 1 of this series.

Today I'll jump from the tools section of the list back to the resources section. This entry is about CFML Certification Preparation Resources.

I'd like to ask that we don't use this blog entry as a place to reopen up the old debate about the value of certification. I'm just point out resources, not judging the value of certs (or the resources). Please fight the urge... (I'm betting someone with a short attention span will have skipped this text and will do it anyway.)

CFML Certification Preparation Resources

The tools mentioned here are still only oriented toward CF 7, so if you're looking for CF8-specific information, the best bet is the CFML documentation.

• Adobe ColdFusion Certification site (including exam guidelines, example questions, and information on registering to take the exams)
• CFMX ExamBuster, commercial by inexpensive, from Centrasoft. The leading product in the space of CFML exam preparation.
• ColdFusion MX 7 Certified Developer Study Guide, by Ben Forta
• ColdFusion Certification Resources, by Ben Nadel
• ColdFusion Questions, by Charlie Griefer
• Learn by Heart CF Exam Practice
• I welcome additions/corrections/feedback.

Additions/Corrections

This tools/resources list is a perpetual work in progress. I definitely welcome additions or corrections to it. If you have any to offer, you can leave them here as a comment on this blog entry and I'll move them to the list on my site.

BTW, before you offer an update here, please do check the category on the real list. I won't be coming back here to update these blog entries to sync them if I add new items to the real list.

About this series

This entry is part of an ongoing series, sharing each of the 100+ categories and the tools and resources I (and others) have identified. They're designed to answer the questions we hear, like , "does anyone know of tools or resources to help with ...?"

Someone may ask why I'm blogging each of these categories, when they're available online anyway. It's just that, through aggregation and feeds, blogs present a way to reach a wider (and new) audience who may not otherwise come across the list of tools and resources. This also widens the pool of eyes for possible updates to the list. I want it to be as accurate and up to date as possible. I may in the future offer an RSS feed of any updates made to the list.

Otherwise, I hope people will get great value out of the lists, here or on the tools and resources page.

As some may know, I keep a list of over 700 tools and resources of interest to CFers, broken into more than 100 categories. I've decided to start offering each category here as a blog entry. Again, to see the list of all categories, see Part 1 of this series.

Tools and Resources for CFers, Part 2: CFML Blog Aggregators (and bloggers)

There are literally hundreds of CFML blogs. Some are popular and known by most, while some less popular ones may well offer some hidden gem. Rather than try to list them all here, and indeed rather than you having to read them all, the following aggregators focus on CF-oriented blogs.

Some blogs are in all the aggregators, but it's worth keeping an eye on more than one. I provide as well a link to the list of all CFML blogs that each aggregator follows. This way, you can find out all the folks who blog about CF.

• CF Bloggers, which follows these blogs
• Feed Squirrel, which follows these blogs
• Full As A Goog, which follows these blogs
• MXNA, which follows these blogs

You can always find the latest version of the list above at the official site, in the category CFML Blog Aggregators (and bloggers)

Again, if you're looking for a list of all CF bloggers, note that there is no one list, but again each of the aggregators above offers a list of the blogs that they aggregate, and I've offered the links to those lists above.

Additions/Corrections

This is a perpetual work in progress. I definitely welcome additions or corrections to this list. If you have any to offer, you can leave them here as a comment on this blog entry and I'll move them to the list on the site.

BTW, before you offer an update here, please do check the category on the real list. I won't be coming back here to update these blog entries to sync them if I add new items to the real list.

About this series

This entry is part of an ongoing series, sharing each of the 100+ categories and the tools and resources I (and others) have identified. They're designed to answer the questions we hear, like , "does anyone know of tools or resources to help with ...?"

Someone may ask why I'm blogging each of these categories, when they're available online anyway. It's just that, through aggregation and feeds, blogs present a way to reach a wider (and new) audience who may not otherwise come across the list of tools and resources. This also widens the pool of eyes for possible updates to the list. I want it to be as accurate and up to date as possible. I may in the future offer an RSS feed of any updates made to the list.

Otherwise, I hope people will get great value out of the lists, here or on the tools and resources page.

As some may know, I keep a list of tools and resources of interest to CFers, to help you answer the questions, "what tools/resources exist to help with ...?" I started it several years ago but update it constantly, and it now has over 700 tools and resources in over 100 categories. I've decided to start offering each category as a blog entry. Below, first, are the 100+categories, to give you a heads up of what's coming.

The Categories

I've split the list into Resources and Tools. Sometimes it's not clear how best to categories some subjects, such as CFML Frameworks, CFML Engine Alternatives, Monitoring Tools/Services, Testing Tools/Services, Time Tracking/Invoicing Tools/Services, and Web Site Design Repositories, to name a few.

• CFML-Oriented Resources
  • CFML Blog Aggregators (and bloggers)
  • CFML Certification Prep Resources
  • CFML Conferences
  • CFML Documentation/Help Tools and Resources
  • CFML Frameworks/Methodologies
  • CFML Hosting Alternatives
  • CFML Job Resources (Hire/Be Hired)
  • CFML Lists and Forums (finding help)
  • CFML Podcasts
    • Active CFML Podcasts
    • Seemingly Inactive CFML Podcasts
  • CFML-powered Web Sites
  • CFML Resource Sites
  • CFML-specific Search Resources
  • CFML Tuning/Troubleshooting Resources
  • CFML Tutorial/Article Sites
• Tools (CFML and other)
  • Blogging Tools
  • Bug/Defect Tracking Tools
    • Written in CFML
    • Written in other than CFML
  • Captcha Tools/Alternatives
  • CFMAIL Replacement/Enhancement Tools
  • CFML Caching Tools
  • CFML Debugging Tools
  • CFML Documentation/Help Tools and Resources
  • CFML Engine Alternatives
  • Code Generators
    • CFML Code Generators
    • Flex Code Generators
  • Comparison Tools
    • File/Dir Comparison Tools
    • Database Comparison Tools
  • Content Management Systems
  • Database Engines
    • Name brand DBMS's
    • Alternative Databases
  • Database Tools
    • Database Coding Tools
    • Database Comparison Tools
    • Database Monitoring Tools
    • Database Query/Explore Tools
    • Database Testing Tools
  • E-commerce Enabling Solutions
  • Editors/IDEs
    • CFML Editors
    • Other Editors
  • Excel File Processing Tools
    • COM
    • CSV
    • HTML Table
    • Java
    • .NET
    • Office Automation
    • ODBC/JDBC
    • Report Builder
    • WebQueries
    • XML
  • File Upload Tools
  • Forums/Bulletin Board Tools
  • Graphing/Charting Tools
  • HTTP Debugging Proxy Tools
    • Free, General-purpose HTTP Debugging Proxies
    • Free, Firefox-only Proxies
    • Free, IE-only Proxies
  • Image Processing Tools
  • Log Analysis Tools
    • Generic Log Analysis Tools
    • Intrusion Detection
    • SQL Server Log Analysis
    • Web Server Log Analysis
  • Monitoring Tools/Services
    • Application Monitoring Tools
    • ColdFusion Monitoring Tools
    • Database Monitoring Tools
    • Event Log Monitoring
    • Site Monitoring Tools
    • System Monitoring Tools
  • Project Management Tools
  • Regular Expression Generation/Testing Tools
  • Remote Presentation/Assistance/Web Conferencing Tools
  • RSS to Email Tools
  • Server-side Spell Checkers
  • Source Code Control Tools
  • Testing Tools/Services
    • CFML Code Testing Tools
    • CFML Unit Testing Tools
    • Database Testing Tools
    • Load and Application Testing Tools
    • Page Testing Tools
    • Regex Testing Tools
    • Site Security Testing Tools
    • Web Services Testing Tools
  • Screen Capture Tools
    • Still Image Capture Tools
    • A/V Capture Tools
  • Time Tracking/Invoicing Tools
  • Web Services Browsing/Testing Tools
  • Web Site Design Repositories
  • Wiki Tools
  • Wireframing/Prototyping Tools
  • WYSIWYG/Rich Text Editors

Again, I'll be offering here a blog entry on each of the lists as part of this series.

I definitely want to hear of any possible editions or changes. Otherwise, I hope people will get great value out of the lists.

PS Of course, don't miss Brian Rinaldi's excellent list of open source CFML products and projects. I don't limit mine to just things written in CFML (nor indeed just open source), and of course I show more than just tools but also resources. For those interested, I discuss the differences, and indeed how I link to his list often from within mine, in a section of my list. They complement, rather than compete with, each other.

Most of us have seen over the years many requests and many ways to process (read or create) Excel (.xls) and other spreadsheet files. In fact, there have been so many different ways (some simple, some powerful; some new and some quite old) that I fear some may do a quick Google search and try the first thing they find. Sadly, what works for some may not work for all.

One place to list all the approaches

I don't recall ever seeing any single listing of all the possible ways to do CFML to Excel integration, so I decided to create one. I've created a new section in my Tools to Consider for CFML developers on the topic of "Excel File Processing Tools".

You'll see I've gathered a range of articles and tools from over the years showing how to do CF-Excel integration (both directions) any of several of the following ways (the links go to the section within my tools list on this topic):

• You can easily create them using HTML tables and CSV generation (as well as read them using CSV)
• You can create them with the more powerful XML-based approach
• You can create and read them using Java-based APIs like POI, JExcel, and jXLS
• You can create and read them using COM and now in CF8, .NET
• You can read them using ODBC and JDBC drivers
• Let's not forget also that you can create them using the Report Builder in CF7 and 8, which can output as Excel
• And finally there's the old Excel Web Query feature for populating a spreadsheet from a CFML request

In the listing, I offer dozens of links to articles, blog entries, downloadable tools, any relevant CF docs, and more, all broken down by the approaches listed above.

Different Strokes for Different Folks

So you see, there are not only different solutions but different needs (create a spreadsheet CFML, read one into CFML, or populate one within Excel from a CFML request). It seems helpful to gather a single resource to organize them all and help people decide.

I need your feedback

So let me know what you think of all this. Did I leave out any other important approaches? I'm not claiming to "know it all". This is just a result of some research I did this morning (and/or recollection from past experiences). I'm sure I could have missed something. Certainly I know I'm not listing *all* possible references on each of the subjects. I just wanted to give folks something to start with, but I'm certainly open to adding any useful references or tools that I left out. Please leave a comment below.

Update: Indeed, already, in response to a comment, I've tried to make more clear the fact that I'm not just talking here about creating spreadsheets from CFML but was referring to reading them as well. That's why I chose "processing" in the title, and I referred several times to "reading them", but to make it stand out, I've bolded all the references to reading them.

More important, because it seems he had missed the 2 links to the lists where I offer more details, I've also changed the words in the list above to link into the discussion of the topic in the tools list. Hope that helps avoid people missing the real point of the listing. I was torn about just offering the listing itself as a blog entry and went with this approach instead of a summary that points to the details. I know some don't like really long blog entries. Also, listing them in the bigger tools list seemed helpful, but I may split it out into its own file. We'll see.

Not just about Excel or even Office

BTW, one may argue that I could have a generic section on processing all sorts of file types (or even just all kinds of MS Office) file types, but there are so many requests for Excel file processing specifically, and so many approaches/tools to suit those needs, that I just figured I'd start out with this and consider other filetypes later (and may rename the section then). It's also certainly true that most of the techniques/tools shown here can be used with any spreadsheet tool that reads xls files or processes CSV/HTML table files in a similar way (like OpenOffice).

Had you noticed that one of the many hidden gems in CF8 is the Apache Derby open-source, cross-platform database engine embedded in CF8. You're free to use it for production. Why would you? How does it differ from other free databases like MySQL?

To answer those questions and more, I've created a new resource called, "Getting Started with the Apache Derby Open Source Database in CF8". It's a resource compendium for those interested in using the DB with CF, pointing you to general resources to learn more, linking to many CF-specific articles and blog entries on it (from both before and after the final CF8 release), and lots more to help you get started--as well as respond to some common misconceptions.

It will continue to evolve, but for now, the sections are:

• General Resources for Learning More about Derby
• Is it a pure development only DB?
• Is this the same database engine that's embedded in Adobe Air?
• I've heard that Derby is a single-user DBMS
• How can we use it/enable it in ColdFusion?
• Are there any IDE or query tools for talking to Derby?
• Why use Derby database verses using something like MySQL?
• Where can I find a reference for supported SQL, etc.?
• Is there a way to automate creation of a new Derby Database in CF?
• Where else can I learn more from other CFers using Derby?

I'll also point out that those interested in Derby, especially in discussing it with others, will want to know that a couple of weeks ago I started a Derby "community" on the coldfusioncommunity.org site. Anyone may join in. I'll note that I rolled all my answers to questions there, prior to December, into the getting started page above.

Let me know what you think of it, and certainly any additions or corrections you'd suggest.