• CFUnited Europe in mid March
• cf.Objective() in early May
• WebManiacs in late May
• Scotch on the Rocks in early June
• CFUnited in mid June

What a blast, and of course it's an honor to be invited. I've not written much about them because, well, I don't know what I could add that hasn't been said by many other bloggers who attended each! :-)

Unfortunately, the schedule precluded me giving any thought to attending (or proposing to speak at) WebDU (spoke there last year) or SpringBR. And sadly I had to miss the Adobe Community Summit.

As if those events (and the commensurate travel) weren't enough of a draw on time, in the weeks since the first event in mid-March I've also:

• squeezed in teaching 6 classes
• written 2 tips columns and a feature article for 2 editions of the FAQU
• organized nearly a dozen ColdFusion Meetups
• attended an invitation-only Microsoft Tech Summit (for a couple dozen folks they picked from competing communities to talk and listen to)
• spent a week in Germany with the fine folks at Intergral (makers of FusionDebug, FusionReactor, FusionAnalytics, and with whom I also do some consulting)
• and provided my consulting services to many folks in what little time remained!

Fortunately, the nature of my consulting is different than most: I focus on helping people solve problems (rather than build or architect apps), so they generally need me only sporadically and for short spurts of time. We've been able to fit them in nicely in the time in between, but I've got some who've been patiently awaiting the end of what some called "the conference silly season".

I had also started my series on the tools/resource list, but after part 10 got just too bogged down. I plan to pick that up again very soon.

Just wanted to offer a bit of explanation on the relative quiet the past couple of months.

I have some other really exciting things planned and in the works which I'll be sharing in coming weeks and months. Some are new resources, some new services, and some new tools. All dedicated to helping the community. It's exciting times!

http://www.fusionauthority.com/tipical-charlie/

And that's not a typo. I called it "*Tip*ical Charlie" as a play on words. The titles of the articles in those first two issues were:

• Text File Processing (PDF)
• How Can I Call Thee (CFC)? Let Me Count the Ways! (PDF)

Enjoy, and do keep in mind that this tips column is intended to benefit newcomers as well as more experienced folks. The rest of the FAQU articles do tend to be more intermediate/advanced.

You can also find the titles for all my other FAQU articles (indeed all I've contributed to any magazine) on my articles page, and you can find the titles of other FAQU articles by other authors on the FAQU site.

Want the whole FAQU issue(s) in PDF form?

But some will want more than just my tips articles in PDF form. Here's good news: if you've not noticed, you can also get complete back issues (also in PDF form) for 7.95 per issue, and in fact the first issue is offered for free.

I suspect that as time passes, we'll see more of my tips and indeed complete issues released for free. Thanks to all the folks behind the FAQU.

In the ColdFusion 8 Web Application Construction Kit Volume 2: Application Development, I had the honor of doing the chapter on the CF8 debugger. If I do say so myself, I think that it's a really complete introduction both to installing, configuring, and using the debugger, along with many tips, tricks, and traps--perhaps even a better one-stop resource than the docs themselves.

Best of all, it's one of the chapters that's been made available online. There was fear that Volume 2 would be too big and so a few chapters (mostly on older topics) were put into a 550 page PDF. My chapter is near the back of this PDF.

Also, note that if you have the print version of the book, it's technically chapter 52 of volume 2, but you won't see these online chapters listed in its table of contents. Instead, they appear in the TOC at the start of vol 3 (long story)

Sadly, I couldn't get permission to just cut out this one chapter, so you do need to get the full PDF. You should be able to easily jump to the starting page (using Ctrl-Shift-n), which is page 467 in the PDF, despite the table of contents on the first page which lists it at 471. And of course, you can print just selected pages from a PDF as well.

Either way, I hope you get great value out of the information offered. I'd really welcome your feedback.

(PS I mentioned last week that I'd also done an article on the CF8 debugger in the FusionAuthority Quarterly Update, in their recent CF8 Special Edition. Unfortunately, the FAQU articles are not available online.)

• The ColdFusion 8 Debugger Explained: Interactive Step Debugging for ColdFusion 8
• Tipical Charlie: Hidden Gems in ColdFusion 8

The first is a 10-page overview of getting started with the CF 8 Debugger. It follows on to the earlier article I'd done in the Fall 2006 edition on FusionDebug. As both articles show, I'm a fan of both tools, and I just want to help people become aware of both.

The second article continues my tips column that's at the end of each issue, and this is a quick one-page summary of some of the best of the hidden gems I've identified in my past user group talks of the same name.

Note that the articles are not available online so you must get the print edition to read them (though I've been in talks with Judith and Michael for some time to get at least just the tips columns online, perhaps only some time after publication. We shall see.)

If you've not taken a look at these, you may be missing out. There are some misconceptions about the monitor, and also I think most don't realize that it can do much more than they may suspect. There's precious little documentation (and discussion) about it, so you may find things here you won't find anywhere else.

• Part 1: Using the Server Monitor in development
• Part 2: Using the Server Monitor in production
• Part 3: Automated monitoring and request management with Alerts and Snapshots
• Part 4: Multiserver Monitor, Admin API monitoring, and more

The third and fourth parts, specifically, have the following sections:

Part 3

• Automated monitoring and request management with Alerts
• Substantial diagnostic details with Snapshots

Part 4

• An enterprise dashboard with the Multiserver Monitor
• Programmatic Monitoring with the Admin API
• Tweaking the Monitor in the Settings section
• Miscellaneous aspects of the Monitor

Sure, I've just written about FusionReactor yesterday, and will write still more about the new release. I don't see it incompatible to help people make the most of whatever tool they may use. I've written previously also about SeeFusion. Indeed, I've written previously that that each has their place, even in the face of CF8's server monitor.

I'd like to hear from readers

The DevCenter articles offer a feedback link, but so far I've not gotten any (and they say they will forward any they get). I'd really appreciate hearing from anyone who has read the articles. I really feel that they go way beyond what's available in the docs and help, to bring together information and concepts you might otherwise miss. Has it helped you at all?

Finally, do you ever wonder why some call this area of the Adobe site "DevNet", "DevCenter", and/or some the "Developer Connection"? Well, the URL has devnet in it, but the breadcrumb bar at the top of my articles shows "Home > Developer Connection > ColdFusion Developer Center". Go figure. :-)

I got notice from Amazon today that it will be available November 21. Find out more about the book's contents, the several co-authors, or pre-order it, at:

CF8 WACK Volume 2

This follows up the part 1, which focused on uses of the monitor in development. There will be 4 parts ultimately, all listed in the Developer Center, with the 3rd part discussing the alerts and snapshots features, and part 4 discussing the Multiserver Monitor, Admin API monitoring features, and various miscellaneous observations.

The CF8 monitor offers a lot more than many would think, and insight into certain inner workings of CF that we've just never had before. I try to highlight things that you may have missed if you've only glanced at it or attended brief overviews at conferences or user groups. I will likely to my own presentation on it in the future..

No one should read from this that I'm any less supportive of 3rd party tools like FusionReactor and SeeFusion. As I've stated before, there's clearly a place for those tools for shops not yet on CF8, and even once on CF8 I believe there are differences among all the tools that could warrant having more than one at once.

Author copies of the first one arrived today, just as Ray announced also.

The first book is formally called, the Adobe ColdFusion 8 Web Application Construction Kit, Volume 1: Getting Started.

Look for the others (Volume 2: Application Development and Volume 3: Advanced Application Development) to come out in the future. Don't ask me when. I really have no idea.

Still other books in my past

What book did I do 5 years ago that I mention above? The ColdFusion MX Bible, which I did with Adam & David Churvis and Hal Helms. It came out in early 2003, just after the launch of CFMX 6. It got a lot of high praise and good ratings, due mostly to the efforts of "the Churvii" (the father and son Churvis team), who did most of the book.

Here's some trivia: in what other CF book was I a co-author? It's tricky, because if you follow the link for my name on the books above, it shows them only. But search for Charles Arehart instead. You'll see that I contributed to the original CF 4 for Dummies, with John Paul Ashenfelter and Alexis Gutzman. I did just one chapter (on CFMAIL), and as John will tell you, we both decried much of its content but the publisher and lead author were hard-pressed to get it out at the time (2000) and it went as is. The reviews suffered accordingly. I've never blogged my association with that book until now. Hopefully time has cast it to an abyss so there's no harm. :-)

That same year, I also contributed to Professional WAP, doing the chapter there on Wireless programming with CF. (With those multi-author Wrox books, I was listed first so many think I was the lead author, which was not the case.)

Like most, these books are a team effort

And so it was these CF8 books: I'm just one of many hands that make up each of the CF8 books.

But I do want to thank Ben for including me in the books this round. It's a great team of folks spread out over all the books, and I really am grateful for the opportunity to contribute.

ColdFusion 8 server monitoring - Part 1: Using the Server Monitor in development

It's 8 pages printed, so lots of info there. I hope you'll get value from it. Since there's no feedback mechanism there, I'd appreciate if you'd share comments here of what you think of it. We writers get precious little feedback on our work, most times.

For now, it's even listed as a front-page article on the CF8 Dev Center. (FWIW, note that the URLs say "devnet" while the site itself uses the phrase "Developer Center".)

Future articles in my CF8 Monitor series will focus on using the monitor in production, then using the multi-server monitor, alerts, and snapshots, and finally several miscellaneous features and tips in part 4.

I should say finally, since many know I've talked a lot about FusionReactor and SeeFusion in the past, that, no, I don't think the CF8 monitor is a death knell for those tools (nor do I think the CF8 debugger will kill off FusionDebug). There's a place for both (especially if you're not yet on 8, and even afterwards possibly), and since the monitor is only in CF8 Enterprise, that especially keeps the other monitors in the running. I've written a more complete discussion of my perspective on these things:

Scorpio Debugger and Monitor: What's it mean for FusionDebug, FusionReactor, and SeeFusion?

Now, about it being in Enterprise, that's something I couldn't say in either my past entries or even in the current article on the DevCenter, as those were all written before the final release of CF8. I'm sorry if they read as if everyone using CF8 could use them. I really had no way to say otherwise.

That said, with the CF8 monitor being free in CF8, and especially with it giving us access to some awesome new info (which even the other monitors could now provide access to), it's worth learning what's possible. There's a lot more to it than you may think.

See the other entries I've done on the monitor. Some of them have info I couldn't fit into the DevCenter articles, or that may not be published for a few weeks.

I was able to arrange to get the corrected article posted in the electronic version of the article, free for you to read, on the CFDJ site. If you're interested in the topic and/or the article, please do check it out online.