coldfusionBloggers.org Feed

Ask Ben: Limiting The Number Of Simultaneous Users For A Given IP Address

Kinky Solutions — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 09:21:18 GMT

I have a question relating to the CF request cycle. This is because I am implementing some code which increments a number by IP address on each request start and decreases it on request end so that I may limit the amount of concurrent requests by IP every request start. That as a concept works fine although I was having weird issues where the request end seemingly did not fire. I then tracked this down to certain actions that caused the request end to not fire such as: <c ... Read More »

Zen, Motorcycle Maintenance, And Producing Software

Kinky Solutions — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 08:46:48 GMT

I am currently working my way through Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig (thanks Joshua Cyr ). I've got a lot more to go, but this morning, the main character said something that I thought was quite profound, especially for me as a sof ... Read More »

URL Rewriter for IIS 7.0

Russ "Snake" Michaels — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 08:41:27 GMT

The IIS team at Microsoft has released another set of updated IIS Extensions this month, including the final RTW version of URL Rewriter. These Extensions offer additional functionality for IIS 7.0 while being fully supported and integrated with Windows Server and IIS. Learn more about IIS Extensions.

URL Rewriter enables Web server administrators to create powerful rules to implement URLs that are easier for users to remember and easier for search engines to find. By using rule templates, rewrite maps and other functionality integrated into IIS Manager, administrators can easily set up rules to define URL rewriting behaviour based on HTTP headers and server variables, or to perform redirects, send custom responses, or stop HTTP requests based on the logic expressed in the rewrite rules. URL Rewriter offers many benefits, including:

Easily define rules that match URLs or HTTP headers to generate more friendly and consistent URLs
Protect content and assets from unauthorized linking and scanning
Integrate with existing IIS features to improve management, performance and troubleshooting

Some of you may already have this functionality via ISPAI_REWRITE from Helicon Tech, which is based on MOD_REWRITE for Apache, and in fact version 3 now uses the MOD_REWRITE .htaccess file format so that settings are easily transferable between systems. So if you are already using this then the URL Rewriter extension may pale in comparison, after all it is only the first release, but for those looking for a quick, simple and most of all FREE solution for URL rewriting, then the URL Rewriter extension for IIS7 may be just the ticket.

Collaborative Text Editing With EtherPad

Critical-Web — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 07:41:08 GMT

This from the TwitterVerse: Brain Swartzfager posted a link to EtherPad, a neat little in-browser application for simultaneous collaborative editing of simple text files. The nice part it there's nothing to install; everything runs on Javascript and is compatible with most modern browsers. For more details, Ben talked about it on his blog yesterday.

On a completely unrelated note, I've been having hardware issues at home (spent last week without a computer), but everything seems better now. I should be back to posting regularly.

Fridays Joke: The wedding night

Andy Jarrett — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 05:26:15 GMT

This is the penultimate wedding joke before next weeks nuptials. Though I'm thinking now will I have time Friday morning to post one more joke? Enjoy! Concerned about her relationship, a woman approaches her doctor and says, "Doc, I'm getting married this weekend and my fiance thinks I'm a virgin & I'm not! Is there anything you can do to help me?" The doctor says, "Medically, no, but here's something you can try. On the wedding night, when you're getting ready for bed, take an elastic band and slide it to your upper thigh. When your husband puts it in, snap the elastic band and tell him it's your virginity snapping." [More]

Guitar Rock Tour My favourite iPhone App!

John Beynon — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 04:21:16 GMT

If you own an iPhone or an iPod touch then chances are you�ve played Tap Tap revenge. It was one of the early apps to come out and it�s been steadily upgraded over time with downloadable tracks but it still lacked something. It didn�t feel like Guitar Hero or Rock Band on the consoles. Anyhow, all [...]

Now Google Maps for Flash is on AIR !!

Shigeru-Nakagaki.com (En) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 03:01:32 GMT

I got a comment from Pamela Fox who is working as a support engineer of Google AS Maps API. He said... "We now support AIR-- perhaps it's time for a simple AIR example? :)" I checked the Google Geo Developers Blog. And it said... "Now th...

MAX 2008 overall pros and cons

Tales From The Trenches — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 02:41:30 GMT

Overall, I'm been very happy with my experience at Max 2008. I ran into several familiar faces, met the fine folks from The Morphic Group, heard lots of talks on interesting topics, and got some pretty sweet swag to bring home. :) When I get time later in the week, I will start posting my reviews of the various presentations (and maybe other bits as well if they haven't already been Twittered to death). For now, I'd like to share a few overall pros and cons of the conference as a whole: Pros -- 1. Everything was extremely well organized. From (quite literally) the second I walked in, I had people informing me of where to go, how to register, etc. We were given handy pocket guides with the conference schedule, and a nice book with several blank pages for taking notes. Kiosks were available for attendees to print up-to-the-minute schedules, and so on. I heard a few reports of people not being able to enter different talks because the bar-code scanners weren't working, but I only heard that a couple times on the 1st day (so I'll assume that was the exception, and that it was remedied by the the time Tuesday's presentations started). 2. Plenty of space. Whether I was at the expo floor, or eating lunch, or in a presentation, I didn't feel cramped anywhere. It was always (for me) pretty easy to find a semi-quiet spot to set up my laptop, or just make a few phone calls without worrying about being shoved out of a hallway by masses of folks trying to walk by (as can easily be the case at big shows like this). 3. The party! Wow...that party Tuesday night was great! Adobe bussed everyone to the Academy of Sciences and we basically had free run of the place for the night. Tons of food, great exhibits, and lots of things to keep us geeky people entertained all night. I'm not much of a drinker, and have been to many parties that consist solely of drinking alcohol (boring folks like me pretty quickly). This was not the case here! I stuffed my face on dim sum, enjoyed the planetarium, the aquarium, and generally ran around silly until I was too tired to continue. :) I'm definitely making a return trip to Academy of Sciences when time permits! Cons -- All that being said, I do have a few pieces of "constructive criticism" as well... 1. (This one is half for the "powers that be" behind deciding which presentations get booked, and half for the presenters themselves.) Do. not. use. your. presentation. as. a. sales. pitch. I sat thru WAY too many presentations where 10, 15, or even 20+ minutes were spent talking about what the presenter's company does for a living (often, it had nothing to do with the topic at hand). Please, save that for the expo floor! I paid money and used my time to schedule attending this session so I could learn something. If I want to learn about your product, I'll ask the folks at the booth. A quick slide and a minute of "I'm from company X, we make thingie XYZ for the Photography industry" (or what have you) is fine, but please let's realize there is a time and place for more extensive self-promotion. During a technical lecture is not the place, despite what your VP of Marketing may tell you. :) 2. If the bulk of your presentation pertains to features in not-yet-released software, please SAY SO in the TITLE. As a general rule, I don't build products in pre-release software. For me, that's defined as anything still labeled as "beta", "alpha", "preview" or any other variant of "it's not for sale just yet, and we don't guarantee it works". (If a client asked for something, i will of course break this rule on a case by case basis, but generally I stick with what is "released" as my technology stack.) I lost track of how many presentations I sat thru that ended up being "Flex 4 only", but weren't listed as such in the schedule. Was this a mandate from Adobe? Were folks "forced" to include some percentage of content about the not-yet-released Gumbo (that Gumbo Preview DVD doesn't count as "released"...it can't even be installed in a non-default folder without Bad Things Happening). I spent present-day money and used present-day time to learn present-day improvements to my skillset. When Flex 4 (or whatever the product is in question) is out, then maybe i'll be interested. Until then (or at least until it's very late in the beta testing phase), not so much. Other folks came here via a boss's dime. Said boss may be waiting at the office to ask the age old questions: "so, what did you learn? can you justify the cost of this expo?". I assure you, that most of them don't want to hear "yes, i learned things that ONLY work 8+ months from now, IF all the things in the Preview release stay in the final product, and IF you spend even more money to BUY it". Want to guarantee that small companies won't send anyone to Max 2009? Yeah that'd probably do it. There's no "return on investment" with present-day technology stacks in that situation. I did attend several "what's coming in the next version" talks, which were appreciated. It's good to see what is coming in the next version, but I wanted to balance that with information I can use right now. "Hiding" Gumbo content in talks that are not properly labeled makes it difficult to find that balance. And the reverse is also true: many people may be "bleeding edge junkies", and they didn't attend the talks because "with the upcoming version of Flex" wasn't in the title. That's all for now. I'll post "mini reviews" of the various sessions as time allows in the coming weeks. --nolan

New Plugin: diff.cfc part of the ColdBox Plugin Pack

ColdBox Blog — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 01:41:07 GMT

I just added a new plugin to the ColdBox Plugin Pack addons. If you don't know about this addon, then you should. It is an extra addon of plugins Team ColdBox has put out for public use. You can find this addon in our Code Depot page alongside some contributed plugins.

Now below you can see a nice screenshot of how this plugin can produce. If you want a real live sample, then you can look at the Codex Wiki code coming out real soon.

Cloudshout Alpha 2 Released!

Adam On Life — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:41:00 GMT

Over at IZEA there are a lot of balls up in the air at any given time. Lately I’ve Dan and I have been concentrating on a relatively new creaation — CloudShout. It fits in nicely with the blog focused atmosphere for IZEA, and we’re both pretty excited about it. It already has a lot [...]