Steve Bryant

DataMgr 2.5 Beta 3

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:00:00-0500

Happy Ground Hog's Day! It looks like I have completely stopped releasing open source project lately. Hopefully I can get back on track. More than a year after releasing DataMgr 2.5 Beta 2, I am finally releasing DataMgr 2.5 Beta 3. So, what took so long? Neglect, basically. I have just been busy with other things. Even so, I think this is a very good release and should be a close match for the final release of version 2.5. [More]

Testing Rules in a Neptune program.

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:45:00-0500

I realize I haven't blogged about Neptune for a while, but I actually have been making progress on it. I have just been finding a hard time making time to blog. Hopefully I will get better about that. What I want to cover today is the process of writing automated tests in Neptune to which you can then write your code. [More]

Getting Around Windows 7 "Destination Path Too Long" Error When Deleting Files

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:15:00-0500

Years ago when I started learning VBA for Excel, I was reading a book by John Walkenbach and he compared learning macros in Excel to using a remote control - once you learn it you don't know how you lived without it. I would say that is true of scripting in general. The bad news is that programming is also like using a credit card, inasmuch as you can get yourself into a depth of problem just not possible without it. I got experience with that first hand recently when one small programming mistake caused a bit of a disaster on my computer. [More]

What technologies, other than ColdFusion, should a developer know?

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 10:15:00-0500

Fusion Authority recently ran an article called What's Hot? What's Not? Where Do We Go From Here? subtitled "What technologies, other than ColdFusion, should a developer know?". Mike Henke followed up the theme with a post called "What's Hot & Where do we go from here?". I'm pretty sure I don't have the insight that other people have who have already written on the subject. But it seemed like a fun exercise, so I thought I would toss in my two cents with:

What technologies, other than ColdFusion, am I learning?

I'm not sure what technologies you should learn, but here are the ones that I am learning: [More]

How to find the Perfect ColdFusion Hosting Plan

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 10:30:00-0500

I am a ColdFusion addict. Besides programming in ColdFusion, I also spend time reading about ColdFusion (and not enough - yet - reading about other languages). I check up on CF-Talk at least every couple of days and follow ColdFusion lists on LinkedIn and sometimes on Facebook. I follow several ColdFusion programmers on Twitter and even visit the Adobe ColdFusion Forums sometimes. In all of these forums, one question seems to come up more frequently than any other: "Where should I host my ColdFusion web site?". After reading that question dozens (maybe hundreds) of times, it finally dawned on me that this is a demand that needs to be met. People need a good resource for ColdFusion hosting. For myself, what I always wanted was an easy way to see which ColdFusion hosting plans met my specific criteria (for example, a ColdFusion plan that supported SQL Server and allowed CFEXECUTE). Doing that proved to be quite difficult, actually - especially as the number of criteria increased. So, I built what I wanted to exist. [More]

A Quick Note on Text Shadows

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 11:15:00-0500

I was recently doing some work for a client and they had a menu that would appear over a background image. The background image would be different for each page. Unfortunately, the background image on some pages made the menu text difficult to read. The designer thought it would be a good idea to have a drop shadow behind the text. This sounded good to me, except that I didn't know how to do that. Fortunately, it is really easy. [More]

How We Got Started in ColdFusion

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 11:45:00-0500

On the first day of last month, we had a fun "How I Got Started in ColdFusion" day. The response was much bigger and better than I expected. Including blog entries, "How I got Started" stories in comments on different blog entries, and one Google+ entry, I have found and compiled 110 responses (sortable and filterable page of all stories I have found so far). Where I could determine the answer, I tracked what version of ColdFusion each person was using and which year they started (though I did not attempt to determine one from the other). I also tracked broad categories of how people got started. One interesting thing that came from this was to see that there are really two different ways people get started in ColdFusion. [More]

Essential Software for ColdFusion Development

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 13:15:00-0500

I recently went through a rather severe computer tragedy from which I am just now recovering. As such, I have had the opportunity to rebuild my computer from scratch. Here is the software I deemed essential for my work as a ColdFusion developer. I'm curious what others have installed. These are roughly in the order that I install them

Firefox: First thing I install on any computer.
IIS: Not really software, but I did have to enable it. Apache may be "better", but I like IIS personally and it is easy to get going. Just be sure to enable all of the correct services before you install ColdFusion
SQL Server Express: It is free for local development and a really good database program.
MS Office: The last of the Microsoft software. Despite all of the Microsoft haters out there, MS Excel is still my favorite program ever and MS Access is actually a pretty good local database.
ColdFusion: It's what I do.
ColdFusion Builder: I still miss ColdFusion Studio, but this is really growing on me.
Adobe CS Web Premium: I love Fireworks and it is handy to have Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Flash as well.
Pidgin: Currently my IM of choice. Works well across lots of networks and runs fast.
CloudBerry Backup Desktop: I have tried Mozy and Rackspace's JungleDisk and liked them both well enough, but a friend recommended this so I am giving it a try.
ShadowProtect: Windows 7 has image back-ups, but the hardware independent restore feature of ShadowProtect seems like it could be really handy.
BeyondCompare: Simply the best file comparison program I have found.
Git for Windows: I'm in the early stages of learning Git, but I love it so far.

So, what do you think? Did I miss anything essential? For anyone wondering what happened to my upcoming list of "How I got Started in ColdFusion" entries, I lost them but I know how to get that back so I will try to get on that soon. Sorry for the delay.

How I got Started in ColdFusion

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 09:45:00-0500

After having announced "How I got Started in ColdFusion" day, I feel obligated to write mine. [More]

Finally Biting the Bullet on Git

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 11:00:00-0500

OK. I am finally going to bite the bullet and start using Git. This has been on my to do list for a white, but I haven't found the time. So, instead of finding the time I am just going to move open source projects that are currently on subversion over to github. My plan is that I will then learn Git by necessity. We'll see how that works. It is a little scary to just jump in like this, but I have yet to just "dip my toes in the water" so this seems the best way. That being said, if anyone has any suggestions for best ways to learn Git as I go or tools I can use to make this easier, I am eager to hear about them. I have a Git repository set up for the com.sebtools package and for my Neptune framework already. More coming very soon. Here's to jumping in with both feet! I'll try to blog about my progress.

August 1, 2011 is "How I Get Started in ColdFusion" Day

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 08:30:00-0500

During the cf.Objective() conference at which I was a speaker (I did mention that I would work that into all future anecdotes!), I got into a conversation with some other developers (including Tony Garcia and Greg Moser) about how we got started in ColdFusion. I realized two important things: 1) Every "How I Got Started in ColdFusion" story is interesting. I have heard dozens so far and I have found each and every one of them to be interesting. 2) Very few of these stories seem to match how we expect people to get involved in ColdFusion. So, I propose that all of us post a blog entry on August 1 telling how we got started in ColdFusion. If you don't have a blog, send me your story and I will post in on my blog. This could be a really good way for our community to get a feel for how people really get into ColdFusion, which can help guide our discussions of what we can do to better spread the word. I'm looking forward to hearing/reading how more people got started in ColdFusion!

SQL Excluding Record sets

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 09:45:00-0500

I was eating with another speaker at cf.Objective() (I am resolved to find a way to work my having spoken at a conference into all future anecdotes) and an interesting SQL question came up: How to delete everything except the first 1000 records. To my mind, this brought up a general class of problems in SQL. Which is, returning results that exclude the result of a query. With that in mind, let's look at a few of those. [More]

Neptune Programs: RSS Reader

Tue, 28 Jun 2011 09:30:00-0500

It looks like my "one new Neptune program per month" goal got missed by a bit. I am going to blame a combination of cf.Objective, a recent vacation and associated upsurge in work. In any event, here is the program for June (with only days to spare). RSS Reader is a simple program to get RSS feeds and display them on your site. While you could certainly use <CFFEED>, it is slow to get feeds on every page request and <CFFEED> sometimes has bugs (RSS Reader itself uses Ray Camden's rss.cfc under the hood). [More]

cf.Objective Custom Tags Presentation

Tue, 17 May 2011 09:00:00-0500

I had the high honor and great opportunity to speak at the most recent cf.Objective() conference. If you haven't ever been to this conference, I would highly recommend it. This was the sixth year of the conference (my third) and it was fantastic all around. The other presentations were universally good (if not great). As always, I learned a lot - both in the presentations themselves and in conversations with other speakers and attendees. For my part, I gave a presentation title "Don't Forget About Custom Tags", attempting to convince people that custom tags are still relevant and a great tool to have in your toolbox (and one which should be used frequently). I zipped up the presentation (PowerPoint file and code) for anyone interested in seeing it. I felt a bit more nervous than I expected, so I felt a little flat, but hopefully people enjoyed the presentation and I will get the opportunity again (I'll find out the answer to the first when I get the chance to read the reviews). Thanks and congratulations to all of those responsible for putting on another great conference!

Scheduler Program

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 10:15:00-0500

One thing that I run into frequently in my programming life is the desire to schedule events. I like CFSCHEDULE, but by iteself it has a few limitations that I don't like. It is a bit limited in the intervals available and I have to have an HTTP page set up for it. What I want is the ability to schedule a CFC method to be run directly from that CFC. Fortunately, Scheduler.cfc allows me to do just that. Scheduler.cfc itself still requires a scheduled task to run it. Scheduler.cfc also has the ability to report data about the scheduled tasks that it has run, but (as it is just a CFC) it doesn't have a UI to report that data. The Scheduler program solves both of those. It is essentially a wrapper for Scheduler.cfc. When the program is installed (copying it to a folder after installing Neptune), it automatically creates a "/schedule.cfm" and creates a ColdFusion scheduled task to execute it every 15 minutes (you can, of course change that). It also creates a page that reports all of the scheduled tasks running on the system as well as how long they execute (in seconds) on average, as well as the ability to see details of every time that they have run. This information can be invaluable if you are trouble-shooting a scheduled task. [More]