Steve Bryant - Personal

Vote! (and my predictions)

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 06:30:00-0500

No matter who you plan to vote for, I would encourage every one to get out and vote today. In late September, and again a few days ago, I put together a map of my predicted results in the race. This has nothing to do with what I want, just a prediction of what I expect. [More]

MWM Seeks CFObjective Roommate

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 05:00:00-0500

OK. I admit it, I am both cheap and a procrastinator. I need to reserve a room today for CFObjective, but I am not keen on spending $120 per night on a room. I am from Oklahoma, so that seems like a high price to me. If anyone wants a roommate, let me know. If I don't here from anyone in a few hours then I will just suck it up and reserve a room myself. I look forward to seeing everyone there! Update Procrastination pays! I have a roommate now.

Learning from Voldemort

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 11:30:00-0500

My wife and I are both big fans of the Harry Potter series. It seemed, after finishing the series, that Lord Voldemort had no redeeming qualities. Recent events, however, have convinced me that Voldemort has a valuable lesson to teach.

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My Chosen Bahamas Adventure

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 07:00:00-0500

I am back from the Bahamas and having said I would report back on the adventure that was chosen for me, I will do so here. As it happens, breakfast was the best part of the day, so I will work backward to there.

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Choose My Adventure

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 06:00:00-0500

If you liked "Choose your own adventure" books, this may appeal to you. In this case, you have the opportunity to choose what I do on vacation.

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A New Home for My Blog

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:42:00-0500

I have been planning to move my blog for some time now, but I have always put it off (If there is one thing I am good at, it is procrastination). Fortunately, recent developments encouraged me to do now what I have been intending to do eventually.

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Missed Milestone

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 14:22:00-0500

I have been so busy lately that I didn't even notice when a major milestone passed. As of July 22nd, I have been self employed for five years.

I have been busy enough with work and travel that I missed the milestone completely. My workload has been full for more than four years and my client roster has been stable in that time.

So, what is the secret to my success?

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Trek to "The Book Thing"

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 13:17:00-0500

When listening to The ColdFusion Weekly podcast, I heard Peter Farrell describe "The Book Thing" in Baltimore. It was, according to his description, a place that had shelves and shelves of free books – whole rooms of them in fact.

As a book lover, this place sounded like Xanadu. When I got the opportunity to go with my wife to Baltimore (from where I am working right now), I knew that I couldn't pass up the chance to visit "The Book Thing".

I found the web site and looked up the address and hours – open 9-6 on Saturday and Sunday. We had other plans on Saturday, so Sunday was our day. Address in hand, we flagged down a cab in front of the hotel. I told the driver the address, but he didn't know it.

So, back to the hotel we go. This time, I wrote down directions (no printer while I travel) and the nearest major intersection. Back at the street, we found another taxi.

I asked this driver if he knew the address. He didn't either. So, I asked him if he knows the way to 25th and Greenmount. He said that he did, so we got in the cab.

My wife reminded me that I had earlier told her the intersection was 33rd and Greenmount, so I relayed this to the driver. He laughed a bit at this. I figured that he was laughing at a man being corrected about the address by his wife, so I smiled and we were off. In retrospect, this was our first real clue of what was to come.

Neither of us knew what kind of neighborhood "The Book Thing" was in, so we watched out the window for clues. We drove through some rather downtrodden neighborhoods, but then went through some refurbished ones, so we were pretty optimistic. Until, however, we turned into the neighborhood around 33rd and Greenmount.

The cabbie asked us if we want to stop before the light or after. We told him just to stop at the gas station before the light. I asked him for the number to the cab company so that I could call for a return ride. He asked how long we were going to be (our second clue). We told him that we would be a while, so he gave us a card with the number.

When we got out of the cab, we got our first good look at the neighborhood in which we had placed ourselves. I'll be the first to admit that at this stage of my life, I have become rather bourgeois. This neighborhood isn't. To call it "working class" would be generous.

We walked past several small store fronts - churches and "adult" stores clustered together with laundromats and other small stores (all closed). We only had a basic idea of where "The Book Thing" was, so we ended up walking a few blocks to reach it.

"The Books Thing" itself was located in what looked like a former auto repair shop. The books were organized by subject matter, but not by author. This turned out to be good enough. I like exploring for books, so this turned out to be a fun hunt.

After looking around for a while, we ran into a first. I was ready to leave a book store before my wife. She needed time to prepare herself to face such an unfamiliar neighborhood.

Our plan was that after visiting "The Book Thing", we would walk to a nearby McDonald's which the wife found on Google Maps and we drove by on the way in. From there we planned to call a taxi using the cell phone that we brought in.

The McDonald's itself is perhaps a half-mile away. It was still morning, so we expected a comfortable walk. In terms of weather, the walk was very comfortable. In terms of environment however, it was a bit odd.

Everyone we passed on the street seemed to stare at us. In my short life, I have been to about 8 countries and I have never felt as out-of-place as I did in this neighborhood. We felt that we belonged as much in this neighborhood as a zebra would in Manhattan.

In order to explain our level of comfort in the neighborhood, I should mention our last jaunt to a similar area. Nearly a year ago in New York City, we unexpectedly found ourselves in a Harlem subway stop with a three-foot wide FAO Schwartz bag. We belonged there much more than we did in this neighborhood.

I never felt in any immediate danger (though I certainly would have expected to given the look of the neighborhood). I couldn't tell if those around us felt in danger by our presence (though decked out, as we were, in our typical "Eddie Bauer" fashion, I can't imagine how anyone could see trouble from us).

Among the people we passed were several people sitting on the street who watched us go by, a couple who stared at as though we were aliens or hostiles, and a group of men having a loud argument.

Near the end of our walk we saw a handful of people breaking into a gray sedan. It could have been owned by one of the people breaking in, but I didn't ask.

When we reached the McDonald's, we went in to place the call but found the music too loud. We stepped out to call a cab and I noticed that one was sitting at the curb. I looked to see if he had a passenger, but couldn't see one.

The cabby was eating an apple and looked friendly. I asked him if he was available. He looked at me strangely for a second or two and then said "Yeah, be just a minute."

So, we stepped away from the cab and waited. A few minutes later, a woman got out of the cab. I apologized for not having seen her. She said that was OK, but hollered at the cabbie to come back soon.

He told her he just had to drop us off and then he would be back. It seemed clear that he was cutting into his lunch break to remove the foreigners from the neighborhood.

In the cab, after a brief discussion of the whether, he asked what we were doing in this neighborhood. We told him. He said that if we had walked just a few blocks further and turned right (I'm still not sure further what direction), the cops would have stopped us.

He said that the police stop anyone who looks so out of place in this neighborhood – the clear implication being that people from outside the neighborhood only came there to buy narcotics. I asked him how he could tell we weren't from the neighborhood, and he chuckled and said "Just by first glance. You can always tell."

After he dropped us off, we assessed our situation. We spent $15 each way in cab fair for a total of $30 on cabs. I got one free book with a slightly torn cover and list price of $5.95. We took every bit of cash we had in to a neighborhood in which we had no business being.

If I had it to do over again, I would probably leave the excess cash (and my wife) at the hotel.

DataMgr Tour of Two Cities

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 23:09:00-0500

I got back Friday from my two city DataMgr users group tour. I had a lot of fun presenting in both Boston and Nashville. Both groups were a lot of fun and had good questions.

While in Boston, I had a chance to look around the the city for a few hours before the presentation and it is really beautiful. Then I had time to talk to both Brian Rinaldi and Bernie Dolan a bit before the meeting, which was both fun and educational - two very smart guys.

The presentation to the Boston CFUG went well and everyone I talked to said that they enjoyed the presentation. Feel free to read Bernie's humurous tale of the event (I took the title of this blog entry from his). Afterward, I went to a local pub for a drink with Bernie, Brian, and Tom. Tom bought me a beer, which was much appreciated. Another fun and informational discussion there.

From Boston I flew to Nashville. I was too tired to look around the town, so I stayed in the hotel and napped and tried to get caught up on email and reading. The presentation to the Nashville CFUG also went well (you can read Steve "Cutter" Blades description of the presentation). This presentation was recorded, so feel free to watch the presentation (apologies for some silent spots where I am listening to questions and suggestions).

Some of the Nashville members made some good suggestions for DataMgr which will be in the next build (proving wrong my previous statement that it was feature complete).

The first suggestion was that the getXml() method should be able to return all tables if no table was passed in to the method. It turns out that DataMgr did this already. I went ahead and made it do the same if an empty string is passed in as well.

The second suggestion was that the logAction() method should record the SQL used in the action. I have added that feature and it will be in the next release. As an aside, I said in the presentation that calling this method directly when logging is not enabled would not cause DataMgr to log an entry. This is not true, but startLogging() must have been called before a logAction() method is called (or else the logging table won't exist).

Members of both groups asked about the performance of DataMgr. I was disappointed that I had not done any performance tests on DataMgr, so I had to give a conservative response that it would be best to avoid its use in very high-traffic situations. I believe that it should actually perform very well in those situations (better, I would think, than an ORM approach), but until I test that I can't really recommend its use for high-traffic applications.

That being the case, I would love any suggestions for what people think would be the best approach for load testing and performance testing for DataMgr. Ideally, I would love to see a set of tests that can be performed against DataMgr as well as cfquery, Transfer, and Reactor. I think that this could help people choose the approach that is the best fit for their environment.

Somehow, I had time to cover "Special" functionality and "Relation Fields" at the Boston meeting, but not the Nashville one. I'm sure that means I left out something else in Nashville. Both of these features can be seen in the DataMgr Demonstration site. If you want a more complete information, the DataMgr page includes links to the documentation as well as Flash tutorials and the CFC Docs for DataMgr.

I would love to present this to any other groups that are interested (via Adobe Acrobat Connect). Just let me know if you would like me to present on DataMgr to your group).

Finally, a big thanks to Brian Rinaldi and Aaron West for allowing me to come to their groups and say a few words about my current pet project. It was a lot of fun to meet everyone in each group and I hope I get to see many of them again in the future.

Traveling Reference

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 19:29:00-0500

Ben Forta is asking for input on his next CFWACK book. The discussion in the comments reminded of the old CFML Reference that I keep with me. It is one of a few books that I always have near my computer when I travel.

CSS Pocket Reference (outdated, but still handy when I can't remember some bit of syntax)
ColdFusion Quick Reference Guide to CFML (no longer in print, but still handy to jog my memory a bit)
Regular Expressions in 10 Minutes (Forta strikes again!)
SQL Pocket Reference (perhaps the least used of the bunch, but I still like to have it)
The Elements of Style (I don't write the copy, but it has still been handy)

These books taken together weigh less than a pound and take up less space than your average computer book. They have still managed to be tremendously useful when I am working on the road (especially if I am trying to get some work done with no internet connection).

Anyone else have suggestions for books that they don't leave home without?

Presenting DataMgr to Users Group

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 14:25:00-0500

I presented on DataMgr to my local users group yesterday and created a demonstration site to illustrate most of the features.

I hope to release the demonstration site early next week and release the next beta of DataMgr 2.0 around the same time (and make the download available directly from the site). The demonstration site will also act as a test-bed for DataMgr functionality and will include links to the documentation and some notes on using DataMgr. It will allow you to actually use DataMgr to update data in the database.

This data will be periodically removed and recreated to prevent abuse. Additionally, I hope to have the application regularly switch databases. The demonstration site will demonstrate DataMgr on Access, MySQL, and MS SQL Server. I have to test it on PostGreSQL elsewhere.

The presentation also served as a bit of a dress rehearsal for my February 22nd presentation on DataMgr to the Nashville ColdFusion Users Group. After that, I would love to give presentations (in person or by Breeze/Connect dpending) to any other groups that are interested (just let me know if you are).

My New Quarter's Resolution

Thu, 04 Jan 2007 15:36:00-0500

After listening to ColdFusion Weekly , I got motivated to do the whole "New Year's Resolution" thing. A think a year is a bit too long for me. I need shorter intervals to stay motivated (keep from procrastinating), so a figured three months is good.

So, here is:

Finish DataMgr 2.0
Make at least 2 blog entries per week
Make at least one basic Flex application
Start Unit Testing
Finish my first version of my "Demo Application"
Play with Apollo

DataMgr 2.0 is actually coming along nicely. The second beta is nearly ready for release. It doesn't have many new features over the first beta, but it is becoming more stable. I will be giving a presentation on DataMgr to my local users group next week and to the Nashville CFUG in February.

I was going to say "blog more frequently", but management studies have concluded that specificity of goals is a major determining factor in performance. I would love to set my goal higher, but I think I will try to work up gradually.

I also have a few more open source applications that I am planning, but I don't want to overfill my plate for this quarter, so those will have to wait until the second quarter of the year.

If I can get keep to this modest list this quarter, I will be pretty happy.

Technology Convergence

Fri, 22 Dec 2006 19:55:00-0500

Ever since The ColdFusion Podcast first came out, I have thought that I would like to listen to podcasts about ColdFusion. Despite my intentions, however, it hasn't really happened.

The ColdFusion Podcast has been inactive lately (though they plan to start again next year), but ColdFusion Weekly has been brodcasting pretty regularly. In the past several months, however, I have listened to only one or two podcasts from each.

Basically, I am unable to listen to a podcast while I work because it is to distracting. If I am not working, then I am usually spending time with my wife. Since she is not a programmer, it seems rude to make her listen to a podcast about ColdFusion.

Ideally, I would listen to a podcast on the drive. A few things prevented this, however - an unwillingness to wear headphones as a drive and a lack of an MP3 player in the car.

Thankfully, a combination of factors has finally solved this. My wife and I recently went to NYC for a brief vacation. While there we picked up a new iPod Nano for my wife to replace her iPod Shuffle (at the Apple Store of course!). This means that I have an iPod Shuffle now (I love leftovers! - product of being the youngest siling, I suppose).

This summer we bought a new Honda Element (not so flashy as the Mini Cooper it replaced, but more useful and still lots of fun).

The Element has an auxillary input, the result of which is that I can listen to the iPod in the car while driving. I did just that today on my drive out to the post office. The drive was only long enough to get through about half of the most recent ColdFusion Weekly, but it was still really nice.

It really felt like I was just listening to a normal broadcast radio show on ColdFusion. In many ways, new technology has the same feel as the old. The major difference is that network radio is unlikely to cover ColdFusion programming, so niche markets are well served by technology that makes content production and distribution.

I look forward to hearing more of both podcasts in the future.

Orange Peel

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 15:51:00-0500

This weekend my wife and I went to Orange Peel - a show put on by our alma mater .

It included performances by local band, The Hero Factor as well as comedy by Bill Engvall (the reason for our presence) and Alan Jackson as the main attraction (we are told that he is a very well known country singer). In my opinion, this is an improvement in the level of entertainment from recent years (which I haven't attended primarily due to scheduling concerns).

Bill Envall's set was one of the funniest I have ever heard and all of the material was new to my ears. In it he mentions acting like a fool when meeting George Strait. I found myself greatly relieved after my experiences meeting ColdFusion gurus (I think I heard myself tell Ben Forta that he was a celebrity). I always think I will act dignifies upon meeting people I respect, but invariably something stupid escapes my lips.

Although we hadn't heard of The Hero Factor before the show, we liked their music enough that we bought a CD for ourselves and one to send to my wife's brother in Iraq (a member of the band was nice enough to sign his copy).

I was amused, however, when I looked at the Hero Factor web site. Take a look. The whole page is one image! Now that is how to make sure the site matches the design. Why hadn't I ever though of that?

In other news - Mailer.cfc just got a small update.

Back From Flex Training @ Adobe

Wed, 26 Jul 2006 13:19:00-0500

Friday was the last day at Adobe. The conference was great and I met a lot of people. It took a while for me to get re-oriented to my normal life, but I think I am readjusted now.

Adobe also provided two days of fast-paced Flex training. From what I have seen so far, I am really impressed with Flex.

Although I think that most web sites and even most administrative sections would still be better served with a mostly HTML interface, I think that Flex is an impressive tool for applications that benefit from a Flash interface (where a highly dynamic interface is needed, for example).

It is interesting to me that ColdFusion has long been criticized by proponents of other languages for its tag-based syntax. This format, however, has been popular and is becoming increasingly so.

For example, Flex uses an XML-based declarative language (MXML) with a scripting language (ActionScript) as well as CSS for styling. This is basically the same approach as good HTML which uses HTML (or its XML-based cousin, XHTML) with a scripting language (JavaScript) as well as CSS for styling. ColdFusion, for its part is a tag-based language that includes its own scripting counterpart (cfscript). Of course, it can output HTML or many other formats.

JSP has even added a tag-based format. XAML looks like it will be an XML-based format.

I guess ColdFusion isn't too far off-base after all.

In any event, the structure of Flex seems to be very well thought out. The class itself was very good. I don't envy the instructor his challenge. He was teaching a class of more than sixty and trying to cover five days of material in two.

Coincidentally, CrystalTech just announced that they have upgraded to ColdFusion MX 7.02, so you can now do Flex development on sites they host (though not with Flex Data Services, of course).