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Archive of Vernon Viehe's Blog (Quarterly)Vernon Viehe was the Macromedia Community Manager for ColdFusion through most of 2002, and he had a blog at http://vvmx.blogspot.com/. Sadly, the blog is closed. While the old blogspot archives are there if you know how to find them, you have to know how to find the archive links, and even then they're weekly. You could also do a Google search for the cached pages, but all that's a hassle.Instead, and in honor of his contributions, I've gathered them all up here into 3 quarterly installments here. Hopefully, this will make it easier for people to benefit from any of the tips he'd offered that are still timely. We'll all miss you, Vern. /Charlie
Thursday, October 31, 2002 It LIVES! The newest site devoted to development using MX products
from Macromedia just went live. DevMX, the newest site devoted to developing
and maintaining resources useful to those using MX products from Macromedia
just went live. DevMX features: There are a few areas that are marked "coming soon," but they are
indeed COMING SOON! I wanted to go ahead and turn you on to this awesome resource
so you could start using the great stuff that's already there - and since you'll
likely be using those resources often, you'll be around to see when the "coming
soon" areas spring to life! Thanks much to Dennis Baldwin, Kevin Bridges, Todd Rafferty, Justin Watkins
and Edoardo Zubler for making this awesome community resource available to us
all. Wednesday, October 30, 2002 So long from DevCon2002! I've had a great time, met many folks that I've only interacted with in cyberspace,
but finally get to meet in person. And a whole bunch of people who I've never
met at all. Conferences such as DevCon are the best place to make those crucial
business & professional connections.
Steven Rittler: Take #7 Steven Rittler has become a regular among the circles I travel in at conferences.
Steven shares with me why coming to these conferences ROCKS for him.
Brendan O'Hara comments on why he's glad he came to DevCon this year...
Rob Brooks-Bilson reflects on DevCon2002 and shares his thoughts regarding
DevCon2003.
Tuesday, October 29, 2002 Other blogs featuring content from DevCon2002 There are more blogs live from DevCon, but these are the ones I could lay my
hands on quickly. If you're also doing a blog live from DevCon, send
me an e-mail, and I'll add you to this list! Thanks! Flash Communications Server wows Jeremey Petersen! It's true, you'll read a lot about Team Macromedia members in my DevCon blog
entries. I work with these volunteers frequently via e-mail and in the forums,
but I rarely get to see them in person. Jeremy
Petersen, Team Macromedia volunteer for ColdFusion, and I were talking about
the exciting technologies that are being showcased here at DevCon. So I asked
Jeremy if he'd talk about what "wowed" him, and it seemed appropriate
that since it was the Flash Communication Server, I would make a video blog
entry, which is, of course, enabled by the Flash
Communication Server, and built by Jeremy Allaire! Be sure to check Jeremy
Allaire's Blog for highlights of other folk's video blog entries from DevCon2002.
DevCon exhibitors have some really cool products! I may be biased, but I think Macromedia has the most awesome software! One of the coolest things about coming to DevCon, is all the other exhibitors, and the cool stuff they have that works in conjunction with, or is built upon Macromedia technologies (or BOTH!) The following video blog entry is Team Macromedia member David Vaccaro commenting on the coolest thing he's seen exhibited (aside from Macromedia software, of course), TrueSpectra Image Server. This videoblog entry was made during "Community Coffee Talk," in the Community Connection area, sponsored by the Developer's Relations group that I work with. posted by Vernon Viehe | 2:32 PM Macromedia thanks some very special supporters Today, I attended an appreciation luncheon for Team
Macromedia members, and Usergroup
Managers. Kevin Lynch expressed a sentiment felt company-wide, that these two
groups of Macromedia supporters have a wide reach, and help empower many people
to use Macromedia software more effectively. If there's a Usergroup
in your area, join it! If not, consider
starting one! And of course, you can interact with Team Macromedia volunteers
in the Macromedia Online
Forums, no matter where you are! CFMX honesty in the CF Community Suite Today, I attended CFMX honesty in the CF Community Suite, hosted by House
of Fusion, by Michael and Judith Dinowitz. The session was intended for
folks to discuss any imperfections they've run into in CFMX, but I wasn't able
to be there until about a quarter of the way through the session. By that time,
everyone had finished that discussion, and had moved along to other topics such
as How to best take advantage of CFMX's new features, Using Java with CFMX (and
how you don't have to use it if you don't have Java skills in your shop or personal
toolbelt) and Suggestions
for content and feedback on existing Designer & Developer Center content
(linked so you can submit your suggestions & feedback too!). Some of the
feedback was that folks would like to see more specific information on the estimated
skill level of each article. We're currently working on something that will
at least partly address this request, and once we've delivered that, we'll continue
working to refine it even further. The following is a video blog entry from this informal gathering:
Monday, October 28, 2002
Implementing ColdFusion Error & Exception Handling video
excerpts The following two videoblog entries are small segments from a great session
I attended at DevCon2002 called Implementing ColdFusion Error & Exception
Handling. Glenda was a great speaker/instructor. Her session was full of
useful information gleaned from her real world experience as a ColdFusion Developer,
and her experience as a ColdFusion trainer didn't hurt either! While visiting the Community Connection in the Cyber Cafe, Darren comments on a Flash Communications Server session he attended. I got Certified at DevCon 2002! I signed up, took the test, and passed! So, I'm a Macromedia Certified Professional
for another year (or so!)
Bringing new folks into the CF Fold During the DevCon2002 Keynote Speech by Rob Burgess, I picked up an interesting
bit of data for the folks who are wondering what we're doing to promote ColdFusion
and move it forward. Many of our efforts have revolved around leveraging our
existing customer bases, and apparently it's been paying off. A whopping 29%
of all ColdFusion sales last quarter were to folks who have never owned ColdFusion
before. We're excited that so many new folks are becoming CFers! Sunday, October 27, 2002 CF Underground in Orlando While I'm here in Orlando at DisneyWorld to go to DevCon, I'm also attending
a few "unofficial" events. I just left CF Underground, hosted by Michael
Smith of Teratech! It was great to meet a lot of folks in person that I have
only talked with in the ether of cyberspace. A lot of my time was spent schmoozing, instead of listening to the great presentations
that were made. But I did get to be the scorekeeper for CF Jeopardy!, while
the ever-so-beautiful Sandy Clark was the eye-candy as question-cover-puller
(kinda like Vanna White as the letter turner on Wheel of Fortune) But, it wasn't all schmoozing and silliness. I took notes on a couple of talks,
and thought I'd mention a few of the points here: Shlomy Gantz - Bigger - Better - Faster Michael Dinowitz - Trust me, It'll be good Friday, October 25, 2002 Guess what we'll be doing at DevCon? Tuesday, October 22, 2002
Known CFMX issues under consideration for upcoming Updater release TechNote
23464 provides a summary of some of the known issues with Macromedia ColdFusion
MX. Fixes for these issues are currently being investigated for potential inclusion
in an upcoming release of the ColdFusion MX Updater. Inclusion or exclusion
in this list does not guarantee inclusion or exclusion from future releases
of the ColdFusion MX Updater. Special Offers for HomeSite users. (Warning - this is a pitch for a special offer, but one I think may be of interest
to some who read my blog) Buy Macromedia Studio MX for $599 or Dreamweaver MX for only $199 -- that's
$200 in savings! You'll save time with powerful Macromedia MX features and you'll save money
at these special promotional prices at the Macromedia Online Store. ...or call 1-800-457-1774 -- be sure to use this promo code: EB33HMSTFC (these
offers are valid through 12-31-02).
What we're doing for the ever changing "magic number" on Apache
2.0.4x
We will be releasing the source code to the connector so that one can recompile
when needed for Apache 2.0.4x releases. The schedule is not finalized, but it
will be in via a future release of the Updater. We'll get the word out when this happens, but might want to keep your eye on
the update
page as well. Tuesday, October 15, 2002
New content for DesDev: Graphics You may be thinking, "What do CF developers have in such a theme?"
But we always have content for CF developers! Dynamically
Manipulating Images with ColdFusion MX and Java Advanced Imaging API (JAI)
by Matt Liotta On
Using XML Well: Creating a Dynamic XML Menu by Ben Forta
DevCon is nearly sold out! So many folks have registered that we're not far from closing registration,
because we won't be able to acommodate any more people! As of this writing,
there are still openings, but registration availability isn't unlimited. So
if you've postponed signing up for DevCon, or you've been putting off a final
decision, you'll want to finalize your plans and get
registered! Developing Rich Internet Applications with Macromedia Flash MX and
ColdFusion MX course launches on Nov 11 Developing Rich Internet Applications with Macromedia Flash MX and ColdFusion
MX is a three-day course designed to teach experienced ColdFusion developers
how to create powerful internet applications that take advantage of the flexibility
of Macromedia Flash MX, the ease of connectivity of Flash Remoting and the data
manipulation power of ColdFusion MX. Basically, if you want to build Rich Internet
Applications effectively this course is for you! Note to readers: I occasionally include plugs for offerings from Macromedia,
such as the one above. I only include those that I feel will benefit the CF
community, but if you have feedback regarding my practice of blogging this
kind of information, please let me know.
Thanks! Thursday, October 10, 2002 Q: What do George Carlin and Developers have in common? Maybe some of the younger folks might not remember George Carlin and his list
of seven dirty words, but folks anywhere near my age will. Unlike George Carlin's
list which is short with just seven, it seems that developers'
lists of forbidden (reserved) words can grow to enormous proportions quickly
as their projects touch more and more technologies. There are reserved words
in CFML, Java, JavaScript, HTML, each database has it's own list of reserved
words, and, well, you're starting to get the point: Every technology your coding
touches will likely add to the list of reserved words that can cause you problems
and make debugging challenging. ColdFusion has non-CF team engineered components bundled into it, from Verity,
to database drivers. Every effort has been made to document reserved words in
ColdFusion MX and it's bundled bits. But like any other previously unknown behavior,
be it a bug or an unrealized Fact Of Life, we can discover new ones. Case in point, you may have read in my blog where I was investigating where
some customers where experiencing issues with ColdFusion starting automatically,
and gave tips on how to adjust service properties to help rectify those problems.
But I also mentioned that one CFMX user was experiencing a similar issue, but
none of the suggested fixes worked for him, and the problem's symptom was a
variation - he received a "service-specific error 2" when trying to
manually start CF. Our folks were finally able to track down what the culprit was. The user had
created a DNS named "service." Naming a DNS "service" was
not previously known to be a problem in CFMX, so, we've logged a new "issue,"
though it's more likely something addressed by documentation rather than an
engineering change. How can you avoid having to memorize an ever-growing list of reserved words,
or prevent getting snagged by a previously-unknown reserved word? When deciding
upon user-defined names or variables, never use a word which is
right out of the dictionary without some slight modification! Now, before you
say "But we're supposed to use variable names that make sense!" I'm
not suggesting you obfuscate the meaning of the word, merely alter the word
in some way. Like many discretionary code-formatting conventions, you can find
the style that you're most comfortable with and will stick to. I usually find
a few letters that relate to the project, for instance blg_entry. Another seemingly
hokey, but always safe personal convention is to prepend your initials: vv_service.
The fun, if somewhat egotistical, part of doing it that way; you leave your
mark throughout your work like the true code-artist you are! For you authors who may be reading this, here's how you can apply this same
technique to improve your tutorial materials: Always prepend "my"
to user-defined terms when you're teaching any language or syntax which may
be unfamiliar to the reader. i.e. myTable, myRow, myVariable, myUsername, myWhateverYouAreNaming.
This helps your readers distinguish syntactically required language from your
own choice for variable names without even having to think about it. I've edited
many technical documents and books, as well as been on the learning end of the
stick - trust me when I tell you that this can be a major improvement in any
code-related educational writings. Tuesday, October 08, 2002
From CFTalk - Solution to issue where server not parsing CFML, then
404s... I wanted to respond to the thread I started a few days ago with the solution
we finally came to. The problem, just as a reminder, was the hitting the main
page of the app would just show exposed code, and all sub-pages would just immediately
show a "page not found" browser error. Relevant data: The solution, as written up by one of my colleagues (note that we didn't
have to do any re-install of the server): Here are the steps and their explanations for reviving our server: 1. In the c:\cfusionmx\wwwroot\web-inf\web.xml file, we had to add the
following code: <servlet-mapping> 2. We had to run the Remove_ALL_connectors.bat file in c:\cfusionmx\bin\connectors 3. We then had to run the IIS_connector.bat file. We had to do these two
steps because the associations to JRun and Cold Fusion in IIS were missing. 4. We then had to delete the IIS web site instance for the site, and re-create
it, as the connectors bat only applies settings to the Master settings, not
existing instances. We also had to delete and re-create the default web site
to get the CF Admin working. I hope this helps others who might run into the same (or similar) issues
-- Kelly Tetterton Thursday, October 03, 2002 Got feedback? If you've got suggestions or comments regarding my blog, please let me know!
Send me an e-mail with your feedback. Note that there is a link on the right-hand side for sending me feedback or contacting me about issues which are of concern to the ColdFusion Community, so even after this post drops into the archives, don't forget you can e-mail me at any time! Tuesday, October 01, 2002 If you experience CF application service not automatically starting
on Windows... I've seen a few reports in the forums of the CF application service not starting
automatically on a Windows reboot, and I'm trying to find out more information
on this issue. In the reports I've read, most folks say that upon reinstalling,
everything works fine for a few days, then the service fails to start automatically
until they reinstall. Note that in the posts I've seen, it's reported that the
ODBC agent and ODBC server start, this seems to be only the CF Application Server
service that exhibits this symptom. Most are able to manually start the service
either in the services control panel, or at the command prompt. It's been reported by some that allowing Windows to sit idle at the Windows
Logon screen for about 5 mins before signing on to Windows allows the service
to start, which would suggest that, at least in those cases, some other process
that needs to complete is interfering with the CF application server service
from starting. There have also been reports that some folks didn't have the
service set to start on the system account - be sure you have it set to use
the system account. Additionally, I've seen at least one report that changing
the "Recovery" settings to "restart this service" with an
interval setting of 5 mins worked well. If you're experiencing this issue, and have tried all of the techniques listed
above to no avail, please contact me
with complete information about your system, configuration, what you've tried,
and exactly how your system is behaving, error messages, etc. I'm working to
gather as much info about this as I can! Update: Some folks on the CF team suggested setting the "Logon as" property of the
ColdFusion Application Server service to "Use this account" and enter Administrator as the username.
New and updated content on the Designer & Developer Center! I'm not going to spoil all the surprises in just one blog posting, but here
are a few highlights: Third-party ColdFusion web sites listing udpated! We've updated our
listing of third-party ColdFusion web sites. If you're running a ColdFusion
web site, and you're not listed, drop
me an e-mail, we may list your site on the next udpate! The Server discount code for the Macromedia
Online Store is here! Hopefully, you've been watching my blog waiting on the promotional code good
for a 10% discount on server products purchased through the Macromedia Online
Store. Well, here it is! SP23CMMRSV Note that this discount
code is good for a discount on server products only. This would include products
such as ColdFusion MX Pro, Enterprise, or for J2ee, JRun, and Flash Communication
Server. If you saw my last post about a promotional code, it was for "tools"
such as Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, Director, etc. That code was SP23CMMRTL Use this code at the Macromedia Online
Store only. This code cannot be used with resellers or when ordering products
by phone. If you've never ordered on the Macromedia Online Store, one thing
to consider is whether you'd like to get the CDs and manuals. This is an option
at the online store- don't overlook it, you won't get the CDs and manuals automatically
unless you choose this option. For those who are wanting to purchase books and educational materials on the online store, we'll release a promotional code for those in the near future. Keep checking my blog for this info.
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