November 2007 Web Log Entries
Ask Ben: Running ColdFusion Asynchronously - Caveman Style
Posted: November 30, 2007 at 2:45 PM by Ben Nadel
Looking to run a CFM template asynchronously - aka: run it in the background. Gotchas: * Must work under MX 6.1 * I can't use an event gateway * Can't use CFSCHEDULE (unless you know of a way to post data to the URL) Any ideas? This reminds me of that old Polly-O String Cheese commercial where the guy walks into the pizza parlor and says some... read more »
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Converting Microsoft Project 2007 Tasks To HTML With ColdFusion
Posted: November 30, 2007 at 10:36 AM by Ben Nadel
Last night, I was helping my old boss Glen Lipka pull some data out of a Microsoft Project 2007 file. Apparently earlier versions of Microsoft Project exported to more usable formats but Project 2007 only exports to XML. XML is great for programmers like me (who find XML sexy), but a 10,000 line XML document is pretty much useless to the rest of... read more »
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Testing ColdFusion Custom Tag Processing Overhead
Posted: November 29, 2007 at 11:36 AM by Ben Nadel
The other day, when blogging about my final thoughts on Data Type vs. Data Value validation , my idea for a ColdFusion custom CFParam tag got a little traction. One of the thoughts exchanged was about the overhead that would come with the use of a ColdFusion custom tag. I am not too familiar with what overhead would be incurred, so I thought I ... read more »
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Grouping JOIN Clauses In SQL
Posted: November 28, 2007 at 7:06 PM by Ben Nadel
Here's something that I have touched on in my blog via examples, but I have never talked about it explicitly. It is the idea of grouping SQL JOIN clauses. Normally, when you join multiple tables together, you simply have one JOIN after another. In some situations, this is not always possible to do in a way that will return accurate data. In rare c... read more »
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Getting @@RowCount After SQL INSERT INTO Statement
Posted: November 28, 2007 at 2:57 PM by Ben Nadel
I just made a happy little discovery about SQL's INSERT INTO statement. After you run the INSERT INTO statement on a temporary data table, the SQL variable, @@RowCount, contains the number of records that were inserted into the temp table. Take a look at this demo: <!--- Create, populate, and query the temp ID table. ---> <cfquery nam... read more »
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Using CFPOP And CFMAIL For Bidirectional SMS Text Messaging In ColdFusion
Posted: November 28, 2007 at 9:46 AM by Ben Nadel
Yesterday, I looked into ColdFusion's CFPOP tag for the first time. The CFPOP tag is used to pull down and delete email messages from a POP-enabled mail server. As I stated before, I had to set up a free POP3 email account at LavaBit.com so that I could have non-SSL pop access compatible with my version of ColdFusion (ColdFusion 7). Once I had m... read more »
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ColdFusion CFPOP - My First Look
Posted: November 27, 2007 at 9:52 AM by Ben Nadel
I have never done anything mail related with ColdFusion other than sending mail using ColdFusion's CFMail tag. After years of this, I think it's finally time to start making this a two way street - healthy relationships are all about give AND take. I want to start looking into ColdFusion's CFPOP tag to see how I can get mail off a server and there... read more »
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Final Thoughts On CFParam And Data Type Validation
Posted: November 27, 2007 at 7:20 AM by Ben Nadel
Last week, I wrote about Data Type validation versus Data Value validation . I claimed that ALL of your data type validation should be done by ColdFusion's CFParam tag before you do any other data validation or business logic. When I mentioned this to Javier Julio , he challenged me on this. He asked, "What does that give you? If you're already ... read more »
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jQuery Demo: Working With XML Documents
Posted: November 27, 2007 at 7:05 AM by Ben Nadel
As we learn about AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML), our first thought is that it is very cool. Our second thought is usually that XML sucks and it's such a pain in the butt to work with. With that discovery, many of us turn to using AJAX purely as a text/HTML delivery system or we switch to using JSON (Javascript Object Notation) which is in... read more »
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Amazon's Kindle eBook And Wireless Reading Device
Posted: November 26, 2007 at 8:20 AM by Ben Nadel
I jumped over to Amazon.com this morning to see that they were selling (or rather selling out of) their new eBook and wireless reading device, Kindle . While you can't quite browse the internet as you would with an iPhone or a Smart Phone, in addition to book downloads, Kindle uses the EVDO high-speed data network to download newspaper, blog, and... read more »
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Have A Happy Thanksgiving!
Posted: November 21, 2007 at 12:49 PM by Ben Nadel
Taking off now to head up north for Thanksgiving with the family. My plan is start eating at roughly 5pm tonight and then to stop eating on Friday, sometime in the mid to late afternoon. My family takes Thanksgiving very seriously and most of us end up in pain at some point. Things I am looking forward to the most (food-wise): Turkey Filet Lam... read more »
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FAQu Volume II, Issue II Is Totally Flextasic
Posted: November 21, 2007 at 9:36 AM by Ben Nadel
I finished the most current issue of the Fusion Authority Quarterly Update (Vol. II, Issue II) this weekend, and I have been debating on whether or not to put up my review. It's not that I didn't like it; just as with the previous issues, V2I2 is of a fantastic quality. My hesitation stems from the fact that I don't think I am the target audienc... read more »
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Alf Pedersen On NULL Value Usage In Database Design
Posted: November 20, 2007 at 9:05 AM by Ben Nadel
As you know, I am not a huge fan of NULL values in databases. There are times, when I do like them (such as with undefined date/time fields), but for the most part, I think they are horrible, cause confusion, and create much more overhead than they are worth from any sort of business requirements standpoint. I have gotten a lot of heat for this,... read more »
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How Many HTML Elements Can You Name in 5 Minutes?
Posted: November 20, 2007 at 7:52 AM by Ben Nadel
I just got this fun little link off of Michael Porter's ColdFusion and Flex Blog . I was able to name 56 HTML elements, but more shockingly, I couldn't remember 35 elements! Of the 35 that I couldn't name, I don't even know what some of them are; I guess it's time to hit the books again. You should check it out, it's a fun game . ... read more »
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Data Type Validation vs. Data Value Validation
Posted: November 19, 2007 at 3:59 PM by Ben Nadel
This is more just a consolidation of some previous entry's thoughts, but I thought it was be a good solid topic unto itself. As I have been working on my Exercise List project , I have been doing a tremendous amount of thought about data validation and I've had a bit of a revelation: there is a very distinct difference between data TYPE validatio... read more »
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