March 2008 Web Log Entries
Thoughts On Storing Duplicate / Calculated Data In The Database
Posted: March 28, 2008 at 10:02 AM by Ben Nadel
The other day, I was talking to this girl, Franziska, and all I could think about was how insanely cute she was. Then, as I was walking home later that day, I kept thinking about how cute she was. As I was doing this, I started to think about database design (is it odd that hot girls and databases are easily swapped in my head??). And, it occurred... read more »
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Ben Nadel's Easy Tips For Writing Better, More Optimized SQL
Posted: March 27, 2008 at 12:56 PM by Ben Nadel
I was just reading over on Andrew Powell's ColdFusion blog about the problem that server-side developers have with writing SQL. I don't quite agree with what Andy was saying; I think since SQL is such an integral part of web development, all server-side developers should have at least a decent understanding of SQL. They don't need to be experts,... read more »
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Pete Freitag At The New York ColdFusion User Group
Posted: March 27, 2008 at 9:11 AM by Ben Nadel
Last night, Pete Freitag came all the way down to the New York ColdFusion User Group (www.nycfug.com) to give us a presentation on Image manipulation in ColdFusion 8. The presentation went quite nicely, and I will see if we can get some of the slides and code up on the NYCFUG site; but, almost more impressive was the fact that his wife, Christ... read more »
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POI ColdFusion Custom Tags First Release
Posted: March 25, 2008 at 9:02 AM by Ben Nadel
I have just posted up a fresh build of my POIUtility.cfc project . Now, the project contains more than just the POIUtility.cfc; it also contains all the ColdFusion custom tags and some additional CSS-based components that can be used to create Microsoft Excel files in ColdFusion. Here is the ColdFusion custom tag read me that I have included in t... read more »
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POI ColdFusion Custom Tags Almost There
Posted: March 24, 2008 at 9:24 AM by Ben Nadel
Since I have been quiet for a while, I wanted to just drop a quick note that my POI ColdFusion custom tags (for Excel file creation) are coming along quite nicely. Currently, I can output sheets, rows, and cells with pretty good CSS control. I can format dates and numbers pretty well, although the data formatting needs a lot more exploration - I... read more »
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Minor CSSRule.cfc ColdFusion CSS Parser Update
Posted: March 20, 2008 at 8:00 AM by Ben Nadel
As part of my ColdFusion custom tag solution for generating Microsoft Excel files , I am going to be using my CSSRule.cfc ColdFusion component to allow users to use CSS-like styling to format the Excel document. To make the CSSRule.cfc more useful, I have added the support of the Color property (not sure how I missed that one before) and I have a... read more »
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Been Very Stressed Lately
Posted: March 19, 2008 at 10:08 AM by Ben Nadel
You may have noticed that my blogging has been really scarce lately. I have been super stressed at work and racing for some deadlines that are coming up on me very soon. This stress is not only eating up my free time, it has eaten up my creativity. I can't seem to get the juices flowing knowing that I have so much to do. The whole thing has put a ... read more »
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Strange URL Hash Problem With CFLocation In IE6
Posted: March 19, 2008 at 9:46 AM by Ben Nadel
A little while ago, it was pointed out to me that my Hayden Panettiere Free ColdFusion eCard system was not working in Internet Explorer 6. Because I am working on Windows Vista (and trying every day not to throw the computer out my window), I don't have ready access to IE6. However, since it was working in IE7 and FireFox, I have to admit, I so... read more »
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Initial Thoughts On POI Utility ColdFusion Custom Tag Output
Posted: March 13, 2008 at 9:18 AM by Ben Nadel
My POIUtility.cfc ColdFusion component has been around for a while and has made reading and writing Excel files in my ColdFusion applications pretty easy. It has its limitations, but for simple reads and writes, it has really been good at getting the job done. For a long time, I have been wanting to upgrade the way it works, but have had trouble... read more »
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Name vs. Variable In ColdFusion
Posted: March 12, 2008 at 8:48 AM by Ben Nadel
There are a good number of tags in ColdFusion that return a value into a variable defined by one of the tag attributes. While you might not think about it, the attributes that define the return variable (excluding the Result attribute of things like CFHttp and CFFile) fall into one of two main categories: Variable Name Now, as you might know,... read more »
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ColdFusion Kinky eCards Update
Posted: March 11, 2008 at 11:57 AM by Ben Nadel
Just fixed a small bug in my ColdFusion Kinky eCards Hayden Panettiere demo application . In the OnSessionStart(), I was clearing the session data. However, I was throwing the baby out with the bath water, so to speak, and was actually deleting the CFID and CFTOKEN as well. I am not sure if this was causing any bugs, per say, but I would definite... read more »
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Ask Ben: Extending Application.cfc And OnRequestStart() With SUPER
Posted: March 11, 2008 at 8:28 AM by Ben Nadel
Got one for ya... I'm extending application.cfc with ye ole' proxy.cfc trick. In root/Application.cfc I cfinclude a config.cfm file that has some sitewide variables in the request scope like upload path, dsn, root URL, etc... I do this in onRequestStart(). In my root/sub/Application.cfc that extends the root cfc, how can I get access to the reques... read more »
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Never Be Conflicted About Being Nice
Posted: March 10, 2008 at 3:10 PM by Ben Nadel
I know that this is not a technical post, but I don't have much technical to say today so I thought I would drop this in here. If for no other reason, it is a post to remind myself of my own beliefs (and therefore to follow them more closely). I just wanted to say that you should never be conflicted about being nice to someone. I have definitely h... read more »
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Custom User Agents For ColdFusion Debugging
Posted: March 7, 2008 at 8:17 AM by Ben Nadel
Yesterday, I was debugging a page on a live site. This is, of course, not the best practice, but let's face it, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. The biggest problem with debugging on a live site is that any changes you make to a page can be seen by any other user that is concurrently using that page. To get around this as much as possible... read more »
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Trouble With My Mail Server
Posted: March 6, 2008 at 8:27 AM by Ben Nadel
Hey all, I just realized I have been having a lot of trouble with my mail server over the last week or so. I have been really busy so didn't notice that I was not getting emails from my site. Sorry if you get a rush of emails out of my spool all of a sudden. ... read more »
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