September 2008 Web Log Entries
OOPhoto: Implementing Security In An Object Oriented Application - Round I
Posted: September 30, 2008 at 9:55 PM by Ben Nadel
The latest OOPhoto application can be experienced here . The OOPhoto code for this post can be seen here . Today, I took my initial thoughts on implementing security in an object oriented application and tried to apply them to OOPhoto, my first attempt at learning object oriented programming in ColdFusion. This was definitely a shaky f... read more »
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OOPhoto: Initial Thoughts On Handling Security In An Object Oriented Application
Posted: September 29, 2008 at 9:23 PM by Ben Nadel
The latest OOPhoto application can be experienced here . The latest OOPhoto code can be seen here . As of this moment, OOPhoto - my latest attempt at learning object oriented programming in ColdFusion - has no security. Anyone can create galleries and post photos; anyone can also delete photos and galleries. For my next step, I'd like to a... read more »
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Simon Free Leads The Way
Posted: September 29, 2008 at 9:23 AM by Ben Nadel
I just wanted to take a moment to give a big congratulations to my friend and fellow ColdFusion developer, Simon Free . He has taken a huge initiative at his company, trying to get all of his developers ColdFusion 8 certified. After months of preparing presentations and hosting after-work study sessions, Simon Free has gotten over 90% of his deve... read more »
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Reminder: Duplicate() Does Not Work With ColdFusion Images
Posted: September 26, 2008 at 9:41 AM by Ben Nadel
Someone contacted me this morning needing help debugging an image thumbnailing problem. Part of the issue that they were running into was that the Duplicate() function did not seem to work with ColdFusion image objects. This can be confusing since the documentation seems to indicate that it will work: Task : Create a ColdFusion image from anot... read more »
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Ask Ben: Optimizing Form Inputs For Numeric Keypad Usage
Posted: September 25, 2008 at 9:25 AM by Ben Nadel
I have a question that has me stumped. I am building several data entry forms and our users want a carriage return to move the cursor to the next field. This is for speed - they are using their right hand for number entry and the enter key is easily available - their left hand is holding or keeping place on paper so reaching across for the tab key... read more »
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"Style Bleed" Problem Fixed In POI Utility Tags
Posted: September 24, 2008 at 3:57 PM by Ben Nadel
For those of you using my POI Utility ColdFusion custom tags to produce formatted Excel documents for use with Microsoft Excel 2007, you might have seen documents that looks like this: Here, you can see that style applied to the header row is bleeding into some of the other rows. Nathan ... read more »
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Java Hashtable - An Object-Based-Lookup "Struct" (Thanks Nathan Mische)
Posted: September 24, 2008 at 9:42 AM by Ben Nadel
A little while ago Nathan Mische solved a problem that some people were getting with my POI Utility project in which cell styles were "bleeding" into other cells. The problem, as he discovered, had to do with my reliance on the undocumented .hashCode() method of ColdFusion structs, which apparently was not the most reliable undocumented meth... read more »
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What Happens When I Return The SUPER Scope From Component Constructor?
Posted: September 23, 2008 at 6:39 PM by Ben Nadel
There's really no need to ever do this (that I can think of), but the other day it popped into my head - what happens if I return the SUPER scope from a components Init() method? To test this, I set up a base class: <cfcomponent output="false" hint="I am the base component."> <cffunction name="Foo" access="public" returntype=... read more »
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Using The Apple iPod Shuffle Without iTunes
Posted: September 23, 2008 at 9:57 AM by Ben Nadel
I don't like iTunes. Never have. I use it only when I have to update my iPhone or put some music on my iPod, but I try to use it as little as possible. None of the updates to it ever seem to make it more usable; it's a clunky, slow piece of software with an unresponsive interface. That aside, I wanted to find a way to use my iPod shuffle without... read more »
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Using StructKeyExists() With CALLER Scope In ColdFusion Custom Tags
Posted: September 23, 2008 at 9:29 AM by Ben Nadel
A long while back, I blogged that the CALLER scope in ColdFusion custom tags acts a sort of struct with special behavior. In that post, I demonstrated that compound variable paths could be used as keys to the CALLER scope : <cfset CALLER[ "REQUEST.Foo.Bar" ] = objValue /> This call would store objValue into the Bar key of the Foo stru... read more »
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Breaking Out Of A ColdFusion Custom Tag Loop
Posted: September 23, 2008 at 9:00 AM by Ben Nadel
Yesterday, I was messing with ColdFusion custom tags when I wondered if there was any way to break out of a loop created using ColdFusion custom tags and the CFExit tag: <cfexit method="loop" /> After a few minutes of coding, I discovered that the CFBreak tag throws an error and that all of the CFExit variations, when used in the calli... read more »
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Fundamentals Of Object-Oriented Design In UML By Meilir Page-Jones
Posted: September 22, 2008 at 10:04 AM by Ben Nadel
Last week, I finally finished reading the Fundamentals Of Object-Oriented Design In UML By Meilir Page-Jones. Clark Valberg suggested this book to me almost a year ago when I was struggling with my Exercise List sample app for object oriented programming in ColdFusion. He said it totally changed the way he thought about object oriented programmi... read more »
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XStandard - Unable To Process License File
Posted: September 19, 2008 at 5:42 PM by Ben Nadel
As you may know, I use XStandard as my WYSIWYG editor of choice. In my eyes, it just puts the other editors to shame. It has its down sides, but none that make it less that attractive. Anyway, I've been using it happily for a few years now and then out of no where, I started getting this error: Unable to process license file. Please contact your ... read more »
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OOPhoto: Further Exploration Of The Facade And Controller-Model Interaction
Posted: September 19, 2008 at 5:08 PM by Ben Nadel
The latest OOPhoto application can be experienced here . The latest OOPhoto code can be seen here . In my previous OOPhoto step , I added a Facade layer to my application. I use this Facade to create a Named-Argument driven interface with which the Controller can interact. This has gotten some side-ways looks from a few people, but nothin... read more »
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The Power Of ZOOM - Fixing CSS Issues In Internet Explorer
Posted: September 18, 2008 at 9:02 AM by Ben Nadel
I think we've all experienced how frustrating it can be to do cross-browser testing with CSS-based web sites. Why is it that Internet Explorer (IE) never seems to play nicely with good, solid CSS markup?!? Anyway, I just thought I'd share one technique that I've found to be extremely helpful. When I have some CSS that just won't work in IE, I see ... read more »
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