August 2007 Web Log Entries
HostMySite.com Customer Care Rocks
Posted: August 31, 2007 at 10:24 AM by Ben Nadel
So, I signed up for a HostMySite.com ColdFusion 8 account yesterday since my company probably won't upgrade our production servers for a long time. In one day, I am already quite impressed with the way they [ hostmysite.com ] handle themselves. The initial setup what a bit rocky - there were some file permissions issues - but these were taken ca... read more »
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jQuery + ColdFusion 8 = Erotic And Magnetic Poetry
Posted: August 31, 2007 at 8:08 AM by Ben Nadel
I just opened a ColdFusion 8 account at HostMySite.com and I'm already having fun playing around with all the new features of ColdFusion 8. Yesterday, I put up a demo that combines the unbelievable simplicity of jQuery with the image manipulation power of ColdFusion 8 to create a drag-and-drop magnetic poetry system; you know, like the kind you ... read more »
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Ask Ben: Handling Redirects With ColdFusion CFHttp
Posted: August 30, 2007 at 7:30 PM by Ben Nadel
Hello again. I was wondering if you might have any idea on how to figure this out. I am trying to capture images with <cfimage> that use a redirect of some kind. Here's the situation... CafePress.com has an affiliate web service. In their returned XML, the image location is something like this: http://www.cafepress.com/cp/search/image.aspx?... read more »
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Using CASE Statements In A SQL UPDATE Query
Posted: August 30, 2007 at 7:35 AM by Ben Nadel
Nothing revolutionary here, I just recently tried to use a SQL CASE statement as part of an SQL UPDATE statement. I had never tried this before and I am quite happy that it works. I am working on a transactional system that allows for the voiding of account credits. As part of the Void process, I need to make sure that I never let an account balan... read more »
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Ask Ben: Handling Errors With ColdFusion CFError
Posted: August 29, 2007 at 8:23 AM by Ben Nadel
A tutorial on how to get ANY ColdFusion error emailed to you automatically and a friendly message displayed to the visitor would be great, I found one on EasyCFM.com but doesn't actually work. Having looked at the EasyCFM tutorial, it looks like you want to know about how to use ColdFusion's CFError tag. Before I go into this, I have to just sa... read more »
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Getting Certified In ColdFusion 8 Scares Me
Posted: August 28, 2007 at 1:23 PM by Ben Nadel
With ColdFusion 8 finally out, I have started to think about updating my ColdFusion MX7 Advanced developer status. But to be honest, it kind of scares me. I will admit that I studied fairly hard for the ColdFusion 7 certification test. I know there a lot of people out there who can just sit down and take these test no problem, but I am not one of ... read more »
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Ask Ben: Spoofing Referrer With ColdFusion 8 CFImage Tag
Posted: August 28, 2007 at 8:28 AM by Ben Nadel
Remember this post? http://www.bennadel.com/index.cfm?dax=blog:903.view How would you do the same using CF8's new <cfimage> tag when READing a image with a URL as its source that gives you 403 errors? Here is a sample of the offending URL: http://www.tirerack.com/images/wheels/americanracingmuscle/arm_razor_s_s.jpg The ColdFusion 8 CFIm... read more »
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Preventing Spam Bot Form Submissions With ColdFusion (Revisited)
Posted: August 27, 2007 at 4:00 PM by Ben Nadel
The other night, I was staring at my neighbor's lower-back tattoo when a new (to me) ColdFusion anti-spam technique popped into my head. I am sure that this is not new or unique, I just haven't explored this before. Until now, all of my ColdFusion-based Anti-Spam methodologies have resorted to CSS and TimeStamp-based tomfoolery. Well, I don't know... read more »
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Nobody Puts Baby In The Corner!
Posted: August 27, 2007 at 8:18 AM by Ben Nadel
Last night, I had the honor and the privilege to go see the 20th Anniversary release of Dirty Dancing at the Zigfield theatre in New York City. The movie first came out back in 1987 when I was just a young lad, so I never got to see it on the big screen. I have always loved the movie and thought it was a classic, but nothing compares to finally be... read more »
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Generated Content And Looping ColdFusion Custom Tags
Posted: August 27, 2007 at 7:18 AM by Ben Nadel
Last week, I was doing a little grunt work for Peter Bell ; occassionally, he throws me some scraps from the genius buffet on which he dines, and last week, the scrap had to do with encapsulating table display logic (which, of course, I gobbled up with excitement)... OK, enough with the food analogies. When you are looping over a query, an array,... read more »
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Ask Ben: Getting XML Values And Aggregates In ColdFusion
Posted: August 27, 2007 at 7:00 AM by Ben Nadel
If you have an XML Doc: <employees> ..<employee> ....<empid>123</empid> ..</employee> ..<employee> ....<empid>456</empid> ..</employee> </employees> I want a list of empid values. I can use XMLSearch to get an array of empids, and loop over it to listappend the values, but I dont want t... read more »
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Big Girls Like Me
Posted: August 25, 2007 at 4:04 PM by Ben Nadel
I am huge fan of people-watching and I tend to give everyone I pass on the sidewalk the "once over." I like to size everyone up and see what's interesting or attractive or weird or whatever about people... they are just really cool to look at; the human body is an amazing thing in both form and expression and in New York City especially, you reall... read more »
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Tiny Change In ColdFusion Coding Methodology
Posted: August 24, 2007 at 4:26 PM by Ben Nadel
I have decided that it is time to make a slight change in the way I code my ColdFusion code. For the longest time, I have written certain ColdFusion tag attributes in upper case. Here are some examples: CFFile Action (ex. <cffile action="UPLOAD" />) CFHttp Method (ex. <cfhttp method="GET" /> CFHttpParam Type (ex. <cfhttpparam ty... read more »
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IP Addresses Have Never Been So Sexy!
Posted: August 24, 2007 at 9:04 AM by Ben Nadel
My co-worker, Spencer, just showed me perhaps one of the best uses of technology ever :) If you go to the web site address, http://www.moanmyip.com , you can listen to a sexy girl moan your IP address. Brilliant! Quickly, try it now before the boss gets in (you need speakers or headphones). ... read more »
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Ask Ben: Printing Shipping Labels With ColdFusion
Posted: August 23, 2007 at 2:56 PM by Ben Nadel
I can't seem the find the question in my Inbox at the moment, but a few days ago, someone asked me about using ColdFusion to print shipping labels. Now, I know that Microsoft gets a bad reputation, but I happen to think that a lot Microsoft applications are quite useful and make my work a whole lot easier. This is one of those occasions. Using Col... read more »
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