AgFusion

SotR 13 - Wrap Up

2013-06-14T12:22:00.000-04:00

Well, a) it's been a helluva looong time since I made a blog post, well a public one anyways and b) I'm going to try and do better so...

It was almost a year ago that I announced on here that I had the pleasure and privilege of being on the CAB for SotR (www.sotr.eu) 2013 edition. This was an awesome experience, sure it was a ton of work, but it all seemed to be just enough distraction from client work that it was enjoyable. Plus, I really liked my first/last Scotch Experience, and wanted to help out in any way that I could.

Anyways, so the years worth of work culminated last week at the actual conference. I flew into Edinburgh on Tuesday, so that I had lots of time to help set-up and make ready the hotel. The hotel was lovely, I was quite happy with it once I had had the tour and looked at the set-up. The rooms were all a good size and the smallest room was quite a bit larger than the smallest at SotR11. We (Andy, Leanne and I) talked with the Hotel about the timing of all the services etc. very cool be involved in all of that.

We then started packing the Speaker gift packs... which I was so happy to hear that all the speakers enjoyed... The box was a bit small and the Glenfidditch a bit big, so some of them were 'difficult' to close, but well worth the effort. Wednesday was spent in similar preparation, packing 200 attendee 'grab bags' who knew that mugs would be so popular this year?

The CAB all got together for the first time on Wednesday to go over a few things, and make sure we were all on the same page. Matt Gifford and I were set to do registration, somehow it turned into a competition, which I lost (due to Matt's voraciousness - checking in delegates in the bar, or as they walked into the hotel...) And so began SotR13!

Thursday morning brought more registration fun as we checked in the remaining delegates before the Welcome and Keynote. Time sort of started to accelerate at this time, and I don't really know what happened, but it was suddenly lunch, I grabbed some of whatever was left, as I wasn't there when they started serving, the food was good (what I had at least).

The afternoon blurred on, until the final session of the Day with Bruce (I attended a session or two, and I know I gained a lot from them, and have some follow up tasks, but I would have to look at my notes to see who/what and where!). His session was quite good, well paced, funny and an excellent way to deliver his message. I (as an organizer and attendee) really enjoyed his talk.

Day turned to night, the Open CFML BOF was missed (by me) due to me wanting to eat!, the Lightening talks were good, well attended near the end... because of the Open Bar. The magician who walked around during the Open Bar period was quite good, and then Ben Nadel showed up, well a replica anyways. Pictures and fun were had by all with Ben, but he didn't stop there...

Friday morning was excellent with a slightly later start, however it seemed that sleep wasn't my thing this year, I think I averaged about 5 hours a night (and I am still recovering). The sessions were once again excellent, speakers on a broad range of interesting topics. I attended a few more sessions, and my list of investigative requirements grew (look out Angular JS, I will learn you! and Rails too!) The sessions ended with a wrapup from Andy, and suddenly the conference was over.

We as a CAB had a quick wrap up meeting, where we all resigned. This was the most democratic way to end the CAB, but I'll be applying to help with SotR14! Cause it was just too much fun.

The fun continued into the evening, #NotBen had a reappearance, and many many pictures were taken... and one video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsAbPTI0N8g

That's all for me! Looking forward to blogging more and keeping in touch with all the great folks I met at this years Scotch on the Rocks!

Respect in the Workplace

2012-07-27T22:43:00.002-04:00

I've dealt a LOT with this in the last couple of months at my previous place of employment, and I can't say that I really understand where something like this comes from. Don't people understand that you gain respect by showing respect?

I won't go into the gritty details of what happened, as that's not who I am, however I think a little overview with maybe some feedback would be super!

So, last year, in what I thought was a good career move at the time, I left the company (laboratory) that was bought out (and had crazy contracts to sign that weren't warranted) and I started at another laboratory. This was going to be different I was told, we are all going to work together to get it all done. Things went fantastically for the first few months, and then after Christmas, wow did it go downhill. So, I knew last year when I signed on that it was for a one year contract. I brought it up with my boss half-way through, that perhaps there should be some sort of performance review, but no go. 'Wait until July he sad'. Cool. Anyways, my contract was coming just about up, (just over two weeks ago) and I got an odd email, so I called him to ask what was up. I asked point blank at this time (two weeks of contract time remaining) if my contract was being renewed, and I was told that 'We're moving forward' and you are 'seeing ghosts'. These answers didn't make sense, but there was no clarification to be had.

During the last week of my contract, I was told to instruct one of my co-workers there, on how to do a good portion of what I looked after on a day-to-day basis. Anyone else, get a weird sense of foreboding? So, with a two days left in the contract, I was informed of a meeting, in another building, with HR the next day, my last day.

I went in, listened to what they had to say and to their contract extension offer, I declined (didn't want to go through it all again in 6 months). Now, I've heard what my FORMER boss has been telling my former co-workers and it is just BS, absolute lies! The reasons that he has attached to me turning down the contract are skewed, and of course skewed to make me look like a jerk. The reality of the issue lies in the fact that he did not respect me.

I have the utmost respect for people who go to work everyday and get something done. I show that respect in both my actions and words, at all times. I provide praise and uplifting statements to my co-workers for the work that they do. I cannot understand how a business or a manager cannot do these things. As a business, it is disrespectful to your employee to NOT give them a solid answer on the status of their job before the contract is over. Two weeks notice on whether or not the contract is being renewed would be fine, that gives people time to put a plan in place for what is going to happen next. Having a meeting on the last day of the contract leaves no time for negotiation, nor even discussion with anyone (husband, wife, dog).

This bugs me, and bugs me a LOT (obviously - since I have spent time writing about it!). Is this really what the world is coming too? or have I just been introduced to a bunch of weirdos? Or worse, am I the one expecting too much from people?

SotR13 Conference Advisory Board

2012-07-26T10:41:00.000-04:00

Well, it's been posted over at www.sotr.eu for a week or so now, but SOTR13 is on, and I was fortunate enough to be accepted to the Conference Advisory Board! So far its been a blast, and I am very much looking forward to my second trip to Scotland. June 6-7th 2013 can't come fast enough for me.

For SotR11, I was fortunate enough to win the conference pass and hotel stay! It was fantastic, the Fuzzy Orange crew did a great job and really made me feel at home. At the same point, I felt indebted to them for even giving away tickets and so I spent tons of time with them, setting up the lanyards, packing the grab bags and any other odd jobs I could do. It was a really great feeling to be able to help out in this way.

This time, I still get to do all that fun stuff, but also some of the other earlier planning as well. I am really looking forward to once again working with the FO crew and the rest of the CAB to pull off an amazing event! Keep watching the SotR website as we will post information as we go. Don't forget to follow @sotr on Twitter and to sign up for the newsletter on the website. Looking forward to seeing you all next June in Edinburgh!

Offline AIR Sync with ColdFusion Difficulty

2011-11-03T19:39:00.003-04:00

Well, I have tried my hand at this for some time, but can't seem to get it to work, AND I really have no idea why not, nor how to fix it. This is one of those problems that is too big for Twitter :)

Anyways, I have a mobile AIR app that I have built (and it works great!), however I need the data to be synced back to the server and then accessible to other mobile devices. I have CF9 set up, with ORM, I've tried to keep it simple, and have all the data stored in a single table. Below is the CFC for the data...

And here is the object from ActionScript...

Now anytime I try to update the object on the server, I just get an error. Doing some logging and tracing, it seems that two of the data items in the struct sent to the server do not have a value, just a '?'. Um, the data is fine on the device, but not when it sends it to the server. So WTF?

Does anyone out there have any suggestions for me? This has been bugging me for a couple of days (its a side project so I had to find time to post about it). If you need any further data or code, please just post for it in the comments. Thanks in Advance for any assistance!

ColdFusion 9 and Exchange 2010

2011-11-01T22:04:00.002-04:00

So during the set-up of the network that I have had to build, I've run into a few snares with the server and getting the system (that was provided to me). The biggest one that was problematic, was the OWA access for my Exchange server stopped working. At first I thought it was something with the SSL certificate that I had created for the mail server and I went through a LOT of work to fix the Exchange server. Once the server was running and OWA was operating properly (yeah, uninstall Exchange and mess around with IIS) I was quite happy.

I then wanted to add ColdFusion 9.01 to the server (again) before adding the large custom 'program' to the server that has to be installed to the default website (same as OWA) and creates a crazy number of virtual directories and whatnot to the IIS server. So I installed CF9 in advance... with the default settings, and applied it to all IIS websites. Then I went to access OWA and, um it didn't work. I finally figured out that adding ALL websites to CF9 caused the issue (yeah there was a LOT of Googling, but not much was out there, and I can't seem to find the post that helped me to find the problem... )

Anyways, I uninstalled CF9 and OWA worked no problem, so then I re-installed CF9 and assigned it to a couple of sites that I created but have yet to populate... and well it worked. It seems that CF9 adds a default mapping for its requests, and that interferes with the pre-existing default mapping for OWA.

So, for my own reference and if anyone else experiences this, you cannot have CF9 working on the same website that has OWA running on it. You can apply CF9 to other sites on IIS, just not the one running OWA. Hope that this helps someone! :)

Too Busy...

2011-11-01T21:53:00.002-04:00

It has been a REALLY long time since I have posted anything here. Life has taken a few ups and downs, and so has work.

A few months ago, I changed jobs, after spending almost a year focusing on a single enterprise Flex app, that was scraped once the company I worked for was bought by a larger organization... It was quite a piece of software if I do say so myself, a nice ColdFusion backend and a Flex frontend. It was a bunch of work, but a great learning experience, disappointed that it never got to production though :(

Anyways, with my new job I get to do something similar. At this initial stage, I am leaving Flex out of it, and going straight ColdFusion ad jQuery. Given that I have been at this job for three months now, I am a) getting everything set up the way I want (finally) b) getting the crap cleared out of the way and c) starting to feel the pressure to get more done :)

I have encountered a few things lately that I thought I should share, so I am resurrecting my blog, and hoping for more consistent posting in the future!

WDDX in ColdFusion 9

2010-01-27T11:45:00.002-05:00

So, I have been using CF8 and Flex 3 to build an application. I am getting to the point of having a stable 1.0 release, and as such, I am looking forward to the second phase of the project. The second phase is going to be based on a new database architecture, and as such, I thought that it would be a good time to flip everything to Flex 4 and CF9, so that I can take advantage of some of the DCD features of Flex 4 and the ORM features of CF9.

In some preliminary testing, I have run into the following issue:

I make good use of ColdFusion Reports (CFRs) in the current release, and I pass a query object that is built and passed into the CFR from a constructing component. When the system has created the query object, and the user flags it as a 'passed' report, the query is stored into the Database as a WDDX encoded object. This of course will allow me at a later time to do other actions on the object if needed, as I can just extract the data and convert it back to CFML, and I will have a Query Object in my code to work with and pass to the CFR.

Anyways, over the holidays, I formatted my system, and started over, and at that time I decided that I would be using CF9 as my main Development CF engine, as opposed to CF8. Last week, I was fine-tuning my read/write routine, and adding some flags as to WHEN those things would happen, and I ran into a roadblock. I created the query just fine and sent it to the CFR where it was rendered properly. I took the same Query and converted it to WDDX and saved it to the DB, then retrieved it and converted back to a Query Object and the CFR fails with an extra '<'. Now, dumping the query, it looks fine, so I can't say where the error is occurring. The real kicker of course, is that the code works fine on CF8. It will convert to WDDX and back again with no issues from the CFR.

I have filed a bug (81726) and would appreciate some votes for this. This bug will stop me from going to CF9. I guess I need to test out converting the query to JSON, but I thought that JSON did not keep its CF type when converted back, and everything would come out as a struct, when I need a query. Any suggestions?

Cheers!

Charts in ColdFusion Reports

2010-01-20T09:30:00.002-05:00

So, I have taken to using ColdFusion Reports quite a bit more than I am used to I guess. I find them pretty usable most of the time. The interface for editing them is not the greatest, but I am hoping for a BIG improvement to come with CF10 - maybe an integration with CFB v. 2?

Anyways, my current beef is with the charting. I have a couple of SIMPLE bar charts, it generates just fine, not a big deal. However my client thinks that the labels would look sooo much nicer (along the X axis) if they were on an angle... Has anyone come across this? Is there a way to modify the CFR to handle this, or just the way that the chart is created? The CFR is not a human-readable format.

Would it be easier to create the chart in CF and save it as an image to insert into the CFR? That however seems like a ridiculous amount of work when Charts are built-in...

Thanks for any direction. If I come up with a solution, I will blog about it.

Cheers!

Flex Builder Debugging

2010-01-07T16:56:00.004-05:00

So, I am a sorta newb a Flex. I have been working in it on and off now for about a year. Most of the stuff I had worked on was pretty basic and I got by with using Alert.show to tell me what was going on, being 'ignorant' of debugging mode - Ignorant meaning, I knew it was there, and that I could use it, but I never did.

Well, now I have a bigger, little project on the go, and after seeing Jeffry Houser do a quick little Flextras Friday on the debugging mode, I thought I should go for it. I added a couple of watch statements and a trace() or two, and, WOW what a difference in debugging. Yeah, I know I should have learned about it way earlier, but hey, better late than never!

So, although this is a short one, I will say to all new/less experienced/ignorant (see above) Flex Developers. Time to take a look at what is built in to Flex Builder. My next step? To check out Debugging in Flash Builder 4! In the coming weeks/months I will be doing a LOT of Flex 4 work, so I better get better at using the debugging!

ANT and CFBuilder

2010-01-07T11:34:00.003-05:00

SO, I am an ANT Newbie. I noticed though that CFBuilder has ANT built in, which I thought was cool, I mean, I see blog posts and twitter posts about ANT, but I would have to say that I wasn't overly tempted to try it for myself. Well this is a new year, so I am pushing my boundaries.

Anyways, so I looked at ANT a bit last week, and found it intriguing. All the samples that were on the site though were for Java mostly (not a big surprise really, but I don't compile any code before deployment). So, I Monday, I sent out a Twit to see if there was anyone with a good CF reference for ANT to do the simple stuff. I just want to copy some files from one location to another, so I can test it and then deploy. Marc Esher sent me over to http://www.mxunit.org/ where he had done a presentation on ANT and CF for CFUnited.

I downloaded the zip file, and found the reference file I was looking for. I worked on it a bit, and then forgot about it as phone calls and emails pored in... damn first day back from vacation.

So, later in the day, I was working along in CFB and accidentally hit CTRL-B, and I got a lovely console message telling me that my Build File wasn't right, the build.xml gained focus in CFB and the line with the error was selected... Was I ever shocked. So, I opened the sample again, and set back to work at it. I am impressed, with ANT, as well as its integration to CFB.

CFB popped up a content menu with ANT Tasks that I could choose from as well as descriptions of each - just like it does for CF tags, nice. So, I trundled along (it took about 5 minutes to get it working exactly the way I want it to) and finished off my first build script, then I hit CTRL-B again, but on purpose this time. ANT just ran along and boom, all the files I had wanted moved, were moved. The ones I didn't weren't. I would have to say I was a little excited.

So, I will be doing some more digging into the ANT docs, and Marc's preso and sample code, as I know that ANT can handle FTP'ing as well, so that is my next step. Oh, and the step after that? Well CFB as a plugin to FB4 and see if I can't get my Flex applications to build when I run the ANT script. That way I can run the routine and have the SWF compile and move with the CFCs needed to power it. I guess I need to figure out a way to have options in ANT, so that I can select if I want to run a 'Release build' or maybe just update the SVN... all from the same build file..

You know the more I think about how cool ANT is, the happier I am that the CFBuilder team included it! (I have never been one to continually add plugins to Eclipse, so this is just so easy... I like easy!)

Regarding Lists and ColdFusion

2010-01-06T09:54:00.003-05:00

So, I have a question of sorts I guess, and am looking to see if there is anything wrong with what I plan on doing...

So, I am developing a couple of sites at the moment, and they both are presenting me with a similar problem, from the database side of things. Now, I am no DBA and don't ever profess to be, however, I always set up and design my own DBs. Both sites have existing information that is in a database, so I am looking to integrate it for some functionality moving forward.

Heres the thing:

I have a table filled with pesticide information (you know the things you can spray on crops to control weeds/insect/mold) and each pesticide has a column for whether the product is applicable to a certain crop (so, pesticide X is OK on corn, but bad for green beans) however the architect of the database set up a column for each crop. This table is HUGE must be about 50 columns of crops, and most are empty....

So, in my thought process, I planned on doing a little normalization and streamlining of the data. Take the pesticides and place them in a table separate from what they can be applied on, and then in the OK to apply table, I would just use the ID and then a list to show which crops were OK to apply on.

Now, from my perspective this seems like a good solution, however I think that there is one small holdup. (I am not too concerned about it cause I don't think it will happen, and if it does, its' not my problem, basically, but I am trying to be a good guy). ColdFusion has a ton of ways to access, and manipulate lists, so I can easily check if a crop is in a list for a product etc (although I think that this methodology might also get me in trouble, as I identify what is applicable to a given crop) however, not everything has these features.

From an SQL standpoint, what is the issue (if any) of storing information in lists? or am I better off to set up a table that places the crops in their own cell for each product?

Currently the table would be something like this:

Product	Crops
123	corn,green beans,asparagus

Is this better?

Product	Crop
123	corn
123	green beans

I am curious as to what people think is the best way to handle this data... what is the more efficient methodology?

Happy Holiodays and my New Years Resolution

2009-12-21T21:43:00.002-05:00

Happy Holidays to one and all!

It is a crazy time of year, but we should all try and remember what the season means (whatever that is for you!). For me, I am thankful for my wonderful Wife and daughter, they are the center of my world. I am thankful for the opportunities that I have had this year within the Adobe Community, and trying to expand my 'horizons'.

So, for my New Year's Resolution, I will try harder to blog more here. I am undertaking a project that I am looking forward to using CF9 on, and I am going to be using the Flex 4 Beta (hopefully not for too much longer!) Framework for the UI... Hopefully I will learn alot, and be able to pass some gems along to everyone!

Have a Safe and Happy Holiday Season!

I'm on ColdFusion 9, are you?

2009-10-05T09:46:00.002-04:00

So, as everyone is well aware of by now. (I guess I am late to the party). COLDFUSION 9 is available! This release brings with it MANY improvements, and anyone who hasn't looked at CF in a while, well it is time to look again! My top features?

ORM
CFScript
Component improvements
Office integration
ColdFusion as a Service

Um, yeah, while you are downloading or installing CF9, don't forget to grab the ColdFusion Builder Beta as its integration with CF9 is superb! Oh, and head on over to riaforge.org and see some of the AMAZING extensions you can put into CFBuilder to make the development process, um, easier :)

PDF Printing Follow-Up

2009-09-10T13:42:00.005-04:00

So, I haven't had a chance to test this with CF9 yet to see if the problem still exists, or even if anyone but me thinks it is a problem, but I have at least worked through a process to not try and flatten a PDF that doesn't have any form fields.

So:

Pretty straight forward after all, but I am still going to look into the PDF functions with CF9 to see if they handle any of this stuff better. the errors thrown by are obtuse, and not really helpful. I would think that it would be able to continue processing if there were no fields to flatten, or it would be able to handle a PDF with no form fields a little differently (the error message is actually missing a space).

Anyways if anyone has been experiencing issues with PDFs with form fields and printing with CF8, I hope that this post and my last one will be helpful for you.

Weird PDF Printing issue - CF8

2009-09-09T13:34:00.003-04:00

So, I have been trying to print off some PDF reports that are made with ActivePDF and Visual C++ 6, however, EVERY time that I print the PDF, parts of it are light blue/light grey, instead of black (as they appear when opening the PDF, in say Reader). Anyways, I have been banging my head on the wall for some time, and hitting up, well everyone I know and lots of folks that I don't to see if ANYONE had the answer... and I got very little.

A couple of weeks ago, Steve Withington offered his help with my issue. I sent him a sample PDF and the code etc. and the only thing that he noticed was form fields, and that the PDF had some that were 'read-only'. I thought, 'OK, I will set them to not be read only, and blamo, it'll print properly!'... uh, nope.

The long and the short of this story? ColdFusion does not play nice when printing with form fields in a PDF file. So, what do you have to do? well, use the command and that will remove the form fields from the PDF. Now, I don't know if this is a bug or not, cause nobody but me has ever experienced it :(... Maybe I should fire up my CF9 beta and see what happens?

The only thing that I have yet to figure out is how to determine if the PDF has form fields or not...

ColdFusion Win7 Themepack

2009-08-27T11:09:00.005-04:00

Well, as you can see from my last post I have made the move to Windows 7 (RC) (although I have already made the decision to get the full version when it comes out). One of the neat things about Windows 7, is what they call themepacks. A nice little way to bundle up some desktop images, sounds and desktop icons too. The images you can set to change at specific intervals.

As I said last time, I was making a ColdFusion themepack, which was composed of just some of the different backgrounds that Andy Matthews created for CF9/CFBuilder etc. as well as one that I did, just cause I thought it would be cool :)

I have now taken it one step further and added new desktop icons that are CF themed. There is a 'My Computer' icon, and icons for the Recycle bin (full and empty).

Here's the link to the download ~ 2.6 MB

And the My Computer/Recylce Empty and Recycle bin full captures (in case you don't have Win7 or you want to look before you leap)

Let me know what you think. Also the ICO files that are contained should work for Vista....

Cheers!

And as requested. a full screen - screenshot - here

My Move to Windows 7

2009-08-23T09:51:00.002-04:00

So, after one of the Updates for Windows XP, my system started to suck, horribly bad. It was slow, poor screen refresh etc. Which is not what I would expect from a laptop that is only 6 months old. I made the decision to do a clean install (which for me, was not an easy one, being in the middle of a huge project - but I fugured the delay caused by reinstalling the OS would be better than the delays caused by an unstable OS).

Anyways in prepping my system for the move (I had a few files to move over to an External HD) I was thinking about what else I could do. I was chatting with Paul Kukiel about some choices, as I was adding VMWare to the mix as well, so I could run Ubuntu if I felt like it. Paul suggested that I perhaps go with Windows 7. Well I was just in time! The download for the RC was taken down on August 20th. I made my download on the 19th!

So at 11pm on the 19th, I started, inserted the Win7 Disc (64-bit btw) and began the process. Now the format/install took maybe 30-40 minutes in total, I am sure it was done before midnight. I then spent the next couple of hours installing CF, CFBuilder, Flex3, downloading Office, VMWare, and getting more familiar with Windows 7. So, within about 3 hours, I had a working system again. (so I packed it in, although I felt like I could keep going, but figured I needed some sleep!)

Anyways, its been a few days now, and I have had a few issues, but in general Win 7 is quite nice, and fast! Of course the speed could be related to my change from 32-bit to 64-bit...

Now, the things that bothered me:

Icon Size on the desktop - they were huge, and I could find NO way to reduce them, but Paul (who has been running Win7 successfully for some time now) said that it was a combination of holding the right-ctrl key and then using the mouse wheel to scroll out. I thought it was a bit weird, but it worked!
Permissions! - Okay, I have never worked with Vista, but wow, the permissions thing (which will be advantageous I am sure) sucked! I copied all of my website data over etc, and I could not edit anything, as I wasn't the owner, so I had to take ownership, then restart (to apply that ownership change) then I had to change the permissions to allow the CREATOR/OWNER full control over the files. To allow me to change the permissions, I of course had to turn off UAC.
UAC - I left it on while I was first setting up the system, because it seemed fine, but as soon as I needed to change the permissions on files, I HAD to turn it off. It really wasn't a big deal though
Configuring the IIS to accept CF files. Pretty easy following Paul's guide, except that IIS still needs to be told about index.cfm, oh, and it didn't work the first time for me, so I had to remove IIS and then do it all again.

Now, for the things I like:

Task bar - you can basically put all of your favorite programs down there, and access them via their icon. If there is more then one window open from the program you can access any of them visually
64-bit - OK, I was 32-bit before, and 64-bit is awesome!
Themepacks - kinda ot important, but really cool. I have made a CF one, using the backgrounds that Andy Matthews made, as well as one of my own :). Maybe I will post it, although I think it needs a little more work.
The fact that except for the touchpad and some of the HP drive guard stuff, all of the drivers were found without my interaction, and the system just worked. Which I thought was pretty damn sweet. I had just re-formatted a system at work (that didn't need anything carried over) and after the like hour of install, I still needed to get all the drivers so that the network/sound cards would work.

All-in-all, I am satisfied with my move to Windows 7, and it seems to be a nice stable, fast platform, with some nice improvements to my ability to manage programs etc. I think I am going to experience a productivity boost. Now I just need to replace my 2 - 2GB RAM sticks with 2 - 4 GB sticks :)

CFUnited 2009 - The cheap way

2009-08-17T13:44:00.005-04:00

Alright, so, I was not able to attend CFUnited this year, although I REALLY wanted to! It just sounded sooo good, and following what people say on Twitter is not nearly as good as being there, or so I have heard!

Anyways, I am still attending, just after it is all done by using SlideSix, this is the BEST website for presentation sharing and it seems that the majority (if not all, I haven't done an in-depth comparison of sessions scheduled vs. presentations available) of presenters at CFUnited have posted their presentations to SlideSix.

It seems that the CFUnited site will also have all those presentations as well, although I would venture to say that SlideSix would make more sense, seeing as some of the presentations are already there. I think that the CFU gang should just upload them all there... (maybe Todd doesn't want that.. server overload :P)

Anyways, if you are like me and didn't get to go and have fun and get a head full while you were there, at least the presentations are available.... now to figure out how to get beer and the pool party over the internet....

SQLite and AIR

2009-07-21T11:44:00.005-04:00

So, I am spending some time, playing with AIR and the built in SQLite database. I am working on a small project that is for my benefit, but hey, I may share it later on :)

Anyways, last night I was going through the examples on Tour de Flex, and I am the kinda guy that learns by example, so I just copied the code that was there, modified it for my liking, and then tried to run it. I continually got the 1009 error, you know the not really telling you what is wrong error.

Anyways, after a quick Twitter talk with Andy Matthews, Jason Dean and Simon Free I changed the extension of the SQLite database to something other than the .DB that was in the sample code.

Now, with further discussion, it seemed like this was something of a rarity, and no one seemed to know why it wasn't working. (i.e. a .DB extension worked for Jason, but not me, Andy had issues with the .DB extension at a point) It just really seemed odd.

So, I went a little deeper. It seems that if you already have a .DB extension registered on your computer, you cannot make the SQLite database use that extension! This causes some concern I would imagine for installing programs on certain computers. Who knows what kind of extensions ppl have registered. Of course, as Jason tested, you can make ANY extension for your SQLite database.

So, if you are having issues with creating your first ever SQLite database, this may be the problem, however un-illuminating the 1009 error is. All of my AIR programs are going to use the agfusion extension for their database... so you should come up with your own.

**After some further testing, it seems that it is not just due to the fact that the file is already registered, but more due to the fact that there are no actions associated with the file type.

If you go to Windows Explorer > Tools > Folder Options > File Types, you can see what actions are associated with each file extension, by selecting the file type and then hitting on Advanced. Now for me the .DB extension had no actions associated with it, due to, well who knows. Anyways, I guess the point is, is that it really should work, but I am still keeping my unique file extension, to make sure that it doesn't.

In the Ag industry there are programs that already use the DB extension (as witnessed) and if I am making an AIR app to do something, it needs to work regardless of what might have already happened to a system, so I will play it on the safe side!

AutLabs

2009-07-07T10:11:00.004-04:00

As a follow up to last weeks post about onTap and frameworks, I am going to talk a bit more about Ike and his current project.

Ike was recently diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome, which is on the Autistic Spectrum. Those diagnosed with Aspergers typically have a hard time with social interaction and that results in a hard time with employment. Without being able to really read facial expressions and the differences in body language, it handicaps you in the workplace. This is clearly seen by the fact that only one in five people diagnosed with Aspergers or Autism are employed... out of 40 million people who are affected by this, that leaves a lot to be desired.

Ike has decided to DO something about this, by starting a project called Autelligent Laboratories, which will focus on employing those on the spectrum. Now of course, they need help!

Please visit the website and then the wiki and find out how you can help. Ike is a great guy and should be commended for his efforts, and we should all support him in any way that we can!

He is trying to trade up for a book deal to help raise money for the project... is there something you can trade? Or do you have a funny story to contribute to the book?

Thanks for reading :)

Frameworks - onTap, and my decision

2009-06-29T09:33:00.002-04:00

So, a few months ago, I started to look at frameworks that would help me out with a big site I have. now it is not like a ridiculously huge site, but for me it is big. I looked around and read up on some of the frameworks that there are. I think that I did a pretty decent job of searching through them all, and in the end I decided to use the onTap framework. there were these considerations that lead me to this decision:

It supported internationalization, which is a huge plus for this site
I could move my relatively large website over in a piecemeal fashion as it supports the fact that not all the pages need to be in the framework
It has its own ORM with datafaucet
It supports a plugin architecture so there are things I didn't have to develop
It is dead simple to configure.... no xml
All of your CFM files are compartmentalized in folders and you can seperate different page operations by the file structure.
It uses/supports Lazy-Loading
It was developed and is supported by Ike Dealey, who is a pretty damn smart guy... and I will do a follow up on my good friend Ike and his latest project...

All in all, the transition was pretty smooth, I am sure that I am not using the framework to its fullest potential, but some contractual problems with the client didn't give me enough time to move it over properly before rollout...

Live and learn I guess.

If you have any questions about onTap please let me know and I will share my experiences further.

FlexCF and Tutorial 19

2009-06-24T10:05:00.000-04:00

Well, my Advanced Data Grid - Select All code is now available to view on the FlexCF website. It is there as tutorial #19. A big thanks to Paul Kukiel for putting it up there.

And I am happy to say that it is the first Flex 4 based tutorial on the website, so if you haven't had a chance to look at Flex 4 yet, here you are. It was build using the DCD functionality of Flex 4, which will Autogen the CFC for you. Now the autogen CFC is kinda verbose, and contains a few functions that you may or may not need, but the Flex4 Team gives you enough options for a Full CRUD with a few clicks of the mouse, and a little un-commenting!

Enjoy the tutorial, and of course View Source is enabled.

Any questions, you can find me...

SOnCFUG Meeting and CF9

2009-06-23T14:33:00.002-04:00

Well tonight is the night. Yours truly will be presenting to the Southern Ontario ColdFusion User Group about CF9, Flex4, Flash Catalyst.

Check out our User Group page on Adobe Groups. To find out more, and RSVP! Start time is 6pm!

Selecting All Rows in an Advanced Data Grid

2009-06-15T16:37:00.006-04:00

Well, I just spent waaay to long writing a little bit of AS to select/deselect all the cells in a datagrid/AdvancedDataGrid. Maybe I'm slow, and try stuff without really doing enough research, but either way, I had this super simple idea.

Why use an itemRenderer to get a check box in an AdvancedDataGrid, when it has a selectMode of 'multipleRows'? So, I wanted to select and Deselect all of the rows in a single click. I know, kinda crazy right?

Anyways, I did some Googling, and looked at FlexCF.com and found nothing that really helped with what I wanted. There was a tute on the Flex3 LiveDocs that related to getting the data from selected Cells, but not really what I wanted. Anyways, this is what I came up with:

The AdvancedDataGrid(ADG from now on) uses an array to store the data, and as a reference to what rows/cells are selected. So to get it to select them all? Well just create the correct array of course!

Code:

public function selecterOfAll():void

{

var selectedRows:Array = new Array(); //Define the array that will hold the values for selection

if (selectAllOutput.label == "Select All") //Test what the button says - default 'Select all'

{

for( var rows:int = 0; rows <>

{

//Loop over the rows that are in the Datagrid. the variable holds the ArrayCollection for the datagrid. should also be able to do ADG.rowCount

selectedRows[rows]=rows

//Make the selectedRows Array look like what the ADG expects

}

//Make the assignment happen - the 'magic' really

this.masterList.selectedIndices = selectedRows;

//Change the label to clear the selection

selectAllOutput.label = "Deselect All";

}

else //the label must say 'Deselect all'

{

//Update the label so that it will enter the loop above again

this.selectAllOutput.label="Select All";

//This is the best way I could find to clear the array

selectedRows = new Array();

//Update the ADG to have nothing selected

this.masterList.selectedIndices = selectedRows;

}

So, that is all well and good, but what if someone wanted to clear something that they had already selected? Well I need another button for that to call a similar bit of code. And of course, some people may want to go back to what they had already selected. Anyways, I am going to be working with the folks at FlexCF to get this up as a demo on their site, with perhaps some more of these goodies in there. Hope that this helps anyone, and of course I welcome feedback on my blogging style/content, I am still just getting the hang of this :).

How Easy is AIR?

2009-06-12T10:23:00.004-04:00

Alright, so in the process of doing dev with Flex, there will most likely come an urge to write an AIR App, I mean it is easy enough to change the setting in Flex Builder, (when starting a project) or the simple switch to , and of course the fact that you can use HTML/JS to write an AIR app.

So, I gave into the temptation on the weekend. A client of mine was talking about doing some data comparison, and even emailed to ask if I had a good website for images of gauges... fine, a quick Google and I was done. Now, if you are a Flex Dev or are considering it, I recommend checking out Tour De Flex it is totally worth it. The AIR App has tons of sample apps, and demo code to get you started. I of course remembered that there were a few sample apps with gauges. :)

So, I decided that instead of just having static gauge images, I would write an AIR app that displayed the comparison in the guage form. I worked on it for about an hour, changing the gauge display, and hooking in multiple instances, not just a single Gauge, hooked in some static data, changed the chrome, and I think I had a pretty nice app, in an hour. It was just so cool.

I of course sent a screen shot along to the client with a 'What do you think of this?' kinda question, and they were floored. Now obviously for it to work the way it needs to work, I have to get a better understanding of the SQLite database that I can place behind this, but it can't be that much different, right?

Anyways, if you develop Flex, and you have never tried making an AIR App, just do it! It is easy and fun, and your mind will blossom with possibilities... mine has.