design over matter

Mid-Life Shift

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 16:48:50 GMT

After over a decade of developing web applications, I am shifting to a new career. Not a switch, just a shift. I've been ready for a change for some time, but have yet to find the right opportunity. Next Monday I begin working at PayPal as a Developer Evangelist. In retrospect, a lot of what I've been doing has prepared me for this position, but was not part of a master plan. For the past five years, I've sought to connect with other developers. At first to learn from them and satisfy a feeling of community, that didn't exist at work. Later, I looked for ways to contribute and eventually, become a leader in my community.

At PayPal, I'll take my community involvement in a different direction. Instead of diving deep into one technology, I'll focus on a feature "payments and commerce" which spans multiple technologies (and communities). This year, I'll be "the new guy" more often than not. It's good to move out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself. With this in mind, I'll embrace my n00b status and begin the hard work of learning, connecting and sharing with others.

I won't be abandoning my ties with the Adobe community. In fact, I've been selected as an Adobe Community Champion for 2011. I'll no longer manage the Bay Area ColdFusion User Group due to my travel schedule. I will look for ways to connect and support the Adobe Community whenever possible. I also get the opportunity to spread the good word about Adobe products to other communities during my travels.

Looking forward to an exciting 2011 and beyond!

Usability and Why I no longer do laundry at my house.

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 18:22:22 GMT

In my young and single days, I learned the simple rules for doing the laundry. Whites on hot, darks on cold and colors on warm. Those were the days of three simple piles that practically sorted themselves on my apartment floor. Three loads later, I was done and ready to go mountain biking.

Things began to change when I got married and children arrived. Those 3 piles started having offspring. A "delicate" pile sprung up, then towels were segregated for being "too rough" on the other clothes. Who knew my towels where hooligans, hell bent on beating up other fabrics. I thought my only concern was colors running together.

Today our laundry piles range from 7 to 10 piles with a set of rules attached. I throw up my hands and say it's too much work remembering rules, reading tags to ensure everyone gets in the "right" pile. The chance of error is too great.

Remember this when writing software. Simplicity is the key for users.

Someone at Adobe MAX Marketing likes me

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 23:53:37 GMT

2010 - LA

2008 - San Francisco

2007 - Chicago

Building Mobile applications with jQuery Slides from MAX

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 19:19:02 GMT

I conducted 3 BYOL (Bring your own Laptop) sessions at Adobe MAX this year. The topic was building mobile applications with jQuery and jQTouch. I mixed in a bit of HTML 5 with SQLite database storage as well.

Several folks asked for the slides from my session.

BACFUG - Increasing Efficiency through Automation with Hudson

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 20:55:32 GMT

Big thanks to Pat Santora for presenting at the Bay Area ColdFusion User Group meeting. He did an excellent job explaining the importance of automating the repetative and mundane tasks that are part of the development workflow. Excellent audience engagement. My two big take aways were that automation removes some of the drudgery with deployements and communication to free up developers so they can focus on developing. It also removes points of failure in the development workflow.

You can view the connect recording here.

BACFUG - Tour De ColdFusion Contribution Night

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 17:10:40 GMT

Last Wednesday at BACFUG (Bay Area ColdFusion User Group), we hosted a Tour De ColdFusion contribution night. If you haven't heard of Tour De ColdFusion, it is a Flex/AIR app built by Adobe to show case code examples for ColdFusion.

Why do we need this when I can just look at the live docs? If you are familiar with Tour De Flex, these apps can be more than just a code reference. People can contribute API code examples to all the popular web services (think Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Google Maps, you get the idea). As a Flex developer I found Tour De Flex a great inspiration and easy way to see working examples with code I could grab and start playing with.

Tour De ColdFusion needs more code examples to increase it's viability. We can't rely on Ray Camden to do everything! Arnold Young suggested we spend an evening coding examples for all the tags using <cfscript>. I thought it was a great way to learn more about cfscript and give back to the community.

We had 10 people attend, but only 4 felt comfortable contributing. I'm not sure why. I was googling to figure out what the correct syntax was. So, it wasn't like I knew anymore than they did. Anywhoo, we completed 18 code examples.

cfthread
cftrace
cfcomponent
cffunction
cfinterface
cfinvoke
cfobject
cfproperty
cfreturn
cfabort
cfbreak
cfcase
cfcontinue
cfexit
cfif
cflocation
cfloop
cfswitch

Our four contributors were myself, Sean Corfield, Bob Blackman and Dan Zeitman.

We did a raffle at the end of the night and gave an extra entry for each code sample completed. Sean Corfield didn't need ColdFusionBuilder, so we kept drawing his name until we didn't. Pretty funny.

If your group wants to organize a Tour De ColdFusion Night, contact James Brown james [at] tourdecoldfusion.com. He might score you some extra swag for your effort.

AJAX File Uploader for ColdFusion

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 16:09:41 GMT

Uploading files with AJAX is a unique challenge due to the fact that file uploads require a form "post" with enctype="multipart/form-data". To get around this people have used a combination of IFrames and AJAX.

I found a great jQuery plug-in by Andrew Valums called Ajax Upload. Both Ray Camden and Ben Nadel have blogged about this plug-in in an earlier revision. When I consulted their blogs I couldn't get their techniques to mesh with the current version of the Ajax Uploader code. Ray and Ben both use cffile action=upload to handle the AJAX request.

For some reason I couldn't figure it out. So searching the comments on Andrew Valum's blog someone mentioned receiving the error message.

"The cffile action="upload" requires forms to use enctype="multipart/form-data"."

Andrew recommends using GetHttpRequestData() to grab the source for your file. After a little fiddling I got it to work.

To try it, download my two files and download Valum's AJAX Uploader

Unzip Valum's AJAX Uploader into your web root.
Place demo.cfm in the "client" folder inside Valum's AJAX uploader folder.
Place coldfusion.cfc in the "server" folder insdie Valum's AJAX uploader folder
Browse to the demo.cfm file and try it out. The file should be written to the "server' folder.

---------------------------------------

UPDATE: v 1.1.1 (Changes have been added to Valum's download on github)

I was JSON serializing the return value twice. This has been corrected
local scope added to variables in the cfc

Download version 1.1.1 of the code here.

UPDATE: Two problems where found in my original code.

On successful upload, I was not returning the {success: true} JSON message. That is now fixed.
For browsers that don't support XHR (IE 6 - 8 and older browsers), I didn't have a function to handle a regular form submission. That has been corrected as well.

Download version 1.1 of the code here.

Thanks to Joe and Tom for the feedback.

What is Adobe's obligation to backward compatibility with ColdFusion?

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 14:01:08 GMT

I've been pondering this question due to a project I built with ColdFusion 8 AJAX. If you've ever attended an Adobe Roadshow event you've seen the showmanship in action. Exciting demos that let you build entire apps with the click of a button or new tags that add complex functionality with very little effort. I don't have a problem with these demos, it's the missing "warning label" that I'm concerned with.

ColdFusion 8 introduced AJAX functionality to the language. I took the opportunity to build an application for a client using all these great new tags, and sometimes using multiple tags together. CFLayout for tabs with CFGrids inside my tabs, etc. I ran into a few glitches along the way but with the help of the community I got my project off the ground.

ColdFusion 9 was released last year and I thought it was worth the upgrade. To my dismay I found many of the AJAX tags broke in ColdFusion 9. Several hours of tweaking got the project running on my local machine.

This brings me to the point of this post. What is Adobe's obligation to backwards compatibility of these AJAX tags? I know they are built with open source libraries, but is that an excuse? Saying the AJAX libraries are great for rapid prototyping but don't use them in a production environment is an option, but that is never mentioned during the roadshows or by Adobe. What is the future of these AJAX tags?

5 thing you can do to get unfollowed by me on Twitter

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 15:19:30 GMT

My opinions on Twitter's "proper" use continues to evolve. As of today here are the 5 things that will get you "unfollowed" ;-)

Over Tweeting
How much is over tweeting? If I open TweetDeck and have to scroll through 10 of your tweets to find the next tweet from another follower, that's too much!

ReTweet Syndrome
Yes, I love to re-tweet as much as the next guy. Please don't retweet EVERYTHING. If you ARE over tweeting, it's probably due to your retweeting.

Quote Crazy
Some my advocate a complete ban on quoting. I don't fall into this camp, but let's keep it to 1 or 2 a day folks. I understand if you are inspired by a quote or it captures your mood. You don't need to shove 10 or more quotes a day at me. Trust me, I love your other tweets, just cool it on the quotes.

Nothing I want to hear
This may sound self-centered, but I'm following you for information I want. If you work for company "X", please mix in some relevant information along with your tweets about the World Cup and your cat.

List-a-mania
You tweet links to top 5, 10 or 20 list blog posts. Yes, I'm looking at you Guy Kawasaki. I just started following you, and this is all I'm seeing from you. Let's mix it up.

That's it. What do I need to do to get unfollowed by you?

On Flash - the reports of it's death are exaggerated

Fri, 14 May 2010 00:13:39 GMT

I attended a Java User Group Meeting and the topic was HTML 5. Over 400 people attended. The speaker from Google gave an overview HTML5 bells and whistles. It's very impressive. The speaker Microsoft demoed IE 9 Beta and showed how much better it is than the current browsers in the market.

This all left me with a sinking feeling. Excited about the possibility of HTML 5 ... contrasted with the reality that it will be some time before the browser makers all get on the same page. Then EVERYONE needs to upgrade their browsers. Can anyone say IE 6? 2001-2010 RIP.

Meantime, the rest of us will struggle to decide when to use HTML5 and all the hacks, and "graceful" alternatives for those older browsers out there.

Many companies and developers will develop RIA's in Flash. And many will package those apps with AIR and deploy them to multiple desktop platforms. They won't deploy any Objective-C RIA's to Windows.

Write once, run across all devices is dead for now, but Flash certainly isn't.

360Flex Mate Workshop Recap

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:59:29 GMT

Wow! What a ride. This was my third 360Flex and my first time presenting.

While I've spoken at Law School conferences and twice for the online ColdFusion user group, this was my first workshop and my first time presenting at a developer conference. Presenting live to your peers is always the toughest. You walk in knowing you are NOT the smartest guy in the room. In fact, you're lucky if you are in the top half.

What I didn't know, but found awesome was how supportive developers are. Sure there was a minor revolution when a handful of people didn't like my method, but more people came up after and complimented me and offered suggestions for making the workshop better.

So, what was my method? Break it down like a Flex 101 course except for the Mate Framework. While, in theory a good idea, there turned out to be too much time spent typing basic flex code. I think this was my first offense. My second was to dive into the material after a VERY short explaination about how Mate works. My assumption was 30 to 45 minutes of theory was less effective than getting our hands dirty in the code. Truth be told I could have spent 20 minutes at the beginning talking about "theory" before diving in.

I also plan to rewrite the workshop and "pre-bake" the UI. We will focus on the events, model and event map. This will satisfy those who don't want to type as much, and we'll cover more material. I will not back down from my belief that a hands-on workshop doesn't need to be so "hands-on". We wire our brains by doing not watching. Otherwise, I'd be hilarious after all the Daily shows and Colbert Reports I've watched. Sadley, I'm a poor stand up comic. Maybe, I need to attend a "stand-up workshop". It couldn't hurt my presentation style.

If you attended my workshop, and you want to give me suggestions for improving it, I'm all ears. I'll be rewriting it in May and lining up a June or July workshop.

Flex Framework-a-palooza at 360Flex in San Jose

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:51:01 GMT

Sunday March 7th I'll be in San Jose leading a beginner Mate Framework workshop. In 3 hours we will cover the following.

Creating Custom Events
Dispatching your events from the view
Creating an EventMap to listen for your events and take action
Call an HTTPService from the EventMap
Saving the data returned from your HTTPService into your model
Inject data from your model into your view.
Handling Faults from your service
Smart Objects
Tips on Best Practices with Mate

The second half of the day Joel Hooks will go over the RobotLegs Framework. I haven't used it myself, but there has been a lot of chatter about this new framework. What do people like most about it? The name is really cool. I'll be there to see if the framework measures up to the hype.

No extra cost for 360Flex attendees to come to these workshops.

If you haven't registered for 360Flex in San Jose March 7-10, I've just given you two more reasons.

See you there.

FCKeditor breaks with Firefox 3.5.8

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 04:16:15 GMT

UPDATE: FCKEditor 2.6.6 released and fixes this problem. http://ckeditor.com/blog/FCKeditor_2.6.6_released

My FCKeditor 2.6.3 STANDALONE install suddenly stopped working today. My informants tell me this DOES NOT affect CFTEXTAREA set to RichText.

I tracked down the problem to the fckutils.cfm file FCKeditor tests for browser compatibility and displays a regular textarea if the browser tests "false".

Why is Firefox 3.5.8 not compatible? The code below reFind("gecko/200 ...) does not work because the new firefox is gecko/20100202

stResult = reFind( "gecko/(200[3-9][0-1][0-9][0-3][0-9])", sAgent, 1, true );

I added a second if statement

stResult = reFind( "gecko/(201[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9])", sAgent, 1, true );

Here is the fix in context of the fckutils.cfm

// check for Gecko ( &gt;= 20030210+ ) else if( find( "gecko/", sAgent ) ) { // try to extract Gecko version date stResult = reFind( "gecko/(200[3-9][0-1][0-9][0-3][0-9])", sAgent, 1, true ); // START TO TEST FOR FIREFOX 3.5.8 and higher if ( arrayLen( stResult.pos ) eq 1 ) { stResult = reFind( "gecko/(201[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9])", sAgent, 1, true ); } // END TO TEST FOR FIREFOX 3.5.8 and higher if( arrayLen( stResult.pos ) eq 2 ) { // get Gecko build (i18n date) sBrowserVersion = mid( sAgent, stResult.pos[2], stResult.len[2] ); if( sBrowserVersion GTE 20030210 ) isCompatibleBrowser = true; } }

Worked like a charm. Happy coding...

The return of the intern?

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 22:39:39 GMT

Last week I encountered two postings from separate companies looking for interns.

It got me thinking. Is this the return of the intern? And if so, is that a good sign? With the economy over two years in the dumps, you can only hope the look for interns is a good thing.

One theory is that companies are ramping up to hire new employees. If the company is concerned about hiring, or finding qualified developers, the internship could be an excellent way to confirm the new hire will gel with your team. Companies could also look at unemployed developers as a source of cheap labor that will accept an internship to get up to speed before earning a "real", but lowered salary. This is the best case scenario.

My second theory is more pessimestic. Companies are not ready to hire. They are so shaken by the last two years and have pushed existing employees to the max. They need more resources and cynically are using the "intern" label to underpay people.

The interesting thing is one internship program is being organized by a recruiter. They are providing a week of Ruby On Rails training and then placing the developer in a startup to pair program with a Senior Developer. At the end of 3 months, the start up has the option to hire the employee. I'm just crossing my fingers this situation better matchs my FIRST theory and not my second one.

FCKEditor and ColdFusion Error: The server didn't reply with a proper XML data. Please check your configuration.

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:25:33 GMT

I'm writing this post to help those searching based on the Javascript alert in the FileManager for FCKEditor. During my upgrade to ColdFusion 9, my FCKEditor (2.6.3) began throwing the javascript alert

"The server didn't reply with a proper XML data. Please check your configuration."

Turns out the security fix deployed to ColdFusion 8 in Fall 2009 and in ColdFusion 9, breaks the FileManager for stand-alone FCKEditor installations that use the ColdFusion connector.

I found this article very helpful. I only found it once I discovered it was a 403 access denied error that triggered the javascript alert.

http://www.ephost.com/support/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=212

UPDATE

Recently, found another cause for this error. The config.cfm file located in /FCKEditor/Editor/FileManager/Connectors/cfm/. There is a problem with a IF statement

I've finally upgraded from Application.cfm to Application.cfc on this project. All I had to do was change the IF Statement.

Voila! The error is fixed.