Necessity is the Mother of Invention

I used to work for a company that didn’t have a staging server for it’s web sites. They only had one working copy of each site and those were the live ones. This didn’t make my job easy. I was asked to work on very complex web applications that pulled in quite a bit of revenue for the company. We’re talking lifelines of the business. Any mistake made in the code could crash the whole site and lose the company mucho dinero. Fortunately for me, I work on a Mac which comes with Apache and PHP preinstalled. I had installed MySQL previously and I only needed to install one more thing before I had a perfect copy of the production server. Adobe ColdFusion 9.

ColdFusion is not free. You have to purchase a license if you want to install it on your production server. You can, however, download the Developer Edition of ColdFusion 9 and install it on your personal computer for free. Thank you, Adobe. Installing ColdFusion is pretty straightforward. Adobe provides an install wizard that walks you through the process but there are a few steps along the way that might lose you. The instructions below were the steps I followed to get ColdFusion 9 to work alongside my existing development web server on my computer.

What You’ll Need

• Mac OS X 10.5 or 10.6
• Adobe Account (free)
• Adobe ColdFusion 9 Developer Edition 64-bit (free)
• Web Sharing enabled in System Preferences
• 10 minutes

You’ll need to do a few things before we begin the installation process. In order to download the developer edition, you’ll need to create an Adobe Account. Once you’ve completed the signup process and have logged in, navigate to the ColdFusion downloads page. Find the drop down box labeled “Adobe ColdFusion 9 Developer Edition” and select “English | Mac OS X 64-bit | 406.4 MB”. See screenshot below.

The installation process should take no more than 10 minutes. And while you can get ColdFusion up and running on Tiger these instructions are specifically for mac users who are running Leopard or Snow Leopard. I believe Tiger users can follow these instructions using the 32-bit version of the ColdFusion Developer Edition. Leopard and Snow Leopard users will need to stick with the 64-bit version. Also, if you plan to run ColdFusion alongside the built in Apache web server you’ll need to enable web sharing. You can find this in System Preferences > Internet & Wireless > Sharing.

Installing ColdFusion 9 Developer Edition

Unzip the downloaded file and double-click the ColdFusion 9 Installer.

Click Next on the Introduction window.

Agree to the License Agreement

Choose ‘Server configuration’.

Click ‘No’ when it asks if ColdFusion 9 is currently installed on your computer.

The 64-bit version of ColdFusion uses a lot of RAM. I opted out of the ‘Start ColdFusion’ on system init’. I only want it to run when I need it to.

The default installation directory worked for me.

Select ‘No’ when it asks if there are earlier versions of ColdFusion installed. Unless, of course, there are.

For the next step, I chose ‘Configure web server connector for ColdFusion’. This will allow ColdFusion to work alongside the Apache web server if you’re using it.

This next step left me a little confused the first time I saw it in ColdFusion 7. It simply wants to know where the Apache directory is located. Type in ‘/etc/apache2′ in the Configuration Directory field and click ‘OK’.

Click Next on the Configure Web Servers/Websites window.

This next window just wants to know where your web server root is located. Basic setups will be located at /Users/your-name/Sites. I try to keep my development server setup as close to my production server as possible. My server root is located at /var/www.

If you are planning on working with OpenOffice in your application, check this box, or else keep it blank and click Next

Create an Administrator password. This is not your user account password for your computer. Click Next

I plan on being the only developer working on my machine. I left RDS unchecked. Click Next

Enter your computer password. This gives the installer permission to continue. Click Next

Look over the summary window to make sure all of your settings are correct. Click Install if everything looks good.

Almost there. We need to launch the ColdFusion Administrator site. Keep the checkbox at the bottom checked and click Done.

Log in using your ColdFusion password.

Don’t click Continue. I didn’t read all of the text the first couple of times of installing. I thought ‘Continue’ meant ‘Go to the next step’ and not ‘Stop me from finishing’. Just wait.

Setup Complete. Click OK.

Welcome to the ColdFusion Administrator!

Wrapping Up

Once you get to the ColdFusion Administrator, go ahead and bookmark it. You’ll be using it a lot.

I want to tell you about my editor of choice. TextMate.

A Love Story

TextMate and I have been together since 2006 when MacHeist included it in their annual Mac software bundle. For $50 I got TextMate and a few other apps. An offer not many can refuse. A few weeks earlier I had been eyeballing the app while looking for a dedicated tool to help me become more efficient in typing code for websites. In high school I used Dreamweaver to develop websites but the more I created websites the more I wanted to write the code myself. I didn’t want to rely on at WYSIWYG to generate countless lines of code while I used a fancy interface to slide components around, changed fonts or even the layout of a page. I wanted to have full control of the code and that meant writing every character myself. It’s sort of like someone falling in love with cooking. The more they invest in learning how to cook the less likely they are to buy TV dinners. From scratch is always better.

Features

TextMate’s feature list seems endless. The following are a few of my favorite.

Syntax Highlighting

Do you remember what code looked like in The Matrix? All green with weird symbols. The same is true for a plain text editor. Everything is in black and white. Syntax highlighting allows a developer to distinguish various types of code at a glance. Look at the following samples code.

Multi-Line Editing

I’ve often find myself editing lists. And it can be a tedious task to wrap a lot of list items with code. With TextMate, formatting a list is done with just a few keystrokes.

Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia

<ul>
  <li>Alabama</li>
  <li>Alaska</li>
  <li>Arizona</li>
  <li>Arkansas</li>
  <li>California</li>
  <li>Colorado</li>
  <li>Connecticut</li>
  <li>Delaware</li>
  <li>Florida</li>
  <li>Georgia</li>
</ul>

I won’t explain how to accomplish this but it really is just a few key combinations. See for yourself.

Themes

I don’t know about other developers but I can’t stare at white screen without getting a headache. How long can an ice skater perform when a their shoes are on too tight. It’s uncomfortable. TextMate allows developers to create and install themes. I use a theme called ‘railscasts’. It turns the background black and changes the text color. It’s a lot more pleasing on the eyes.

Snippets

Snippets is one of the best features a text editor can have. A snippet is a piece of text that you want to insert into your file. This comes in handy when you’re constantly typing the same things over and over.

Bundles

TextMate allows developers to build bundles that provide added functionality and code snippets for specific languages. This allows TextMate to be as robust as you want it to be or as simple as you want it to be.

To learn more about TextMate visit http://macromates.com/

I really enjoy reading what hardware and software other developers are using and I thought I’d share my own interview if The Setup ever asked for one.

Lehi Sanchez

Developer, Database Administrator (Charles County Sheriff’s Office), Singer/Songwriter

Who are you, and what do you do?

I’m Lehi Sanchez, database administrator for the Charles County Sheriff’s Office, husband, aspiring blogger, and the sole member of the band Perth Amboy. Officially I’m a database administrator but my background is in web development which means most of my day is spent developing applications that run on the web and on mobile devices to, hopefully, help improve the lives of the Sheriff’s Office employees.

I write and record my own music under the alias Perth Amboy. I’ve been writing music since I was 14 but ever since I graduated high school and started working full-time writing has become a little more difficult.

I also enjoy listening to music and hope to, someday, find some time to actually start my music review blog, Mixtape Anthology, and post reviews of what I’ve been listening to.

What hardware are you using?

I’m a Mac user and have been since 2005 when I bought my first Mac – a refurbished 12″ PowerBook. Now, I’m working on a 15″ MacBook Pro i7 which is a little more powerful. I recently acquired Apple’s wireless keyboard but before I had been using Microsoft’s Comfort Curve Keyboard exclusively for years. I still use an optical mouse. I haven’t decided if I want to purchase the Magic Mouse or the Magic Trackpad. I think I’ll wait for Lion to come out before deciding.

I bring my Bose QuietComfort headphones with me where ever I work. I’ve had them for 3 years and they still sound as good as the day I bought them. These are vital when working in an open office space.

I have the first gen iPad and 4th Gen iPod Touch. After getting the iPad I found myself getting into the habit of reading more. Maybe when Apple releases the iPad 3 they’ll show us the new “it even smells like a book” feature. I use the iPod Touch to test my iOS apps because I’ve been waiting for the next generation iPhone. My current mobile phone is a BlackBerry Bold which was given to me by the Agency. Not my choice.

I have a handful of guitars. My favorite is the acoustic Washburn (Sally), which was my first guitar. For recording, I use my acoustic/electric Takamine (Ann), which let’s me record multiple tracks in one take. I have a gorgeous semi-hollow body Ibanez (Marie) that stays in it’s fluffy case because I’m afraid of getting fingerprints all over it.

For capturing audio, I have a Mackie Onyx 400f firewire audio interface and MXL 900 Series microphones. Together, they sound beautiful.

And what software?

I consider myself lucky to have been working on a Mac early on in my web development career or I wouldn’t have found TextMate. If I hadn’t I would probably still be coding in a WYSIWYG like DreamWeaver or Aptana.

I use Transmit for moving files across servers. Terminal for, well, everything. Photoshop for image editing, Sequel Pro for database management, MAMP for when my local Apache server starts acting up, and GitHub for Mac for version control.

I use Xcode for iOS development except when developing web apps, in which case I’ll use TextMate, iPhone Simulator, Safari (debugging), and PhoneGap.

For music, I prefer the simple interface of Garageband. I’ve attempted to record in Logic but found it a little too much for songs that only have 3 tracks. Maybe when I reach the experimental phase of my music writing career I’ll have a need for it.

What would be your dream setup?

I definitely prefer an iPhone over my BlackBerry.

I wouldn’t mind having an iMac at my desk at work. “Docking” my laptop is getting a little boring. I would love nothing more than to come in and just sit down.

A Mac Pro to keep in my studio so I wouldn’t have to use my laptop.

A new desk chair.

Pretty much every Apple product that I don’t have.