John Ramon - ColdFusion Blog - My Alternate Reality

To long to much going on!

Sat, 22 Oct 2011 20:32:04 MST

It's been to long since I've posted but I'm still around. Working on lots of new things and started working on version 2 of my blog system. I'm sad I missed Max this year maybe next.

Happy New Year!

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 09:34:11 MST

So Happy New Year everyone, I hope everyone had a fun and safe time last night. I have a new project or should I say new site I launched, IJustFeltLikeRunning.com which will track my running goals and other things. Check it out it's fun, and follow the RSS or subscribe if you want to keep up with my progress. I say Ray Camden's New Year resolutions, pretty cool stuff good luck Ray.

If anyone wants to share their resolutions please let me know. Hope everyone has a great year I know I'm working hard for one.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thu, 25 Nov 2010 09:41:39 MST

Happy Thanksgiving everyone I hope you all have a great day and everyone is safe. I just want to say I am very thankful for having such a great family, my wife who takes care of my three boys is amazing, with out her I would fall apart. My three boys who drive me to keep being a kid, and to enjoy life. Finally I'm thankful to have such a great job with a great company, although I must say I love what I do and it never feels like work.

Be safe everyone and if you drink please don't drive!!!

multi State and City in CFSelect

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:06:49 MST

Problem: Need to select multiple states and show all the cities for those states from the database. Well for lack of a better name 'multi State and City' is here to help.

As you can see in the screen shot I selected 2 states and display a list of cities in my db for those states. Code attached enjoy!

Code

UltraEdit text editor for Mac (Now in beta)

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 23:50:50 MST

Long ago I wrote all my code in note pad, then I found UltraEdit. It was great for fast editing, had just what I needed plus some cool features, and it was FAST. Jump forward several years, I develop on Mac now, and my windows boxes are just development web servers. I use ColdFusion Builder for all my heavy coding projects, but when I need to edit a page or 2 for a client I really don't want to open it just to make small text edits. So I use TextMate, which does what I need, but I really don't like it.

Time for a change.

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 20:00:12 MST

I've been working on a new layout for my site. My design here is almost 2 years old and with all the new things out there I feel it's time for a change. I have a design all set just need to make time to code it and plug it in. I'll have a preview in the next few days.

Application Penetration Test - Call to CF community for help!

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 21:07:52 MST

So next week an "Information Security and Compliance Company" is doing a 16 hour "Application Penetration Test" on an application we developed. It's on a dedicated server with all the latest patches and is on lock down with IP address validation through the firewall. We have made sure every query is protected from SQL injection attacks and made sure any file uploaded to the application is uploaded outside the root and can not be called from a URL. We think we have covered all the bases, here is a list of what the application will go through.

Input Validation

Buffer Overflow

Cross Site Scripting

URL Manipulation

SQL Injection

Hidden Variable Manipulation

Cookie Modification

Authentication Bypass

Code Execution

Now some of these are basic security 101, and ColdFusion has lots of tools to address the attacks. Has anyone ever gone through this? If so what type of things were found? Can anyone give me any suggestion of things to check?

Connecting to SQL Server 2008 from OS X

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 13:54:14 MST

If your one of the cools kids and have a Mac (sorry windows guys) and you need to connect your development environment to a MSSQL server it's really easy. There are lots of guides out there on connecting ColdFusion to MSSQL but if your connecting from OS X server to Windows server there are 2 settings you need to check.

First once you log in to your development server under Object Explorer right click on the server name and click Properties. Under Security make sure "SQL Server and Windows authentication mode" is checked. Next click Connections and make sure "Allow remote connections to this server". If you setup you users and DB correctly you should be able to connect.

Two times this year I have wiped windows box and 2 times I wasted hours connecting to MSSQL from my iMac. I'm going to be adding more tips to help me and anyone else in the future.

CF Builder extension break out of XML mode

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 15:21:54 MST

Anyone know a better way to break out of XML mode so HTML can run in a ColdFusion Builder Extension.

cgi.http_host and server_name don't always work for what I need. My test app runs great on my Mac but fails if I install on my Windows box. Any suggestions would be great.

Cached errors using CFQueryParam

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 10:25:54 MST

I was working on a project today and ran into this error

[Macromedia][SQLServer JDBC Driver]Value can not be converted to requested type

I did a quick search found a lot of theories on why and how it was caused. So it turns out it's a caching error, by default ColdFusion data sources pool 1000 statements, but how to fix. Almost all suggested restarting CF, which I cannot do, change the dsn name open page to error and then change back, or my favorite: "When in doubt kick it in the guts (restart JRUN)". They all work but not the best way to handle the error.

Easiest and best way to get rid of this error is to log in to CF Admin, click Data Sources, find your data source and click it then click Show Advanced Settings. Update "Max Pooled Statements" to zero, click submit, then run page. Now you can change it back. This removes the cached SQL select statements with out resetting connections to users.

httpdocs is missing!!!

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 23:12:23 MST

Time: 10:58 PM, person calling: boss...

John httpdocs is missing on abc's website!!!

Anyone ever get a call like that? Everything turned out OK, still looking into what happen. If I smoked I'd be smoking now, lol.

It's been to long...

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:21:21 MST

So over the last few months my work load has doubled, and I'm not complaining. In March we sold our company and now are a division of a large company now. Cool thing is things haven't changed, just my work load. I'm doing more personal projects at night so I should have more time to do CF fun stuff.

One last thing I need to say thanks to Ben Nadel for helping me a few times over the last 6 months.

ColdFusion Job in Salem, Oregon

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 20:20:14 MST

There is a ColdFusion/ColdBox job opening in Salem, Oregon. If anyone is interested please contact me and I will give you the info.

Where is John?

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 13:06:20 MST

I'm sure someone has wondered where I've been, but for most I'm sure you didn't know I was MIA for the last 4 months. Well I've been around working very hard and getting ready and since having our third child. This seems to happen every time we have one lol. I do have some major news to post in the next few days, but for now I'll just say it's really good for me. =)

Railo auto start on OS X?

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:33:18 MST

Anyone know how to start Railo so I don't have to have a terminal window open?

Just got invite to Google Wave

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:16:27 MST

Several months ago me and my boss watched an hour and twenty minute video on Google Wave. We both saw great potential in it with how we do business. Well today I got a beta invite and will be setting it up tonight. I'll be posting more about it as I learn more about how it works and how it will change the way we handle customer requests.

New toy from the boss!!!

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:26:52 MST

I got a nice surprise this week, my boss bought me a new 15 inch Macbook Pro. It's been several years since I've developed on a Mac and being back on one for the past 2 days I wonder how I did it.

I must say Macs have come a long way since I had one, but the over all feel is still the same. Clean, simple, and powerful, oh and the pad short cuts rock. I'm still working on getting my development environment setup for developing ColdFusion applications. So if any one has any suggestions on must have apps pay or free I just shouldn't develop with out, please post a comment and let me know.

P.S. Thanks Boss!!!

Working with Google Apps

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:33:04 MST

Our company just moved from running our own mail server to using Google Apps. So far it's working great, had a few small problems but other then that I love it. I really love how much more we are in sync with one another. gTalk and Google Docs are a teams best friend.

CFUnited 2010 call for speakers

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:07:05 MST

So it's still early but you can now submit topics. I'm racking my brain trying to figure out a topic, something new, but I have no clue =/. If anyone wants to suggest some ideas that would rock.

Any way here is the link have fun...

CFUnited a look back

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 09:21:13 MST

So it's been a couple of weeks since CFUnited, catching up on emails and work was rough. So I'm finally taking the time this morning to talk about my experiences at CFUnited.

Since this was my first time I was little nervous, I didn’t personally know anyone other than through the community and really didn’t think I would have anyone to hang out with. That lasted about 20 min after I got off the plane, I started meeting people in the van to CFUnited. Once I checked in by that evening I met more and more very friendly people. Me and Garrett Johnson another first timer, who I met in the van, ended up hanging out and just saying hi to anyone we saw. I was pretty surprised when I would introduce myself “Hi, I’m John Ramon” and get the “Oh, John Ramon I know you”, I guess my involvement in the community does help. All in all I met some great people at CFUnited and want to thank them all for making me and of course Garrett feel welcomed.

This year CFUnited was at Landsdowne resort in VA, and it was very cool place to have a conference. I loved the fact that I could go from my room to a session in 5 min. Plus having a bar down stairs where everyone hung out and drink was cool too.

I do have to say a real quick thank you to all the sponsors. If you go next year stop by and see them all you never know what kind of relationship you can build with other comapnies. I know we have a few new companies to refer clients to now.

Other than meeting some kick ass people I call friends now, and the wicked cool resort, the sessions rocked. There were so many cool sessions this year. When I first registered I filled out my schedual with things I felt comfortable with, but after I saw this post from Ben Nadel I changed it up and went to things that scared me, lol. So how did it go, well when I got back I bought three new books and have a notpad full of ideas and things I want todo and learn. Truly inspirational in advancing my love for ColdFusion.

Just a quick mention the food kicked ass.

Finally I want to thank Stellr. Thank you for putting on a great conference, you guys did an amazing job. Also for working with my company to get my co-worker in on Thursday, he loved the sessions he went to and of course has new ideas for our company.

So if you haven’t been and are thinking about going next year don’t wait start planning now, I’ll see you all next year!!!