Archives — An Architect's View

Entries for month: January 2004

Netflix

January 30, 2004 · 1 Comment

I've mentioned Netflix before as one of my favorite online services (because my wife and I are both movie buffs). The Register has an article about Netflix and Video-on-Demand that makes interesting reading. If you're into movies and have a DVD player, I can heartily recommend Netflix - it has loads of movies you just can't find in the brick'n'mortar stores and it's so convenient to just add movies to your queue whenever you think of something you'd like to watch!

→ 1 CommentTags: personal

MachWiki Updated

January 30, 2004 · 3 Comments

In response to requests on the Mach II forum, I've updated the MachWiki sample application and posted it on my Mach II downloads page. The updated application takes advantage of several recent changes in the framework as well as incorporating the latest best practices. The sample wiki files that come with the application contain explanations of the changes.

Someone on the Mach II forum pointed out that the ZIP file had the wrong version of the MachWiki sample application - sorry about that! It now has the correct version. (The mach-ii.xml file has an entry dated 1/29/2004 listing the changes that were made!)

→ 3 CommentsTags: coldfusion · machii

ColdFusion MX 6.1 - Security Patches

January 28, 2004 · No Comments

Two security bulletins have just been published on macromedia.com containing hot fixes for sandbox security and form fields Denial of Service. The former disables creation of Java objects through reflection when &lt;cfobject&gt; and createObject() are disabled in the sandbox, closing a loophole that has been discussed heavily on several lists. The latter improves performance of form field validation so that repeated submission of large forms with ColdFusion-generated form validation cannot be used as a DoS attack.

→ No CommentsTags: coldfusion

Your First Central Application

January 27, 2004 · 5 Comments

Community MX has the first part of an article about building your first Central application. I use Central daily but haven't quite found the time yet to build an application. I really want to because that's when people say you really 'get' the whole Central concept! Anyway, the article explains the elements of Central and how to set up an efficient development environment, including debugging tools. Part 2 will walk you through the actual development of the application itself - I can't wait!
If you install Community MXtra for Macromedia Central you can easily keep up with the latest articles on the Community MX website!

The second part of this article has now been published. Unfortunately, part 2 is not free content. I think that is a bit low - publishing part 1 of an article as a freebie but making part 2 of the same article paid content!

→ 5 CommentsTags: mx

Mach II Development Guide Updated!

January 23, 2004 · 1 Comment

I have just updated the Mach II Development Guide. What started out as a minor revision, intended as Release 1.0.4, became a fairly major overhaul and is now Release 1.1. For the full list of changes, check out the revision history in the document itself. I now feel the document better reflects current best practice for Mach II based on discussions with Ben and Hal as well as additional community feedback. Enjoy!

→ 1 CommentTags: coldfusion · machii

Getters & Setters - Some Insight

January 23, 2004 · No Comments

A thread on the Mach II forums pointed OO newcomers to this thread on CFCDev that opens with a question about a CFC with 26 properties asking whether it was reasonable to have 52 getter/setter methods. As the thread unfolds, there's some very insightful comments from a variety of posters with a lot of recommendations on how to structure CFCs and how to interact with them as encapsulated data objects.

→ No CommentsTags: coldfusion

Unable to Afford Open Source?

January 22, 2004 · 3 Comments

The Register has a very interesting piece about Newham Borough Council in London (UK) being unable to afford to switch from Microsoft desktops to Open Source alternatives due to being locked into Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 (an unsupported product). Newham can't switch to Open Source desktops without either replacing Exchange completely (a big deal) or upgrading to Exchange 2003 (which will support non-Microsoft desktop clients). Newham can't afford the hundreds of thousands of pounds it would cost to upgrade to Exchange 2003 tho'... An interesting lock-in situation.
Exchange can easily become very core to an organization with the combined email, shared calendar, shared folders functionality. As a Mac user, I feel this pain because there really isn't a viable Exchange-compatible client for OS X if you are still running the older version of Exchange...

→ 3 CommentsTags: oss

Mach II at Macromedia

January 21, 2004 · 6 Comments

Well, I've just finalized my talk for both SCCFUG 2004 Conference (only $85!) and MXDU and sent the PowerPoint files off to the organizers. It's a little different from my BACFUG talk I gave back in December and I expect the talk will change again before I give it to SacCFUG in April and SDCFUG in May, and it will likely change again before CFUN-04 at the end of June. BTW, you can still get the "Regular Bird" rate of $199 for CFUN-04, saving you quite a bit of money over the full price!

→ 6 CommentsTags: personal

Does the CFX API suck?

January 20, 2004 · 2 Comments

Matt Liotta thinks so and gives good reasons for why he doesn't like the CFX API. I've never actually used it. Really! I've never written a CFX tag because I've never needed to. What I'd like to hear is what y'all think about the CFX tag mechanism, good and bad - comment away!

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