ColdFusion on Aaron West's technology blog

ColdFusion Builder 2 Tour in Nashville

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 09:05:00 -0500

Tomorrow evening (April 21) the Nashville ColdFusion User Group and Dave Ramsey / The Lampo Group are sponsoring a stop on the Adobe ColdFusion Builder 2 tour. If you are in Nashville tomorrow you should head to the Brentwood area to hear Greg Wilson talk about CF Builder 2, ColdFusion, and Flex on mobile including iPad/iPhone.

Food and drink will be provided and prizes will be awarded to some who RSVP. Hit up the NCFUG site to submit your RSVP and get the full meeting details.

How to Position the Cursor in the Middle of a ColdFusion Builder Snippet

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 09:00:00 -0500

Earlier this week I was trying to create a new ColdFusion Builder snippet that would insert the current date and time along with my initials into an open template. After inserting the snippet I wanted my cursor to be positioned in the middle of the comment so I could immediately begin writing some notes.

I thought this was done by using the start text and end text fields in the Snippet dialog but no matter what I tried it wouldn’t work. ColdFusion Builder, or perhaps Eclipse itself, kept trimming line breaks from both the start text and end text. After a few minutes of frustration I decided to edit the snippet manually.

Products That Make This Site Possible

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 08:02:00 -0600

For the past few months I’ve been planning on writing a post about the services that make this site possible. I’ve read these sorts of posts on other sites and they seem very marketing heavy. They’re often titled “sponsor post” or something equivalent. This post is different. I’m genuinely a fan (and customer) of all of these services and in most cases I pay for them monthly. After the break I discuss each service/app I rely on to power this site. I put each service within category blocks such as: the server, the app, backups, uptime, etc.

I'm Hiring a Software Engineer

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 11:26:00 -0600

For those reading this that do not know, I’m the CTO of Nashville-based startup Dataium, LLC. Dataium is the largest aggregator of Internet automotive shopping activity, and we’re looking to hire a software engineer. We’re specifically looking for someone with skills in several different technologies such as Java, Apache Hadoop, Adobe Flex/ActionScript 3, ColdFusion, and MySQL.

If you’re interested in learning more, the full job description is included after the break.

Super Guide: Installing ColdFusion 9 on CentOS Linux

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 08:14:00 -0500

This post is a followup to my previous guide to installing ColdFusion 9 on Ubuntu. While that post was all about the specifics to getting ColdFusion up and running on Ubuntu, this post is all about CentOS. The overall process is the same and I’m covering all the same steps, but the commands in this post are specific to the CentOS operating system. So why I’m writing this?

Overall, installing ColdFusion isn’t that big of a deal. But I’ve yet to see a guide or blog post that outlines all the other topics related to getting a decent ColdFusion server on CentOS up and running. That’s why I wrote this super guide, to outline what I believe is important to know about installing ColdFusion. Of course, I’m not covering every single possible detail, but I believe I’ve hit on all the major topics. Along the way I sprinkle in my own ideas, thoughts, and what I believe are best practices. After you read this post and walk through all the instructions you should have a very solid ColdFusion / Apache set up on CentOS Linux.

Super Guide: Installing ColdFusion 9 on Ubuntu Linux

Mon, 24 Jan 2011 08:50:00 -0500

As I was finishing this guide on installing ColdFusion 9 on Ubuntu Linux I tweeted how many words made up the text (over 6,000). Several people commented on Twitter and Facebook saying things like: “[the length] seems a bit excessive,” and “is it that complicated?” The thing is, I’m covering much more than simply installing ColdFusion. Overall, just installing ColdFusion isn’t that big of a deal. But I’ve yet to see a guide or blog post that outlines all the other topics related to getting a decent ColdFusion server on Ubuntu up and running. That’s why I wrote this super guide, to outline what I believe is important to know about installing ColdFusion. Of course, I’m not covering every single possible detail, but I believe I’ve hit on all the major topics. Along the way I sprinkle in my own ideas, thoughts, and what I believe are best practices. After you read this post and walk through all the instructions you should have a very solid ColdFusion / Apache set up on Ubuntu Linux.

Blocking ColdFusion Administrator in Apache

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 09:00:00 -0500

Web application security is a difficult topic and can’t be covered completely in a single blog post. After the break I discuss one quick way to block ColdFusion Administrator requests in Apache. I also list other resources that will help you understand ColdFusion security and how to apply practical security constructs on your ColdFusion servers.

As a ColdFusion developer or administrator you should always protect your server by locking out requests to the ColdFusion Administrator. Having a Web-based admin panel for ColdFusion is fantastic but if an unauthorized user were to gain access to it they could cause serious harm to your application, your customers, and your business. Privatizing access to the ColdFusion Administrator should be high on your priority list.

My Blog is Now Hosted at Linode

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:00:00 -0500

Last week I accomplished something I had been thinking about for at least a year, moving this blog to my own server. I had been hosting this site with a popular shared hosting provider for nearly four years and had not been happy for a long time. Picking a shared hosting provider in 2005 had been a pretty easy thing to do. I wasn’t too comfortable with managing an entire Linux server so having others take care of it while I simply managed and wrote content was a good choice.