ColdFusion Muse

Testing 800 by 600 Resulution Using a Browser Bookmark

While I buy the axiom that "size isn't everything" in spite of how my spam is constantly nagging me about it, I must say I do like having a really big display for programming. I like being able to see the maximum amount of code in a single window. Sue me. My current display is a lovely 19 inch wide screen set to 1440 X 900 resolution. Please don't send me notes about how yours is bigger. I'm satisfied with mine thank you. Meanwhile, one of the annoyances is testing your web pages for 800x600 when required. I got this neat tip from Andy Matthews from icglink.com.

Print Spooler Errors on Disabled Print Spooler (windows 2000)

One of the things you do to fine tune the performance of a server is to turn off unnecessary services. This frees up resources for your primary application. Unless the server in question is a print server you should turn off the print spooler service. On a windows 2000 server this sometimes results in annoying "printer not found" type errors in your windows event viewer. To get rid of them, use the following steps:

• Start the print spooler service if it is not already running.
• Go to Start-Programs-settings-printers.
• Choose File-Server Properties from the menu.
• Click on the "advanced" tab and "de-select" all the checkboxes listed there.

Thinking Inside the Box

Every parent has had an experience like the following. When my daughter was two and a half I bought her a toy for Christmas. I don't even remember the toy - but it was a brainy toy designed to stimulate her growing little mind. Since our child was brilliant (see jasminekruger.com for proof) we knew she would take to it right away. It was expensive, but we only wanted the best for our daughter. The Toy was big. I'm not sure how big. I only know the box was big enough for her to fit inside. Christmas morning Finally arrived....


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Number Formatting in Coldfusion - a look "Under the Hood"

Formatting numbers is a pain. It would be great if our little human pea brains could read a number without commas in it to group the hundreds (or periods for my European readers). Sadly, we find ourselves unable to cope without the commas, so a good deal of display code regarding numbers is written to simply output them in the correct format. Most CF programmers use numberFormat( ) or decimalFormat( ) to control the output. Decimal format seems handy because it doesn't require a mask and produces the typical format you would expect. The 2 functions are quite different however and it may cause some perplexity when you are working with large numbers. Let me explain.

Note: Examples provided by Russ "Snake" Michaels from the CFGURU list :)

Cfdocument and Performance

Cfdocument is a new weapon in the Coldfusion arsenal. It's not without it's detractors, but personally I think it is splendid for what it can do. When it comes to performance, however, there are a number of things to keep in mind. If you think about what Cfdocument is being tasked to do under the hood and I'm sure you could come up with a few as well. Since it is my blog, we might as well work from my list...

Crashing Your Server in an Infinite Number of Steps

Infinite loops are great fun. Technically an infinite loop is one with no hope of ever stopping. In the old days(1995) I worked for an outfit with a database product for salvage yards. The whole thing was written in MUMPS and everything was done through a terminal. The first program I ever wrote myself was a "spinner" program. It ran on the terminal and produced the following characters 1/2 second apart - "/,|,-,\,|" the result was a little spinning widget on the terminal. I added some text that said "rebuilding dataset, please wait". Whenever we were working on something and needed a way to keep folks from hassling us with new issues we would put it up on the screen. It looked like it was really doing something. With an http request it's a different story however...

Vendor Lock and the Devil

Reoccurring Revenue is the Holy Grail of development. Every development shop wants to find those customers who produce work for them (and hence revenue) time and again. These so called "maintenance" customers or "ongoing development" customers go by another less flattering name - the "cash cow". You can look a bit further into the future if you have customers who will regularly provide you with projects or maintenance level work. Developing a pool of these customers is an excellent way to grow your business. In fact, some applications that you build for customers are so complex they engender a form of vendor lock.

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Function for Handling Email Injection Attacks

Many of my readers have been following a posting made some time ago on email injection attacks and Coldfusion. I noticed a recent function called trimFalseEmailHeaders posted on CFLib by Tony Brander. The purpose of the function is to strip out possible injection attacks from the email body. The general consensus is that scrubbing input parameters is the best way to handle this problem.

It's never been proven to me (however) that any version of CF is actually vulnerable to injection attacks - since CF handles the creation of the spool file through the cfmail tag. If it is vulnerable I have a feeling it would be earlier versions. CFMX adds a "BODY" string to each line of the spool file, making it difficult to control line content in a way that would line up a header correctly. The biggest problem with injection is the announce of receiving 3 or 4 bogus "contact us" submissions.