[Looking for Charlie's main web site?]

How to disable the Asus NumberPad, embedded within touchpad on some modern laptops

Note: This blog post is from 2020. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
Do you have a modern Asus laptop with the NumberPad (orNumPad) feature (a virtual numeric keypad embedded within the touchpad)? You may know there's a button to enable/disable it on demand, but do you find find it coming on when you brush that by mistake?

Are you annoyed by that behavior, and all the more that you can't find how to "permanently" disable it? In this post, I discuss ways to try to do it, including the one solution that finally worked best for me.

To be clear, there are indeed various "solutions". First, I had found some proposed online (which did not work for me), so I created this post to share what I found an initial solution that did work. But over time even that did not work PERMANENTLY. But great news is that many folks following along here (since the original posting of this in Dec 2020) had offered ideas which worked for them. (Again, some proved to be more "permanent" than others.)

So I have revised this post (in Sept 2022) to now highlight right at the top here a list of the most successful few of the various solutions, ending with the one that seems to have worked best. Folks "just wanting a solution" should try that.

[....Continue Reading....]

Hotfix released for CF2021 date-mask compatibility issue

Note: This blog post is from 2020. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
Good news to share: if you're concerned about being impacted by a pressing compatibility issue in ColdFusion 2021 (regarding using "D" in a dateformat mask), Adobe released a fix for the problem last week. There are 3 simple steps to implementing that fix, one of which is a JVM arg change to that YOU MUST MAKE--even with the "fix" in place--if you want to revert the behavior.

Or you can change your CFML code to get around the problem, as I also discuss below.

[Update: As of Mar 2021, Adobe now offers this "hotfix" as of CF2021 Update 1. You still need to add the JVM arg discussed, if you want to do that:

-Dcoldfusion.datemask.useDasdayofmonth=true

Again, while no longer need to obtain and implement the hotfix jar file itself, the update does NOT change the DEFAULT behavior, which is why that JVM arg is still necessary. The rest of the information below applies.]

Read on for additional details.

[....Continue Reading....]

Breaking change in CF2021, new date format mask of D may be serious problem for old code

Note: This blog post is from 2020. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
Wow. Beware of this subtle breaking change in CF2021, something discovered since its release (was not documented as one of the "new" things, nor was it documented at all in the beta). It can be a devastating problem that might lurk for days or weeks, corrupting your data.

In this post, I discuss the problem, as well as two solutions you can choose between: a) finding and changing the incompatible code, or (new since Dec 2020) b) implementing a new JVM arg that Adobe offered to revert this behavior back to how things worked before CF2021. You must do one or the other of these things, if you are affected by this issue. The update does not REVERT the behavior.

[....Continue Reading....]

Be aware that updates to ColdFusion 2016 will end Feb 2021

Note: This blog post is from 2020. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
Are you still running ColdFusion 2016? Did you know that its "core" support (meaning, public updates from Adobe) will end in just a couple of months, Feb 21 2021? Same for CFBuilder 2016.

The recent release of CF2021 is a great sign for the continued vitality of CF, but this looming deadline is a reminder that as the years roll on, we not only get new versions but we say good-bye to old ones.

Wondering what you can do? or when CF2018 or CF2021 support ends? And what's the difference between "core" and paid Adobe support plans? For more on these, as well as official Adobe documentation that discusses such things, read on.

[Update: CF2016 users got a "reprieve" of sorts, when Adobe released updates to CF2021 and 2018 in March 2021, and they also offered the final update to CF2016, update 17, especially because it address a security vulnerability. Sadly, some of the changes in the update--not related to the security fix--were "breaking" changes. For more on that update, see the Adobe blog post from March 2021.)

[....Continue Reading....]

The many new and improved features in CF2021

Note: This blog post is from 2020. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
You may have heard that the newest version of CF has been released, ColdFusion 2021. If you've not yet taken a look at what's new, you may be very surprised to find how much there is: from substantial support for several cloud services, to significant changes in CF installation/configuration/deployment, to dozens of new language features, as well as single sign on/SAML support, new kinds of databases supported, several enhancements to the PMT, cf admin-related changes, and more.

As with each CF release, there are features great and small--ones that may "sell" it, and ones that may simply make your life easier.

This is a follow-up to my post from last month, Getting started with "Project Stratus" public beta, aka CF2021. In that I highlighted some key info one would need to get started USING the prerelease, which came out in August, but I only briefly mentioned then some of the key new features. (I also explained why I had referred even then to it being CF2021, given info I'd found in the prerelease.)

In this post, I want to highlight more clearly what those new features are, nearly 60 of them in several categories!--just with a brief mention of the feature and perhaps its sub-features--and most important with a pointer to where to find them discussed in far more detail.

[....Continue Reading....]

New updates released for Java 8 and 11, Oct 2020

Note: This blog post is from 2020. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
For those using the Long-term support (LTS) versions of Oracle Java, 8 and 11, please note that there were new updates released last week (Oct 20), specifically Java 11.0.9 and 8.0_271. For more on each, see the:

For some, that's all they need to hear.

And I could (and probably should) leave it at that. But there are other questions which folks will have, including more on getting those binaries/installers (from Oracle or Adobe), on the difference between those LTS versions and "more recent" Java versions, as well as non-Oracle JVMs, and on licensing matters and more. For those, read on. Perhaps I will split this other stuff out into its own post at some point, so I can just point to it from news of these Java updates.

[....Continue Reading....]

Come see my webinar at 2p ET today, "Differences Between CF Enterprise and Standard", via carahsoft

Note: This blog post is from 2020. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
I'll be presenting my talk, "Differences Between ColdFusion Enterprise and Standard: More than you may think" online today (Oct 21, 2020) at 2pm Eastern. Just thought I'd share a heads-up here about that, which is being offered via Carahsoft's Adobe webinar series.

Sorry that I didn't post this sooner. (I'm just not great at promoting my talks: I forgot to mention here when I gave the talk on the online CFMeetup back in Sept--and this one today will be a slightly updated version.)

Anyone can register to attend the session, and I hope you will. You may be surprised to learn a few things.

Here's the description as offered on that Carahsoft site (and see below that on how "I am not Carahsoft"):

[....Continue Reading....]

Getting started with "Project Stratus" public beta, aka CF2021

Note: This blog post is from 2020. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
Did you know that the public beta for CF2020 (or "CF2021", as I think the name will be) is now open, since August 2020? It's formally known by its code-name, "Project Stratus", or as some call it, "CF Next".

What matters most is that it's one of the boldest new versions of CF in quite some time. In this post, I want to share some tips about getting started with the beta, as I have seen many in the community left wondering about some things.

My focus here is not on "what's new" (I'll offer a brief list here, and more in a later post), but really just "how to get started", especially during the beta (or "prerelease") as some things are not as obvious as they perhaps should be. In fact, I make some pointed suggestions that I hope Adobe will consider, as well as share tips for you in the meantime.

In this post, I cover:

  • How easily anyone can join the public beta (Don't miss all that's on the prerelease front page)
  • Available documentation resources, don't miss them! (The 500-page (!) release notes, and separate system requirements and known issues docs)
  • Getting help with the prerelease, don't go it alone! (Filing bug reports, feature requests for the prerelease; asking for help and learning in the available prerelease forums)
  • The available installers and more
  • A taste of what's new (more to come in a later post)
  • About the use of the codename, Project Stratus

[....Continue Reading....]

It's looking like cf2020 will be cf2021, if I'm reading things right

Note: This blog post is from 2020. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
As much as many have been referring to the new release (known for now as "Project Stratus") as "CF2020", it's looking like it may be instead "CF2021", if I'm reading the tea leaves right. And maybe it's only the name, not the actual release year. Let me explain (Hey, the bright side is that "2020" as a year is one many want to forget.)

[....Continue Reading....]

Come see my online talk, "Migrating or Comparing CF Admin Settings", at noon ET on Aug 13

Note: This blog post is from 2020. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
Just thought I'd share a heads-up here on the blog that I'll be the speaker for the Online ColdFusion Meetup this week, Aug 13, at noon ET, presenting a new talk:

Migrating or Comparing CF Admin Settings, between instances, versions, and engines

You can learn more (including the description, the online meeting URL, where the recording will be posted, and more) at the meetup event page. FWIW, the session name had to be shortened a bit as presented on the meetup site there and even in the title here. :-)

As a bonus for you, my blog readers, I'll note that I'll be covering the CF migration and CAR features, the Commandbox CFConfig tool (which can be used for more than just "box" instances) and the CF2020 cfsetup tool (which has been shown publicly already), and more.

I'll also have a special surprise for people who "just want to compare the Admin settings of two instances without resorting to command-line tools, or hopping back and forth between browser tabs", using a free cross-platform GUI compare tool (and a simple trick in the CF Admin) which has delighted nearly everyone I've ever shown it to. And the tool can benefit you for far more than this one task. :-)

More Entries

Copyright ©2024 Charlie Arehart
Carehart Logo
BlogCFC was created by Raymond Camden. This blog is running version 5.005.
(Want to validate the html in this page?)

Managed Hosting Services provided by
Managed Dedicated Hosting