Note: This blog post is from 2010. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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.

Here's the next, related, myth:

True or False: "If/when I apply Cumulative Hotfixes, I need apply only the latest CHF, right?"

For instance, let's say you're currently running CF 9 update 1 or CF 8.0.1 and discover (perhaps due to my last blog entry) that you had never applied any of their associated CHFs. It would seem you should just be able to apply the latest CHF and not bother with anything related to the previous ones, right?

Answer: Well, yes and no.

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

Note: This blog post is from 2010. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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.

First myth up for consideration:

True or false: "If/when I download CF to install it from scratch, the installer has all the latest fixes (updaters, at least)"

Answer: False (generally). For instance, if you download CF9 today (Dec 2010), you still get CF 9.0, released originally in Oct 2009. You don't get the latest updater (9.0.1 as of this writing, released July 2010), though its existence is at least mentioned on the page, nor of course does it then include any hotfixes or cumulative hotfixes.

Why not, you may wonder? I'll explain more in a moment, along with more about hotfixes and updaters as concepts (and where to find them specifically, for each CF release).

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

Note: This blog post is from 2010. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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.

Yes, you CAN modify the debugging output. Some have even done it for you

Fortunately, several people have offered various resources that explain how to work with this file and offer packaged alternatives with specific features to resolve particular problems (where people wish the debugging output did more, or could be seen differently than at the bottom of the page).

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

Note: This blog post is from 2009. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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.

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

Note: This blog post is from 2009. 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 think, "what's new about that?" Well, nothing. I've just had people ask for more beginner/intermediate and more admin-related talks. This seemed to fit the bill for both. Here's the (detailed) description (to make sure the right audience shows up).

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

Note: This blog post is from 2009. 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.

Enabling multiple user access to the ColdFusion Administrator and RDS

If you're using CF 8 Enterprise or Developer edition, you should at least be aware of this feature. Even if it doesn't sound like something you'd need or want to use, check out at least the introductory section.

Besides explaining the features, and showing how to set them up and use them for practical solutions. It also addresses many gotchas and cautions to note, some of which may be surprises.

It shows using the multi-user admin feature for spreading out who can work on different parts of the admin (and shows enabling it even only for access to the CF 8 Server Monitor.)

And for the multi-user RDS feature, it shows leveraging it specifically within Eclipse and Dreamweaver (and points to resources for more on each and on using it with HomeSite+/CF Studio.)

I welcome comments or questions about the article here.

PS If you want to comment asking why one would use RDS due to security concerns, please read the article first. This addresses one significant concern and also points readers to additional resources to consider other concerns.

Note: This blog post is from 2008. 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.

Old News, coming to fruition next month: Sun EOL of J2SE 1.4. Adobe's response

Sun has previously announced (in 2006) that J2SE 1.4 (the JVM that happens to underlie CF 6 and 7) would reach end of life in October 2008.

Well that's next month, and Adobe has offered a technote to explain how this affects CFers on 6 and 7 (they don't mention 6, as it's no longer formally supported).

• Adobe will continue to provide support for configurations requiring this version of the J2SE on a best-effort basis
• Folks can of course upgrade to CF8, which runs on Java 1.6 (and supports 1.5)
• FWIW,folks running JRun can also upgrade to later versions of it that support later versions of the J2SE

All that's good news, really, so nothing to get excited about.

Java SE for Business

Sun themselves have also addressed the problem by releasing something called Java SE for Business, which extends the life considerably (up to 15 years), which an organization can license. Adobe has said in the technote that they will be supporting that as well.

So the sky is not falling

All this means that if you hear anyone start some rumor that the EOL of Java 1.4 spells some doom for CF 6 or 7, nip it in the bug. Point them at this technote.

As further testament to why this is not a significant issue, Adobe also makes note there that "Servers running ColdFusion MX 6.x with J2SE 1.3.1 or JRun 4 with J2SE 1.3.1 have historically run without problems long after Sun Microsystems had End of Lifed that J2SE version."

More questions

But ask your questions, and perhaps another reader (or later, I) will have an answer.

PS I'll grant too that maybe this isn't new information (the Adobe response, and this technote). I only caught it today because I get the feed (as I discussed previously) of new/updated technotes. The technote says it was updated yesterday. They don't say when they're created, so it's possible the technote came out in the past. I just don't recall seeing it. (I wish they would put dates on them for this reason.)

Note: This blog post is from 2008. 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.

While tooling through the ColdFusion technotes, I came across this interesting one: Purpose and location of XML configuration files used in ColdFusion MX. While it's not especially new, it shows having been updated in 2008, and the info offered seems to apply to CF8 just as readily as CF 6 and 7.

It also happens to point to a document with brief descriptions of the JRun XML files as well.

Note: This blog post is from 2008. 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.

• CF Technotes and Hotfixes:A feed of recent ColdFusion tech notes and hot fixes is offered here:

  http://rss.adobe.com/www/support/recent/recent_cf.xml

  There is also a top issues feed. (FWIW, the recent_cf.xml page seems identical to the info offered via this URL.)

• DevCenter CF articles: A feed of recent ColdFusion Dev Center articles is offered here:

  http://feeds.feedburner.com/developer_center_coldfusion_tutorials

• CF Security Bulletins: While you can't get a feed of recent ColdFusion security bulletins, you can at least sign up to receive notification of new bulletins by email. Just note that the email will be for all Adobe products which have bulletins, not just for CF.

Don't have an RSS feed reader? Get them by email

If you don't have an RSS feed reader, or you simply prefer to receive such things by email, you can. Check out the various RSS-to-Email tools (all free) which I list in my category, "RSS to Email Tools", in my list of over 100 tools and resources for CFers.

Adobe Feeds for Other Products

If you're interested, you can find many other feeds across all Adobe products at http://www.adobe.com/support/rss/.

Beware of older CF feeds

One last FYI: you may find reference on the web to the following old technote URLs, which do still work but have not been updated since CF 7, such as http://weblogs.macromedia.com/product_feeds/archives/coldfusion/index.rdf and this "ColdFusion news" feed.

Note: This blog post is from 2007. 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 two talks, both of which I've presented before (so well-practiced):

• Hidden Gems in CF 8
• Introduction to the CF Administrator

After that, of course, we'll enjoy the rest of the week at Max, and I'll hope to see you there! :-)