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What's the situation with ColdFusion and Java 7, Java 6 updates, Windows 8, and OS X Mountain Lion?

Note: This blog post is from 2012. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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 see the above questions all the time on lists, forums, twitter, etc., and while I point out the following when I see them, I wanted to share them here as well, in case others have missed them or might find them by searching.

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How to identify what jvm.config a ColdFusion instance uses (and vice-versa)

Note: This blog post is from 2012. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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.
If you run ColdFusion in its Multiserver mode (multiple instances), you may know that you can configure things so that different instances use different jvm.config files, otherwise by default, all instances share just one. (If you didn't know how to change that, particularly if running CF as Windows Services, I'll offer some references explaining more.)

But have you ever wondered which jvm.config is used by a given instance? Or perhaps found multiple jvm.configs in your [jrun4]\bin directory and wondered which instance each went with? The answer isn't as straightforward as it may seem, when you're running CF as Windows Services. There's no single CF feature that reports this, but I do offer a solution here.

The simple answer is that one can find the information in the registry. The longer answer, including how to find that, as well as how to get that info more easily from the command line if you may prefer, follows.

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Getting ColdFusion 8/9 downloads (with Verity): ways that may work even after today

Note: This blog post is from 2012. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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.

By now most in the CF world (who are connected to community news, at least) should have heard that today is the last day Adobe will be offering a release of CF 9 including Verity, and CF8 at all. I offer here a little more news on that, but more important I offer how you can still find and get those downloads if you want them, even when no longer listed as links on the site. They're now no longer easy to find.

(And I have updated the entry as of Aug 3, 2012, and all below still applies, unless stricken out.)

First, as for what's changing, it's that Adobe has to "pull from the shelves" any releases of CF that include Verity. But while many have been asserting that CF9 was going away, that's not true. And even CF8 can be obtained formally under certain conditions.

But I also offer here some ways you may be able to get these files even if Adobe no longer offers links to them.

But let's tackle a few points of common misinformation this week.

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Could CF image processing be killing your ColdFusion server? Explanation and solutions.

Note: This blog post is from 2012. 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 having slow ColdFusion pages and wondering what may be the cause? There can of course be many root causes, but a common one that I'm finding lately as I help people is due to using certain of CF's image processing features, especially resizing such as to create thumbnails after a file is uploaded (or when many files are uploaded).

Such folks may be using the CFIMAGE action="resize" tag, or the imageResize() or ImageScaleToFit() functions to do resizing. (Or they may be also processing images using ImageRotate, ImageShear, or ImageTranslate, though the defaults for those are not problematic like the resize/scale tag/function processing).

The "problem" (if this is the cause of a slow page) is due to a default "interpolation" setting for CFIMAGE resizing, imageResize, and ImageScaletoFit. The default may not perform well at all. The good news is that the value is configurable, and you can test to compare quality/performance of difference values, as will explained below. There are still some other things to consider also. (If you're currently using CFIMAGE to do resizing, jump to the last section of this entry to see an example of code switching from the "slow" approach to the faster one. But really, you ought to read the rest of this entry to understand what's being proposed.)

While I offer all the info here for your consideration, if you need help implementing the solution, or better understanding how to find and resolve these or other problems affecting your CF server performance, see more on my CF server troubleshooting consulting services.

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CF911: Looking for info on handling IIS 7 integration in CF9 Updater 1? Not in the docs

Note: This blog post is from 2011. 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 looking for info on the change in handling of IIS 7 integration as of CF9 Updater 1? Sadly, it's not in the primary docs you may think to look at. There's also another gotcha that I will explain in a follow-up entry.

What's changed about IIS 7 support in 9.01?

Some folks will know that ColdFusion 9 Updater 1 (9.0.1) has finally added full support for IIS 7, without need to rely upon enabling IIS 6 Compatibility (which IS still required for CF 9.0, 8.0, and 8.0.1). This is indeed great news, whether you're running on Vista, Windows 7, or Windows Server 2008, which all have IIS 7 by default, and for which you can enable IIS 6 Compatibility mode, but it's not on by default and not always straightforward to enable.

So bottom line, if you're on 9.0.1, you no longer need to go through the hoops described in the CF9 Admin/Install docs (nor in helpful blog entries like here and here, though those are still great for those running on CF 9.0 and 8, and may even offer tips of value to anyone setting up CF to run on IIS, which has other challenges on Server 2008.)

Gotcha 1: The IIS 7 Compatibility change is NOT documented where expected

Sadly, though, if you go looking for help on this in the CF docs, such as Chapter 6 of the manual, Installing ColdFusion 9, you will find that it has NOT been updated with the info that is new in the updater.

It opens, "If you are configuring IIS 7 ... ensure that you have the options IIS Metabase and IIS 6 configuration compatibility ... and ISAPI Extensions ... selected".

What a shame.

Solution 1: Where the change IS documented

So with respect to change in 9.0.1, where you no longer need to enable IIS 6 compatibility, the details are covered instead in the installation guide that was created just for installing CF9 updater 1 itself, called "Installing the Coldfusion 9 Update", available online at:

http://www.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/coldfusion/901/cf901install.pdf

It's certainly reasonable to expect that the primary install manual would have been updated with the info above.

But that's why I'm pointing this out. I have also added a comment explaining it on the page pointed to in the first link above. Hope that may help someone.

(The same info is also offered as a chapter in the manual, "ColdFusion 9 Updater 1: New Feature Notes", available at http://www.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/coldfusion/901/cf901features.pdf, which is of course very interesting if you may have missed it.)

I'll explain the second gotcha in a follow-up blog entry.

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

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.
This is the second post in my planned CFMyths series. In the first, I addressed the myth that "When I download CF to install it from scratch, it has the latest fixes/updaters".

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.

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CFMyths: "When I download CF to install it from scratch, it has the latest fixes/updaters"

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.
Today I'm starting a new series on CFMyths, some common misconceptions that I find myself often helping correct on lists/forums or with my troubleshooting customers.

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).

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CF911: Want to modify the CF Step Debugger's use of a random port?

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 a quick tip (and some elaboration): if you've noticed that the CF step debugger (in CF 8 or 9) causes CF to listen on a randomly changing port, you can change that behavior (assuming you have good reason to do so, such as perhaps some challenges with firewall configuration).

It's a simple JVM tweak to cause it to use a fixed port:

-DDEBUGGER_SERVER_PORT=portNumber

You can add this either in the "Java & JVM" page of the CF Admin (if in Standard or Enterprise Server), or on the java.args line in the jvm.config file (for any form of CF).

You do need to restart CF for this to take effect.

A few warnings are in order

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Coming review of "ColdFusion 9 Developer Tutorial" book by John Farrar, and a free chapter for you

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.
Today the publisher of John Farrar's new book, ColdFusion 9 Developer Tutorial offered to send me a review copy. I appreciate and look forward to that, as I've heard good things about it.

I'll post a review in coming weeks after I've had a chance to take a look.

Free Preview Chapter on ORM

In the meantime, they have also offered for free one of the chapters in the book so you can get a taste of the book's approach.

It's chapter 4, ORM Database Interaction, and as you'll see John leads you gently through this important new feature of CF9. Assuming you have no prior experience with ORM, he works in 20 pages from introducing the concepts, to quickly configuring and coding, to working with relationships, and more. You'll see he uses lots of screenshots and example code.

One editorial/review comment: I did notice that the preview chapter lists a last section to be on "custom configuration", which isn't ever found in the chapter. I brought this to John's attention and he apologized that it slipped through.

Having contributed to several books myself*, I know that can happen and I don't regard it as a big deal. It doesn't take away at all from the rest of the book.

Looking forward to the rest of the book

As for that rest of the book, and why you may want to consider it, the introduction indicates it "will teach you the basics of ColdFusion programming, basic application architecture, object reuse, and ORM concepts before showing you a range of topics including AJAX library integration, RESTful Web Services, Unit Testing, building custom tags, and his hybrid example of tags and objects COOP" ... "with real-world examples of the hows and whys, to get more done faster with ColdFusion 9" ...[and] "also covers the new features of ColdFusion Builder and additional version 9 updates".

I'm sure it will benefit many, and I'll look into all that when I get the review copy, and I'll be back to pass along my observations.

*I'm sure the publishers of my own books would think it appropriate at this point to mention those other books, which are also out recently and updated for CF9. They are the ColdFusion 9 Web Application Construction Kit, Volume 1 (Getting Started), Volume 2, Application Development, and Volume 3, Advanced Application Development.

The Ultimate Var Scope Resource list? Understanding/resolving problems with the var scope in CFML

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.
Do you know what the "var scope problem" is, and how pernicious it can be in causing very subtle bugs that can cause errors that are VERY hard to understand? I list here several resources to help you understand the issue. Some help plainly explain what the issue is, including even a live demo.

I also discuss below the key varscoper tool which you will want to use to help assess and indeed correct your own code.

(Update in 2022, 2019: while the many resources are indeed all quite old now, they all still apply, and most still exist. Where needed, I recovered them from the good ol' archive.org, an awesome resource for finding old content, as I've written about before.)

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