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 Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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.

Well now you can, if you have FusionReactor, by way of a simple 2-step process to configure CF to do this. You can learn more about it in this article Capturing ColdFusion's Debug Output in FusionReactor by Darren Pywell, CTO of Intergral (makers of FusionReactor).

In it, he explains what this is all about (a combination of using FR's API and the "markers" feature of the FR Request Detail page, in conjunction with CF's built-in feature to let you add and use new debugging templates). More important, he gives you all you need to know to set things up, from the simple snippet of code needed (downloadable) to a walkthrough of the simple steps needed to configure CF to hand the debugging output to FR. You can be up and running with this new capability in a matter of minutes (skip to the bottom for the "fast track" steps he offers, for proof.) Check it out.

But what about the performance impact?

And yes, he addresses briefly the performance and memory implications of using such a feature in production. You should certainly take care to ensure that doing this isn't causing any harm, especially if doing this in production. That said, I see lots of shops that leave debugging turned on and use the IP address limiting feature in the CF Admin, which many will argue is equally detrimental. I think a point to make is that the negative impact may be more "theoretical" to some than to others.

The bottom line, as he recommends, is that you should test such things before rolling them into production. Sadly, many shops can't or don't bother with testing (which is very unfortunate).

If you can't test the impact, measure it...with FusionReactor

At least then you should try to have some measure you can watch to see if processing is being in any way harmed, whether it's tracking fewer requests being processed per day, requests taking longer to run each time on average, more CPU being used by CF per day, and so on.

The very good news is that those who have FusionReactor can use FR's own tremendous logging to help report this kind of information. I talk about how to report against that using a tool like Microsoft's free Log Parser, in this page on the google group for FusionReactor.

I'll do a future blog entry on the tremendous logging that's possible. It far exceeds anything provided by any other tool, including the CF8 Server Monitor (which does no logging at all), and it does it with very low overhead.

So if you're using FusionReactor, check out the debug tool. It's very easy to enable and disable (via the CF admin, once you've added the new debugging template). It's also a useful demonstration of the FRAPI.

And if you don't have FusionReactor, check that out, too. I use it or help people use it every day to solve CF problems. It's much more than "just a monitor". For more info, see the site's many resources (brief feature highlights, docs, online help, a live demo, mailing list, and more). See also some of the other entries I've done here on FusionReactor.

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.

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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.

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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.

• Working with tempdb in SQL Server 2005 - a 21-page Microsoft TechNet article, with lots of info on understanding, configuring, maintaining, and troubleshooting problems with tempdb. While written for SQL Server 2005, it could be useful for those on 2000 or 2008 as well. (Should that link ever fail, here's another.)
• Troubleshooting Insufficient Disk Space in tempdb
• For more on how its usage has increased for SQL Server 2005, see Capacity Planning for tempdb
• Finally, for more on managing its growth, see Optimizing tempdb Performanc

You may want to check out several other equally useful TechNet articles on SQL Server (like the first one above, but available on a wide range of issues).

Hope that's helpful to someone.

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.

Well, the fix is a pretty simple one, but one may miss it. In case any of my readers (or those googling for a solution) need the help, it's that you can right-click on the area where the menu should be (not on a tab, nor in the address bar above it) and you should see a pop-up set of context menu options to include "menu bar", "links", and "status" among other things.

You want to enable the "menu bar"

You'll notice that the "menu bar" option has no check mark next to it. Click on it, to set it, which will enable the menus. The "menu bar" is indeed what shows the File, Edit, View, and other menu commands. Hope that solves the problem for you, and if so, consider it my little Christmas gift to you.

If that option is already checked, then it may instead be that somehow hidden or moved. One tip is that there is also a "lock toolbars" option on the context menu mentioned above. If you de-select that, some of the various menu items will now show a small gray dotted vertical bar, which you can click on to move the particular toolbar. You may find somehow that the menu bar, if enabled but not visible, has somehow been moved or hidden.

Finally, once you have enabled the menu bar, you can use that "lock toolbars" to make it less likely that you or anyone else will cause it to disappear. Hope that helps.

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.

Sure, there are many DB monitoring tools out there, but Ignite focuses on tracking, analyzing, reporting, and explaining wait events within the database--and you'd be amazed how often waits caused by your code, that of others, or from other operations in the DB are the explanation for poor performance. It can help target exactly what SQL statement or other operation is a cause of significant waits.

The tool presents the data aggregated over time, so you can view it per hour, day, week, etc. Great for both drilling down to find hot spots, and for viewing how coding/config improvements (resulting from your responding to the analyses) have led to performance improvements over time.

The tool runs with low overhead: it reads data that the DB provides, storing it in a database and providing a web-based interface to view that data. The process to read the data and create the repository (and present the web-based interface) can (and should) be done on a server separate from the server being monitored.

Here's a nice 2-minute demo. There's also a free trial, of course, and it's pretty quick and easy to install and benefit from.

As I noted in the title, it works with SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, or Sybase (sorry, not MySQL. Don't know why). And while it's a commercial product, it's not a ridiculously high price (as for some tools). I just learned of it in the past few weeks, and one customer of mine who tried it has been just thrilled with the results. I hope to write more about it later, but wanted to at least get this info out for folks to consider.

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.

Turns out it's pretty simple: just turn off wrapping (Format>Word Wrap). Doh! I've missed it for years, so am passing it along.

I know some will want to jump in and say "why are you using NotePad anyway?" Please save the smart remarks (and let's see if someone skips reading this and comments anyway).

I'm well aware of the many alternative text editors, as well as alternative file viewers (two of over 100 categories in my CF411 list).

But there are times when one may find themselves working on a Windows server where perhaps they're not free to install an alternative editor, or perhaps they just need to view/edit one file quickly so don't want to bother.

For those folks, I hope the tip above may help.

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.

But to be clear, there have been many improvements made to it in each release/point release and CHFs since then (whether bug fixes, minor improvements, or even some modest ones).

For those interested, just search for "report" in the following documents (to find references to cfreport and report builder):

• 7.01 release notes
• 7.02 release notes
• 7.02 CHF 1-3 release notes
• 8 release notes
• 8.01 release notes
• 8.01 CHF 1-3 release notes

I do realize that many may think there's still plenty more to be updated, but at least it shows it's not really been "little to no attention". :-)

Not picking a fight with anyone. I really think most just haven't noticed, so thought this may be helpful.

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.

Since writing this blog entry in 2008, Adobe has now opened up access to bug tracking for both CF and CFBuilder. So rather than use the old "wish form" below (which still works but does not give you a tracking number), use instead:

CF Bug Tracker (or also at adobe.com/go/cf_bugs)

Besides giving you a tracking number, you can also search these bug bases, as well as vote and comment on bugs offered by others. Finally, if Adobe addresses your bug, you'll be notified by email of that.

Many may know that Adobe has long offered a Feature Request/Bug Report Form form (which came really from Macromedia, and perhaps even Allaire), but for those who don't, I wanted to mention it here, for a couple of reasons.

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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.

Check out the substantial table of contents on each of the following free Webucator tutorials (Update: I updated these URLs in 2019, at request of webucator, as the URLs had changed):

• ColdFusion Tutorial
• Javascript Tutorial
• JQUery Tutorial
• CSS Tutorial
• HTML Tutorial
• SQL Tutorial
• Java Tutorial
• MySQL Tutorial (though the webucator site no longer offers the MySQL tutorials, here is a link to the archive.org version of it from 2011)

The CF tutorial, for instance, has 14 chapters, each with several subtopics, and they range from basics to intermediate concepts. (It does not seem to have been updated for CF 8, but does reference some CF7 topics, like Application.cfc.) For many, it's seems it would be a great resource.

Many other topics

But maybe you know all about the CF topics listed. Fair enough. There are several other similarly substantial topics, listed on the left of each page, after the table of contents for each class. Besides the CF, Ajax, Javascript, CSS, HTML, SQL, Java, and MySQL topics mentioned above, they include PHP, XML, XSLT, web accessibility, and more.

Do note that each class has several sections/pages

While each course is quite complete and has many sections, one bummer is that if one is not paying attention and gets to the bottom of each section/page, they may think that's the end. There's no link there to the next page/section. Instead, you have to notice that offered on the left nav bar back near the top of the page. Just a minor quibble for otherwise free training.

Check them out for yourself

All that said, I haven't actually read through any of them in detail. Still, they're from a training company (which teaches full-length classes on the same topics), and I'm confident that they've worked hard to make the materials accurate. One might wish they offered a place for clear feedback/comments, in case readers might be able to help improve things, but it's their call if they want to manage that sort of effort, of course.

The only real negative (some may feel) is that the "solutions" to various exercises are not offered online. Instead, the link for them indicates that the class materials can be licensed. Of course, the free online courseware is clearly a loss-leader, a promotional effort to bring you to their site to learn more about their many training offers.

Seems a fair trade to me.