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 Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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

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.

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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.

Check out the JDBC Wrapper Tool. For now it's technically a "community contributed" tool (not in labs, and not from Intergral as a formal product). But it was written by an Intergral employee, Dave Stockton, and the company is very interested in your feedback about it. (Intergral is the company behind FusionReactor and FusionDebug.)

Check out the page for the download, docs, screenshots, a change log, tested databases and CFML server configirations, and more. (And note that it's not just for CF, but is intended to work with others. Railo support is listed coming soon **that's an update from the original post, where I said Railo support was there**.) If you can try it on other DBMSs and CFML servers, they'd welcome that input.

For those who have needed to monitor/wrap datasources, especially many, or on many servers, this is a real gem. Whether you are or not using a supported server, it's worth a few minutes of your time to check things out. I've used it, and it worked great.

For those not sure what this datasource monitoring/wrapping is all about, check out an entry I wrote earlier this year, What is the FusionReactor datasource monitoring feature? Why would I use it? Powerful stuff!. Both that and the docs I link to will give you more info. The datasource monitoring really is really a great tool for troubleshooting and trend analysis.

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.

Two Official Max talks:

• ColdFusion 8: Best-Kept Secrets, Tues 9-10a
• Using Apache Derby, the Open Source Database Embedded in ColdFusion 8, Tues 4:30-5:30p

Two Unconference talks:

• CFMythBusters: Countering Some Conventional Wisdom, Mon 12-1p
• CF911: Tools and Techniques for Troubleshooting, Tues 2-3p

Two Unconference Panels

• Troubleshooting Workshop, Mon 3-4p
• The Uber Panel, Wed 10:30-11:30a

I also may be giving a talk to an internal Universal Mind mini-conference going on the Saturday before the conference, held for all UM consultants (employees and contractors, like myself. I occasionally do consulting for them.)

So busy week, and that's before attending any sessions, BOFs, and so on! See you there. :-)

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.

One problem: CF not responding

Someone asked for help on one of the Adobe forums, with a problem about users reporting that the server was not responding for extended periods.

After checking the logs (CF, Windows event, and IIS logs) and not "seeing anything to indicate errors", he wondered if somehow "you can set site availability windows".

I replied to him that, no, there are no features to set "windows of availability" for CF. So either CF was up and responding, or it wasn't. Even if it was, it may also be that his problem was with IIS. There are a few things that he could check....

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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.

It's understandable, since Breeze was renamed to Connect a long time ago, but the bummer is that so many folks have for so long pointed to such recordings, and now they will all break. I've changed all the UGTV entries.

Here is a table of the old URLS and new ones that I've found to work for each. It's not always quite as obvious as it may seem:

Of course, I'm sure there are many other URLS out there using breezecentral.com. I'm only listing those that were in my UGTV database, that I tested and changed.

So for example, Doug Smith had noted that this entry from a 2006 talk by Sean Corfield, on "Objects and Persistence" failed (with domain not found):

http://adobechats.adobe.breezecentral.com/p31075720/

The correct new URL is:

http://adobechats.adobe.acrobat.com/p31075720/

So I've taken care of the UGTV entries. If you have your own listing of such URLs, I hope you'll take note of all this and make the changes for yourself and your readers.

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.

There's a useful MS document, Error logging in HTTP API, with more about the HTTPERR logs, including their location, format, and info on the kinds of errors reported within them. Hope that's helpful to my readers.

Here's another (more brief) introduction to the files: in the technical reference section of the IIS 6 docs.