Note: This blog post is from 2006. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily.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.

Even if you don't know anything more about RSS than how to spell it, follow along. I'll share something that can help you leverage it from Email, to get your daily (or even hourly) dose of CF news delivered to your inbox. Finally, in the next and final part, I'll point out a couple ways to save you even that bother, with folks who have so kindly gathered up the latest news of the week.

The previous two entries were on the aggregators and browsing them.

While going to the sites to browse the latest news is one way to keep up, it's certainly not the most efficient. New entries are constantly being added, and all you need to do is go away for a few hours and there are several new entries. And what if you're gone for days?

Getting the RSS Feeds Instead

A still better solution to that problem is to get the posts delivered to you as they are discovered (added by the bloggers whose blogs are being aggregated). This is possible by using what's called the RSS feed (Really Simple Syndication). You don't need to understand much about them to take advantage of them. Indeed, I won't get into any detail here as others have covered the topic well.

Just know that it's an XML stream of data that's updates whenever a new entry is made, and some program can be set on your computer to watch that stream and take note of any such updates. RSS feeds are offered on both many blogs, and in fact it's the RSS feeds that these aggregators watch. Well, the aggregators themselves also offer RSS feeds of all the data they aggregate.

Recall in the first entry of this series, I shared with you the two URLs that you could use to keep en eye on the CFML-related entries that the aggregators detected.

Well, the corresponding URLs for the RSS feeds watching those entries at the two aggregators are, respectively: http://www.fullasagoog.com/xml/ColdFusionMX.xml

http://weblogs.macromedia.com/mxna/xml/rss.cfm?query=byCategory&languages=1&categoryId=1 If you're familiar with what to do with those URLs, take them and run with them. Otherwise, I'll explain in a moment how you can take advantage of them, even to get notified by email of the changes detected in the feeds.

Before that, though, let me point out that the MXNA feed URL can be generated for different characteristics, including particular languages (I've given the English one above) and even to watch the feed for a particular string. Visit the MXNA site to generate your own desired RSS feed URL.

Further, note that MXNA also offers a mechanism called "smart categories", which tries to be even more discerning about what gets delivered as related to a given category. The CFML feed for that would be: http://weblogs.macromedia.com/mxna/xml/rss.cfm?query=bySmartCategory&languages=1&smartCategoryId=1&smartCategoryKey=D0382F3A-9D2B-69E8-C7BC317066FA1CC2

I know how to spell RSS, but that's about it. I prefer Email

As helpful as an RSS feed is for those familiar with using RSS readers (or using email programs that know how to process them such as Firebird and Outlook 2007), what about those who don't use any of those yet? You can still get your constant drip of CFML goodness without having to visit the page every day or hour, and without having an RSS reader or email program that knows how to process such feeds.

On another blog of mine, I wrote about a couple of free services (Squeet, Feedblitz) that allow you to give them an RSS feed and they'll email you when new entries are posted to the feed. You can even control whether it's immediate or only a daily digest. Nifty. Learn more about that at my tipicalcharlie.com site (for generic, non-CF tips):

http://www.tipicalcharlie.com/blog_email_notification_by_squeet.htm ((Update: tipicalcharlie domain is no more, but page recovered using Archive.org.))

(Update: Sadly, squeet (a tool to send RSS feeds by email) is no more. But there are other alternatives, that I track in a category of my CF411 site: http://www.cf411.com/rss_email.)

And finally, for those who just can't keep up with a constant or even daily flow of the latest and greatest news, in my next entry I'll point out a couple of great resources that instead give you the news on a weekly basis.

Note: This blog post is from 2006. 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.

Of course, there are still better ways, including leveraging their RSS feeds, which I'll cover in the next entry. But for those who still prefer good ol' web pages, here are a couple tips that may help. These tips aren't unique to watching the aggregators, of course, and for some they may be old school. But I see plenty of folks who don't leverage them so it seemed worth mentioning.

We all know that having the URLs to the aggregator's CF category listings (as mentioned before) we can easily bookmark the pages to go visit whenever we want. But since these are pages that you may well want to visit frequently than most, you can take advantage of a couple of browser features to make them even more readily accessible.

Keeping an Eye on the Aggregators--by Quick Links

First, did you realize that both IE and Firefox have a unique toolbar-based list of favorites/bookmarks that you can see all the time? Many never bother to change them or pay attention. Here's how to use them in each browser.

In IE, when adding a favorite, you just want to put it in the special "Links" folder. Using the Favorites>Add to Favorites menu option, use the "create in" option to point to the "Links" folder. Then it will appear in the top IE toolbar area. Other things in there by default are "Windows Marketplace" and "Windows Media". You can remove them if you want, to make more room. If you don't see these links at all, make sure you've enabled View>Toolbars>Links. And if you can't see the entry/entries you just added, you may need to move the new entry around in the Links folder. Use Favorites>Organize Favorites, expanding the Links folder and moving the newly added entry up in the list of links.

In Firefox, there is a similar set of "toolbar bookmarks" that appear at the top of the screen. To add something to it, use Bookmarks>Bookmark This Page (or hit Ctrl-D) and then choose "create in" and point to "Bookmarks Toolbar". Other default items in there include "Customize Links" and "Free Hotmail". Again, if you don't see it at all, make sure that View>Toolbars>Bookmarks Toolbar is enabled. And as with IE, you may want to move the entries around in that list (or even delete some you'll never use), using Bookmarks>Manage Bookmarks and expanding the "Bookmarks Toolbar" folder to arrange things.

Keeping an Eye on the Aggregators--Making One of Them Your HomePage

One other trick to consider is that you think you just ALWAYS want to see one of the aggregator pages by default, you may know that you can set one of them up to be the "home page" for your browser. Then it appears each time you open the browser.

In IE, you do that with Tools>Internet Options>General>HomePage>Address and enter the desired URL.

In Firefox it's Tools>Options>General>Home Page>Location.

Honestly, I don't do it in either browser. For one thing, I want the browser to open as fast as possible and so just choose "use blank page" in both.

But better still, I keep my eye on the submissions using another approach, one that I'm sure many readers here know about and wonder why I'm not promoting. I will, in the next entry on leveraging the RSS feeds. If you don't know what that's about, I'll help you, even if you don't know what an RSS Reader is and don't want to install one! :-) That's coming up next.

Note: This blog post is from 2006. 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.

In this multi-part entry, I want to share some tips to make it easier to keep up on what's happening, from simplifying your reading all those blog posts, to keeping up on them as they change, to (better yet) obtaining summaries of the week's news put together by others to save you the bother.

In this first part, I'll introduce you to the two great CFML blog aggregators.

The Community Blog Aggregators: FullasAGoog and MXNA

So how do you find all the great CFML-oriented blogs out there? Am I going to list them for you? I don't need to. There are two primary "aggregators" of all blogs related to the greater Adobe (and previously MM) space, FullAsAGoog and the Adobe MXNA. These have for long been all you needed to keep an eye on to stay on top of what people are discussing in the blogosphere.

And any blogger who wants to reach the CF community has (or should) submit their site (their site's RSS feed) to the two aggregators. Then, whenever a blogger adds a new entry, it's automatically picked up (sometimes taking minutes or hours) by the aggregators, so people can just keep an eye on one of them to see what's news.

The 'goog existed first, but naturally Adobe's has attracted its own audience. Both have a submission/acceptance process (and indeed MXNA is more than just Adobe bloggers), but most bloggers are on both (which also means some duplication if you watch both). BTW, you can read the history of the 'goog's silly sounding name via a link on the left at the site. :-)

Limiting The Aggregators to Just CFML-oriented Content

Since both aggregators cover the full spectrum of blogs related to Adobe/MM products, you will probably want to limit them to just show you the CF-related ones (or whichever topic/s you are interested in). Though many seem to miss it, each aggregator offers a way to do that in its interface. In the 'goog, it's done via the "choose your poison" drop down at the top of the page--perhaps you never thought to look at that. :-) In MXNA, you choose the desired category link on the right toolbar.

If you just want the URLs for the CF feeds, they would be:

http://www.fullasagoog.com/index.cfm?blogcat=ColdFusionMX

http://weblogs.macromedia.com/mxna/index.cfm?query=byCategory&categoryId=1&categoryName=ColdFusion

The URLS offered just above are to see the web-based (HTML) interface for reading each aggregator. You could certainly just set them as a bookmark to visit whenever you have a free moment, and I have a couple of tips on that, but then there is yet another approach which you may not know about: using RSS feeds--even via email. More on that in the next entry.

(I've decided to chop this up rather than make one big long entry, since some will be more interested in some aspects than others. I don't want anyone to miss out if they were to stop reading at some point in a long post. Following posts will cover making quick browser links to the aggregators, using RSS feeds, and getting weekly summaries already "baked" for you.)

Note: This blog post is from 2006. 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.

Anyway, I'm back in the program and very honored. (It may take a few days to get the listing on the site.) I look forward to continuing to contribute to the CFML and broader Adobe community.

Note: This blog post is from 2006. 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 look carefully though, a search for that there or on the web will find you "Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 Manager for Windows XP", and that's indeed what you want.

After installing, note that it still doesn't make it possible to access IIS 6.1 servers from IIS 5's manager. Instead, it creates a new separate instance of IIS Manager 6 in your Administrative Tools alongside your IIS 5 manager. (The download page warns that it will not appear in "Computer Manager" if you also have the IIS 5.1 manager, but I saw both there and they worked fine.)

Note as well that the IIS 6 manager has no trouble accessing IIS 5 servers, so you may well just choose to use the new manager in place of the old for all your IIS management needs. Of course, it won't let you do anything on your 5.1 IIS that you couldn't do before: still no support for multiple web sites, for instance. (Though see a blog entry I did in the past on ways to get around that.)

Note: This blog post is from 2006. 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.

Note: This blog post is from 2006. 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.

Now, the bad news for some is that it's not free, but $50. Still, it seems very much worth the price if you really need what it solves.

Check out info, demos, an eval download, and more at http://www.cftagstore.com/tags/flashmultipleupload.cfm. Besides a flash progress bar, it also offers options for handling callbacks and much more.

For those who really want a free tool, I just saw today that Dave Shuck pointed to one as well:

http://www.daveshuck.com/index.cfm?commentID=112

Update: In case you come along and find this entry after it was written in July 2006, note that I now have a long list of alternative file upload tools, in a category of my CF411 list, File Upload Tools . Please check there for other alternatives in this and 125+ other categories.

Note: This blog post is from 2006. 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: http://www.microsoft.com/sql/solutions/migration/default.mspx#EYC

Thanks to Teddy Payne for pointing it out in his blog entry, which also offers an additional document he's put together on the migration steps.

Note: This blog post is from 2006. 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.

Because he's using Ray's awesome BlogCFC tool and is marking the entries in a category (blog-round-up), you can easily keep an eye on all future posts.

Here's the RSS feed URL for just the blog-round-up category:

http://www.creative-restraint.co.uk/blog/rss.cfm?mode=full&mode2=cat&catid=93661280-C6C5-1A2A-16D86B1A3ADA948E

And here's the URL to view just the blog-round-up category in a browser:

http://www.creative-restraint.co.uk/blog/index.cfm/Blog-Round-Up

Finally, here is this week, his first post:

http://www.creative-restraint.co.uk/blog/index.cfm/2006/7/22/Blog-Round-Up

Awesome stuff, Andy! Thanks so much, on behalf of the entire CFML community.

Of course, let's recognize that this is really a substantial undertaking for him. There could be times when he misses publishing it, or perhaps misses some entry you feel is vital. I'm sure he'll welcome comments there, but let's also cut him some slack.

If it becomes a more vital resource that proves too much for him to handle alone, perhaps it could become a community contributed resource. Maybe there's even some alternative approach where desirable blog entries are marked and rated by the community (without being lost in world-volume services like Digg, Technorati, Delicious, etc.) I don't use them to know, but perhaps others can comment (here or at Andy's entry).

But for now, let's just all sit back, relax, and gratefully enjoy Andy's editorial efforts. Thanks, dude!

PS If you don't use an RSS reader, note that you can also subscribe to his entire blog (you'll get an email of all new posts) using the subscribe form on the page. Or, you can use a cool tool like Squeet to have IT watch the RSS feed and send you emails for new posts in that feed. I've blogged about that elsewhere:

http://www.tipicalcharlie.com/blog_email_notification_by_squeet.htm (Update: tipicalcharlie domain is no more, but page recovered using Archive.org.)

(Update: Sadly, squeet (a tool to send RSS feeds by email) is no more. But there are other alternatives, that I track in a category of my CF411 site: http://www.cf411.com/rss_email.)

Note: This blog post is from 2006. 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.

With 80 total sessions being scored (ratings were per session, even if a repeat), it's quite an honor to come out on top. Indeed, I had been one of the top speakers the past 2 years, so my streak is over but I heartily congratulate the new winners.

I'll note that only .03 points separated the next 7 speakers, so it was a tight race. Those who scored 19 or over were, from 4th place on: Sean Corfield, Ron West, Joey Coleman, Maxim Porges, Shlomy Gantz, Ray Camden, myself, Sandy Clark, and Ray Camden again. (Remeber, it was per session, not per speaker, nor even per all sessions by a speaker. Of course, it was also only based on those who filled in surveys.)

Sean and I can take some consolation in having rated the top two number of surveys turned in, both over 90 at 93 and 92, respectively. But I know that many other speakers had very crowded rooms and hear lots of raves about them, so the lesson here is "turn in those surveys".

See you next year! :-)