The Random Spaces Inbetween

MySQL Auto increment resetting

2011-10-21T11:22:00.002Z

Just a little note to myself. Should you ever need to change the 'next id' in a table with a primary key that auto-increments, use the sequel below: ALTER TABLE tablename AUTO_INCREMENT = 200000; This will mean that the next time a row is added to 'tablename', it's auto-increment id will be '200000'

How I got started in ColdFusion

2011-08-05T14:20:00.000Z

Hopefully I'm not too late to do this! A lot of people have been blogging recently about how they got started with ColdFusion. This was all started by Steve Bryant on his blog. August 1st is ColdFusion Day! In 2001, the IEE (now The IET) were redeveloping their website. They chose ColdFusion as the platform - at that time, version 4.5 was out and 5 was on the horizon. For their CMS, they chose

Copy a Directory recursively Using CFZIP

2011-07-25T10:59:00.001Z

A quick link and a thank you to Steve Bryant who came up with a very quick way of duplicating entire directory structures without using a recursive loop. Steve Bryant: Copy a Directory Using CFZIP Came in very handy when doing mirroring of Lucene index directory structures! It's a three years-old post, but handled my problem very nicely indeed. Thanks again Steve!

Jquery Mobile Quick Reference

2011-07-25T08:57:00.001Z

You would not BELIEVE how hard it is to find a quick reference guide for jQuery Mobile. It has taken me literally 2 hours to find something even half usable. So, thought I would share with the world the two best sites for the information. These sites give varying amounts of detail but, crucially, they cover the data-role attribute and give us lists of what to use: Jquery Mobile Command Reference

Google Analytics error - _gat is undefined

2011-07-21T09:12:00.000Z

The _gat is undefined error is effectively caused by a browser Javascript timeout. It often occurs with Internet Explorer 7.Google has released new (asynchronous) code to replace the existing code snippet.You can get the snippet here: Tracking Site Activity - Google Analytics - Google CodeMake a note of your UA- client number from your existing code, remove the existing code then put the new

Flixel a flash game library and coding community - Homepage

2011-07-13T09:10:00.002Z

Flixel a flash game library and coding community - HomepageAnd of course this - Actionscript game library

Build an iPad app with Sencha Touch | Tutorial | .net magazine

2011-07-13T09:10:00.001Z

Build an iPad app with Sencha Touch | Tutorial | .net magazineMore Sencha stuff

Sencha

2011-07-13T09:10:00.000Z

Sencha(Take a look at this, Mike)

DRM with Coldfusion, Flex, ActionScript and AS3Crypto

2011-07-11T22:55:00.000Z

Oh my! Time to learn a new language - Flex/Actionscript. Lovely. In the hope of finding a DRM solution more under my employer's control, I'm looking at creating a Flex-based interface using a ColdFusion back-end to stream PDFs (converted to SWF) with AES-encrypted authenticated username/password credentials. So, day 2 - now we're getting somewhere. Authentication via HTTP request and encrypted

ScribeFire

2011-07-08T06:46:00.002Z

Trying out a new Google extension called ScribeFire. Should make it a lot easier to post regularly.

Seismographs, seismograms and seismologists

2011-06-28T22:02:00.000Z

Another day, another page of Natural Instincts down on paper. Slightly curtailed by the arrival of an attack of tiredness and the yawns. The earth tremors on Mount Makalia have started and the protagonists are in a bit of trouble. I say a bit of trouble... earthquake swarms at around 3 on the Richter scale. More tomorrow!

Natural Instincts' Hot little moment

2011-06-27T20:19:00.000Z

Finally, I've finished my first chapter. The character of Tom Harker, being an older man, was fairly difficult to create, but I decided that more backstory was the key. Now, it's time to rewrite my chapter set on the caldera of a volcano. I've chosen to re-research this and have decided to move locations to the Dakataua volcano complex on New Britain Island. I feel a lot better about this

Lucene search sorting

2011-06-27T08:31:00.000Z

Just a quick note. I'm using Lucene 2.9.4 with ColdFusion 8 to index products on www.ecch.com. I was attempting to sort by the Title of the product. However, for some reason I was getting incorrectly sorted short-titled products appearing at the top of my (correctly) sorted results. I found that this was due to setting my minimum field length for Titles to 5... So anything less than that was not

The great rewrite begins

2011-06-25T17:29:00.000Z

I decided, having read some of Natural Instincts (my novel-in-progress) that I could do a lot better this time around, ten years later. Ten years since I last wrote a word and I'm finding I'm enjoying as much as always. I've decided that rather than create a fictional town for the first chapter, I'd actually use a real one and adapt it for my needs. So, I've chosen the rather nicely-named

A musical you probably haven't heard of - Violet

2011-06-24T10:20:00.004Z

Violet is a musical with music by Jeanine Tesori and libretto by Brian Crawley based on the short story "The Ugliest Pilgrim" by Doris Betts. It tells the story of a young disfigured woman who embarks on a journey by bus from her farm in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, all the way to Tulsa, Oklahoma in order to be healed. A full synopsis is available on Wikipedia. In this YouTube video, a Pace

No backups found!

2011-06-23T22:10:00.000Z

The only option I have left for finding some backup of my fiction work is to go up in the loft. I hate going up in the loft... Maybe I'll find the backups, maybe I won't. In the meantime, this is a little aide-memoire for what I've potentially lost: Colony (completed novel) Natural Instincts (uncompleted novel) Short story about man who looks back on recent events from a morgue slab Short

Choosing a creative outlet

2011-06-22T22:08:00.000Z

Well, after much umming and erring, I've decided to return to the world of writing. At least, with today's technology, I can self-publish on Amazon's Kindle site. Maybe people will even read my work, who knows? I've managed to lose all my backups of the fiction work I'd collated over the years, so it's time to start again, with only a paper copy of the longer stuff to work from. So, I'm going

imo.im gadget for iGoogle homepage

2011-06-22T11:31:00.001Z

I used an existing iGoogle gadget (that just includes any webpage) to create a gadget for imo.im.You can install it on your iGoogle homepage by going to the following page:iGoogle Chat GadgetThis lets you have, on your iGoogle page, the ability to chat with all your Facebook, MSN, gTalk AND Skype contacts.Have fun!

A simple jQuery drop-down navigation menu

2011-03-24T10:03:00.000Z

With thanks to Clarklab for the inspiration and start-up code. Visit Clarklab to see the original.Download the demo

A search engine with three technologies

2011-03-04T00:31:00.000Z

Have finally got my search engine working well enough to start telling the world about it. The search engine, unnamed as yet, uses ColdFusion, Lucene and iText to bring a quick and flexible searching solution to ColdFusion developers and their sites.More detail tomorrow sportsfans. :-)And yes i know about Solr. But wheres the fun in that?

Datatype Conversion (ConvertType.cfc) - version 1.1 release

2011-01-27T09:27:00.000Z

I decided to release my long-suffering ColdFusion datatype conversion CFC to the World.The code is available from:http://converttypecfc.riaforge.org/This is a ColdFusion component encapsulating the functions below. These have been indispensable to myself and others over the past 7 years. Some of the code was inspired by other people's work but was written from scratch to overcome some of the

Preparing a release of new MVC framework

2011-01-26T23:16:00.000Z

I decided sometime ago that I would release the Framework I have been developing and using in production for the past 5 years. The current work in progress version is called Coyote, which is actually Glacier version 3.Its going to take some time to get it into a release ready state. Here is a list of things to do. Explanation of concept.Installation script. Give me a datasource and off we go.Code

Little health changes because of Apnea

2011-01-26T00:23:00.000Z

One of the problem with sleep apnea is all the little changes that happen. Obviously falling asleep is not little. I am talking about things like: constant nasal congestion; weird saliva imbalances; coughing up mucus; sensitivity to nasal hair. Its tempting to say that the cpap treatment is more trouble than its worth... But given how dangerous the condition is i force myself to remember that the

Quick post from mobile

2011-01-24T06:26:00.000Z

Just a quick post from my mobile to try out m.wordpress.com. Minimal interface but who cares if it works!

CPAP machines and the hose problem

2011-01-23T07:42:00.000Z

When you're using a CPAP machine, one of the issues you'll face after a while is the hose they give you. The hose transports the air from the CPAP machine to your mask.Now, for whatever reason (I think it's cause of the water build up in the hose, which they call 'Rainout') the hose is corrugated.The issue I faced is that the hose would rub against the side of the bed. You can imagine the

Welcome to the Blog

2011-01-21T21:16:00.000Z

Hi there. Greetings from Potton, a small town in the county of Bedfordshire in England.My name is Michael Horne. I’m a ColdFusion developer by trade. My spare time is spent with my family and also on- and off-stage in amateur theatre. In recent years, I have been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and Obstructive Sleep Apnea.I have worked at several organisations including The IEE (now The IET),

Virtual CFUnited 2008

2008-06-20T09:59:00.001Z

WORK IN PROGRESS Thanks to Adobe, and their Connect product, several of the CFUnited presentations are online. I thought it would be easier for everyone if I just listed them for reference. Keynote - Ben Forta & Adam Lehman Highlights Confirmation that AIR was central to the development of ColdFusion 8 Pride in the new open-ness to the bug reporting and feature request systems CF9 is

Windows Mobile Essentials

2008-06-18T11:19:00.001Z

I always seem to be flashing my HTC Artemis (O2 XDA Orbit, actually) with one ROM or another from XDA Developers.com. So, I thought I'd make a list of the essentials that all ROMs either have to have pre-compiled or have to have installed shortly after them. Total Commander PocketCM Aquelaball Pipes Devet TomTom (of course) 10 Button Comm Manager S2U2 (aka Slide2Unlock)

Ariba Supplier Network and ColdFusion

2008-05-27T11:05:00.001Z

This is more of an aide-memoire, but others might find it useful. We are currently integrating our website with the Ariba Supplier Network. The ASN sends CXML messages to a configured web-page. Picking up these messages, however, is not as simple as just looking for a FORM post variable. You need to use the following, or similar:

CFDevCon 2008

2008-05-20T19:42:00.001Z

Details are beginning to emerge regarding the 2008 edition of CFDevCon - our UK conference for ColdFusion. I went to the last one and, to be honest, I was little underwhelmed. Forget about the venue, that was disappointing, yes, but it was the first year and on a shoestring budget it was the best they could get. Seriously, though, Brighton??!?!?!?! That's an awfully long non-commutable journey.

moBlog - much improved and blogging now

2008-05-15T11:27:00.001Z

Well, after much waiting for a Windows Mobile blogging cient, I finally return to the software that I tried originally, some 12 months ago.And what an improvement it is! moBlog, by Sampath, is a revelation to set-up and use. No, the editor is not WYSIWYG, yes, it's a bit of a nightmare to set-up without the help provided online, yes, you have to manually write HTML, but for quick blogging with

GLACIER - Creating a new ColdFusion Framework

2008-05-09T08:30:00.001Z

After much frustration with other ColdFusion frameworks, in particular Fusebox, I decided to create a new framework that included a configurable plugin-style interface and an object factory. Just recently, the company I work for released their new website using this new framework. However, as with all pieces of code, the minute you finish it, the minute you wish you could go back and start

Review - Bridge to Terabithia - Aaron Zigman

2008-05-07T16:14:00.001Z

In brief: soaring, fantastical and inherent beauty. A companion to: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (Gregson-Williams) Recording: Expanded promo, 30 tracks, 60 minutes Review Aaron Zigman is not a name I've head of, so I was quite excited going into this one. From what I know of the film, we are looking for awe-inspiring fantasy, so let's see what he's come up with... There is

Sheer Stupidity - alive and kicking in the UK's National Health Service

2008-05-05T14:30:00.001Z

Until May 2008, I had never been admitted to a hospital. A short, 2-day stay, at the Lister Hospital in Stevenage, however was a real eye-opener and I thought I'd share some of it with you. During this period, I was sent to A&E by my GP, was sent home from there, returned a few hours later with the same symptoms and was finally admitted to the Medical Admissions Unit - the MAU. Here are some

Killer Registrations

2008-05-01T14:58:00.001Z

Presentation by John Greenacre, IPT Recently, IPT carried out a survey of best practice concerning website registrations and newsletter sign-ups. It suggests possible routes for sites to make their registration process easier, clearer, quicker and more accessible. "Add us to your address book" - if you are sending emails to people, they ought to add your address to their address book to

Raising Profile through Video

2008-05-01T14:44:00.001Z

Jonathan Bowers, UKfast There are different sorts of video presentations that can be made over the web. Videocasting - streamed and/or downloadable. Podcasts - series of short videocasts that are designed to draw repeat audiences. There is a huge potential in engaging your communities with video content. The visual medium leaves the strongest impression on users and, because they can

Harnessing Social Media

2008-05-01T14:30:00.001Z

A session from Intel. Social Networks work as long as they are based on users using a shared environment with shared interests. 43% of users feel as strongly about their virtual 'lives' as they do about physical communities. It is important that social networks establish a feeling of trust from the very start. Trust = (Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy) / Self-Interest Intimacy is the

The Future of Social Sites - Travis Katz, MySpace

2008-05-01T11:51:00.001Z

For more on Travis Katz, visit his MySpace page. This page pulls together most of the recently added features. "(users on the internet, and on MySpace in particular) have a deep desire to express themselves creatively by blogging, sharing videos, photos and music." "The younger generations want to personalise their experience on the net" The personal content circle - People -> Culture ->

Internet World 2008

2008-05-01T11:04:00.001Z

On Tuesday, I attended the first day of the Internet World exhibition in London at Earls Court. The venue itself is an enormous place and IW shared it with the International Direct Marketing Fair. Sections of the exhibition were: Enterprise Content Management, E-Commerce & Payment Solution, Search Marketing, E-Mail Marketing, Analytics and Mobile Marketing. There were dozens of seminar sessions

Film Scores - a new part of the blog

2008-04-17T11:29:00.001Z

For many years, I have harboured a love of the music from movies - film scores to those in the fan community. I have decided to begin writing and posting reviews of this music. If you get fed up of listening to my opinions, I recommend heading over to Filmtracks, which has been running for as long as I can remember! Many of my reviews will be for unreleased and/or promotional scores. I will

Review - A River Runs Through It - Mark Isham

2008-04-17T11:00:00.001Z

In brief: a pleasant enough, Americana-flavoured, wander through the world of fly-fishing.A companion to: The Spitfire GrillRecording: 31 tracks, 58 mins Mark Isham's music to Robert Redford's tale of brothers growing up in Montana whose one shared love is fly-fishing is a gentle and occasionally hypnotic listen. With no massive amount of thematic material, it is better suited to being

Blog without leaving Facebook

2008-04-16T08:30:00.001Z

Finally, someone has developed a FacebookApp to allow you to post to your blog from within Facebook. Doesn't look like a fully-fledged app at the moment. There are no keyword lists or even a WYSIWYG editor, but it'll be worth it just to display the blog itself on your profile (even if the posts still originate from another app).More details on eWeek

Control your avatar using motion-capture

2008-04-16T08:27:00.001Z

3DV systems are developing a motion-capture-by-camera interface that will allow you, amongst other things, to control your Second Life avatar by actual physical body movement. Take a look at Engadget to see a video of a demonstration.

Travel Search Gateway for ColdFusion

2008-04-16T08:25:00.001Z

Andrew Powell has developed a ColdFusion API for the Kayak search service which brings together several travel sites such as Expedia. His downloadable package, comprising examples and the API CFC is available at Andrew Powell's Blog. Please help him by beta-testing!

3D Search Visualisation

2008-04-10T13:31:00.001Z

On my phone, I use iFonz to emulate the look and feel of an iPhone. On the developer's site, I clicked on a link out of interest and found what I believe is the finest example of visualising, in three-dimensions, search results and related content - ergo. I urge you to try this out - it's a fledgling project but there is so much to ooh and aah about!

Adobe AIR

2008-04-03T14:32:00.001Z

Having recently seen eBay Desktop, I started wondering how this approach to information searching and viewing could be used at the company I work for. We currently have several customers for whom we produce CIF catalogues (flat file catalogues, CSVs, to those not in that business) containing lists of products and the discounted prices that have been allocated to their personal account. Sometimes

Concept Designs

2008-04-03T12:55:00.001Z

Take yourself over to Sizlopedia for an article that talks about the 10 most creative and amazing concept gadget designs. http://www.sizlopedia.com/2008/03/02/10-most-creative-and-amazing-concept-gadget-designs/

Microsoft Surface

2008-04-03T12:41:00.001Z

Previously labelled as too big for practical use, AT&T and Microsoft have just teamed up to re-jig and re-launch Microsoft Surface. Simply, it is an enormous touch-screen, maybe as big as a traditional 'white board' that would be touch-sensitive, controlled by touch (where possible) and able to establish connections with devices placed on it's surface. In terms of technology, this last feature

3D Flash Application - Just Ridiculously Cool

2008-04-03T11:15:00.001Z

I'm not going to explain or review this one. Just go to www.whitevoid.com/application.html It is the finest, least obligatory, use of Flash I have ever seen.

Grow your own Sprouts - Flash the easy way

2008-04-03T10:54:00.001Z

A tool for marketing people who want to create animated Flash adverts without the hassle of learning Flash itself. Drag-and-drop your designs, add text. This is being written as I try it out. So, I think I'll create an advert for the Pantomime I'm directing this year. Finding the 'Get Started' button was a chore - no idea why it should take me so long. Perhaps I'm not observant. Type a few

TryPhone (beta)

2008-04-03T10:30:00.001Z

This is the first of my blog posts about websites and web technologies that I think are pushing the boundaries and exploring new areas, and that may just be the way ahead for Internet users. The first site is www.tryphone.com, currently in Beta. This gives you detailed information about selected mobile phones. Nothing new there? Well, this site has gone a step further by emulating the phones

Children of Eden Poster Designing

2007-11-08T14:34:00.001Z

I've come up with a concept for the Children of Eden poster design for the Stevenage Lytton Players but, unlike the Oklahoma one, I need a lot of new elements to make it look right. The first element is, naturally, the Tree of Knowledge with the forbidden fruit. To create the tree, I used the following tutorial: .:::. Virtual Ecosystem Deus .:::.

A Visit to Norwich

2007-10-22T14:00:00.001Z

Tracey and I visited Norwich at the weekend. Having dropped the kids off at Vauxhall Caravan Park in Great Yarmouth to spend a week with their Nan, we thought we'd make the most of it and find somewhere nice to stay and then mooch around Norwich. Last time we'd visited Norwich, we got soaked by torrential rain, but this time we were lucky. The first picture here is Norwich Cathedral that we

Blogging on my XDA Orbit

2007-10-18T14:51:00.001Z

It doesn`t get much more Web 2.0 than this.I am currently blogging on my XDA Orbit using GBlogger from Pocket Watch LLC (www.pocketwatchsoftware.com/gblogger).Windows Mobile 6 seems to be working out just fine and the UI seems much improved. Thanks to the fine fellows at xda-developers.com, I now not only have WM6, but also a host of other apps bundled into a new ROM.And, oh yes, I`m actually

Windows Mobile Registry Hacks

2007-10-17T10:54:00.001Z

Another in my occasional posts relating to my Windows Mobile (version 6, now) device, the XDA Orbit (aka HTC Artemis). This is a list of registry hacks that I consider to be essential to know about, even if you don't do them! Improve memory managementThis change helps with the memory management feature. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Shell\LowMem\ProgramMem Change the value to 64 or 96

Essential Windows Mobile Applications

2007-10-17T10:35:00.001Z

I've decided to keep a list of all applications that I use on my XDA Orbit (re-styled HTC Artemis). And where better to keep track of them than on my Blog! I am currently running Windows Mobile 6 (as of 16th October 2007) and am loving the new smoother interface. Most of the apps below are free and I've noted where they are not. Productivity These are apps that help you to be more organised and '

Human Computer Interaction in Science Fiction Movies

2007-10-16T15:35:00.001Z

From time to time, as science fiction fans, we look at something on the screen and say 'Look at that! That is so cool!' or something approximating those sentiments. If you're British (as I am, although I prefer English), you might say 'That is jolly spiffing', although that is now unlikely out of period theatre, say. So, I was delighted to come across this Paper by Michael Schmitz in which he

Entropia Mining Deposit Sizes

2007-10-08T10:30:00.001Z

Ever wanted to know how much PED your mining find is likely to be worth? The Entropia Directory, the foremost authority on factual information about Entropia, lists the different sizes (description and roman numeral) and the amount of PED you can expect. http://www.entropiadirectory.com/wiki/Mining#Deposit_Sizes Bear in mind, however, that these are all TT values. So, if your 40 PED deposit has a

My Daemon

2007-10-06T16:50:00.000Z

This is Rhianna, my Daemon. Generated by www.goldencompassmovie.com. Cool isn't it!

Fading News Scroller

2007-10-04T10:05:00.001Z

My employers needed to display news on their homepage. To save us from the dreaded Marquee Of Death or the Flickering Ticker of Doom, I decided that a fading news display would be far more attractive. I avoided Flash like the plague due to time constraints, so Javascript was the way to go. After much searching for a piece of code on the Net, I eventually found one. But, after implementing it (and

Data Conversion Utility CFC

2007-10-04T09:59:00.001Z

Having discovered Artur Kordowski's DataTypeConvert CFC, I was at first impressed and then slowly disappointed at several of the functions that he created. The main one was XMLtoStruct which converted the XML into a Struct of Structs when a Struct of Array of Structs would have yielded a far more impressive result. As it was, you were forced to do a StructCount() to find the number of elements in

Entropia - Mining on Amethera

2007-09-21T14:00:00.001Z

I strongly recommend that you buy a Teleport Chip (TP Chip). A Lesser one will do because, and I can't stress this enough: Amethera is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. To go along with the Eudoria map I linked to, here is an up-to-date map of Amethera. http://personal.inet.fi/cool/entropia-mob-map/index.html Good mining can be had in OL27,

Entropia - First Global

2007-09-18T12:51:00.001Z

The first bit of stupendous news from Entropia, at least as far as I am concerned, is my first Global. Globals, for the uninitiated, are announcements on the global chat channel that everyone can see. They are made whenever a player does something which yields at least 50 PED (think dollars or £s). My first global was for killing a Molisk Adult and 'looting' (i.e. scalvaging) two pieces of armour

Entropia

2007-09-18T10:48:00.001Z

I thought I'd finally blog about something I do in my free-time. Online gaming is now really coming into it's own. Probably the most famous online world is Second Life. There's not much 'fun' to be had from a gaming perspective there, though. So, after playing the swords-skills-quests game (MMORPG), I moved on to Entropia Universe. I go by the name of Recantha Oton in this game and I'm currently

CFTHREAD - Keep a handle on the number of threads!

2007-08-31T13:02:00.001Z

ColdFusion 8 has allowed ColdFusion programmers to embrace the concept of multi/parallel-threading for the first time. Previously, you just about do it by ing over CFHTTP calls to your server so that you could create multiple page requests with one thread each. This is the first time, however, that request of a single page can fire off multiple threads within it's own scope. I was

Installing CFMX 8 with CFMX 7 resident

2007-08-29T16:11:00.001Z

I've just tried this. Now, I'm sure Adobe don't want people to use Macromedia-badged products, but it would have been nice to allow a development server, say, to have both versions of CFMX. Alas, I've now uninstalled both 8 and 7 and then re-installed 8. Hopefully, I'll have better luck this time. The plain fact is, though, that our e-commerce app (which links to Microsoft Dynamics via

Antenna on the Cheap (er, Chip)

2007-08-29T09:54:00.001Z

As well as finding the so-called 'Wifi Spray' yesterday, I came across this page which seems to have a more scientific basis. Antenna on the Cheap (er, Chip) Now to make myself sick by eating a whole tube of Pringles...

Writing a framework and error trapping

2007-08-29T09:30:00.001Z

A note from the wise. If you're writing your own framework from scratch, I implore you: do error trapping and debug reporting from the start. Don't ever think 'I'll put it in later' because you'll regret it! ARGH!

Dreamweaver - too many activations (pt 2)

2007-08-28T15:50:00.001Z

Well, the saga continues with my colleague's experience of trying to activate Dreamweaver CS3. It seems that we have a 'Volume License Key' that does not activate a downloaded trial version (which is what usually happens with Macromedia/Adobe products. It seems there are two different serial/licence key types. We are now obtaining the physical media (CDs) which, apparently, should cure all ills..

Faster WiFi speed

2007-08-28T15:42:00.001Z

Whilst seeking a way to expand my broadband range and power, I came across this. http://j-walk.com/other/wifispray/ I think it's a joke... No, honest guv!

Dreamweaver CS3 - Too Many Activations

2007-08-17T09:38:00.001Z

Having problems activating your copy of Dreamweaver with your new serial number/licence key? If you have previously installed the 30-day trial version, you need to take some steps in order to register your new serial number. First of all, uninstall Dreamweaver. Secondly, visit: http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/cs3clean.html and download the clean-up script. Run the script. Thirdly, go to the

Jane Eyre: The Musical

2007-08-10T14:33:00.001Z

I'll make no bones about it: I love this musical. I've only got the CD, I've never seen it, but what a wonderful score and what wonderful bits of dialogue that evoke the period so beautifully. So, here's my declaration: I'd love to get this show on with my local society. It's got a title that sells, even though it's not known as a musical, it's been on television fairly recently and it's not

Color Scheme Generator

2007-08-10T10:34:00.001Z

Finding a decent color scheme generator is like pulling teeth - there are hundreds out there, but almost none of them give you a simple tool to use that generates more than about 6 colours. So, I've finally found one and decided to blog it lest I lose it again! Well-Styled Color Generator

Winter Project

2007-08-09T15:58:00.001Z

I've decided on my Winter 2007 development project. It will be a community/profile-driven site designed to help people with moving home. Considering my current problems and my house-move that is due to happen on Monday 13th August, I thought it would be good to share some of my experience and hopefully make the most stressful process in the World a little easier to track. Why am I giving away

Iceberg goes multi-site

2007-08-09T15:52:00.001Z

After much mucking around with XML files and CFCs, my Content Management System Iceberg (being developed for the company I work for) is finally multi-site. It's a bit fiddly so far, and I think I may end up moving core CFCs into a non-site folder so the core functionality is shared rather than stolen from the main site... That doesn't make much sense to anyone reading, but please feel free to

Regular expressions for stripping HTML tags and attributes

2007-08-09T11:23:00.001Z

Most web developers have, at some point, needed to strip some or all HTML tags from content. You may already know this, but it may help some people who are just getting started. Normally, you will particularly want to remove the cr&p that Microsoft Word (et al) put in that increases the size of HTML by some 200%. NB: The examples below are in ColdFusion, but the Regular Expressions should work

Online Communities for Business

2007-08-08T10:30:00.001Z

There's a couple of guys called Ed and Caspar who are doing some great things for businesses who want to break in to the Web 2.0 arena. Apart from highly-experienced search engine optimisation and keyword targetting advice, they are also the owners of a brand-new business platform for Web 2.0 interaction and marketing. Their own Web 2.0-y website is: http://www.rewardingdialogue.com/ I used to

Using Visual SourceSafe with Dreamweaver CS3

2007-08-08T10:22:00.001Z

Not really my bag, this, but if you want to use SourceSafe with DW CS3, you need to specify Visual SourceSafe as the connection method when setting up the remote site. If you don't do this, you end up using DW's built-in version control which is no good for multi-user version control.

Creating a Model-View-Controller Framework (2)

2007-08-08T09:00:00.001Z

Work continues on the creation of the MVC framework. I really ought to give it a name. I think I'm moving towards Icicle. I'm already using Iceberg for the CMS, and going with the whole ColdFusion->Cold->Ice link, it seems logical. One of the biggest difficulties I've had is building the Application.cfc. How do you have an XML-configured framework without continually reloading the XML file that

Exchanged contracts today

2007-08-08T08:53:00.001Z

Completely unrelated to anything, today we exchanged contracts on our property purchase/sale. Very soon, we'll be moving to a lovely little town in Bedfordshire called Potton. I'll miss the house in Stevenage, my first house purchase, my first home-by-myself, but I'm looking forward to having a lot more space and, scary though it seems, I'm looking forward to having my four step-kids living with

1920's Hairstyles on Squidoo

2007-08-03T22:09:00.001Z

Whilst researching 1920s clothing, wigs and other assorted period details, Tracey came across this page: 1920's Hairstyles on Squidoo which gives several detailed descriptions of hairstyles for both short and long hair.

Control.Tabs : Unobtrusive CSS Tabs for Prototype

2007-08-03T13:31:00.001Z

Let's face it, tabbed interfaces are very nice. They allow UI developers to group functions together without creating ridiculously long pages. I looked today for a client-side version to use for our My Profile page and came across this from LivePipe. Control.Tabs : Unobtrusive CSS Tabs for Prototype It seems to work rather well, using our already-existing Prototype/Scriptaculous combo. Take a

Tickets for Anything Goes are now on sale

2007-08-03T12:53:00.001Z

Hallelujah! The Gordon Craig Theatre has now got the tickets on sale. The Box Office number is08700 131 030. If you're in the Stevenage area, you won't find a better, happier or more cheerful show this side of Christmas!

Choreography with YouTube's Help

2007-08-03T11:44:00.001Z

Due to my over-exuberance and desire to try to learn new things, I decided that I wanted to introduce some 'proper' dancing into the Anything Goes duets. How was I going to teach something I had never done? That's the question I asked myself. Here is where YouTube has been my saviour. There are so many actual dance lessons on there to choose from that I felt spoiled! For Easy To Love, for example

Fighting with the Box Office

2007-08-03T10:02:00.001Z

Well, it must be bad, I'm blogging about it! Despite having our ticket details since early July, the theatre we're hiring for Anything Goes still hasn't put the tickets on sale. All the other amateur shows around the same time are on sale, but not ours. We're now fighting the battle with as many people as we can with our Society Business Manager, show Producer and even someone from the Box

ColdFusion Generic Validation function

2007-08-02T15:48:00.001Z

Today, I've worked on various things but the major part of the afternoon has been taken up with writing server-side validation for our new User Registration. I decided that it might be nice to have a generic validation function (encapsulated in a CFC) which could be called wherever validation is needed. This lets us have global control over the error statements and makes sure we do it the same

New Version of ColdFusion MX launched - version 8

2007-08-02T11:35:00.001Z

ColdFusion MX 8 (codenamed Scorpio) has recently been released. To view details of this important release, go to the Adobe website. This is a very big deal for CF programmers - it represents the completion of the absorption of the Macromedia brand into Adobe, as it relates to us on a professional level. The new version includes lots of little bits and pieces as well as major features such as:

Finding Windows Live Writer Beta 2

2007-08-02T11:02:00.001Z

After a long search, I've finally found a post from Microsoft Developer Joe Cheng: FINALLY! Writer Beta 2! « whateverblog. Halfway down the page, there is a post by AndrewVos to: http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/e/c/1ecbf3be-298b-467c-84d8-6f86f01478d7/EN-IN/Install_WLWriter.exe This will give you Beta 2 of the Live Writer. The version on the homepage of Writer Zone gives you Beta 1!

How to truncate a log file in SQL Server 2005

2007-08-02T09:57:00.001Z

An interesting error occurred on our test ColdFusion server this morning that is worth remembering. "The transaction log for database '' is full. To find out why space in the log cannot be reused, see the log_reuse_wait_desc column in sys.databases' Now, looking at that field in sys.databases does nothing for you at all. However, I did find this helpful page on codeproject.com that

Creating a Model-View-Controller Framework

2007-08-01T10:43:00.001Z

Working for Trovus (www.trovus.co.uk), I needed to create my own MVC framework in order to support not only a Content Management System but also an online community. The base code not only included the MVC but also an Object Factory. I brought these concepts with me to my new employer (www.anachem.co.uk) for their new e-commerce and CMS solution. Working in ColdFusion, the framework is now in a

Test of Windows Live Writer

2007-08-01T10:33:00.001Z

This is the first post to my blog from Windows Live Writer (available from http://writer.live.com) Now, I love my browsers, but I need to quickly blog, not spend ages logging into Blogger, so I thought I'd search around for a client. Here goes... pressing the buttons. Oh, my Lord! It worked! Woo-hoo! Now to change the template... Well, that seemed to work too... Pity that Blogger doesn't seem

ColdFusion - Convert relative to absolute URLs

2006-07-21T14:13:00.000Z

This bit of ColdFusion matches against any links, images or scripts in some HTML (strOutput) and then replaces them with an absolute reference.strOutput is your piece of HTMLregExpPattern does the searching.regExpReplace is what to replace with - notice the use of the references using \1 and \4. This effectively grabs the a href=" and "> respectively, but maintaining anything else it finds.]*(

Vertically align a DIV within another DIV

2006-07-21T13:56:00.000Z

Found out how to do something new today.For ages, I (and many other developers) have been trying to figure out how to do vertical alignment (e.g. td valign=middle) but with DIVs. Before now, a solution escaped me. But, thanks to Dušan Janovský, I have finally managed to do it.Based on his work, I have contructed my own example as follows.Note: if you've searched for this solution and come across

Working in London

2006-07-20T19:34:00.000Z

So, I've started my new job as a ColdFusion developer... in London.Now, I once said that I would never work in the City. My past feelings could be broadly summarised as "Over my dead body."Well, my body isn't dead, but I'm now working at a small (or very large, depending on your point of view) company in the Theatreland area. I won't be any more specific than that for now.My first few days have

My blog

2005-04-13T14:32:00.000Z

Well, here we go, then!