Aaron Longnion's Tech Blog

ColdFusion, jQuery, SQL, and responsive design

[aaronlongnion]

ColdCukes is a ColdFusion/CFML project that parses Gherkin Feature files and creates associated TestBox BDD Unit Test "stub" files

This is an early Alpha version, but please test it on your version of ColdFusion on different platforms, and tell me if this will help you with unit testing your CFML more efficiently.

[aaronlongnion]

Senior ColdFusion Dev freelance job - Remote

Posting this job for a friend, Alex Sante. 

Please email Alex your resume and a bit about yourself - alexandersante {at} gmail.

Why work there?

work remotely from home

flexible work schedule

Alex is a very articulate, organized, smart full-stack developer and project manager who is great to work with

fun, modern technologies 

project is for the largest charter school company in the US

will probably lead to additional freelance work

up to $60/hr DOE

Requirements

Advanced ColdFusion (preferably Railo) experience

Some experience building and/or consuming RESTful APIs

At least mid-level experience with ColdBox

At least familiar with MongoDB

Experience working remotely with minimal supervision

Excellent communication skills

US-based developer preferred

front-end skills with JS, HTML, CSS, and BackboneJS preferred, but not required

[aaronlongnion]

Pop quiz, hot shot. Your ColdFusion server's CPU spiked. What do you do?

If you, like many CF folks, are at a small CF shop and seemingly in charge of everything about related to your websites, even though your primary expertise is coding, then you don't want to be caught off guard and flail about aimlessly when your manager says, "After weeks of no problems, all of the sudden the CPU spiked like 80% higher than normal and is just stuck up there for no apparent reason. Get with IT and find out what's going on."

My strategy is to create a checklist and then set about to disprove each one until I narrow it down to the root cause. 

I'm limiting this blog to a simple bullet list, in no particular order, of things I explore, with no detail. For more details on common causes of CPU/ColdFusion issues, Charlie Arehart does a much better, more thorough job on his CF blog. Think of my list as more of a cheat sheet.

Here's my current checklist on what to check. 

Ask: what are the symptoms other than the CPU being higher than normal?

any recent O/S updates

hackers

load balancer

DOS attacks

sudden increase in traffic, maybe from bots/crawlers

process, like rsync or a virus scanner, running longer than expected

DB: long-running queries

DB: CPU, memory, or I/O intensive queries

DB: locking/blocking issues

DB: are latest updates applied?

Web Server: IIS, Apache, etc.

CF: 3rd party calls - HTTP(S), REST, SOAP

CF: are latest updates/hot fixes applied?

CF: too many templates in cache

CF: recent CF Admin settings changes

CF: scheduled tasks running poorly, or too long

CF: hidden errors, not emailed (check the *.log files)

CF: Client variables purging

CF: OutOfMemory errors (ColdFusion-*.log)

CF: slow-running code (that times out, or hogs a lot of resources)

CF: database driver bugs or memory leaks

CF: too many active Sessions that each use a lot of memory (check if you're properly ending Sessions in your code)

CF: intensive image processing

JVM: recent changes to version

JVM: recent settings changes

JVM: Garbage Collection (GC) problems

restart ColdFusion

reboot the server

What have I missed on my checklist?

[aaronlongnion]

Help me kickstart this: The Juani Begood Show

New KickStarter - Be a part of the Juani Begood Show! Promote short, funny, awkward sketches made by women!

[aaronlongnion]

Use PKCS12 Client Certificates with ColdFusion cfhttp

Though these CFHTTP attributes have been available since ColdFusion 8, I missed it, and thought some of you may have, too. The tag-based attributes are clientcert and clientcertpassword, but below I show you how to do it in CF script.

Before this was available in CF 8, integrating PKCS12 (.p12 or .pfx) files with the ColdFusion JVM was a lot more involved. Being able to do this strictly in code saves developers and/or your Sys Admin/IT crowd from a lot of work.

You used to have to use the keytool, and converting to the right encoding was a concern. With ClientCert and ClientCertPassword attributes, pain (as described below in some old CF blogs) is drastically reduced:

http://www.talkingtree.com/blog/index.cfm/2004/7/1/keytool

http://jochem.vandieten.net/2008/02/28/cfhttp-and-client-certificates/

NOTE: you should put the PKCS12 file outside of the webroot, to keep it more secure.

[aaronlongnion]

[aaronlongnion]

Using ColdFusion to reference URL variables named with brackets

While working with the DataTables jQuery plugin, I ran into a type of valid URL querystring I had never seen before: variable that use brackets in their names, such as:

?search[value]=mySearch&order[0][column]=4

It took me a little while, but I finally figured out how to grab those values. Here's the answer in cfscript:

searchValue = URL['search[value]'];

orderBy1 = URL['order[0][column]'];

Hopefully, this helps someone else. Let me know if you know an easier way.

[aaronlongnion]

After using this for a few weeks, I can honestly say this is the best $18 I've ever spent. If you're not a great web designer as far as using all the latest and greatest responsive techniques, UI, and JavaScript, this helps you get started quickly on Admin-type web interfaces, with a huge number of jQuery plugins, built-in styles, and great examples. 

I'm having fun developing web apps again. The same can't be said for most of the work I was doing over the last few years, as we were stuck on old technologies and limited by users of IE 8 and 9.