Is It That Easy to Make Spreadsheets with CF9?
April 6, 2012 | Author Brad P. Severance
The short answer is YES!
I worked on a project recently where the user would click a button to generate a spreadsheet.
In CF9, that turns out to be incredibly easy with many of the new spreadsheet functions and tags. In the example below, I borrowed from some code I found on the Net. Unfortunately, I can't find where. Oh, well.
At any rate, here it goes!
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Top in T-SQL and Rownum in Oracle
December 18, 2011 | Author Brad P. Severance
The syntax between Microsoft and Oracle SQL is a little different in various ways. One way is how to select a specific number of rows to be returned from a query. I always remember the Microsoft way, and always forget the Oracle way. So, I thought I'd write it down for posterity. Read the rest of this entry »
HTML5 and Custom Attributes
August 9, 2011 | Author Brad P. Severance
VirtualBox, Ubuntu & Unity
July 16, 2011 | Author Brad P. Severance
I've been using Windows all my life. I'm cool with that. However, I do like to stretch my horizons from time to time. One way I do that is by playing around with Linux. An easy way to do this is with virtualization. Microsoft has its own virtualization software called Microsoft Virtual PC, which quite honestly, I tried but didn't like. It works just fine if, for example, you want to run Windows XP on a Window 7 PC. But running Linux, while not impossible, is not as good an experience. My main issue was the screen resolution. I couldn't get it above 1024x768. Also, there were no client tools.
At any rate, that's when I tried Oracle's VirtualBox, and it is, by far, a superior product. It's much easier to install Ubuntu and other non-windows OS's. Additionally, I can get the screen resolution up to 1280x960 by default, and can even go to fullscreen in complete HD (if you have native HD resolution on your laptop or PC). Finally, VirtualBox has a nice set of client tools, so it's easy to share a folder and move the mouse seamlessly between Ubuntu and Windows. Read the rest of this entry »
The HTML5 Video Element and Safari (Minus QuickTime)
June 21, 2011 | Author Brad P. Severance
Creating Coldfusion Structures
May 2, 2011 | Author Brad P. Severance
I recently read an interesting article on Ben Nadel's blog on error handling for Ajax, jQuery, and Coldfusion. I actually employed his idea for a project that I'm working on for Notre Dame.
That is an aside. I did notice in his code that he created a Coldfusion structure in a way that I had not known before, and I thought I'd show you how it works. Read the rest of this entry »
Hard Drive Overload
April 20, 2011 | Author Brad P. Severance
So, my laptop has an 88 gig C: drive, and it was chock full. I needed to clean it up, but wasn't sure what to clean. Well, I found some helpful tips online, and I was able to reduce the size by 25 gigs or so!
Firstly, I'm running Windows Vista, but most of the story will apply to Windows 7, as well.
I downloaded this awesome program called SpaceSniffer. It's a standalone executable (it doesn't need to be installed), and it gives you a very nice graphical representation of how your disk space is being used.
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JSON Validator
March 23, 2011 | Author Brad P. Severance
I found this JSON validator called JSONLint (not sure how they came up with that name). But hey, it works. Just copy your JSON, paste into the website, and press the Validate button. Pretty cool! Just go to www.jsonlint.com
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Where does Wi-Fi come from?
March 10, 2011 | Author Brad P. Severance
Not the actual signal, but the name Wi-Fi.
My girlfriend asked me this question a couple of days ago. Obviously, the Wi stands for Wireless. But what does the Fi stand for? The only thing I could think of was Fidelity, as in Hi-Fi. Remember Hi-Fi's? That's what they used to call stereos way back in the stone ages. Hi-Fi stood for High Fidelity. I guess that meant that the stereo produced awesome sound. But why would you need Fi in a wireless signal? Read the rest of this entry »
After Too Many Hours …
February 28, 2011 | Author Brad P. Severance
I spent a lot of time finding the best syntax highlighter for this website. I had three criteria: (1) I wanted the lines to wrap (i.e., no scrollbars), since I only have about 530px of content width, (2) I wanted “copy to clipboard” functionality, (3) I wanted Coldfusion syntax highlighting, since I do a lot of work in Coldfusion. Read the rest of this entry »
