Scary Hallowwween Projects

billyea's blog | Spread Firefox

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Java for CF Developers is overpriced.

I Hope this is a typo of some sort, but it also could be somebody capitalizing on a title that seems to be hard to find.

Java for ColdFusion Developers

DW8 file panel bug workaround

This has actually been a bug since DWMX, but it doesn't come up too often. Occasionally, a DW site will seem to get "out of whack". The file panel will open and close folders in a seemingly random fashion (well, not random, but not what you would expect either).

One way to correct this issue is the "brute force" approach. You simply delete the site and rebuild it. It gets the job done, but you have to set the whole site up again which may or may not be trivial.

The other way to fix this is to (gulp) edit the registry. Here is how you go about fixing it (Windows only, I'm afraid. I don't know the first thing about a Mac). These steps are for DW8, but they pretty much work with the last two versions as long as you can find the site keys.

1. Close DW8
   
2. Open the regedit application (start|run|type "regedit"|enter). That should open your registry file in the editor
3. Back up the registry! I can't stress this strongly enough. If things go wrong, you want a copy of this thing that you can at least examine and at worst restore. You may also want to keep a bootable cd around just in case lightning strikes.
4. In regedit, drill down to \HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Macromedia\Common\8\Sites
5. You now need to select the site number that is having problems. You will see numbered entries like -Site0, -Site1, etc. You can find your site by looking at the SiteName key under each site entry.
6. Locate the values that start with "Local Expanded Dir " and ending with a number. There might be quite a number of them. Go ahead and delete all of them.
7. Next, find a key called "Local Expanded Dirs". Double click the entry and change the value to "0" (zero).
8. Close regedit.

The next time you open DW, all of the folders should be collapsed and begin responding correctly again.

ColdFusion adapter for Flex 2

This has to be one of the most exciting things I've heard out of MM in a while.
Damon Cooper has an entry on his blog talking about the new CF adapter for Flex 2. I can't wait to take it for a spin.

I think this move could really bridge the gap for many CF shops to get started with Flex. It also seems like a really strong competitive move to get out of the gate as early as possible with as many developers as possible to help push the advantage while Microsoft catches up.

Thanks, Damon, for working to make the adapter available when the Flex 2.0 product came out.

Call to action: The demise of CSS hacks and broken pages

Steve Bryant's post led me to this amusing blog entry: Call to action: The demise of CSS hacks and broken pages.

I've been lucky enough to avoid using almost all IE CSS hacks to date. I probably have a few out there that I will hear about eventually. Normally I just switch out the entire .css page on a browser detect. In some cases, I haven't even had to do that.

For anything I do for myself, where I really don't care about supporting the masses, I just let the IE crowd deal with it. I don't even bother to look at that work in IE, it's not worth the effort.

I remember when there were lots of sites that would only work with IE. They would have a little link that would let you go download the browser for free. That was a lot of fun.

I think it would be funny to start a lot of sensationalistic websites that would not display anything other than a link to mozilla.org if visited with IE. How about these for a few headlines (none of which are real stoies, btw):

• Firefox users found to have higher IQs than Internet Explorer users
• George Bush seen using cocaine in college photos
• Egyptian-like pyramids found under the surface of Mars.

Any others? Anybody actually doing it?

Ebay buys Verisign's Payment Division

eBay is buying the payment division of Verisign. Most of us know it as the PayFlow product line. It's an interesting move that would allow eBay to deliver a consolidated API that includes both normal credit card processing and PayPal merchant services. I don't really have a feal for how merchants will respond to this.

It seems like the brick-n-mortar stores with an online presence could not care less about PayPal, so I think that might be a difficult sale. On the other hand, eBay merchants and lots of small online businesses seem to really like the PayPal system.

Personally, I think that if PayPal gets much closer to being a bank, they seriously need to be regulated like one and be forced to provide the same consumer protections that a bank would normally provide.

I also don't understand the argument for using PayPal for larger merchants based on cost. Some people seem to think it costs less to offer PayPal on their websites. I don't really see that much difference in price.

Appropriate Quote of the Day

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions. -- Albert Einstein.

We're tryin' Al, we're tryin'.

CF needs to be FLEXible.

Damon Cooper's BLOG

Nice to see that the CF community will be included in all the fun. I'd really like to see CF become the technology of choice to provide data services for Flex. Especially if the AMF issues get worked out.

Google declares war on Microsoft

The Courier-Mail: Google declares war on Microsoft

Great, just what I need. Targeted advertising when I'm working on a spreadsheet. I expect to see lots of keyword advertising like "A1 Auto Sales", "B4 UG0, Get a new mortgage" or "X10 Spy Camera".

Of course, Adobe is going to need all the help they can get.

Strange that I can't actually find a credible source that confirms this yet. The press release from Sun didn't really address the issue. Could this be a case of editorial wishful thinking?