SaturdayJuly 24
Easily modify a few configuration files to enable distributed caching using Terracotta and Ehcache for use with ColdFusion’s own caching mechanisms.
If you remember back to my previous post, Intro to Ehcache Server and RESTful Web Services, I went into detail regarding how to set up an out-of-process caching server. If you’re lucky enough to be using ColdFusion 9 and have upgraded to the latest 9.0.1 patch, you may have noticed that one of the updates was to update Ehcache 1.6 to version 2.0. This update enables you to tie your ColdFusion instance in with a Terracotta distributed caching server.
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Tags: advanced, Caching, ColdFusion, distributed, Ehcache, Terracotta
Posted in Caching, ColdFusion | 1 Comment
ThursdayJuly 22
Just a friendly heads-up for those of you out there that had exploited the fact that previous versions of ColdFusion wouldn’t execute the onRequestEnd handler following a page with a cfabort or cflocation tag. The ColdFusion 9.0.1 release has fixed this… so if you’re doing anything in the onRequestEnd function and expect it not to execute, beware!
ColdFusion 9.0.1 Issues Fixed
Tags: cfabort, cflocation, onRequestEnd
Posted in ColdFusion, General | No Comments
SundayMay 30
An out-of-process caching mechanism can seriously help reduce load on your servers and databases. Ehcache provides a very simple, yet powerful, way to cache data and is a system that should be seriously considered when making a caching decision.
When you think of caching there are basically two types: in-process, and out-of-process (or external caching). In-process caching all happens on the host machine and often within the same JVM container (if you’re using ColdFusion specifically). That is, all caching will always reside locally, making caching operations extremely fast. The obvious downside to this method of caching is that the cache consumes the same resources that would have otherwise be spent on your application server.
In order to allow you to scale out (by adding more servers to a cluster, for example) rather than scaling up (by adding additional ram) you need to provide an out-of-process caching mechanism. Again, the obvious downside to an out-of-process setup is the fact that you must serialize and transmit data to an external JVM, which requires much more overhead and transmission time.
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Tags: Caching, ColdFusion, Ehcache, Ehcache Server, intermediate, RESTful
Posted in Caching | 3 Comments
TuesdayMay 18
Masking passwords is a great over-the-shoulder security feature, but hurts usability. Providing the option to toggle the password field on and off will increase a user’s experience on your site.
After reading Jakob Nielsen’s post, “Stop Password Masking”, I really wanted to develop a quick and easy jQuery plugin which provided the ability to toggle a field between a masked and unmasked versions.
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Tags: attributes, forms, intermediate, Jakob Nielsen, JavaScript, jQuery, password, toggle
Posted in jQuery | No Comments
SundayMay 16
Decreasing the emphasis of elements lower on the visible screen provides a less distracting environment for your users.
Many websites these days are very graphic intensive, have a ton of contrast between content the the background, or are simply overly complicated. One method to reduce this visual noise and provide a more harmonic user experience would be to downplay elements on the screen that the user is likely not paying attention to.
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Tags: beginner, css, JavaScript, jQuery, opacity, user interface
Posted in jQuery | No Comments
