Charlie Arehart

Amazon.com, the "earth's biggest selection," has exposed their entire catalog of products, product reviews and ratings, user-created book lists, and more via Web services. Whether you're new to Web services or not, and even if you don't care so much about accessing Amazon's data,... (more)

Where do you stand in the march of CF developers moving toward implementing Flash interfaces in your Web apps? Are you gung ho? Still on the fence? Dead set against it? Feeling left out? Left behind? In this month's Journeyman ColdFusion column, I'd like to take up the cause of ... (more)

There are a lot of powerful new integration points between CFMX and Java, but one that might benefit a lot of people - even those who don't know how to program in Java - is the ability to leverage servlet filters in CFMX. A filter is a Java program that can be used to execute befo... (more)

Four years is a generation in Internet time; in the life of ColdFusion Developer's Journal and ColdFusion itself, it marks an epoch. As we celebrate the new year and the beginning of CFDJ's fifth, here's a look at where we've been and where we may be going. We'll focus on some o... (more)

Last month I introduced a precompile "batch" file that allowed you to manually compile CFMX templates, saving the penalty paid by the first user to browse a CFMX template after it was created or edited. But there will be curious folks (and bit-twiddlers) among you who will want ... (more)

Most of you have heard by now that ColdFusion MX templates are compiled into Java. Some may wonder what the big deal is. Many more of you may be surprised to learn that you can precompile CFMX templates. Do you know why you might want to? And if you've known previously about how... (more)

With each new release of CFMX some features are trumpeted a lot and others seem to fall between the cracks. I call these "hidden gems,"and in CFMX there are quite a few. In this article I'll uncover several features that don't warrant publicity in the popular top 10 (or even top... (more)

Tucked away among the press and praise about ColdFusion MX are some new options that could benefit every CF developer. If you've seen them mentioned, they may not have seemed important at first glance, but I hope you'll give them consideration. In this article I'll uncover some p... (more)

Now that we can talk freely about ColdFusion MX, I want to share something new that you likely won't hear much about... ...but that I think stands to be an important feature: server-side redirects, or "forwards." It's something CF has long been missing, and an improvement over C... (more)

CFMX, the new release of ColdFusion, will allow us to use JSP custom tags within our ColdFusion programs. Some may say, "So what?" In this article I hope to show you why it's definitely worth looking into this new possibility. At the time of this writing CFMX, previously known as... (more)

As an administrator, or a developer interested in how your server is run, are you getting the most out of your CF Server configuration, especially with regard to security-related settings in the Administrator? Are you fully aware of the opportunities and challenges presented by t... (more)

Many developers know that the CF administrator can restrict your ability to use several tags that not only provide very useful capabilities, but can also be used to provide unauthorized access to server resources. What many don't know is that they can arrange to use those restric... (more)

Are you a CF Server administrator? Or a developer with an interest in knowing how your server is configured and managed? Are you aware of all that should be done to keep the server running well - or all that could be done to make the most of it? One View of CF Administration In ... (more)

Ever wished you had easy access to Help on non-CF topics such as JavaScript, SQL, and DHTML? Did you know you could easily add such new Help topics to Studio? In this month's Journeyman ColdFusion, I'll show you how easy it is. I'll also point out some existing references you ca... (more)

Many new J2EE developers get caught up in focusing on the details and nuances of servlets and JSPs and, as a result, may not learn how to leverage JavaScript. Some may even dismiss it as too much hassle, given cross-browser compatibility issues. For both audiences there's still ... (more)

Have you ever wished CFINPUT provided a way to validate an e-mail address? Or were you frustrated that its telephone validation didn't allow parentheses around an area code among other such limitations? Well, your wish has been granted in a new, little-known feature of CF5. While... (more)

There are many facets to J2EE Web application development. It's a powerful platform that offers a variety of possibilities and capabilities, with many different approaches and models of development available. This is both a strength and, for newcomers to the platform, an Achilles... (more)

You're nearly finished with the code you've been slaving over for hours (or days or weeks, or maybe it was just a few seconds' effort). You're about to turn it loose for your customers to enjoy. The questions are: Is it ready? Do you know it will work? Have you tested it? If so, ... (more)

Welcome to the first installment of Journeyman J2EE. I'm honored to present this new bi-monthly column of ruminations and reactions as I, like so many of you, make my foray through the vast world of J2EE application development and deployment. But this isn't intended just for new... (more)

You've probably seen the use of a variable called "application.dsn" (or "application.datasource") in code. Perhaps you've even been taught to use the method in a class. Maybe you've even been doing it in your own code. I'm talking about setting this variable in the application.c... (more)