Charlie Arehart

If you've programmed in a modern programming language (Java, C, JavaScript, or even stored procedure languages), you've probably heard of exception handling via try/catch statements. ColdFusion supports the same capability. If you're new to using them, I'll explain how they're use... (more)

Wireless Business & Technology welcomes veteran writer and technologist Charles Arehart as our newly appointed "Wireless Journeyman" columnist. Serving as "the developer's developer" he'll be examining wireless technologies and techniques, sometimes praising and sometimes challen... (more)

I actually look forward to the question, because I enjoy seeing their surprise when I list some of them. I don't have a definitive list, but it's enough to impress most who ask. How Can You Tell It's a CF Site? Have you ever noticed (or wondered) if a favorite site uses CF? Actual... (more)

Have you ever wanted to test if a given array element exists? Or when dealing with arrays of structures, if a given key exists? Both are challenging if you try to use IsDefined(). This article addresses why IsDefined() fails in both cases when working with arrays. Part 1: Testing... (more)

What database do you use for your ColdFusion applications? Are you fully satisfied with your choice? Did you even have a choice? Would you be interested in knowing what other alternatives you may have? In this article I present some of the discussions that inevitably arise when c... (more)

When your users experience a CF error, do they still see the traditional default - a plain black-on-white CF error screen? More important, are you being notified when such errors occur? Would you like to log the errors to a database? If you're not taking advantage of such capabil... (more)

You may have heard that Release 4 of ColdFusion introduced support for nested and paired custom tags. This offers many possibilities for creating more complex custom tags. In this month's Journeyman ColdFusion I'll introduce you to paired custom tags. Paired custom tags are sim... (more)

Did you know that when a CF error occurs, in many cases not only can you cause something other than the plain, black-on-white default CF error message to appear, but you can also log in a database or e-mail to support staff information about the error, including the error message... (more)

Late in July ColdFusion developers who simply couldn't wait for the November Allaire Developer conference had the opportunity to gather with compatriots and spend time learning CF tricks and techniques from some of the most popular CF speakers. You may find this announcement onl... (more)

We've all seen it: the dreaded "Error Occurred While Processing Request," which is the headline above a normal CF error message. As developers, of course, we relish the detail it offers: the CF error message, the line number and actual line of code in error, the name and path of ... (more)

It's fun developing wireless applications in ColdFusion, but if you don't solve several key challenges it'll be more painful than pleasant. In this second part of a series, I'll focus on some common problems encountered by CF/WML developers. In the last issue the focus was on get... (more)

There's a growing buzz around the world of wireless Web applications, that is, Web sites accessible to phones and other wireless devices. You may have read that in ColdFusion 4.5 Allaire added support for something called WAP (Wireless Access Protocol). It's the core of a powerf... (more)

Here's a dilemma faced by nearly every developer of Access databases who's got the database stored on a remote CF server. How do you reconfigure the database if you want to add, change or remove columns, tables or indexes? If it's remote, you can't very well use the Access interf... (more)

You visit a Web site that offers a form inviting you to enter some input. No big deal - we see them all the time, right? But do you move your cursor to that first data entry area using the mouse? Or are you, like me, a keyboard maven - in which case you find that often you have ... (more)

In my Journeyman column last month (CFDJ Vol. 2, issue 4) we began looking at how - and why - to call custom tags in different ways. So far, we've learned that the CF_ approach will look first locally, then in the shared \cfusion\customtags directory, while the CFMODULE NAME= appr... (more)

You probably know about custom tags, but are you aware of all the possibilities for controlling who can access them and how? Perhaps you knew that a custom tag could be placed in the cfusion\customtags directory of the CF server to provide shared access by all users on the serve... (more)

In my work as an Allaire-certified instructor, students often ask questions, and while the courses address most of them, they sometimes have some really interesting ones that I know have been asked and answered before. Often they'll be the frequently asked ones, but occasionally t... (more)

Given that most people are now introducing and installing ColdFusion version 4.5, Allaire's latest release of the server and studio software, it may seem strange to read an article on 4.0.1. Isn't 4.0.1 old news? And anyway, wasn't it just a maintenance fix? There were new feature... (more)

While many experienced CF developers will spurn the notion of creating a production CF application with a back-end database in Access, there are far more developers who for one reason or another proceed to - or simply have to - do so. If you've got to deal with Access, you may a... (more)

In the premier issue of CFDJ, Richard Schulze wrote a fine article on several new features of ColdFusion 4.0, part of Allaire's recent upgrade to their entire product line. In this article I'll highlight some additional features of the new release. I'll also expand on his coverag... (more)