WebMantras

Am a bit late on this but Adobe has released ColdFusion 8 Update 1 (8.0.1). Some of the important updates:

1. Added 64-bit support to nearly every platform
2. Improved functionality in several areas including AJAX functions, CFPDF, and CFIMAGE
3. Updated several software libraries including Yahoo YUI, EXT JS, Spry, and the FCKEditor
4. Support for the Safari browser
5. Enhanced Attribute Collections
6. Nested Implicit Arrays and Structures

Complete ColdFusion 8 Update 1 Release Notes

1. Adobe Developer Week March 24-28, 2008 - One week long event with 20 sessions covering AIR, Flex, Flash, Mobile, ColdFusion and Dreamweaver technologies
2. Adobe MAX 2008/2009 will be held in San Francisco, California, Milan, Italy and Tokyo, Japan
3. APSB08-06 Security fix for potential ColdFusion MX 7 and ColdFusion 8 Cross Site Scripting security issue
4. APSB08-08 Security fix for ColdFusion MX 7 and ColdFusion 8 logs invalid admin interface log-in attempts

Was looking for a JavaScript table datagrid that worked with Prototype or jQuery libraries and found these worth mentioning:

1. Ext JS - Client-side JavaScript framework for building web applications
2. tablesorter - tablesorter is a jQuery plugin
3. Ingrid - jQuery component that adds datagrid behaviors
4. Reorganizable DataGrid - built on Ajax / Smarty / Prototype / Scriptaculous

Am still looking for a datagrid with search.

Came across this via the Coldfusion Weekly Podcast - Version 2.26 (The “Using YSlow” Edition with Guest Host Kurt Wiersma)

The Exceptional Performance group at Yahoo! has come up with 14 ways you can increase the front-end performance of your web site. The group found that 80+% of the time is spent dealing with what’s in the HTML document, namely, the front-end. That’s why the key to faster web sites is to focus on improving front-end performance.

The 14 techniques discussed in the article are:

1. Make Fewer HTTP Requests
2. Use a Content Delivery Network
3. Add an Expires Header
4. Gzip Components
5. Put Stylesheets at the Top
6. Put Scripts at the Bottom
7. Avoid CSS Expressions
8. Make JavaScript and CSS External
9. Reduce DNS Lookups
10. Minify JavaScript
11. Avoid Redirects
12. Remove Duplicate Scripts
13. Configure ETags
14. Make Ajax Cacheable

Definetly a very informative article and highly recommend it to anyone involved with web site development.

Have you ever wondered why your site does not have a high conversion rate even though you have a good amount of traffic? The quickest way to fix the problem is by surveying your users. Here is a great post by Avinash Kaushik on how you can easily implement a short website survey to ask your users and gain a wealth of insight. Easy to implement and highly effective.

Here are a few posts I found helpful on creating valid XHTML compliant code:

1. 9 most important requirements to make your pages XHTML compliant
2. Including Valid External Javascript in XHTML
3. Creating XHTML Compliant Code
4. Updating a JavaScript to be XHTML compliant
5. XHTML explained

Pinal Dave has written an excellent post on how you can import a CSV or comma delimited file into SQL Server. Pinal has extensive SQL Server & Coldfusion experience. If you use SQL Server you must subscribe to his blog.

1. Daemon released FarCry 5.0 Beta (code-named Fortress). FarCry 5.0 has a lot of new features but the one that stands out the most is the ability to deploy it on a shared hosting environment. Download Document
2. Transfer going Professional Open Source Software powered by Compound Theory
3. Adobe looking for ColdFusion 8 Customer success stories

Came across these very cool Date Pickers via the Ajaxian blog.

1. Datejs - an open-source JavaScript Date Library (released under the MIT License)
2. Sliding Date Picker - script is based on Prototype/Scriptaculous, but now combined with the DateJs library

If you run a WordPress blog than you should read Matt Cutts (of Google fame) excellent tips on protecting your WordPress install.