Running CFMX 6.1 and CFMX 7 Simultaneously Under IIS 6
Ever wanted ColdFusion MX 6.1 and 7.0 running simultaneously under IIS 6? I've always wondered how difficult this would be to set up (without using JRun) but had never tried configuring a server this way before.
Last week though, I was building a new Windows 2003 Server as a development server at my house. I decided I really wanted to get both CFMX 6.1 and CFMX 7.0 running simultaneously so I could easily test code in both versions of the language, without having to toggle the services off and on. Turns out it's not so difficult—all you need to do is configure different "Web Sites" for each version of ColdFusion you want to run. In the below example I use a different ports to differentiate the version of ColdFusion.
- Create two new Web Sites in IIS—one for the ColdFusion MX 6.1 Administrator and one for your development. Label both of these sites to indicate that they're running CFMX 6.1.
- Install ColdFusion MX 6.1. Make sure to install use the standard non-J2EE/JRun install. If you want to install using JRun, that's fine, but these directions may not work. You should be able to configure multiple CFMX instances in JRun though.
- After installation has completed, restart the server if prompted to reboot.
- Create a new Web Sites in IIS for the ColdFusion MX 7.0 Administrator. This should be a different directory from your CFMX 6.1 Administrator Web Site. This is to make sure you can administrate both versions of ColdFusion. Don't run this on a port/IP address being used by any of your other web sites.
- Create another new Web Site. This one should point to root directory of the development web site you created in step 1. Make sure to use a description that indicates this site is running CFMX 7. If you want to create this web site on the same IP address as the CFMX 6.1 dev server, make sure to specify a port other than 80. If you don't want to use an alternative port, then set this set up on another IP address.
- Install ColdFusion MX 7.0. Once again, make sure to install CFMX in the standard non-J2EE/JRun install (this is the first option.) Install the site under IIS 6, but this time specify that the site should be installed on only the ColdFusion MX 7 Administrator site you create—do not install on all servers.
- Once installation is complete, restart the server if prompted to reboot.
- Test you Administration sites to make sure that you're getting the correct version of ColdFusion MX to load for each administration site. The version number of ColdFusion (pulled from the Server.ColdFusion scope) should be shown on the screen.
- Open up the "Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager".
- Open up your CFMX 7 development web site properties, by right-clicking on web site and choosing "Properties."
- Go to the "Home Directory" tab.
- Click on the "Configuration" tab.
- Under "Application extensions" click on the "Executable Path" column heading to sort by path. The CFMX ISAPI filter should be at or near the top of the list. By default, this site should be mapped to the CFMX 6.1 installation. To change this site to use CFMX 7, double-click on each entry for invoking the jrun_iis6.dll file and change the path to the CFMX 7 directory. If you installed both versions of ColdFusion to the default location (or to the same drive,) you can just go through and change the "CFusionMX\" to "CFusionMX7\". You should have entries for this DLL for the following extensions: cfc, cfm, cfml, jsp, and jws.
- Under the "Wildcard application maps (order of implementation)" section, double-click on this entry and point the "jrun_iis6_wildcard.dll" to it's CFMX 7 version. Like in the above example, by default you should be able to change the path from "..\CFusionMX\" to "..\CFusionMX7\".
- Click on "Start > Run" and type "iisreset /restart" and then press [ENTER]. This will ensure that IIS is restarted and all of your changes are registered.
- In your development web sites's root folder, create a file with the following command: <cfdump var="#server#" /> and save the file.
- Run the template you create above in both your CFMX 6.1 web site and the CFMX 7.0 web site. If everything went as planned, it should show different versions of ColdFusion being reported.
- Now you can just switch between IP address or ports (depending on how you configured your development web sites) to switch back and forth between versions of CFMX 6.1.
Our New Patio
Ok, it's been busy the past couple of weeks and I have hadn't much time to post—especially when it comes to personal matters. Anyway, I wanted to post some pictures of the new patio I just had installed. I'm in the process of putting down new sod in some areas of the yard and I'm hoping that we be finished up tomorrow.
Jenn & I are extremely happy with DeMatteo Patio's work. Tim did a great job. All of our neighbors have come over to say how good the patio looks. Even the guys laying the sod have commented on how nice of a job the guys did on the patio (and they do patio work themselves.)
Anyway, on to the pictures! The next project I'm hoping to get down before the end of the year is to get the house painted. I was going to try to do it in the spring, but I decided to wait until fall and until the patio was built. We're hoping the patio will help cut down on the mud and dirt the dogs get into (their used to be flower beds along the back of the house—or should I say mud pits.)
Programmatically Reading ColdFusion's Mail "Spool Interval" Setting
I was working on some code today and needed to determine what the value of the "Spool Interval" was in the CF Administrator. After playing around for a few minutes, this is what I came up with. This code uses non-documented functionality, but I've tested the code under CFMX 6.1 and CFMX 7 and it seems to work fine. Obviously, if Macromedia changes internal workings of ColdFusion, this code may break in the future.
<cfobject
action="create"
type="java"
class="coldfusion.server.ServiceFactory"
name="oFactory"
/>
<!---// get the mail spool service //--->
<cfset oMailSpool = oFactory.getMailSpoolService()>
<!---// get the mail spool interval schedule in seconds //--->
<cfset iSpoolInterval = (oMailSpool.getSchedule() / 1000)>
Bug in CFDUMP tag - Doubling Your Output...
I discovered a small bug with CFMX today. It's certainly not a deal breaker and Macromedia is aware of the bug. (A birdy told me that they believe the bug has been fixed for Merrimack.)
When you have a UDF that writes to the output stream (using writeOutput() or <cfoutput>) and invoke the function directly from the <cfdump /> tag, the output is displayed twice. This had me pulling my hair out for about 30 minutes trying figure out why my output was being generated multiple times—I thought I had a bug in my code.
Anyway, to see the bug in action, run this code:
BlackDog - Portable USB-Powered Linux Server...
Came across this pretty cool little product called BlackDog. It's basic a 400Mhz PowerPC Processor with Debian-based Linux in a plug-n-play USB box. Could be very useful portable development server. Check it out.
BlackDog offers open source developers an exciting new platform for mobilizing software applications. BlackDog represents a new breed of device that redefines what a 'computer' is. It can be programmed to carry your applications, data, web sites, desktop look and feel, with you, wherever you may go.
Develop applications and deploy them on BlackDog then launch and automatically project them onto a Windows PC. Design an interface, spin and run a web site, run a video game.
Program It — Port It — Plug It — Pull It, throw it in your pocket and do what you will with it — With BlackDog you 'can' take it with you!
Firefox Tip: Use Multi-line URLs When Pasting Into The Address Bar
Andrei Zmievski posted a cool little blog entry on how to get Firefox to parse a mutli-line URL. This tip is very handy when cutting and pasting URLs from an e-mail or from a message board where the URL spans multiple lines.
Here's another Mozilla/Firefox tip: if you copy a URL wrapped over multiple lines from somewhere and try to paste it into the address bar, you will end up only with the first line of it. To fix it, go to about:config and change editor.singleLine.pasteNewlines setting to 3 or add:
user_pref("editor.singleLine.pasteNewlines", 3);to your user.js file. Now all the line breaks will be removed upon pasting.
This has always been a big pain in the arse. In the past I've always ended up having to open up a text editor, paste the URL and then strip out the new lines. This will be a real time saver!
qForms Video - Creating A Selectable Checkbox Range
Ok, I actually did this work last week, but was waiting to ship the code to the client before posting the video. I recently had a qForms user ask if qForms could do selecting of a range of checkboxes—liked Google does in GMail (where you can click on a checkbox and then hold [SHIFT] and click on another checkbox to select the entire range.
Well, qForms doesn't offer this "out of the box," but it's really not that difficult to add custom hooks into the API. So, the user ask me to build an add-on library. After spending last Friday night messing around, this is what I came up with.
George R.R. Martin Finally Finishes A Feast For Crows...
It's about time! George R.R. Martin has finally finished A Feast For Crows. According to Martin's official web site, Bantam Spectra (US) will be publishing the book on November 8th and HarperCollins Voyager (UK) will publish the book on October 25th.
Here's the release banner on Martin's web site:
Jenn & I Bought A Sofa And Loveseat!
Well, Jenn & I bought a new sofa and loveseat tonight. We've been looking for awhile now and finally just bought the bullet and bought one tonight. We were really having problems deciding what we wanted. We liked the idea of reclining sofas, but we didn't like the looks of a lot of the models.
We finally went back to a sofa we'd seen several months ago at Kittles. I generally like the looks of traditional sofas better, but we finally found a reclining sofa we both liked and we both felt a reclining sofa would fit our lifestyles better.
The third picture below I think is the actual color of the fabric we choose, but it's hard to tell from these pictures. We didn't go with leather because of the dogs (although we both generally liked the look of leather couches better.) We also wanted to go with a fabric that would hide the dog hairs (having both a Yellow and Black Lab make for lots of dog hair!) The colors in the couch are similiar to our old couch, but it actually has all the colors in our carpet.
Heading to Pittsburgh/Steelers Training Camp...
Jenn and I are heading to Pittsburgh for the weekend. We're planning on spending Saturday afternoon over in Latrobe at the Pittsburgh Steelers Training Camp. We're meeting up with a bunch of fellow Steeler fans we know. Should be a good time. It's even supposed to cool off for the weekend, which is great news.
I booked us a hotel room at the Courtyard by Marriot in downtown Pittsburgh for Saturday night. There's Pirates game in town that night, so if we don't decide to do something different, we might go check out the game. We're not big baseball fans, but I don't mind going to see a game in person from time to time—especially since we'll be just blocks from the stadium.
Is This Really Mac OS X v10.4.1 Running On A PC?
Gizmodo posted a screen shot of someone supposedly running Mac OS X v10.4.1 via a VMWare session. While I'm hoping this news is true, I'm suspected this is probably a fake screenshot. I've looked through VMWare's web site and can't find anything about upcoming support for the Mac OS X. I suspect this is just a rumor based on the fact that Apple has announced their plans to move to Intel-based processors.
However, the fact that Apple is making this move, it would see feasible that you could write a virtual machine to emulate the Apple specific hardware. It sure would be nice to be able to open up an Mac OS VM to test sites on the Mac. ;)