ColdFusion Webservice gotcha on OS X

As I was getting my presentation on ColdSpring ready for A Wee Dram of Scotch, I come across the following problem, that none of my webservices would work! I started getting the following error:

coldfusion.jsp.JavaCompiler$UnknownCompiler: Unable to run the internal Java compiler: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/tools/StandardJavaFileManager.

Following a bunch of blogs and thanks to Peter Freitag, the answer was simple, move the tools.jar from your <ColdFusion Install>/lib (or <JRUN Install>servers/cfusion/cfusion-ear/cfusion-war/WEB-INF/cfusion/lib ) and restart the server. Bam... back to webservices working fine again. I am just putting this either to help other people, or to help me next time I forget about this

2 comments - Posted by Mark Drew at 4:47 PM - Categories: coldfusion | coldspring

Live from A Wee Dram of Scotch

I just finished presenting my "Better living through configuration" presentation at A Wee Dram of Scotch in London. Its a great presentation so far with Adam Lehman and Claude from Adobe kicking off the proceedings and showing the (possible) Hibernate features in Centaur (or the "Eagerly Awaited next version of ColdFusion"). 

The rest of the day should be really interesting, and currently Peter Bell is telling us about RAD OO.

This is the smallest conference I have been to, and I think its great, there are only about 70 people in the same room and its only one day... a great way to really meet other developers (rather than the immense scale of other conferences)

If the wireless picks up, I shall try and post some more today, if not I shall give you a breakdown (after the hangover ) tomorrow!

In the meantime, here is my presentation and code for you to play with!

0 comments - Posted by Mark Drew at 12:40 PM - Categories: scotch on the rocks | coldfusion | coldspring | presentations | CFConferences

Getting ready to sip a Wee Dram of Scotch in London

Coming up this Thursday 25th of September, the "a Wee Dram of Scotch" one day conference is taking place in London.

This is a great replacement to the cancelled CFDevCon that was meant to be happening over in Brighton, but alas didn't for various reasons. Which brings to mind whether we should have more conferences like this, one day, very cheap (at £10 for entry its surely the cheapest conference there is!) but with still some awesome speakers such as Sean Corfield, Peter Bell and Mike Brunt, not to mention Adam Lehman from Adobe doing the keynote!

So what do you think? Should there be more one day conferences? Would you like your CFUG to cover this instead? More cheap (or free) training in your locality?

Also, how would we expand the use of CF? Is this a good medium for this?

Would love to hear people's opinions on this.

1 comments - Posted by Mark Drew at 12:13 PM - Categories: scotch on the rocks | frameworks | coldfusion | coldspring | CFConferences

My CFUnited presentations available on Adobe Connect

During the CFUnited 2008 Conference in DC, most speakers were able to record their presentations onto Adobe Connect. This is a great feature for most presentation styles (of course not all, since you might want to have a discussion, rather than a presentation), rather than just filming the speaker. Here are the Adobe Connect presentations that have been posted so far:

• CFEclipse reloaded: http://partners.adobe.acrobat.com/p69604765/
• Coldspring: Better living through configuration http://partners.adobe.acrobat.com/p37989763/

You can see the other presentations posted here and here Let me know what you think!

0 comments - Posted by Mark Drew at 11:07 AM - Categories: cfunited | cfeclipse | coldfusion | coldspring | presentations | adobe | CFConferences

CFUnited! What a busy conference!

Next week, CFUnited DC gets on the way, and what a busy conference it will be! Having checked my schedule it looks like it will be a real marathon for me. Here is my schedule: Wed 1:30 - 2:30 : ColdSpring: Better living through configuration Wed 8:30pm - 9:30pm : Improving quality through code reviews and mentoring Thurs 9:30 - 10:30: Fresh Air: Getting to grips with Aptana and AIR applications Fri 9:45-10:45: CFEclipse Reloaded Fri 11:00 - 12:00: Jing Demo (5 mins) Fri 11:00 - 12:00: Railo Demo (10 mins) Sat 9:45-10:45: CFEclipse Reloaded Sat 2:45-3:45: ColdSpring: Better living through configuration You might ask what the Jing and Railo Demo's are about, well, you are just going to have to turn up and find out! :) Hope to see you all there!

2 comments - Posted by Mark Drew at 8:04 AM - Categories: railo | frameworks | cfunited | cfeclipse | coldfusion | coldspring | CFConferences | AIR

ColdSpring: Better living through configuration presentation

As promised, I wanted to share my "ColdSpring: Better Living through Configuration" presentation materials. I am not including the source code, since its very simple and its covered in the presentation itself (and if you work through it, you will get a better understanding!) Attachment: ColdSpringScotch2008.pdf

0 comments - Posted by Mark Drew at 11:56 AM - Categories: scotch on the rocks | coldfusion | coldspring | presentations

Getting all Scotch'd up this week!

Tomorrow I shall be heading to Edinburgh for the fantastic Scotch on the Rocks conference. I know Andy Allan has been working really hard to get this conference going and last year's event was a real blast! This year I shall be presenting a couple of topics, ColdSpring: Better Living through Configuration and a new topic which is FreshAIR: Developing Adobe AIR applications using Aptana Studio. This makes a change to my usual CFEclipse presentations and I have been working hard on making them both informative and entertaining (no, no juggling... sorry!) I am really looking forward to meeting some old friends as well as new ones! So come and say hello!

0 comments - Posted by Mark Drew at 8:24 AM - Categories: scotch on the rocks | coldfusion | coldspring | CFConferences | AIR