JSMX and Lightbox Modal

I have spent the last few days working on some excellent functionality using JSMX's light weight AJAX utility combined with Lightbox modal dialog boxes. Combining the two gives you the ability to simulate a desktop application via a web page. Albeit, somewhat tricky at first to get a handle on modal, and the pages you call into the modal become part of the current document object model. So, to run forms and additional js validation, I created a modal wrapper which directs the modal window to the src destination in an iframe to handle any forms. Pretty cool stuff.. I'd like to find the time to experiment with other modal, ajax frameworks.

Code Completed!

Well, I just completed a really cool custom Product Review Workflow application that I have been working on for the past couple months. It feels great to get an application behind you in the sense that I can now concentrate on groovy enhancements and maintenance, and best of all, I can begin architecture and design on a new project!

4 Day Work Week

I found this blog post very interesting. Implementing a four day work week and working more effectively.

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/fourdayweek

Ethics & Software Development

What not to do..

Hard code credentials so others can gain access, not too smart! duh

read this: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001072.html

ColdFusion App EAR Deployment

Well, I will begin efforts to build an EAR file from a ColdFusion application and deploy it on a J2EE server in the near future. The application is very robust and does a lot with cffile so it will be interesting to see how CF will work with the filesystem when dealing with the J2EE server layer. And, to make things more difficult I will not have any hands on ability to the destination server..so I need to work out all the kinks on a development platform prior to final build to production. I am compiling a list of sites with how-to info on this topic:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/coldfusion/articles/ear.html
http://nil.checksite.co.uk/index.cfm/2008/1/3/ColdFusion-Sourceless-Deployment

If anyone has some good resources or known gotchyas for this type of work, it would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

CFGRID - empty row hyphen hyperlinks

If there is anyone out there using CFGRID and has come across this particular issue please let me know. When binding a cfgrid to a cfc and the result set is less rows then the cfgrid maxrow value and I have a href hyperlink setting for each row, the empty rows end up having a hyphen that is hyperlinked but passes cfgridkey = null. How do you remove that hyphen from the empty rows? Anyone?

My First Blog Post

Well, it is long over due but my official blog is now live! Stay tuned to hear about my personal life, professional life, and all things in between. I will update my profile shortly, but let me just tell everyone a little bit about myself. I am thirty years old, a father and husband first, and a small business owner and software developer second.

My goal for this blog is to assist with getting my name out to the web application software community as well as attract customers. I will communicate and document my achievements and random topics and problems that I face on a regular basis.

So, a little bit about my professional background. I have ten years of experience developing web based software applications for commercial and government organizations large and small. I have been involved in many projects over the years. From full life cycle development of a web based magazine including advertising tracking and editorial work flow processes, to highly customized accounting software for a billion dollar organization of the Department of Defense. In addition, I have been involved in multiple legacy migration projects as both a architect and lead developer.

The core technologies I specialize in are: SQL Server, ColdFusion, ASP.net, .Net client development with C# or VB.net. My range of knowledge is not limited to these technologies and it is common that I have a need to pick up and work with J2EE, jsp, xslt, xml, and many other technologies on any given project. I have proven time and time again that I can pickup new technologies and apply them effectively where and when they are required.

My current focus has been researching and experimenting with service oriented architectures. I have experience with created web services and utilizing them with Ajax and other distributed systems. I hope to write more about this topic soon along with all other things software related.

Until next time,

-Jim Ruzicka