ColdFusion: With ColdFusion, you can build and deploy powerful web applications and services with far less training time and fewer lines of code than ASP, PHP, and JSP. Version 7.0 introduces powerful new application services including rich Flash forms generation, structured reports, and dynamic generation of printable documents. Coupled with version 6.1’s simplified installation and migration, updated key features, and increased in runtime performance, these features open up a new world of applications beyond the browser.
FREE Domain & Setup! Register today with Web.com! In 3 easy steps you can post your photos, your blog, and more. Be seen on the web tonight. Only $11.95/month. More info
Your source for web success. Broaden your reach and increase sales with Yahoo's comprehensive set of web-based solutions. More info
The most feature packed ColdFusionR hosting on the Web from Uplinkearth! Includes Sandboxing, Flash Remoting and the ability to use tags like CFFILE! Sign up today and get a FREE domain name. CALL US Toll-Free at 800-745-3043 or Chat Live More info
What is ColdFusion?
ColdFusion is a program based on the CFMX programming language that builds and deploys powerful web applications and services. With proven tag-based methodology, ColdFusion’s features allow web developers to easily harness the power of the Java Platform to deliver powerful Internet applications to millions of people worldwide. ColdFusion is a server side language, which is executed by a ColdFusion application server. It works by executing CFM templates (which is a mixture of HTML and ColdFusion instructions) to return normal HTML to the requesting browser. The ColdFusion MX Enterprise software suite provides all the necessary software to create large-scale websites, applications, and hosting environments, and is available for either a stand-alone installation for web developers or for industry-level deployment on J2EE application servers.
The true power of ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML)
The core functionality of ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) is centered on the use of tags. These server scripting tags give ColdFusion its speedy development applications for the web. CFML is quite simple to learn, but is powerful enough to handle even the most complex and demanding web applications. Processed entirely on the server, CFML uses syntax closely resembling that of HTML and XML. CFML consists of two primary language elements: tags and functions. Tags let you perform operations such as accessing a database. Functions can return data and do other operations like retrieving the system date. Tags, functions and operators make up expressions. Building expressions in ColdFusion is easy and can include simple as well as complex elements. The ways in which these expressions and elements are used determine how ColdFusion processes your program.
Is ColdFusion easy to learn?
Out of the many different methods used to develop and build web applications, pages, and services, ColdFusion is by far the easiest to learn and use. For ColdFusion 7.0, Macromedia has created a helpful ‘Getting Started Experience’ interface that gives the new user access to tutorials, whitepapers, topic index, and even two sample applications to play with.
There is no other language or product as well suited to web developers as ColdFusion. Easy-to-use visual tools and an intuitive server scripting environment allow new users to easily pick up the CFML language.
Windows, UNIX, or Linux…which Should I Use To Run My Website?
Macromedia ColdFusion MX supports most operating systems including Windows, Unix, Linux, IBM AIX and HP-UX. Below is a list of operating system versions and system requirements for the latest ColdFusion version:
Windows OS Intel Pentium processor or higher 256 MB RAM but 512 MB is highly recommended 400 MB of hard disk space available Works on MS Windows 98 / ME / NT 4 / SP6A / 2000 /SP3 / XP/ 2003
Linux OS Intel Pentium processor or higher 256 MB RAM but 512 MB is highly recommended 400 MB of hard disk space available Red Hat Linux 7.2 / 7.3 / 8.0 / 9 / AS & ES 2.1 / AS & ES 3.0 SuSE Linux 7.2 / 7.3 / or 8X Turbo Linux 8 Server ( Japanese Only)
Unix SPARC, PA-RISC 1.1 / 2.0 / Power 3 processor Sun Solaris 7 / 8 / 9 256 MB RAM but 512 MB is highly recommended 400 MB of hard disk space available HP-UX 11i IBM AIX 5L 4.3 / 3 / 5.1 / 5.2 Apple Mac OS X
What Databases and Web Servers are supported with ColdFusion?
ColdFusion MX supports most major databases including Microsoft SQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, IBM DB2, Sybase and IBM Informix. In addition, CFMX can run on most major web servers including IIS, Apache and Sun One.
What are the differences between the ColdFusion 7.0 editions?
Standard Edition: This edition is for single web application or small workgroup environments. It builds accessible, high-quality rich forms, transforms existing HTML content into PDF or FlashPaper 2 formats, creates structured business reports for workgroup applications, delivers charts and graphs, and increases text searching capabilities.
Enterprise Edition: This edition is ideal for the quickly growing business. It includes all the features of the Standard Edition as well as scalability, performance, and enterprise management capabilities for larger web and business applications. The Enterprise Edition has multi-instance deployment and management, clustering, high-speed enterprise database drivers, server security J2EE packaging and deployment, and high-performance e-mail delivery. Yet the most anticipated feature of this edition is the event gateway, which enables ColdFusion applications to connect to mobile phones and instant messaging.
How does ColdFusion run on application servers?
The ColdFusion MX runtime environment is actually a Java application that takes advantage of the many powerful services in the J2EE platform. What this J2EE platform does is connects the various databases, manages its own security, as well as processes the requests sent in by the application itself. When ColdFusion MX is installed in the J2EE configuration, the compiled infrastructure will be on top of the application server in order to execute the language’s applications. This configuration will allow developers to cultivate and set out pages, as well as manage the MX server settings using the ColdFusion Administrator.
What are the advantages & disadvantages of using custom tags in ColdFusion?
Using custom tags within ColdFusion has its advantages and disadvantages. Custom tags written in CFML primarily try to achieve a simple balance between three aspects; taking argument statements, having body tags begin and end with the appropriate tag, and ensuring proper processing when a beginning tag is encountered by the ColdFusion program. If designed properly, these custom tags will also be able to be called recursively (meaning that it will have the functionality to call itself within the body tag). Although a custom tag in ColdFusion will call a page included the CFinclude tag, the disadvantage is that the code must be recursive, have developed complex functionality, and must be convenient for others (although often times code is not convenient). If creating either a User Defined Function (UDF) or a custom CFML tag, weigh the options carefully, since invoking a UDF requires less system overhead than using a custom tag.
What are the new features for ColdFusion 7.0?
ColdFusion 7.0 brings a whole new level of features to developers. With better web application creation, new server management and deployment options, and a new class of applications, users are able to quickly create powerful Internet applications without spending a lot of time or money.
Macromedia developed the new features to help web developers be more efficient in performing routine tasks such as structured business reporting, Flash-rich forms, and PDF and FlashPaper 2 document generation. ColdFusion Report Builder, a tool that helps users develop detailed business reports, will create sub reports, charts and graphs, automatically generate subtotals, and much more. ColdFusion 7.0 simplifies the form building process with the new Rich Flash and XML Forms capabilities. The new CFDOCUMENT feature eliminates chopping page printing with a single tag that transforms web pages into PDF or FlashPaper 2 formats.
How do I purchase my own copy of ColdFusion?
The ColdFusion MX suite is available directly from Macromedia, local computer software resellers, licensing programs and some web hosts.
Banner Advertising And Your Website
You have surely been to hundreds of websites that have little rectangular graphics at the top of the page, touting some product or service that no web surfer can live without. Clicking on this picture can immediately transport you to the website of the product vendor, so you can obtain their product or services. Welcome to the concept of banner advertising.
Banner advertising is a very popular advertising method used on the Internet. A company can purchase or barter for the placement of a graphical banner advertisement on another website’s web page. In this case, the company who is placing the advertisement is seeking exposure for their goods or services, so they will want the advertisement to appear in a prominent area on the website. In addition, certain banner advertisers target the websites and even parts of a website that may cater to their prospective customers. For example, a company who manufactures shovels may choose only to advertise on home improvement websites, or on sites that have a gardening section.
There are two ways you can potentially benefit from banner advertising, as an owner of a website. The first way, is to sell advertising space on your website to display the advertisement of another website. Depending on your website’s traffic, this can be an effective means of income generation. The second way to benefit, is to advertise your website on other websites. This can be a valuable tool to improve the traffic on your website.
Lets take a second here to discuss a little terminology when it comes to discussing banner ads. The two key buzzwords to know are impressions and clicks. There are many other phrases and metrics involved in the world of banner advertising, but these two are the most important, and for the purposes of this article we will keep it simple. An impression, also known as a view, is when a banner ad is displayed to a web visitor. So, the number of times a banner is viewed is measured in impressions. Clicks, on the other hand, are when a visitor actually clicks on a banner ad to visit the advertiser’s site.
There are many common practices when it comes to the actual billing of banner ad placement. Some websites charge a flat fee for a certain number of impressions. For example, one site might charge $25 for 1000 impressions. Other sites might charge a smaller amount for impressions, but more money for actual clicks. There are many pricing combinations and schemes across the industry, so knowing exactly what you are being charged for is very important.
When selling advertising space on your website, there are two key factors to keep in mind when interacting with prospective advertisers. The first and foremost is traffic. How busy is your website? Is it worth the time and effort to set up an advertising relationship with your website? If you have steady traffic to your site, then this is usually not a problem. Some companies, however, have policies as far as the minimum number of hits your site must have in order to be “worth the time”. The second factor is audience. When working directly with an advertiser, they typically prefer to work with websites whose visitors meet the same demographic as their customers. In layman’s terms, they want your customers to be their customers. While this can be an important factor, it can sometimes be overshadowed by your traffic. Sites with phenomenal amounts of traffic typically have no problems with finding advertisers, even ones who may have nothing in common with the theme of your website.
Some advertisers will sign up with a banner exchange company. In this case, you place a link to the banner exchange’s website on your pages and the exchange controls what banners to display based on the marketing agreements that they have made with the advertisers. Using this method for finding advertising generally yields less profit, but does cut down on the maintenance and reporting required when you deal with the customer directly.
When placing your banner on other websites, you too have the option of working directly with the sites that you want your banner to appear on or working with some kind of banner clearing house/exchange. If you wish to work with an impression based billing arrangement, it is essential that your banners be displayed to people who would be interested in seeing them. For example, advertisements for auto-parts would not really get a good response on a website dedicated to theatre tickets. In comparison, the same banner ad would do very well on a webpage dedicated to automobile discussions. If you are paying for each impression of your ad, make sure you get your money’s worth. Be sure to look around at different websites for pricing and policies before picking one site or exchange to host your banners. A careful evaluation of your alternatives will be invaluable in selecting the right website or exchange to host your ads.
Banner advertising can be a very viable business practice, as long as you are armed with the knowledge of how they work, and apply that knowledge when creating your advertising relationships with other websites.
Coldfusion 
