It's been a year and a half since I mentioned Backup For Workgroups, a top notch, lightweight, low-cost, backup solution. I use it to backup the servers and workstations on my home network to a NAS (which in turn gets mirrored offsite). And it's been working flawlessly since then, just as it is supposed to do. On a few occasions I have restored specific files, and once performed a far more complicated restore (when I replaced my wife's computer with a new machine), and as I said, flawless.

But recently something went wrong. The backup service that runs on the server (the one that actually reads ands writes data to and from the repository on the NAS) started crashing. It took a little while to recreate the situation, but I was able to quite clearly document the problem and error messages. And then I sent an e-mail to Lockstep support on Friday explaining the problem in detail. The web site made it quite clear that their offices were closed from Friday December 22nd through Monday January 1st, and I fully expected to have to wait a while for a response for a few days. But nope, on Saturday I received a detailed response, explaining that the problem was likely that one of the system data stores had gotten corrupt, and providing a link to a utility that would verify and fix any problematic files. I was not asked for any serial numbers or support contracts or payment, I was not told to call back between specific hours, I did not even have to wait until the office reopened! One e-mail sent, one rapid response, and problem solved.

A year and a half ago I said that if you were looking for a backup solution for you small to medium network then to take a look at Backup For Workgroups. Now I repeat that endorsement, not just because the product works so well, but because support like this is a rarity.

If you happen to live in the Benelux area, Waldo Smeets has posted three companies in The Netherlands looking for Flex developers.

Rob Gonda has announced an implementation of AjaxCFC for jQuery, it uses the existing AjaxCFC ColdFusion integration, but uses the jQuery Ajax engine. Keep an eye on Rob's blog for the beta announcement.

I just spent way too much time debugging some SQL Server code, only to discover that my results did not match my SQL statements because of a trigger that I was unaware of. How did I find this trigger? With the help of a wonderful built in stored procedure named SP_HELPTRIGGER. The following lists all triggers associated with table myTable, along with the events they are associated with, and whether they are AFTER or INSTEAD OF:

The United Kingdom's Healthcare Commission is the independent inspection body for both the NHS and independent healthcare. The Healthcare Commission's web site is powered by ColdFusion MX 7. This one sent to me by Anthony Cooper, thanks.

Koen Caerels pointed me at this quote on Ajaxian: "We don't mention ColdFusion enough. Sorry guys.". Dion and Ben, I agree, and I am glad that you now did. Thanks to Rey Bango for bringing the JavaScript port of <cfdump> to their attention.

Scholastic has announced that the title of the 7th Harry Potter book will be "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows". No publication date yet.

John Nack has posted a link to a color wheel showing the next generation of Adobe product icons, and yes, the next ColdFusion icon is there too.

Now I miss the lightning bolt even more!

My desktop wallpaper is now a really cool piece artwork created by Roberto Riutort featuring the Scorpio pre-release logo. This one is red hot, or should that be hot red (actually, I think I'd have preferred for it to be in ColdFusion Blue rather than Adobe Red).

If you'd like it for your computer (admit it, you want it), you can now grab it for yourself from the Scorpio page on Labs. There are two versions of the artwork for you to choose from (I prefer the first myself). Download it, and proudly declare to the world (or at least your coworkers) that you have impeccable taste and are looking forward to 2007 as the year of Scorpio!

Ryan Stewart posted a nice blurb about eBay's "San Dimas" project, an Apollo based eBay client.

The Register is running an interview with Mark Anders, formerly a key member of the Microsoft ASP.NET team, and now one of the brains driving Flex 2. Not an overly technical interview, but worth reading primarily for the comments on Microsoft and WPF.

Last night my Samsung BlackJack stopped making and receiving calls. That's generally not a good thing for phones to do (or not do). The display showed that I was connected to Cingular and that I had strong signal strength, but any calls placed would hang up immediately, and if anyone tried to call me the calls went straight to voicemail.

I removed my SIM card and tried it in two other devices (Cingular 8125 and Treo 650), and both were able to make and receive calls. I then put the SIM card back into the BlackJack, but no luck.

My initial assumption was that the device had died. But while driving around this morning I found that while the phone did not work at home, it did work a couple of miles away. And of course, those other devices worked properly at home. So it was not the phone.

The problem? Apparently Cingular was having issues with their 3G network in some locations. A Cingular rep told me that there have indeed been sporadic issues with 3G, but that these were being resolved. Those other devices are not 3G, they use the older GSM network, and so they worked. But the BlackJack connects to 3G networks if they are available, and falls back to GSM only if 3G cannot be found, and so it would not work because 3G was available (even though it was not working properly).

Which means that I really needed to find a way to tell the phone to not use 3G even if it is available, just in case. And of course, there is no menu option for this. But after some research I found a control code sequence which displays an Admin Settings screen which can be used to do exactly what I needed.

Here's what you need to do:

• Enter phone number *#1546792*#
• Select menu option "3 Network & Call Settings"
• Select menu option "5 Network Mode"
• To force GSM select the "GSM" option, to reenable 3G support select the "Auto" option

And that'll do it.

Oh, and apparently, 3G use consumes far more power. So, if you are low on power, and are not actively using high-speed data connections, temporarily switching to GSM using the technique just described could help.

• Centurion Networks Inc. (Ottawa, ON, Canada) is looking for two senior ColdFusion developers for a client in Ottawa. Requirements include 4+ years ColdFusion experience and 3+ years experience with Microsoft SQL Server (including stored procedure development). These positions could be contract with the possibility of a full time position in the future. Contact resume@centurionnetworks.ca.
• Pearson VUE (Bloomington, MN) is looking for a ColdFusion developer. Requirements include 2+ years of ColdFusion experience, and experience with SQL Server 2000. ColdFusion Certification is preferred, as is experience with Flex, Flash, and CSS. Details online.

Someone e-mailed me asking about the venture fund announced at MAX 2006, and wanting to know where they could learn more, and whom to contact with proposals. After a bit of digging I found this page, and am blogging it so that I have it when I need it next.

Many have commented on the fact that the Samsung BlackJack is the most BlackBerry like alternative to BlackBerry itself. From the scroll wheel to the form factor to the color and more. But apparently, when it comes to appearances, we actually are able to distinguish the BlackJack from the BlackBerry, and we don't confuse the two. What's really confusing us is the name. After all, BlackJack, BlackBerry - they sound so similar that I almost bought the wrong one and I keep mixing the names up. NOT!

But Research in Motion (the makers of BlackBerry) apparently thinks the names are so similar that it will indeed be confusing for users. And as such, RIM is suing Samsung over the name BlackJack. They want damages, and also want Samsung to deliver all BlackJack devices in the U.S. to it for destruction, including all of those that have already been sold.

No word yet on whether or not they'll be suing blackberry farmers the world over, casinos offering Blackjack tables, and jewelers (where shoppers may confuse merchandise with the new BlackBerry Pearl).

You know, this story just warms my heart. It makes me feel better knowing that our Canadian neighbors are just as capable of filing stupidly frivolous lawsuits as we are here in the U.S.

And sorry RIM, you can't have my BlackJack! Phhhbbttthhhh!

Bluefish is an open source IDE intended for experienced web designers and programmers, and it supports a variety of programming languages, including ColdFusion. Check out these features and screenshots. Bluefish is supported on Linux, Solaris, OS-X, and more.

We all rely on writing dynamic SQL in ColdFusion, but what if you need to write dynamic SQL on the server, perhaps in a stored procedure? While I'd not recommend overusing this technique (there are performance penalties to this one), if you need server-side dynamic SQL, the EXEC() function can help:

It gets a little trickier if the WHERE clause needs to compare string values, then you need quotes around the value, and those quotes need to be escaped:

<cfquery> returns the number of rows retrieved by a SELECT operation in the recordcount variable, available in the CFQUERY structure or the specified RESULT structure.

But what if you are performing INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE operations, how could you determine the number of rows affected?

Well, apparently this one snuck in under the radar, I don't see it in the docs (which say that result_name.recordcount contains "Number of records (rows) returned from the query.") or in the release notes. But, as of CFMX 7.0.2, result_name.recordcount also returns the number of rows affected by INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE operations.

I just confirmed that I'll be attending, and presenting at, 360Flex, a new Flex conference scheduled for March 5th-7th 2007 at eBay's Town Hall Center in San Jose, CA. Other Adobe presenters include Matt Chotin, Ely Greenfield, Ted Patrick, Christian Cantrell, Mike Chambers, and Danny Dura. This is a Flex event, not a ColdFusion event, but there will be content specific to ColdFusion/Flex integration. The event runs 3 days, and the fee is a mere $100! Registration is now open.

Yep, there is an Easter Egg hidden in ColdFusion (all MX versions to date, 6.* and 7.*). Marcos Placona posted the details.

I've never done this before, but ... we bought a gift for one of our sons, and everyone has fallen so head over heels over this one that I just have to share.

Hexabits are simple 6-sided flexible plastic tiles that interlock to create all sorts of 2D and 3D shapes. The tiles come in 18 bright colors, are easy to work with, and feel indestructible. The beauty of Hexabits is in their simplicity, unlike Lego or K-Nex or other building toys, there is only one size tile (so no arguing over which kid gets which piece), everything is built using just these tiles, and the tiles stay solidly connected. A booklet of design ideas is included, additional ideas can be found online, and kids will love creating their own designs too. We bought a bucket of Hexabits for our 6 year old, but every one of the kids is hooked on them. Our 3 year old is loving them, and even teenage babysitters have occupied themselves for extended periods (under the premise of helping the kids). Heck, I've been playing with them, too!

Hexabits come in small packs of 20 or so tiles (intended to make a single design), to mix packs of 250 tiles, to bigger buckets containing hundreds or thousands of tiles. We bought this Hexabit 1350 Tile Fun Bucket, but seeing how popular this toy is (and how reluctant the kids are to take apart anything they have made) we probably should have gotten this 2250 piece set.

In this high-tech times, when kids seem to be uninterested in anything that does not beep, move, light up, or make noise, it's wonderful to find a remarkably low-tech, fun, high-quality, creative, and constructive toy that they'll love and really use. This one is highly recommended.

It looks like I am going to keep the Samsung BlackJack. It's not perfect, but it is the best option I have found to date.

So, now I need a case for it, and a second charger (I always keep a second one in my laptop bag). All of my local Cingular stores have sold out of the BlackJack case, and very few have the travel charger. And worse, they are charging $27 for the former and $30 for the latter. You are better off buying these from the Samsung Accessories site's BlackJack page directly, you'll spend $15 for a leather case or a plastic holster, and $20 for that second charger. And shipping is free.

Oh, and if you get a Samsung Bluetooth WEP200 headset, it comes with a charger, too. And both the phone and the headset share the same charger, so that can be your second charger if needed.

Wim Dewijngaert wrote to tell me that ColdFusion XML form components is now online. This new site sells DHTML components designed to be used with ColdFusion <CFFORM FORMAT="XML">, and six components are currently available.

It's not that often that I need a debugger for my SQL code, but every once in a while it's an absolute must, and today is one of those days. I have a several hundred line stored procedure which works with multiple view and table variables, dozens of variables, and three levels of nested cursors. And I am trying to find a sporadic logic problem. Simple stored procedure debugging can use embedded PRINT statements, but this one is more complex, and thus the need for a debugger.

But SQL Server 2005 removed the built-in debugger. Now you need to use Visual Studio .NET to debug SQL Server stored procedures. No problem, I happen to have a copy (which I use for occasional VB.NET and C# code). And sure enough, you can connect to SQL Server, open (and even edit) a stored procedure, set breakpoints, step through code, watch variables and expressions, everything you'd expect ... unless what you want to inspect is anything but a simple variable. As already said, I am working with lots of table variables (actually, as I am working with lots of values at any given time just about everything I need to inspect is a table variable). And when you inspect those it displays "Table". Gee, how useful!

The truth is that the old debugger had the same limitation, no visibility into temporary tables or table variables. But I was hoping that now that the debugger is actually Visual Studio that this limitation would be lifted, but nope.

If anyone knows of a solution or an ingenious workaround, I'd love to hear it. In the meantime, it's back to embedded PRINT statements. Bummer.

If you do anything with Flex charting components, you MUST check out Ely's post entitled Some Thoughts and examples on making Custom Flex Charts simpler.