Many of us have used the CFCONTENT tag that comes with ColdFusion to serve up
files to browsers, but very few ColdFusion developers are aware that the
CFCONTENT tag can be used in conjunction with the HTML
tag to serve up
graphics, such as JPEGs and GIFs. In this case, the why of doing this is
perhaps just as interesting as the how.
It turns out that using this technique is perfect for use with creating an
advertising banner server, controlling access to graphic files, or - on the
more sinister side - creating "Web bugs."
If you don't recall, a Web bug is a graphic (usually an invisible 1 pixel
shim) that is embedded in an HTML e-mail message or Word document that tips
off its creator when and who is reading without readers even knowing their
access was logged.
If you've never used the CFCONTENT tag before, it's an excellent tool to
become familiar with. In l... (more)
eWebEditPro from Ektron is a browser-based WYSIWYG editor that lets your Web
site users create HTML content even if they don't know HTML.
In this review we discuss why you'd need eWebEditPro, and point out some of
its features and limitations.
How many times have you brought up a newly created Web page in a browser
window and spotted some content you'd like to change? If you're a developer,
you can go to your HTML editor or ColdFusion Studio, make the change, save
it, go back to your browser and reload. Still not quite right? Another
round-trip to the editor is required. For users... (more)
All data-driven Web sites are potentially vulnerable to hackers, whether they
are written in ColdFusion or another language. Fortunately, a few simple
steps can make your site much more secure.
1. Have an Error Handler
By default ColdFusion displays a detailed error message when there is a
problem in your code. Yes, I know - your code has no bugs in it - but what if
a hacker deliberately creates an error by manipulating URL parameters or
faking out a form submit? If they can make an error and view the error
message, they may see your data source and table names, which could help t... (more)
In March (CFDJ, Vol.3, issue 5) we covered reasons to upsize your Access
database to SQL Server and the tools you'll use to do it. Here we explain in
detail how to copy data to SQL Server and troubleshoot your upsizing project.
The IMPORT AND EXPORT data wizard (aka the DTS Wizard - Data Transformation
Services) certainly helps get you going with building tables in SQL Server.
It takes an Access database (as well as many other database types) to import
its table structures and data to a Microsoft SQL Server. Since it uses a
wizard format, it's simple to use as long as you know wha... (more)
In this article we continue to look at what ColdFusion is and how you can use
it for dynamic website creation. We cover using SQL to dynamically retrieve
and display data from any database along with testing and debugging
techniques.
What is ColdFusion?
In case you missed the previous articles that introduced ColdFusion, let me
explain what it is. ColdFusion, which was introduced by Allaire in 1995 and
is currently on version 4.5.1, is a programming language based on standard
HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) that is used to write dynamic webpages. It
lets you create pages on th... (more)