Mom and Harrison are doing really well. We are all home and happy. Harrison has already started to make plans to take over the world. But first he must defeat his arch enemy the cold wet wipe.

Next week Harrison and I are planning on programming websites and rebuilding a few old cars... ok, maybe that will have to wait a few years, before we start those projects.


Harrison's first picture


Harrison and his big sister Abby and Mom


Harrison and his big sister Abby and Mom


Harrison and his big sister Abby

Last week I was all set to move several sites to new CF8 VPS and in testing I found that the CFX_PAYFLOWPRO and CF8 were not happy together. After a bit of research, it seems that some developers out there were able to get it to work, but I could not, most likely due to I had an older CFX_PAYFLOWPRO tag and the newest one is not available via Payflopro's website. In any case, spending time trying to get the CFX_PAYFLOWPRO to work with CF8 was not going to be a good idea. The system for charging cards that the custom tag uses is set to be retired September 2009.
So I went to work researching how to quickly replace the CFX_PAYFLOWPRO with the http request method.

Here is a drop in replacement for the CFX_PAYFLOWPRO custom tag, it returns the results of the transaction in a query just as the CFX_PAYFLOWPRO custom tag does.

Drop me a comment below, if this is useful to you, or if you have a suggestion on how to improve it.

Disclaimer: As always, test this before you deploy it, if you choose to do so, I will not be responsible for any damage it causes.

UPDATE:3/8/2008: I wrote a chunk of code to act as a drop in replacement to the CFX_PAYFLOWPRO tag Click here

Ok, I know that the custom tag for Pay Flow Pro is not support under CF8 and it is probably not a good idea to try and make it work, but I still need to get it working, until I can come up with another solution like the cfpayflowpro cfc
So those of you out there that are running CF8 and payflow what solution are you using?

I have seen in comments on other blogs that people have gotten ColdFusion 8 and CFX_PAYFLOWPRO to work together, but they never seem to share the "FIX" that made it work. If your one of these people, I'm looking for you.

The error I get is a cert related error. I am fairly sure, I have the "certs" folder in the correct location. Here is the error:
RESULT=-31&RESPMSG=The certificate chain did not validate, no local certificate found, Modify java.security file to add security provider&

My other thought is I might have an older version of the CFX_PAYFLOWPRO tag. What version of the CFX_PAYFLOWPRO is the latest / newest?

I was setting up a firewall on a red5 server and I needed the list of ports that red5 uses. I was floored to find that I could not come up with a list of ports, quickly via google. So I thought I would post the list.

Default ports:
1935,8088,5080,1936

RTMP: 1935
RTMPT: 8088
HTTP servlet engine port: 5080
Debug proxy port: 1936

Here is a really good article about how to center stuff in CSS

http://www.w3.org/Style/Examples/007/center

I work with CSS a fair amount and I hate looking at and trying edit CSS that has been optimized for fast download. (One class per line)

I wondered, expecting that if an online SQL formatter existed, I would expect that an online CSS formatter would exist. One google search later, I find, "Yup, I was right".

Here are two that I found handy:
FormatCSS
http://floele.flyspray.org/csstidy/css_optimiser.php
-Fairly nice, lots of options, but no compress option.
CSS Formatter and Optimiser
http://www.lonniebest.com/FormatCSS/
-Nice options, but it did not come to hand as well.

Over the last few months I have been brining my Macbook to work to augment my aging PC. One thing that has annoyed me is that there seems to be no simple way to make an auto map a drive to our windows file server.

So I was faced with a few options. Make a shell script, make an apple script, or Directory Utility if you are using Leopard. There are probably a few other ways too. But even with a script, I would still need to run it each day when I bring my Macbook to the office. And since I only reboot my Macbook every few months, I can't write a script and have it run at login/bootup.

Enter a really cool free app named, MarcoPolo. http://www.symonds.id.au/marcopolo/ This little app is amazing, "It allows your computer to determine its context through gathering evidence from your environment (evidence sources), using flexible rule-based fuzzy matching to make an educated guess (rules), and then performing arbitrary actions upon changing context (actions)." That is a bit of a long winded way of saying, it can do many many things, one of them is map a network drive when it sees the Macbook has just joined my office's wireless network. The other things that MarcoPolo can do is just about limitless. You could have it run a back up script when a USB drive is plugged in or about 100 other things.

This thing is so handy I could see apple implementing it into future versions of the OS.

I often have to google to find a CSS Technique that I want to use, Here is a nice list of CSS Techniques all in one place, put together by noupe.com
http://www.noupe.com/design/101-css-techniques-of-all-time-part-1.html#more

Just two links for info on PNGs, transparency and browsers
http://rickosborne.org/blog/index.php/2007/10/22/use-fireworks-for-pngs-ever-look-inside-them-you-need-to/
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2007/09/18/png8-the-clear-winner/
AlphaImageLoader for Alpha transparency
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/bobosola/pnginfo.htm
http://webfx.eae.net/dhtml/pngbehavior/pngbehavior.html
CSS method http://www.themaninblue.com/writing/perspective/2004/06/18/

Just saw this on www.digg.com, and it was also sent from a friend, take this for what it is worth. This seems like just the sorta FUD story that is at home on the internet. I have not personally confirmed this, but it seems possible. I have now confirmed this, it does just what the article says. I tried a random string of letters and numbers. No luck, then I tried johnedsonsmith.com. Now that domain name is now reserved by Network Solutions. So with any luck a domain squatter will buy it in a few days when Network Solutions temp hold expires and waste his money

The story seems to indicate that if you use Network Solutions to check for the availability of domain name AND you do not buy it at that time, Network Solutions will hold it for a few days so you can not register the domain through another register like godaddy. Full story here.

Holler, if you can confirm one way or another.

I have started to fall in love with Mod_rewrite. One of the many many things Mod_rewrite can do is to force a page to be HTTP / SSL just add the code below to your .htaccess file.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !^on$ [NC]
RewriteRule . https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L]

Yet another way to do the same: http://www.linuxinsight.com/two-ways-to-force-ssl-on-your-website.html