Chris Simmons

Change background color of fckeditor / ColdFusion rich textarea

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Preface: I work on a project for my office that is hosted by a third party.  Therefore, I do not have access to all the inner workings of ColdFusion.  Specifically I do not have access to the fck_editorarea.css file.

For a new form in the project I need to add a rich textarea.¬† The rich textarea will sit atop a div with a background color so I need to change the textarea’s background color to white.¬† If I can’t access fck_editorarea.css to change the style what can I do?¬† I can change it via the DOM with JavaScript.¬† For kicks I also added a border.¬† Place the following script just before the </html> tag.

<script type="text/javascript">
fckItem=document.getElementById('NEWSBODY___Frame');
// change bgcolor
fckItem.style.backgroundColor="#FFFFFF";
// add a border
fckItem.style.border="1px solid #0A0A4F";
</script>

Easy enough.

Dual Monitor Heaven USB2VGA

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I have finally joined the world of dual monitors.¬† Finances and standards at my office have thwarted my quest for two years to have a dual monitor setup.¬† My propensity to multi-task and staring at a fairly small (by developer’s standards) monitor for many hours a day has made this a painful defeat.

But at last… victory.

Meet the USB2VGA from startech.com (purchased via Dell).¬† This little guy finally allowed me to win the battle of not having to “open the box” to install any hardware.¬† It works quite well, is cost effective, and best of all… easy to configure.¬† If you can plug a device into a usb port then you have skills to set it up.

Can a dropdown box be imperialistic?

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usa! usa! usa! 

I¬†recently received a¬†request from a management member to put “United States of America” at the top of the countries dropdown list for our user registration process.¬† While this may seem an innocuous change to that person we do have a lot (maybe 1/3) of users not born in the U.S.¬†¬† I know it used to be popular to put the good¬†ole¬†U S of A atop of dropdown lists for its vast superiority “convenience” but it seems somewhat “politically incorrect” or “imperialistic” to me.¬† Any thoughts?

Rename a Subversion Repository

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The scenario: You have a folder called code-repo where you keep all your svn repositories (let’s assume it is located in the root c:/ on a Windoze system).  You have a repository named xproject.  For some reason you need to rename the repository.  Let’s say it needs to by yproject.  There are 3 steps to rename the repository and retain all the history you have in the repo.

  1. Create an svn dump file of the xproject repo: svnadmin dump C:\code-repo\xproject > c:\xproject.dmp
  2. Create the new yproject svn repo: svnadmin create C:\code-repo\yproject
  3. Load the dump of the old repository into the new one: svnadmin load C:\code-repo\yproject < C:\xproject.dmp

Sweet.

Who’s down with OPPM

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I have struggled for some time now with an expanding workload.  I direct a lot of projects for a couple of different business entities.  Since I have yet to find a way to disrupt the time space continuum and add more hours to the day I am ever searching for ways to stay focused and cram more into a 24 hour day.

Enter the OPPM.

one page project manager for it projects

The OPPM (One Page Project Manager) is the most effective tool I have found yet for project tracking/communication.  The real genius of it is its simplicity.  It literally is a one page document that can be easily interpreted by the boss, the project stakeholders, the managers, or just about anyone.  All you need is about 2-5 minutes to explain it to them once.  Where can I get more information you ask?

The OPPM (One Page Project Manager) website is a good start.

Then buy the book and read it.¬† The one I read is the one specifically geared for IT projects.¬† It’s about 125 pages and you can read it (and more importantly digest it) over a weekend.¬† Actually, once you read the first two chapters of the book you’ll be up and running.¬† Although I recommend reading the whole thing to learn the finer points.¬† I found the analysis of team member personalities very interesting (I’m the one with lots of unfinished books on the nightstand).

“But dude”, you say.¬† “I just dropped a wad of cash on MS Project.”¬† Don’t fret my friend.¬† You probably still need it to manage the nitty gritty.¬† And don’t throw out your Outlook task lists.¬† You can still use them.¬† The OPPM is meant to augment standard project management tools and methods.¬† The power of OPPM shines in meetings when people actually UNDERSTAND what is going on with the project without having to be a PMP.

Get it.  Use it.  You will be glad.

Nike+ Where’s my 1000 Mile T-Shirt?

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I’ve been meaning to post this for a couple of weeks. I hit a running milestone on September 15th. I broke the 1000 mile barrier. My first run with Nike+ was December 27, 2006 (I got the running kit for a Christmas gift) so it took me a while to get there.

1000 miles with Nike+

One thing that sucks is curious to me is that when I broke 500 miles Nike+ offered to sell me a 500 mile achievement t-shirt. At the time I thought I would hold out and get one when I shattered 1000. Unfortunately though, that milestone came and went and I got no offer. Does anyone know if there are Nike+ t-shirts for 1000 miles?

Incidentally I think the Nike+ interface is getting a little dated. It takes forever too long to scroll back to old runs and I’d like to be able to do some more in depth analysis of my run data. Help me out Nike.

CS4 Beta – Subversion integration does not support file:// protocol

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CS4 Beta has no love for svn file:// protocol

I was really excited to see that CS4 was integrating Subversion.¬† In fact it was the main reason I downloaded the CS4 Beta.¬† At my office I am the only programmer and you’ll have to trust me when I say my only option (for a wide variety of reasons beyond my control) is Subversion on my local machine’s file system and not as a Subversion Server.

Sadly, here is the error message that tipped me off that the file:// protocol was not a possibility:

You have entered non-matching protocols. Please check your settings.

I’m not the only one hoping for Adobe to add support.¬† Check this post as well.¬† If anyone knows of or hears about this getting changed in future releases please drop me a note.

ColdFusion Idol Worship

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When I was a kid I idolized athletes. In college I idolized musicians. As a middle aged dude I idolize superior programmers.

Today I achieved something I am very excited about. I got a couple of lines (and one of those is a comment) of code included in one of Ray Camden’s projects at RIAForge. The project is GoogleCal. It’s a ColdFusion CFC for interacting with Google’s Calendar service. My tiny, wee contribution: helping to submit an “all day” event. It is such a small, small, small, small, small (keep going), minuscule piece of Ray’s project, but just to be able to contribute ANYthing to someone who gives so much to the CF community is freaking AWESOME.

Check it GoogleCal out here.