Our friend and colleague Wil passed away a few days ago after a hard-fought battle with cancer. Wil worked for CF Webtools for almost 10 years. His devotion and expertise are irreplaceable. He has posted on this blog frequently and was a frequent writer on his own excellent blog at Trunkful.com. His role here was as a senior architect and knowledge expert. His influence was felt throughout our staff.
CF Webtools is a company built on people and a certain culture. We have 4 core values that are a part of our DNA as a company - Caring, Competence, Communication, and a Can-do spirit. Despite the alliteration, these are not "aspirations". They are what make us tick from the top down. Wil exemplified all these attributes in our company. He cared about our customers and his co-workers. He was excellent at communicating his wealth of knowledge - indeed, probably half of the entries in our large internal Wiki were written by Wil. I trusted him to handle a sticky problem and find a solution. When it came to solving problems, Wil had determination. He was stubborn! And he thought around corners in a way that always reminded me of me.
As a man, Wil was larger than life. He was funny, affable, and generous with his time. He loved cigars, good food, good bourbon, and his jeep. He was gentle with big-hearted self-effacing humor that always made us smile.
He died too young, but during the time we knew him, he lived well - loving and honoring those around him, building friendships, and adding joy to those he knew. May the same be said of all of us. We at CF Webtools will miss him dearly.
CFWT is growing again. We are looking for one, possibly two senior ColdFusion developers to join our staff. Our group is close-knit, dynamic and knowledgable. Here are a few things you should know.
This position is on a high quality team maintaining, upgrading and enhancing a broad suite of complex applications. Responsiveness, communication, security mindedness and teamwork are key elements of the ideal candidate.
We are not recruiters. We are not generalists either - we focus on the CF stack and try to know "all things ColdFusion". Yes you will work with and for customers but we care about developers and work culture. We try to find what makes you tick and we hope to provide a work environment where you can grow. We want you to want to come to work every day. We are looking for developers that match our culture of Can-do, Caring, Communication and Competency. Here's some items that you need in order to fit in here.
Hey folks, we continue to grow and expand here at CFWT. Our Ops department is looking for a CF jack of all trades who isn't afraid of AWS or servers. Details below - see if you qualify!
Seeking a ColdFusion Systems Administrator for CF Webtools. We are in Omaha, NE and are accepting both local and remote positions.
We are looking for someone experienced in ColdFusion. Perhaps you are a CF developer looking to change it up or you are already experienced in JVM tuning, lockdowns and such. This job will involve managing servers (this is not a help desk job) – provisioning, migrating code, upgrading the OS and more. On the ColdFusion side you'll be handling complex troubleshooting, upgrades, updates, installations and more. But don't get too hung up on only ColdFusion. We also touch other technologies such as WordPress, Python, PowerShell, MS SQL, My SQL, NoSQL and more. Below are some of the technologies we use and you will need to work with. To qualify, you should know more than a few of these:
We are not a staff augmentation company trying to find someone to fling out to a spot in hopes they stick. While you work with customers, we care about developers and work culture. We intend to know you and support you. We strive to create a workplace you enjoy. We are looking for IT specialists that match our culture of Can-do, Caring, Communication and Competency. Here's some items that you need in order to fit in here.
We provide W2 employment with benefits for remote workers (i.e. you can work in your PJs but don't make a habit of it). We collect experts like fine wine and provide them a happy home inside our hive mind. ColdFusion is our core tech so you need high aptitude in that language and platform (and we will test you to make sure), but you'll need a bit more than that. Here's the main thing we are looking for right now.
I'm glad you asked. CF Webtools has four core values.
And here's a list of things that really help in our environment.
DataBank has issued a Security Bulletin to all of their ColdFusion clients about the recent Adobe ColdFusion Vulnerability. Databank has partnered with CF Webtools to do the patching for all of their ColdFusion client's servers.
CF Webtools is a full service ColdFusion consulting company provided high quality development services and specializing in the ColdFusion stack. If it has to do with ColdFusion we will be able to help!
Both CF Webtools and DataBank are highly engaged in helping their customers maintain secure environments. Patching and regular maintenance are part of that process. If you haven't yet patched your server – whether you host with a high quality provider like DataBank or host it yourself – give us a call at (402) 408-3733 and we will take the worry out of ColdFusion security.
I know I know - it's only been a week since we picked up our 7th new 2019 team member, but we are at it again. We have a need for up to 4 new ColdFusion developers. We are also looking for a new operations person to fill out that growing team. Info below.
Looking to add 2 to 4 new developers to our team of 3. You will need to grasp requirements fairly intuitively and think around corners. We need someone who is good at acquiring institutional knowledge of a system and code and can pass that knowledge on to team members. If you like to dig in, find things about a system and then use that knowledge to help others and make the system better, this is an ideal profile for you.
While a knowledge of ColdFusion is not required it would be a plus. This job will involve managing servers and server instances (this is not a help desk job) - provisioning, migrating code, upgrading OS or Java. Below are some of the technologies we use and you will need to work with. To qualify you'll need to know at least a handful of these.
We are not a staff augmentation company trying to find someone to fling out to a spot in hopes they stick. While you work with customers, we care about developers and work culture. We intend to know you and support you. We strive to create a workplace you enjoy. We are looking for developers that match our culture of Can-do, Caring, Communication and Competency. Here's some items that you need in order to fit in here.
As many of you are aware Oracle has changed their licensing for Java 1.8 and making it a pay to play for all commercial purposes. Here's a link to the licensing announcement. I'm not a lawyer and I'm not going to pretend that I understand these licensing agreements. But Oracle and Adobe (or their lawyers I presume) do understand these and as such there are changes to note. On January 24th Adobe announced that Adobe will maintain support. via a Long-Term Support Agreement with Oracle, for Java 8 and Java 11. Thank you Adobe!
I have questions as I'm sure everyone else does. I've been asking representatives at Adobe these questions.
What does this mean for us?
ColdFusion Server runs on Java from Oracle, and as such the new Oracle license affects all of our ColdFusion servers. To this point Adobe has secured licensing from Oracle that allows all ColdFusion Server owners continue running Java. It is very important to note that you now need to download Java from Adobe and NOT Oracle. Get your Adobe Licensed Oracle Java downloads HERE!
Is the Java version from Adobe Different that the same version from Oracle?
Great Question and I asked Adobe about this. Here is the answer "Wil, installers are same but license attached to them are different and this is for both Java 8 and 11".
What about my existing ColdFusion Servers?
Another great question! There are tens of thousands (or more) ColdFusion servers running and the vast majority of them are running on Java from Oracle. I know that the CF Webtools Operations Group maintains a very large number of servers for a large number of clients. Over time we have been upgrading the Java version on the servers to keep up with the security updates from Oracle. This means that most if not all of these servers are on Oracle Java from Oracle and not from Adobe. What do we have to do to remain compliant?
I really hope we do not have to visit all of these servers and replace the Java with the one from Adobe simply because there is a different license agreement attached. I have submitted this question to Adobe and I'm awaiting anxiously for the answer. What I do know is that all servers that we need to update are going to get the Adobe Licensed version of Oracle Java to stay safe.
I received an answer today from Adobe on this.
Wil, to answer your question, if the JDK/JRE were downloaded before Oracle came up with Licensing change, it should not be an issue. Otherwise we recommend using the Adobe provided download as soon as possible, although we don't see a deadline around this.This means that all the servers that I have recently updated will need to be re-updated with the Java from Adobe that has a different license agreement.
What about my New ColdFusion Servers?
This question has a simple answer. To install a new ColdFusion Server you need to use the ColdFusion installer from Adobe which comes with an Adobe licensed version of Oracle Java. If you want to use a newer version of Oracle Java then you need to download the Adobe Licensed vision of Oracle Java from Adobe. Download Here!
Do I have to use Oracle Java?
Awesome question and the answer is yes, no, maybe. There is OpenJDK that may work just fine to run ColdFusion servers. There is also a new player in the Java game and that is Amazon. "Amazon Corretto is a no-cost, multiplatform, production-ready distribution of the Open Java Development Kit (OpenJDK)." Currently their version 8 is production ready and they version 11 is in the Release Candidate stage. I have run ColdFusion 11 an dColdFusion 2016 on Amazon Corretto 8 and it ran fine for the very limited testing that I did. For now there isn't official support from Adobe for these two Java versions.
As I get more information from Adobe I will provide updates above. I'm sure there will be more questions that people will want answered.
CF Webtools Developer Teams are ColdFusion experts and are ready to build your applications. We are also an Amazon Partner. Our Operations Group can build, manage, and maintain your AWS services including ColdFusion servers. We also handle migration of physical servers into AWS Cloud services. If you are looking for professional AWS management our operations group is standing by 24/7 - give us a call at 402-408-3733, or send a note to operations at CF Webtools .
A quick Muse post with a bit of code. I know I know it's been a while and my coding has suffered. Still, some of you may find this useful.
I'm converting a Fusebox 2 application to FW1 and I wrote a simple script to automate some of the shell files I need. FW1 uses a URL convention that looks similar to Fuesbox. In Fusebox you have a 2 part URL param that dictates what your code is supposed to do. For example, fuseaction=reports.users would logically be a "circuit" called "reports" - think of it as collection of code or an application within a suite of applications. The second part of the fuseaction dictates which report exactly is supposed to be run.
FW1 is not dissimilar to this approach although it tends to introduce complexity for complexity sake at times (don't @ me). In FW1 an "action" parameter dictates which controller to run which in turn calls services and views as needed to set up a page or action. So FW1 may have action=reports.users - it looks quite familiar.
Since my Fusebox application is well organized I created a script that builds off the circuit and creates the necessary FW1 files. For each circuit I am going to create:
The script is pretty easy and it's designed to be run within the fusebox application where the FW1 application is accessable via file operations. First some setup:
Next I created some placeholder files for controller, services and DAO. I'm going to read those files into variables.
That's it. The end result is matching DAO, Controller and service files and view folders. Of course I may delete some of them or merge or whatever as my FW1 application takes shape, but having a matching convention with Fusebox let's me examine code from one into the other without a lot of fuss.
I created a script that handles the "second" part of fuseaction and places an CFM in the views folder as a placeholder. Basically "reports.users" should result in a /views/reports/users.cfm file containing HTML. This is where the eventual display code will be housed.