Comcast Domain Helper is Nothing More Than Hijack Virus

As a web developer, I need to see errors. If a page is not found, I need to see the browser error. Comcast has this incredibly irritating Domain "Helper" that they automatically put on every subscriber's computer. If a page is not found or times out, Comcast hijacks the page and returns a Comcast search page powered by Yahoo. I can't even put into words how aggravating that is!
I consider that to be a virus. It hijacks my browser without my permission or knowledge.
I have formally complained to Comcast, and it was the devil to get rid of. You have to opt out of the domain helper in the master account holder's Comcast account preferences.
The worst part is, if you reset your modem, it comes back!
So I got rid of it months ago, and then boom it's back.
I guess my next steps are to actually change the IP on my wireless router to Google.
Here are some other posts about it:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/firefox_browser/3966582.htm
http://osxdaily.com/2009/08/09/stop-comcast-from-dns-hijacking-redirects/
http://blog.comcast.com/2009/07/domain-helper-service-here-to-help-you.html

Flash Crashes Firefox

Man, I had a crazy time trying to get flash to work in the latest version of Firefox (3.6.12). I am stubborn and don't usually give up but after trying everything I could think of I finally had to admit defeat and just go back to an earlier version of Firefox. I'm now back on a version of 3.5 and am having no problems.
That's seriously sad because Firefox "used" to be my favorite browser.
UPDATE 11/30/11
I have found something that works.
This issue seems to be related to hang protection that was added to Firefox. To disable follow these steps:
1. In the Location bar, type about:config and press.
2. The about:config page should appear. In the Filter box, type dom.ipc.plugins.timeoutSecs
3. Double click the setting and change the number to -1 to disable hang protection.

Finally, a fix for me!

CFDocument and Really Large Files

I've been having a bit of trouble lately generating a large pdf on a shared server. The file was so large it would time out. (a little over 4 megs)

I finally got it to work by streamlining the cfdocument and wrapping it in a cfthread.

Here's the CFcocktail for large pdf files:

1. Use gif images (I have no idea why this makes the file size smaller but it does, even when the gifs are larger than the jpgs)

2. Put all images in the same folder as pdf creation and make sure to put localurl="true" in the cfdocument tag

3. Make sure the page validates before you wrap it with cfdocument

4. Import your stylesheet



5. Finally, if the file is still too large, wrap it in a cfthread

I tried a lot of different combinations, and this was the only way I could get the file to generate.

Another little neat trick, to make the file open automatically after it's generated is to put this after your tag:



That will prompt a download after the file is generated.

IE6 and 7 problems with arrangement of elements on the page

I had a background image that was showing up in front of a menu recently and had to adjust the z-index to make it show up properly in IE6 and 7.

Here's the fix:
http://brenelz.com/blog/squish-the-internet-explorer-z-index-bug/

IE7 and IE6 don't like list images

I've had to go look this up so many times, I thought I'd post it to my own blog. IE6 and 7 do funny things to list images. Instead of creating a different style just for those browsers, there is an easy fix.

First take out all references to list-style: image
Then change css to this:

ul, li { (or the id/class of this specific ul)
list-style: none;
margin: 0;
padding: 0; (if you don't already have this)
}

ul li {
padding-left: whatever
background: url(heart.gif) left center no-repeat;
}

Configuring CKFinder in CFWheels

Russ Johnson has created a really nice plugin for ckeditor and markitup for CFWheels.

But I was using CKFinder on a project recently, and could not configure it with the jquery installation of ckeditor in the plugin.

So what I did was

install ckeditor (3.4.1) in the files directory
/files/ckeditor
then install ckfinder in the ckeditor directory
/files/ckeditor/ckfinder

then add the links to the javascript in the head of my main layout page
Since I use two environments, I did a check for my CGI.HTTP_HOST to make sure the paths are correct




If you aren't using two environments, you can include them in your javaScriptIncludeTag

then below the contentForLayout() tag, I added the javascript




Then every textarea that I need to use, I just use
textareaTag( name="editor1" )
It's not built into wheels like Russ' plugin so I can't use it as an object, but it's a simple matter to add
<cfset params.mycontroller.myfieldname = params.editor1> in my create or update actions


In my files/ckeditor/ckfinder/config.cfm file I had to make a few adjustments:


For testing purposes only, in my CheckAuthentication()
function, I returned true


You have to set your baseURL (the default is to use the userfiles folder in ckeditor


config.baseUrl = "/files/ckeditor/ckfinder/userfiles/";



and for some reason, I kept getting a file upload is corrupted message, so had to set


config.secureImageUploads = false ;



That was it. Pretty simple really.

Learning CFWheels

Hopefully this is the first of many posts I will make about my experiences with CFWheels.

For three or four months now I've been learning/working with CFWheels. To break it down to it's simpliest definition ... it's Rails for ColdFusion.

I really didn't know anything about Ruby on Rails so I got a book (called Head First Rails) and in just a day or two had gleaned enough from the book to get a fairly good understanding of Rails. What I learned amazed me. What a beautiful, simple framework it is.

A handful of hard working developers have taken it upon themselves to create a similar framework for ColdFusion. That is what CFWheels is.

The whole premise is "convention over configuration." There are no xml files, and if you follow the simple conventions you can have a website up in no time.

Talk about RAD! CFWheels is it!
http://www.cfwheels.org

More soon....