ALTER TABLE myTable ALTER COLUMN columnName VARCHAR(100) NULL

Not a huge chunk of code, but definitely helpful!

SELECT c.name, b.name
FROM sys.tables b
INNER JOIN sys.schemas c ON b.schema_id = c.schema_id
WHERE b.type = ‘U’
AND NOT EXISTS
(SELECT a.name
FROM sys.key_constraints a
WHERE a.parent_object_id = b.OBJECT_ID
AND a.schema_id = c.schema_id
AND a.type = ‘PK’ )

Hope this helps!

Multiple File Upload with Flex and Coldfusion

Instead of having 404 errors or broken links to your site, make sure you issue the search engines with a 301 status header (moved permanently) along with the new location of the content. An example would be as follows …

<cfheader statuscode=”301″ statustext=”Moved permanently” />
<cfheader name=”location” value=”http://www.mysite.com/new-location-for-content/” />

This way the search engines know your content has moved and begin changing their links to your site in their search results. Not a difficult technique but one that is often forgotten and can cost valuable SEO points!

<link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”http://yourdomain.com/css/stylesheet.cfm” / >

Inside the file stylesheet.cfm you would have something similar to below …

<cfoutput>
<cfheader name=”content-type” value=”text/css” />
<cfset fontSize = 11 />
body {font-size:#fontSize#px;}
…….. etc.
</cfoutput>

That’s all there is to it. Very simple but very effective and allows you to use a database, xml files or standard text files to switch your application look and feel dynamically.
One really important line in the code above is the <cfheader> tag. Without this line, Mozilla based browsers, will not render the CSS correctly. IE will render, in it’s lovely quirks mode!

Wifime has been launched today in the UK, offering low cost wireless mesh networking solutions, for the hospitality and catering industry.

Offering an “all in one” easy to setup and install solution, Wifime will allow every hospitality business, the opportunity to offer their guests and customers a wireless internet connection, without the worry of network maintenance and expensive setup costs.

With an agressive monthly pricing model tailored to each hospitality business type and size, it makes it an affordable option for a wide range of hospitality businesses, from small country pubs to large hotels & resorts.

With an ever increasing focus on providing customers and guests with a readily available wireless internet connection wherever they may be, Wifime has entered the market with perfect timing.

Wifime currently offer indoor and outdoor mesh nodes that can be used together, to provide total coverage for all types of business. The nodes are small and compact and can run in a “repeater” or “gateway” mode. The best thing about these intelligent nodes, is that once positioned correctly wih power and a network connection, all of the maintenance, monitoring and activation is taken care of by the Wifime team remotely.

Once installed, nodes are activated within the hour and are configured “to talk” to other Wifime mesh nodes within range, creating a collection of wireless mesh nodes, that are intelligent, self aware and easily maintained. This provides relatively small to medium sized hospitality businesses with a solution usually only associated with larger hospitality businesses, but without the high price tag.

For more information and special offer launch pricing for Wifime, please visit www.wifime.co.uk.

This is a really nice demonstration / working app from Adobe. The application is built using Adobe Flex 2 and runs in Adobe AIR. The application has been built to showcase Flex 2’s visual components and the interactivity a Flex application can provide.

The application allows small groups to share digital content, exchange ideas, centralise information and manage projects. It is not a final release software and is not supported, but lets people gain an idea of what can be achieved using Flex. Take a look at Adobe Lab JamJar

Good work Adobe

The basic task was to stop a windows service on the server, perform some deletions, do some copying, then restart the service.

After issuing the <cfexecute> command to stop the service on the server, I would then receive a ColdFusion error when trying to delete a folder that the service still had locked. Whilst this had me stumped for a good hour or so, I finally realised that the deletion event was occurring too quickly after the service had been stopped and that the service still had a lock on the folder and files through the Windows OS.

So I needed a way to pause the current processing thread, before continuing, allowing the locks to be removed. I found this solution on Peter Freitag’s blog post “How to make ColdFusion MX go to sleep”. The solution is as follows …

<cfset thread = CreateObject(”java”, “java.lang.Thread”)>

About to sleep for 5 seconds…

<cfflush>

<cfset thread.sleep(5000)>

Done sleeping.

<cfset thread = “” />

Very simple code, but done the trick and works a treat!

The agenda for the London event is online and will be held at The Brewery, Chiswell Street, EC1Y 4SD.

They also have some really nice Adobe OnAir Desktop Wallpapers available for download.

The event is free but registration required online.