A few days ago I launched a new website for Middlesex Hospital FMRP (www.middlesexfmrp.org).

The site is not fairly large, but does take advantage of custom types, form tools, object broker, and more.

We really had to rush this site out the door to meet a tight deadline. From the imitial meetings, to content gathering and graphic design... we had only one month to design and make this site.

To make matters worse, I didn't have the final CSS+XHTML in my lap until a few days before launch. So I wrote all of the FarCry code in record time. Unfortunately I had to code about 20+ hours a day and 2 days into my holiday/vacation, but I'm happy we met the deadline and got the site up and running in time for the FMRP recruiting event.

Early this morning FarCry Core version 4.0.4 was released. This is just the core/framework (not the CMS plugin). Although many plugins (including the FarCry CMS plugin) will benefit from this update.

There were many updates in this release, but I'll highlight a few that interested me.

A Few Highlights

• TinyMCE updated to version 2.1.1
• Better Safari support
• Ajax updates/fixes
• dmCron updates
• DB updates for PostgreSQL and Oracle

Changelog/Release Notes

• Changelog/Release Notes

Download

• Zip Format
• Tarball

Subversion Tag

• Subversion tag

Special thanks again to Daemon Internet Consultants for another great release.

Today I wrapped up the final code pieces for a new website (www.acmeautosales.com).

Upon viewing the site we aimed at making the user experience quick and painless; getting the user right to the point (viewing the vehicles that are currently on the lot and for sale).

However, behind the scenes there is much more going on. We're of course using many new features in FarCry 4.0 (formtools, object broker, extended arrays, etc), but there are a few extra tidbits in there to help make things easier for the client.

When the client came to me originally they just wanted the website and a management tool to create and maintain the vehicle data. So we created a normalized database with many relational tables allowing for future growth (ie. A possible Advanced Search in a future release which can use the normalized DB for search filtering).

Then shortly before the initial launch date they asked if it was possible to auto-import the vehicle data daily using limited CSV data.

Long-story-short there is a massive import script in the backend which runs nightly. It takes the CSV file (with only limited data), runs it through a VIN decoding service (web service) and returns the data I need. Any images for the vehicles are uploaded and 5 different sizes are created for each vehicle (used throughout the site for various marking purposes).

Whew, its been a fun site :). We are already planning Phase II for the site and couldn't be more happy (Phase II will incorporate more functionality and update some functionality we couldn't get into Phase I).

Its official. FarCry 4.01 is officially released. Version 4.0 was quietly released a little over a month ago (A couple of the plugins weren't ready for their 1.0.0 release yet).

Go to the downloads page and get the 4.01 suite which includes the following:

• core (4.0.1)
• plugins/farcrycms (1.0.0)
• plugins/farcrycfximage (1.0.0)
• plugins/googleMaps (1.0.0)

A special thanks to Geoff Bowers and his team and Daemon Internet Consultants for another great FarCry release.

And for those of you documentation nuts, Geoff and his team have been hard at work. Much has already been published in the last few weeks and more is on the way.

This was a comedy bit by Nectarine. To my knowledge Nectarine hasn't posted their video on the web yet, so I put the copy I made up on YouTube for people to checkout.

Note: I apologize in advance that the video is pretty shaky. I used my handheld camera and I was trying to hold it above everyone's heads.

I finally got around to getting some photos up on flickr from the webDU 2007 conference. Geoff, Julie, and the other Daemonites did a great job of putting together an awesome conference (as well as the after-party for speakers... I had so much fun playing the Wii that I bought one shortly after I got home).

Go take a look at the pictures.

I thought I had a great deal when I found a packaged flight to Sydney Australia. Because I left from Hartford, CT (United States) I have to find a connecting flight to Los Angelas.

United Airlines came through with a packaged deal that was not only US$300 less than everyone else, but was supposed to be a few hours less flight time as well (who'd pass up on a deal like that).

So I booked my 24 hour flight and left from home Sunday afternoon.

All the flights were on time and everything was going great until we were descending to land in Sydney. About 5 minutes from landing, the engines of our plane revved-up and we were climbing again. Another 5 minutes passed and the pilot informed us that Sydney Airport was shut down due to heavy fog. We were being redirected to Melbourne (1hr), would refuel (1hr), and then fly back to Sydney (1hr). Or so we thought.

Things got worse from there. We sat in our plane parked at the terminal for 15 minutes until they could decide what to do with us (it was 8am local time). Then they told us to get off the plane, take a break (drink voucher), and we'd be re-boarding in an hour (well, that sounds nice of them). However, after we got off the plane we were soon informed we weren't leaving for a few more hours. And so the delays began... one after the other.

It gets better. Around 12:00 noon they realized they let all of us off the plane (to go wherever we pleased) without ever putting us through Customs (oops!). So there answer to that was to setup a quarantine area at our gate where they'd re-check our passports, carry-on bags, and a frisk-down (not sure I see the logic in this... what about the bad people who decided to just leave the Melbourne airport?).

But wait, there's more! After 5 or so hours of sitting in the Melbourne airport we finally re-boarded our plane. We taxied to a spot (somewhere) and sat there for a prolonged time. We were then told that we had to go "back" to the terminal because engine 4 would not start (great).

So there we were, parked and waiting. Then I looked out my window (at engine 4) and I see what looks like the local handy-man on a step ladder poking and prodding with a long thin metal rod into an open access panel. He continued to do this for 15 minutes until he somehow jump-started the engine. We were told at this point it was safe to take off (oh boy, we felt so safe at that point).

Either way I finally made it to the conference hotel in one piece and took a long hot shower :).

Well, I'm off to go to webDU 2007. This will be my first time in Sydney (let alone Australia), so I'm planning to get in some site seeing after the conference before heading back home.

But first I get to endure 24 hours of flight travel (yeay!). However, Sydney is such a beautiful city I know it will be worth the trip :).

I'll once again be speaking at the ColdFusion conference CF.Objective this year (last year was a blast).

This year I'll be covering the new (yet ot be released) FarCry 4.0. A list of some of the sessions was posted earlier tonight on the CF.Objective Sessions Page as well as a mini description of my session.

My session will be convering some of the new features in FarCry 4.0 including the new object broker, "formtools" technology, instant wizards and more.