Welcome to <cfmldeveloper> -redux

Last week while answering some coding questions on a discussion list I needed to post some example code, which meant if I wanted to test the code first then I needed access to a cf server. As I tend to do most of my list replies etc on my mobile device, I do not have a local CF installation to test with.
With PC sales dropping and mobile devices sales far exceeding PC sales these days, I would imagine most other people are doing most of their community activity on their mobile device as well, apart from those folks that seem to spend their entire day social networking rather than working.

I then considered how often I have seen other devs posting code snippets and saying "this is not tested code as I do not have access to a cf server right now", so it must be a fairly common scenario.

This make me think to myself "wouldn't it be handy if there was a web page I could go to where I could quickly just type some code into a form, submit it and the code would be executed and tell me if there were any errors and give me some debug output, surely someone has written such a tool ?
So I Googled it and was surprised that such a tool did not exist, that I could find.

Well it has been a long time since I wrong any kind of app as I simply do not get the time to do coding these days, so I thought I would write such a tool myself, and here it is, please give it a try and leave me some feedback, feel free to try and hack it and find any vulnerabilities or bugs, as long as you let me know about them.

www.cflive.net

Hey guys, I have now installed Railo 4 on the developer server, however this has somehow broken Railo 3 in the process.

I will work on getting this fixed later today, in the mean time, you can switch over to Railo 4  by making the following changes to your web.config.

As this is a new version will need to setup your Railo admin settings again and set your password.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
 <configuration>
     <system.webServer>
         <heliconZoo>
         <application name="railo4.project">
         <environmentVariables>
         </environmentVariables>
         </application>
         </heliconZoo>
         <handlers>
             <remove name="coldfusion" />
             <add name="railo.project#x86.cfm" scriptProcessor="railo4" path="*.cfm" verb="*" modules="HeliconZoo_x86" preCondition="bitness32" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" />
             <add name="railo.project#x86.cfc" scriptProcessor="railo4" path="*.cfc" verb="*" modules="HeliconZoo_x86" preCondition="bitness32" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" />
             <add name="railo.project#x86.cfml" scriptProcessor="railo4" path="*.cfml" verb="*" modules="HeliconZoo_x86" preCondition="bitness32" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" />
             <add name="railo.project#x86.cfr" scriptProcessor="railo4" path="*.cfr" verb="*" modules="HeliconZoo_x86" preCondition="bitness32" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" />
             <add name="railo.project#x86.cfswf" scriptProcessor="railo4" path="*.cfswf" verb="*" modules="HeliconZoo_x86" preCondition="bitness32" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" />
             <add name="railo.project#x64.cfm" scriptProcessor="railo4" path="*.cfm" verb="*" modules="HeliconZoo_x64" preCondition="bitness64" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" />
             <add name="railo.project#x64.cfc" scriptProcessor="railo4" path="*.cfc" verb="*" modules="HeliconZoo_x64" preCondition="bitness64" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" />
             <add name="railo.project#x64.cfml" scriptProcessor="railo4" path="*.cfml" verb="*" modules="HeliconZoo_x64" preCondition="bitness64" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" />
             <add name="railo.project#x64.cfr" scriptProcessor="railo4" path="*.cfr" verb="*" modules="HeliconZoo_x64" preCondition="bitness64" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" />
             <add name="railo.project#x64.cfswf" scriptProcessor="railo4" path="*.cfswf" verb="*" modules="HeliconZoo_x64" preCondition="bitness64" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" />
         </handlers>
        <directoryBrowse enabled="false" />
        <defaultDocument>
            <files>
                <clear />
                <add value="index.cfm" />
                <add value="default.html" />
                <add value="Default.htm" />
                <add value="Default.asp" />
                <add value="index.htm" />
                <add value="index.html" />
                <add value="iisstart.htm" />
                <add value="default.aspx" />
                <add value="index.php" />
            </files>
        </defaultDocument>
 
     </system.webServer>
</configuration>

Last week I was in the process of setting up all the notification emails on the new storefront. Unfortunately it seems I forgot to check a box somewhere on the form  and as a result it sent out the email to everyone right away. Oops, sorry for that.

Just to put everyone's mind at rest, no accounts have actually been canceled or deleted yet, although this is due to happen, so keep on reading.

As users will know, some months back I migrated everyone over to a new storefront app to handle all the signups due to the fact that the eCommerce system built into WebsitePanel was do dreadful. This new Icloud system is still in beta and I am still testing it and reporting back any bugs and issues I find.

While I have been setting this up, most users have now gone way past their 1 year renewal date and would not have received any renewal reminders as I had not set this up yet, which is what I have been doing last  week.

what action do I need to take ?

If you are a new user and have only signed up in the last few months using the new storefront, then there is nothing for you to do.

For the rest of you who have been users for more than 1 year and were migrated over from the old eCommerce system, if you are still using your developer hosting then you will need to login to the storefront and renew your subscription to keep it active, if not then I will presume you are no longer using it and it will get canceled/deleted.

Why do you need to renew your FREE subscription you may ask ? Because there is a huge churn on cfmldeveloper, hundreds of users signup each year and then abandon their account or simply never use it, which wastes system resources, so the renewal process is to get rid of all those unused accounts and free up resources for everyone else.

To remind you,  your login details for the storefront are the same as your WebsitePanel login details. If you do not know your login details then please use the "lost password" link on the login page.

The deadline for this is the end of June, but I will also be sending out a direct email to all users as well.

As many of you will know the eCommerce and billing system built in to WebsitePanel  has caused me a lot of grief since I started using it, signups not going through, the problem with £0.00 renewals etc. Now don't get me wrong, I am not slating WebsitePanel in general as I think it is a great hosting control panel, it is just the built in eCommerce system which is useless, so I have been looking for an alternative.

The problem has been finding something which is FREE being as cfmldeveloper doesn't have any money to pay for anything else, this proved to be another hurdle as the 2 primary solutions are WHMCS and Hostbill and neither were prepared to donate a free version to cfmldeveloper.
I then came across a new product called Cloud360 which seemed to tick all the boxes and I have been testing this product out for the last couple of months. It does the job and fully integrates with WebsitePanel but it did have some major features missing and still felt very "BETA" despite the fact that they are actively selling it, and I have found a few major bugs, which I have been reporting and they have been fixing, which has resolved most of the WebsitePanel related problems. This testing and bug reporting has thankfully garnered me a free copy for use on cfmldeveloper (YAY) which I have now deployed at store.cfmldeveloper.com and is now up and running.

If you are an existing user then you will need to login at store.cfmldeveloper.com from now on to manage your account and hosting subscriptions. Your login details are the same as your WebsitePanel login details.
you will continue to use WebsitePanel to manage your actual hosting spaces as before.

The other issue I was having was users who registered for the hosting and then never used their account or simply abandoned it later on, which wastes system resources on the servers having websites and databases setup which are not being used.
In order to combat this I have changed the £1 setup fee to a yearly fee. This allows me to setup automatic account cancellation for users who do not renew their subscriptions, thus solving that problem.
I realise this means that the FREE plan is no longer completely free, but just to be clear this is simply a required administration fee to facilitate the automatic cancellation of un-used accounts. If you feel the service is not worth £1 per year, then your are free to unsubscribe and close your account at any time.

If you have received an email saying your account has been suspended for no apparent reason, this is due to a bug in the control panel.

The email is not sent by me, it is an automated email sent by the control panel.
Even though the FREE hosting has no recurring charge, it seems WebsitePanel has a bug and still generates a yearly invoice for £0.00. As many users are now coming up to their first year on the system, the issue has only just arisen.
When an invoice does not get paid your account gets suspended, thus the problem.
While I think WebsitePanel itself is great, its built in billing system is abysmal and not fit for purpose at all.
I have not found any way to resolve this and am looking to find an alternative to the WebsitePanel billing system. Obviously as cfmldeveloper.com is a free service and I make no money form it, I need to find a FREE solution.

If you had had this issue please login to WebsitePanel and find the invoice number of the invoice causing the issue and open a support ticket and let me know the details, and I will cancel it and un-suspend your account.