http://www.mcgarvie.net Welcome to Brian and Laura McGarvie's homepage, find out more information on Brian M McGarvie and his it consultancy, and about our personal adventures and experiances... Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:58:53 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Needed to capltalize Mc's and Mac's? Here's a quick function for it... http://www.mcgarvie.net/2008/03/12/programming/capitalization-for-us-mcs-and-macs/ When I undertake developing a website I always try to keep 3 key principles in mind; 1. Simplicity 2. Modularity 3. Balance Follow my basic guide and you'll become a better developer/designer... http://www.mcgarvie.net/2008/03/10/seo-sem/principles-of-web-design/ Just a quickie if you need to replace NL (New Line or Carriage Return) in CFMX; <cfset text = replace(text,'#Chr(10)##Chr(13)#','<br>',"All")> You could also wrap it up in a CFC or a function if it's going to be widely used. http://www.mcgarvie.net/2008/03/10/all-the-rest/coldfusion-replace-nl-to-br/ The people we (web designers/developers) create work for are always really interested in web traffic - LOTS of web traffic. But there is one thing that many web designers/developers and even our clients don’t consider, is the quality of traffic. We (developers & clients alike) love counting page-views and unique visits ... http://www.mcgarvie.net/2008/03/05/seo-sem/seosem-and-the-quality-of-your-web-traffic/ NOTE: SEO is the acronym for: ’search engine optimisation. Which is the process of making your web pages more search engine ‘friendly’ by optimising the code and content. Choosing the correct domain name for your site generally has a big impact in terms of how it affects your positions in ... http://www.mcgarvie.net/2008/02/28/seo-sem/choosing-a-seosem-friendly-domain-name/ Recently I was reviewing the security practices for my users... I like to get them to change their windows login regularly as it's used via LDAP etc etc in some cases for loggin into web applications... Anyway... all the passwords I keep getting from them are very poor, and so I put ... http://www.mcgarvie.net/2008/02/26/programming/general-programming/creating-good-passwords/ If like me you manually add to your iPod, then it can be a real pain when iTunes decides it doesn't want to recognise your iPod anymore, or you decide to get a new one or just want to get a song off there! I recently came across EphPod (Win/Linux).... ... http://www.mcgarvie.net/2008/02/26/technology/ipod/music-from-your-ipod/ Have you ever needed to build a stored procedure that would take the name of a column as a parameter, and return the results ordered by that column? So have I, so after researching it for a couple of days, and none of the forums had any good solutions; All that ... http://www.mcgarvie.net/2007/09/10/programming/dynamically-sorting-by-a-column-in-a-stored-procedure-sql-server/ OK, so I've been using my Mac for a while now... and I must admit it has grown on me hugely over the time I have used it - I was sceptical about using a Mac, but I do slightly prefere it now. Due to software I use for development ... http://www.mcgarvie.net/2007/09/10/our-travels-and-adventures-around-the-world/imovie-08-and-idvd/ Recently we have had the pleasure of dinning at Gordon Ramsay at Claridges Hotel in London. There were 4 of us dining, Laura, my parents and I. We started the evening in Claridges off with a cocktail or 2 in the lobby/lounge. Now being Claridges you expect it to be posh, but ... http://www.mcgarvie.net/2007/08/31/food-drink/dinner-in-gordon-ramseys-at-claridges-hotel-lomdon/ Configured in the ColdFusion administrator under the "Caching" section, server caching controls how much and when data is stored in memory. An effective server caching strategy can relieve stress on resources such as databases, CPUs, and file systems while dramatically improving application performance. This article explores server caching in ColdFusion, ... http://www.mcgarvie.net/2007/08/30/programming/coldfusion-caching-explained/ I've had this problem a few times, and many people always ask me it... so here it is immortalised. If you require to select all records added to your table for the current day use the following where clause - obviously 'col' should be the name of your datetime column... Hope this ... http://www.mcgarvie.net/2007/08/23/programming/sql-select-using-current-day/ I have been experimenting for a while now making Pad Thai, from jars to trying to analyse the take-away carton from my excellent local Thai resteraunt. Sadly i have not yet been able to visit Thai land, but parts of the following have been given to me by friends who have ... http://www.mcgarvie.net/2007/08/22/food-drink/pad-thai/ What do you mean?... How should I know? Recently, I found a plugin for Firefox called Time Tracker. It's a small timer in the bottom of Firefox, that will keep track of your 'surfing time', since you installed timertracker or since last zero setting. A tool that will surprise you… Grab It ... http://www.mcgarvie.net/2007/07/26/software/internet/browsers/how-much-do-you-surf/ My wife and I went on our first Carribean cruise in December 2004. We sailed with Princess and the ship we were on was the Sun Princess. The ship itself was very well maintained, and in good condition. I'd hate to be one of the poor souls who had the job of ... http://www.mcgarvie.net/2007/07/25/our-travels-and-adventures-around-the-world/carribean-cruise-2004/ It is often quite usefull to be able to send an email with HTML for those that can support it, and Plaintext, for those who do not. There is how you can send a 'multipart' email with ColdFusion. <cfmail from="" to="" subject=""> <cfmailpart type="text/plain"> Plain text goes here </cfmailpart> <cfmailpart type="text/html"> HTML version goes here </cfmailpart> </cfmail> http://www.mcgarvie.net/2007/07/25/programming/email-multipart-email-with-htmlplaintext/ I am currently intested in trying to build a family tree... to see how far back I can get the name to go... so if anyone wants to share findings contact me using the link on the left! Origin: Irish Today's Irish surnames are underpinned by a multitude of rich histories. The ... http://www.mcgarvie.net/2007/07/25/genealogy/history-of-the-mcgarvie-name/ When: 27th Aug 2006 to 3rd Sept 2006 Where: Tunisia Resort: Skanes (Monastir) Hotel: Thalassa Village Hotel Where We Went… We recently visited Tunisia and stayed at the Thalassa Village Hotel, Skanes. Getting There… Despite the heightened security at Birmingham, our experience of this was not very bad at all… after all; if it helps our ... http://www.mcgarvie.net/2007/07/25/our-travels-and-adventures-around-the-world/tunisia-27th-august-2006-to-3rd-september-2006/ (Note; I may get the other half to expand on this article!!!) Date: 18th Sept 2006... My Wife and I are both getting prepared to go and see Robbie Williams tomorrow evening in Milton Keynes... We're both really looking forward to it, and it's virtually on our 5th Anniversary too... We shall give you ... http://www.mcgarvie.net/2007/07/25/events-reviews/robbie-williams-milton-keynes-19th-september-2006/ We are compiling our tales of our recent visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and our stay in Abu Dhabi & Dubai!Please check back in a day or 2!... Please feel free to submit any questions about UAE/Dubai/Abu Dhabi via comments and we'll answer them in our write-up! http://www.mcgarvie.net/2007/07/25/our-travels-and-adventures-around-the-world/uae-dubaiabu-dhabi-visit-200906-to-240906/ OK trying out some new stuff I've been working on...So here is the obligatory 'welcome!' message :)  http://www.mcgarvie.net/2007/07/18/general/welcome/