Who Uses ColdFusion Anymore?
I went to a web development meeting a few days ago and when I mentioned during the introductions that I was a ColdFusion developer the reaction from others in the room was that of amazement. I think they were amazed that the language still existed. I'm not surprised really. It's actually a common reaction from developers.
Someone in the room asked, "Does anyone even use ColdFusion anymore?" I know that I see ColdFusion powered sites all the time, but for the life of me I could not recall a single site that used it other than MySpace. And honestly, that's not a shining example of a good CF site. Feeling a bit embarrassed that I could not recall some decent sites on the spot, I felt I needed to do a bit of research and compile a list ColdFusion powered sites. If for no other reason that to answer this simple question when asked.
So here is a list more popular sites that I know to run ColdFusion. If your wanting to find a more comprehensive list, GotCFM.com has a pretty large database of sites.
- AT&T (portions)
- Bank of America (portions)
- Boeing (portions)
- California Department of Toxic Substance Control
- California Department of Water Resources
- California Dept of Developmental Services
- CarFax
- Dallas Cowboys
- Doctors Without Borders
- Duke University
- eBags
- Ebay (portions)
- Energy Star
- Foot Locker
- Gamepro
- Georgia Tech Savannah
- Guitar Center
- Hasbro Toys
- HP (portions)
- Logitech
- Macworld UK
- Massey University
- Merrill Lynch (portions)
- MMORPG
- MySpace
- NASA (portions)
- Ohio University
- Pottery Barn
- QuickBooks Online
- Scientific American
- Section 508
- See's Candy
- The Economist
- U.S. Bank
- Ultimate Fighting Championship
- University Of Amsterdam UVA
- University of Maryland
- US Dept of State
- Virginia College
- Vodafone
→ Respond NowTags: ColdFusion · Opinions & Rants
Are acronyms hurting your SEO rank?
Anyone that knows me, understands that I am not a big fan of acronyms. I think they breakdown the lines of communication, and confuse people quickly. Earlier this week I attended a marketing luncheon with a topic on SEO, where I became acutely aware of this issue and wanted to write about it. I don't claim to know much about SEO, so you experts out there can set me straight if I am missing the point.
Basically the presentation sounded like this: "keywords in your name, keywords in your url, keywords in your username, keywords in categories, keywords in your tweets, keywords, keywords, keywords." Sounds reasonable right? Well it does until I started noticing all these acronyms appearing in the presentation materials, in the conversation, on the web, etc.
All this got me to thinking. Why spend all this time creating a keyword rich business name, username, url, etc., if your going to refer to them with acronyms? The same is true for valuable keywords or trigger words within the content of your site as well. Using acronyms seem like missed opportunities to add valuable keyword content to your website.
A perfect example of this would be the title of my blog post. "Are acronyms hurting your SEO rank?" If I was an SEO expert, I just missed an excellent opportunity to gain "search engine optimization" as three additional keywords. The problem with using acronyms are that people looking for your content may not be familiar with your specific acronyms and therefore search for the longer more verbose phrase or only part of the phrase.
Acronyms are a big part of our language—for better to for worse—we are stuck with them. We should think carefully about the usage of acronyms within our page content. Properly defining an acronym the first time it's used on the page with the <acronym> tag is the first thing I would recommend.
However I would be remiss if I didn't caution against the overuse of the <acronym> tag. I still believe that once a term has been defined on the page it does not need to be defined again. Optimizing for a search engine is one thing, but user experience should be your top priority. Unless of course your customers are search engines and not people.
→ Respond NowTags: Opinions & Rants · SEO
Konami Code Plugin
Just in time for April Fools Day, I am releasing my next totally useless Mango Blog plugin for adding easter eggs to your Mango Blog. It uses the SnapTortoise Konami-JS script to handle the pattern matching, url loading and alert notifications.
I couldn't just stop there, so I added easy setups for Rick Rolling, and some of the more popular Konami Code services like Cornify, Ninjafy, Sharkify, and Nippleit. I have plans to add more services and features in the near future. If you have a favorite service not listed here please leave a comment below with a link to the service.
Whats Currently Supported
- Easy setups for above listed services
- Custom url forwarding
- Javascript Alerts
- iPhone gesture support
- Custom key code pattern matching. Your not limited to just the Konami Code!
Go ahead and try it! up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a
Download the Konami Code Plugin
- Plugin version:
- 0.1
- Last Updated:
- 2010-02-19
- Requires:
- Mango Blog 1.3+
- Auto-install URL:
- http://konamicode.riaforge.org/index.cfm?event=action.download
→ Respond NowTags: Freebies · Mango Blog · Plugins
Magnetic Photoshop Frame
For you designer types out there I created a series of do it yourself Photoshop magnets that you can use to frame a photo or a piece of your child's art on your refrigerator door.
All you need for this project is a pack of magnetic paper available from an office supply store, or online from retailers like amazon available for about $10 a pack.
Download the Photoshop frame file, and print onto the magnetic paper, and trim the pieces out with a razor knife. Enjoy!
→ Respond NowTags: Design · Freebies
Common Accessibility Mistakes
I gave a presentation at the Sacramento Web Standards Group about improving your sites accessibility. When I began the presentation I full expected to show lots of code. But what I ended up with was a list of common mistakes made when trying to implement accessibility into a site.
Little would I know that this list sparked some excellent conversation for the evening and maybe--just maybe--changed the way a few people create websites, and that is good for everyone.
So here is my general list of accessibility mistakes and a few ways to improve the overall accessibility of your site for everyone and not just disabled users.
→ Respond NowTags: Accessibility · usability
