Essential Configuration Settings for Apache on Windows

This came up a couple of times on mailing lists recently, and since it's something I sometimes forget to do when I set up new Windows servers with Apache, I figured I'd document it here.

If you're running into stability problems with Apache on Windows and can't switch to Linux, doing the following seems to help quite a bit.

First, find these lines in your httpd.conf file and uncomment them:
EnableMMAP off
EnableSendfile off


Then right below those lines, add this line:
Win32DisableAcceptEx


Particularly if you're seeing errors along the lines of "The specified network name is no longer available. : winnt_accept: Asynchronous AcceptEx failed" or "The semaphore timeout period has expired. : winnt_accept: Asynchronous AcceptEx failed" that last line should eliminate those errors.

If you're interested in learning more about what's behind these errors, there's a nice post about it on the "My Digital Life" blog.

ColdFusion 9 Developer Tutorial: Sample Chapter and Upcoming Review

I've been negligent in mentioning this, but Packt Publishing recently published John Farrar's ColdFusion 9 Developer Tutorial.  I received a review copy a few weeks ago so expect a review from me soon. Packt has made a sample chapter covering ORM available online so you can get a taste of the book.

Look for my review soon!

FCC.gov Announces Open Source Redesign | The White House

At its core, the FCC's new online platform will leverage the same open source technology powering WhiteHouse.gov, and they're planning active engagement with the open source community. We've found open source technology to be a great way maximize the scalability and accessibility of WhiteHouse.gov, and we've even contributed some of the custom code we've written back to the public domain.

via whitehouse.gov

This is definitely a trend I'm loving to see happen in government. Even without an official mandate, open source will likely soon just be the way things are done with government technology projects.

City in a Box: Municipal Makeover Comes to Texas | The White House

Today I am in Manor, Texas (pop. 6,500), to celebrate the burgeoning open government movement underway in America’s towns and cities. Manor is embracing the Obama Administration's vision of creating effective and efficient government that fosters transparency and innovation. By using new technology to enable open and collaborative ways of working, government—whether federal, state, or local—can deliver better citizen services with fewer resources.

via whitehouse.gov

Just goes to show all the things that can be done with technology TODAY, regardless of the size of your resources. Really exciting stuff, and the best part is that many of the initiatives around this mean that the code will be available for other municipalities to use.

It's nice to see that we're finally making some progress in using technology to have an actual impact on people's lives. And if a town of 6500 can do it, there's really no more excuses large cities can use for not moving in this direction.

Resolving "Connection Refused" Error With CouchDB 1.0.1 on WindowsServer

If you run into a "Connection Refused" error when trying to access CouchDB from somewhere other than localhost, luckily it's an easy fix.

By default CouchBD is set to bind only to 127.0.0.1, which I suppose is nice for security reasons since when you first install CouchDB it's wide open.

To fix this, open {couchdb_install_dir}etccouchdbdefault.ini and in the [httpd] section, change the bind_address value from 127.0.0.1 to 0.0.0.0 so it will be accessible from any IP.

Save the file, restart CouchDB, and you should be golden.

My CFFree Session Presentations From BFusion

Yesterday I had the great opportunity to spend an entire day covering the free software CFML engines at BFusion in Bloomington, IN, assisted by Adam Haskell (thanks Adam!). It was fantastic to be able to do a deep dive into building and deploying CFML applications on a free software stack, and I got a lot of good feedback from the attendees.

If you couldn't attend and are interested, the Ubuntu VM we used in the course is available on Dropbox (3.8GB).

Here are the presentation slides on Google Docs--make sure to go down to "Action" at the bottom of the screen and select "Show Speaker Notes" because otherwise the slides don't make a lot of sense. ;-)

• Session 1
  • Introduction to Free Software and Open Source
  • Introduction to Free CFML Engines
• Session 2
  • Installing Open BlueDragon and Railo
  • Configuring Apache and Tomcat
• Session 3
  • Exploring OpenBD and Railo
  • Enhancements in OpenBD and Railo
  • Deploying Applications
• Session 4
  • Using the OpenBD Debugger
  • Extending OpenBD and Railo
  • Monitoring Your Applications With VisualVM and Lambda Probe
  • CFML on Google App Engine

Thanks to the attendees for participating in what I hope was a useful and informative session. Whether or not you were at BFusion, feel free to email me with any questions you have about anything related to free/open source CFML.