We're only two months into 2002 and it's already shaping up to be a very busy year for ColdFusion development. I hope you're experiencing the same thing. If so, don't forget we're here to help you with all your CF-related issues. This month I have two questions for you.

In a world where information is power, images need protection as much as text documents. This article describes a way to apply an image security mechanism to protect files in an application that follows a ColdFusion security model. The examples that I give will work in a Windows environment and I'm sure they can be adapted to work in other environments with minimal changes.

Before you read this article look at your calendar. That's right: it's December already! Where did 2001 go so fast? The first year of the new millennium was definitely not one of those 'ho-hum-nothing-muc h-happened' years. It was a busy, exciting, turbulent, and tragic year for most of us. Here's hoping that 2002 will be just as busy and exciting but without so much turbulence and tragedy. Happy holidays to you and your loved ones!

Why should ColdFusion analyze the query results when the database could do it and you could save the bandwidth for something that really needs it? In Part 1 of this article (CFDJ>, Vol. 3, issue 10) I introduced stored procedures and performed some basic tasks with them. In this article I show how to do more complex tasks that involve IF/ELSE statements, looping, and string manipulation.

Thanks to all of you for reading this column every month and for sending in questions. Whether or not they get printed, keep 'em coming! I enjoy the interaction and trying to help solve your CF problems.This month I have room to address only two questions. Both of them, I think, are important to every CF developer out there. So here we go!

Q:What's OnRequestEnd.cfm? A:OnRequestEnd.cfm is the twin brother of Application. cfm. When the code inside a file named Application.cfm is automatically included at the beginning of every .cfm file in the same subdirectory (and any directory below, provided that there isn't another Applic-ation.cfm in those directories), any code placed in a file named On-RequestEnd.cfm is automatically in-cluded at the end of every .cfm page.

Stored procedures. Ah, yes. The dark side of database access. You've heard the rumors - faster processing, less network traffic - and have been tempted. But you've also heard those on the easy path whisper about how complex these procedures are...

Imagine, for a moment, a world in which we all wrote perfect code - a world in which we'd never have to spend precious time debugging our applications. Okay, your moment's up. The world is, of course, far from perfect, and the reality is that we spend a fair amount of our time trying to chase down ColdFusion errors. After several hours of staring at the same lines of code, it's easy to become frustrated - especially if there's a deadline looming, or worse, a boss peering over your shoulder asking, 'Is it ready yet? Can I demo it?'

This article describes how to use Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), the amazing new graphic format, with CFML to create dynamic charts and diagrams. SVG is the W3C standard format for scalable graphics based on XML (see www.W3C.org). Yes, that's right, graphics based on XML.

E-mail messages are one of the premier advertising techniques of the Internet era. However, plain text e-mails are no longer sufficient. Today, HTML messages make your advertisements stand out.

Many of us have used the CFCONTENT tag that comes with ColdFusion to serve up files to browsers, but very few ColdFusion developers are aware that the CFCONTENT tag can be used in conjunction with the HTML tag to serve up graphics, such as JPEGs and GIFs.

We have some more good questions to tackle this month. We'll look at Client variables, a pesky CFMAIL problem, and ways to delete Session variables.

Thanks again to those of you who have sent in questions or comments about this monthly column. If you'd like to see an archive of previous questions and answers, please visit www .NetsiteDynamics.com/AskC FDJ.

Saving development costs by reusing code has been a goal of the computing industry for a long time. With a little forethought you can save time and money developing Web systems using ColdFusion by encapsulating functionality in custom tags.

In March (CFDJ, Vol.3, issue 5) we covered reasons to upsize your Access database to SQL Server and the tools you'll use to do it. Here we explain in detail how to copy data to SQL Server and troubleshoot your upsizing project.

Well it's April already! Can you believe it? If you're like me, you've got a full-blown case of 'spring fever' and it's hard to concentrate on CF code. But spring is also a time for new projects and pressing deadlines.

Ever wonder how to keep your colleagues up to speed on what's happening within your organization? How best to inform them of company picnics, community events, and ColdFusion clinics?

It looks as if this month's column is all about functions. In the questions and answers below we'll look at RandRange(), ListLen(), ListAppend(), GetTickCount(), and the ever-elusive Soundex() functions.

If you're using ColdFusion with Access today, then it's likely you'll be using it with SQL Server tomorrow. Luckily, Microsoft has provided some tools that make upgrading to SQL Server a relatively easy process. You'll be surprised to learn how simple it is to upgrade and how easy it is to work with.

No doubt some of us have been involved in one or more projects in which we're acting as the developer or project manager/team lead and are responsible for creating the underlying directory structure for a Web site.

In recent years we've witnessed a trend in which organizations gather, codify, evaluate, and disseminate seemingly endless lists of 'Best Practices' - guidelines that help promote the success of their business, the consistency of their actions and, presumably, the general cheerfulness of their employees.

My thanks to those of you who've read this column and let me know that it's actually helped. Even more thanks to those who've sent in questions - keep them coming! Here are some of the most recent ones.

Well, the new millennium is finally here (sorry for those of you who thought it started last year) and with it comes many unanswered and some unanswerable questions.

Well, the new millennium is finally here (sorry for those of you who thought it started last year) and with it comes many unanswered and some unanswerable questions.

One of the features of ColdFusion, from version 1.0 to 4.5, is that its handling of pound signs is extremely loose. For some this is a good thing; they put pound signs around virtually everything and it works. But for programming in general, and perhaps for compatibility, it's not good practice to code this way.

Thanks to those of you who sent in questions recently. I hope the answers you received from me or other members of the Allaire training team were helpful. For our readers, here are a few of the questions that were submitted:

Welcome to the second installment of this column. If you're a new reader, the purpose of the column is to give you another source for your CF-related questions.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service had lived with their ColdFusion-based, accomplishment-reporting Web site for about a year. The application allowed employees to report field accomplishments to area managers who then edited and released the reports for internal-only or public review on their Web site, or via e-mail or fax to the media or Congress.

It's been a long time since we announced this column back in May, but it's finally here! The purpose of the column is to expose you to some of the questions that Allaire's trainers are asked in the classroom and, hopefully, to give you the right answer.

Most commercial Web sites have secure areas that are accessible only to authorized users. Here's one schema for managing access control for a Web site.

When I told them there was a better way to send us large files. They'd been accustomed to sending large image files via an e-mail attachment; I wanted to get them away from this practice and suggested that they use FTP (file transfer protocol). That's where I hit the roadblock. Many of our clients only knew how to send e-mail, surf the Web or create a document in Microsoft Word.

After reading several ColdFusion Forum (http:// forums.allaire.com) postings and receiving numerous e-mails detailing developers' pains in setting up Advanced Security in ColdFusion so as to implement page-level user security with the paradigm, I decided to write an article describing an alternative methodology for authentication in a CF application.

For many developers there comes a time when you think your options are limited. You can 'risk' a completely dynamic application or use it as sparingly as possible, thus limiting your capabilities.

The software development industry demands that we learn constantly and adapt to the new way of doing things. If you've been in this business for more than about five years, chances are you've already had to retool your skillset at least once. After 10 years in this business, I've had to retool a few times. While it's exciting to be on the cutting edge, it can also be frustrating when you're stuck.

Even the most productive and effective application can be rendered useless by a poor user interface. Before we start, I want you to consider, for example, the following frustrating scenario....

I'm always looking for shortcuts - the smarter way out. Take Web page navigation: suppose you have five or six pages of content and you want each page to have links to all of the others (see Figures 1 and 2).

Dynamic forms, which are found all over the Internet, are commonly found on e-commerce sites, business-to-business sites and intranets. For the beginners out there, HTML forms are Web pages containing data-entry areas, such as text, checkboxes and radio buttons, that require a submit button to activate an action page to post data, send e-mail, and so on.

In my last article (CFDJ, Vol. 1, issue 6) I presented Array_Table, a universal browser-based table viewer and query engine. Array_Table allows you to browse, edit and query any Microsoft SQL Server table. It's 100% dynamic so it works with any database. Many readers and clients loved the new capability and ease it offered. And they wanted more, of course.

Since my first article on Generator in CFDJ (Vol. 1, issue 5), Macromedia has released version 2. With this version you have full Flash 4 functionality and a host of new Generator objects to use, from tickers to tables. What I'll show in this article is the combination of Flash and another new object, Stock Chart.

Here's a problem ColdFusion and other Web developers will have to solve at some point: how to get up-to-date data from a database, put it into a chart and display it on the Web, then make the chart interactive so users can 'drill down' to more detailed information.