My glasses broke last last week leaving me a right predicament as I had no spare pair and I am blind without them. All I could find was an old pair of prescription sun glasses which are far too dark to wear inside and also had a big scuff on each lens (thanks to my kids) making them pretty horrid to wear, but as that is all I had, that is what I have been wearing.
As I am clearly going to be stuck with these until the new year till I can get a new pair I thought I would research if it was possible to remove scratches from lenses.
I found a lot of weird suggestions, one of which was to use a "non abrasive" toothpaste with a soft cotton cloth (do not use kitchen paper or anything rough), which was about the thing I had in the house from all the suggestions, so I thought I would give it a try,

To my great surprise, it worked, and and all the scratches and scuffs have now gone and apart from being too dark and an old prescription they are about 10 times better and actually wearable now.

I suspect this only works on lenses which have an anti reflective, anti scratch coating or an outer tint and where the scratches are very minor as the cleaning chemicals in the toothpaste must take off a very thing layer of the lens coating, thus taking the scratches off with it.
So if your specs fall into this category and are a bit worse for wear, give it a try, you may just give them a second life.

The internet is full of freaks and weirdo's and unfortunately I have come into contact with my fare share of them, but that is one of the pitfalls of using the Internet and especially if you regularly use forums and discussion lists. While i am not a fan of Facebook, at least this a medium where you have control over who you speak to and who can speak to you, if someone annoys you then you can block them, and only the people you know and trust can read your ramblings.

The other big problem you have on the Internet is that it is a very poor communication medium due to people misinterpreting things that are written and inserting their own perceived emotions or intentions into electronic communications which then often causes them to react in a confrontational and often aggressive way, which invariably  spawns an argument. We have all been guilty of this at some point, and I am certainly no exception and as anyone knows me well is aware, I unfortunately get sucked into these things far too often even against my better judgement and good intentions.
When these things happen the best thing to do of course is to walk away and not get involved, and preferably just try to ignore the other person or persons, sadly something I am not very good at due to an unabated need to defend myself to the bitter end, which is usually a fruitless endeavour when dealing with people who simply will never admit they are wrong, will never apologise or are simply plain ignorant.

A recent unfortunate incident spawning from an utterly ridiculous misunderstanding that blew all out of proportion causing smart and intelligent people who should know better to behave like degenerate teenagers, also resulted in the following  allegation which I found particularly odd.

"You often treat the folks on "list name removed" as your own private support team makes me very frustrated. You are the reason that
I've unsubscribed from "list name removed" twice over the years - at one point, over 50% of threads on "list name removed" were you trying to get help on various configuration and coding issues."

Now aside from the fact that "asking questions" to get help from your peers is exactly what a discussion is for, I knew this wasn't true as I simply do not have that many questions to ask as I am very competent in what I do as I have been doing it for a long time and I am not a developer anymore and have not been for many years, so I simply don't have coding issues. So in my quest to defend myself against this accusation, I decided to go and dig up some evidence. It was of course no surprise to discover that the above was not true, and after checking the list archive I discovered I had actually only posted 3 questions in total this year. I passed this information to the accuser to see what his response would be, and this is where it gets a bit spooky.

he responded with
"Go back to 2005 - which was when I unsubscribed because of the volume of threads you started, asking for help."

Now I wont sink down to the same gutter level by naming and shaming him, but I do know who this guy is and he is a respected member of one of communities I am also part and a generally smart (albeit big headed) guy in the programming world, but I am not friends with him and have never had any personal commination with him before now, so why on earth would someone I barely know have such a vivid memory of something I did 6 years ago or go to the effort of searching through 6 years worth of emails to find this information? 

Now I  have to say I actually found this quite disturbing and a bit creepy for someone to be this obsessive, I don't even know what I did 6 years ago, and I would imagine most people don't know.

In response to Steve Bryant's post to have a "How I started in ColdFusion" day, here is my entry 

A very long time ago in a galaxy far far away (1998)  I got a lowly "web support" job for an ISP called Nacamar, it was a pretty low paid job and even though there was only 3 of us,most days I had nothing much to do as their senior web designer did everything, so I spent my time learning new stuff and generally fiddling/playing with webby stuff. I already knew basic HTML, JavaScript and CSS, but I wanted to learn something more and do some real coding. After the company Xmas party my opportunity arrived, the web designer got very drunk and managed to get himself fired due to his outrageous behaviour (at one point he actually jumped on the bosses back and attacked him LOL). This meant I was now the only web resource they had so I started to offer up my ideas of how to improve things. I managed to get my own office and my own development server setup and proceeded to investigate server side scripting technologies, there was not a lot of useful info on this topic back then, and while I may have briefly looked at CF, I think the info was rather sparse, Perl looked like a nightmare and so I opted to learn ASP and proceeded to make their website more dynamic, and also created a new intranet for them.
Not too long after this they employed a new Manager who I could only describe as "A corporate dick", he was prejudice against anything "different"  and so as you can imagine  my multi coloured mohawk did not go down well this chap.  So I decided it was time to move to pastures greener, and started job hunting. It didn't take long before I got an offer from a company called Redeye, a new startup, to help develop their new Analytics software using this technology called "ColdFusion".  So it was a learn on the job role, I had to learn CFML and Oracle (as well as SQL in general) while I was developing the App, which was no easy task I can assure you, especially as there was no real project spec, the only person who really understood what this app was supposed to do was the boss (Paul), and he could only really explain it to you from a business perspective rather than a technical perspective, so there was a lot of make it up as you go along and then rewrite it when it was wrong. I became proficient in CF quite quickly and really started to like it, it was definitely better than ASP I thought.

Then my 3 month review came up and I was rather surprised to be told by Paul that my work was not up to scratch and I was not producing results fast enough so he would have to let me go, which was disappointing as I did like it there, but it was quite a long trek every day. This however turned out to be a good thing thing as I walked straight into my next job at almost twice the salary and nearer to home. I also bumped into Paul some months later and he told me that he had been very wrong about me as every developer he had employed since had been no where near as good as me, did not grasp the concept as well and produced results at about half the speed, so it was clearly his expectations which had been too high, I didn't gloat (much), ok yes I did and I still am :-).

My next job was with a company called Online (now deceased) as a senior web developer. They did not use CF or in fact any technology in particular, they just had an exisitng  site which I was to build and maintain for a U.S. client who wanted to launch an ISP in the UK, which had a few ASP pages on it. This was the cushiest job you could possibly imagine, other than updating the odd page here and there, I had very little to do on a daily basis, I even built a rudimentary CMS for the ASP pages so the designers could update them themselves and reduced my workload even further. This gave me more time to play with CF, and this is when I really became part of the community and joined the UK CFUG discussion list and started answering every single question that was posted (it was quite active back then). It became quite comical because I was so fast at answering questions that often people would get my reply in their inbox even before the original post (not sure how). Spending so much time helping others is really what boosted my CF knowledge and skills to Expert or Guru level, I actually learned far more solving other developers problems than I did doing day to day coding. It was during my time here that I started CFDeveloper and became the first and only site to offer free CF hosting.
As new projects started within the company I of course did everything in CF and gradually replaced all the old ASP code, but eventually I saw Online's demise on the horizon even before they did and so again it was time to move on, which is  when I decided to start my first company Satachi back in 2000 doing ColdFusion development and consultancy and hosting, and then eventually led to CFMX HOSTING and now BlueThunder Internet.

There’s a lot to like about Google+ and it has the potential to make a major impact on the future of the Internet. After just two weeks in closed beta, it already has 10 million users. Still, it’s far from perfect. I’ve put together my list of the top 10 things Google needs to fix or add in Google+. Take a look at the list and then jump into the discussion and argue with me by adding the fixes that you think deserve more attention in Google+.

1. Let us mute someone from the Stream

On Google+ it is a lot easier to find friends and people to follow than any social network that has been built so far. And, with Circles, you can divided them into groups and then easily jump between the various streams of your Circles. However, there is also the big “Stream,” which aggregates all of the people you have in Circles and this is the default view you see on Google+. The one feature missing here is the ability to mute a person from the Stream (while still being able to see their updates in their Circle). You can mute individual posts from the Stream, but you can’t currently mute a person. This is badly needed so that you can stay connected to interesting people but not have the overly chatty people monopolize your Stream.

2. Show list of my +1 items from Google+

The +1 button allows you to gives the thumbs up to really good Google+ posts and updates. However, this should also work like a list of favourites or bookmarks. Right now, there’s no way to see a list of the things where I have clicked +1. If I go to my profile there is a +1 tab, but that’s the list of external items (from web sites or Google search results) where I’ve clicked +1. The items from Google+ itself need to be added to this list.

3. Fix the share and re-share issue

One of the stickiest issues Google needs to figure out is the Share functionality. If you’re familiar with Twitter, this is like a Re-tweet (RT). However, when you share a post on Google+, it removes all of the comments and +1s, allows you to add your own comments above the post, and then your followers can add their own plusses and comments. That can be pretty cool, except when a bunch of the people you follow all share and re-share the same post. With the approach Google has taken to sharing, there may not be an easy answer, but something will need to be done to sort this out, at least for stuff that gets shared more than 2-3 times in your stream.

4. Let us sort the stream by raw timeline

By default, the big Stream (and the Circle streams as well) are sorted by relevance and popularity, based on the number of +1 votes and shares, so that the most interesting stuff rises to the top of the Stream. However, Google should also give us the option to sort the stream based solely on timestamp, so that we can see the stuff from people who post interesting things but don’t have as many followers to buoy their posts.

5. Allow comments to be threaded

This is an issue of intense debate, but I think Google should allow threaded commenting on Google+ so that people can comment on and respond to comments, and not just the original post. That would make the threads a lot easier to follow when they get a lot of comments. And, comments on comments could be collapsed by default and users could simply click a plus sign to expand and view them. However, the threading would only need to go three layers deep to allow a response and a counterpoint.

6. Add more functionality to mobile

It’s impressive that Google had its Android app for Google+ ready to download the moment that it launched the “Field Trial” of the new service, and shortly thereafter it submitted an iPhone/iPad app to Apple for approval in the App Store. Even better, the Android app for Google+ is very well done. However, it’s not perfect and it could make the mobile Google+ experience a lot better by adding key functionality — e.g. the ability to +1 a comment, the ability to join a hangout, the ability to easily flip between the big stream and circle streams, etc. While they’re at it, Google should add more core functionality to its HTML app as well. That would be a great way to drive more participation and get a jump on Facebook, which still doesn’t have a great mobile experience.

7. Open it up to Google Apps users

In order to get into the Google+ beta you need a Gmail address (or a Google Account). It does not currently work for the Google Apps domains, which are business accounts where the company is using a corporate version of Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and other Google web apps. Google has stated that Google+ pages for businesses and brands are coming soon. Hopefully, Google+ for Google Apps users won’t be far behind. Since some people may end up having separate Google+ accounts for personal (Gmail) and business (Google Apps) use, Google should also consider options for letting those users log in to both accounts from different tabs in the Chrome web browser.

8. Integrate private messaging

One of the biggest things Google+ is missing compared to rivals Facebook and Twitter is the ability to send a private message to a mutual contact. Sure, there are a few workarounds and hacks that let you do it, but Google needs to make this part of the product’s primary functionality. It also wouldn’t hurt to integrate GoogleTalk (instant messaging) as well.

UPDATE: Google has added a “Send an email” button in Google+ profiles. So, you can now send an email to anyone with a Google+ profile (by default), even if they don’t have you in one of their circles. This is different than private messaging, which I still think would be useful.

9. Set up verified accounts

Since there are already celebrities showing up on Google+ — and a lot of people who are impersonating celebrities — Google needs to set up something similar to Twitter’s Verified Accounts. Just do a search for “Mark Zuckerberg” or “Lady Gaga” on Google+ and take a look at how many accounts there are. There are also plenty of sneaky imposters, like the person who pretended to be Apple’s Jony Ive (the account has been deleted).

10. Show list of interactions with each user

Another useful feature that Google should add is the ability to go to a user’s profile page and see all of that person’s interactions with you — their +1s and comments on your posts, as well as your +1s and comments on their posts. This would help figure out if you should add a person to your Circles, and if so, which Circles you should put them in or add them to.

When you go to Google+, you can find my profile here.

Also read

• Is Google+ about to transform the Web?
• Why you won’t hate Google+ and some tips to get started
• The inside story of Google+ is already being told
• Four ways Google+ will end up in your workplace
• Five things to love about Google+
• Google’s Page upbeat after 3 months on job: 10 million on Google+
• Is Facebook already running scared of Google+?

This article was originally published on TechRepublic.

It has been a long time coming but I have finally got around to upgrading my blog software and I chose to switch from BlogCFC to Mangoblog, which thankfully was a pretty painless expereince. My main reason for wanting to upgrade was to stop comment spam, which I have been getting a lot of as my version of BlogCFC has no way to stop this.

The last time I looked at doing this there was no easy solution, I of course looked at updating to the latest BlogCFC, but this turned out to be the most complicated solution of all, as I would have needed to apply a lot of old incremental updates first and do a lot of manual work, so I dismissed this option. So I looked at Mangoblog which I have used on cfmldeveloper and really liked, but there was no easy upgrade route there either.

So I then decided if I was going to have to do this much work then I may as well move to Wordpress which I have really come to regard as the mother of all blogging software and then some. I had made a good start on this several months ago, I had Wordpress installed, chose a theme, got all the config done, all I needed to do was write some scripts to import all my blog posts and comments. However when I next looked at my Wordpress site several months later the permalinks had broken and I could not get them working again, so I got pissed off and decided to give Mangoblog another look.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that the current version had an import tool for blogCFC 5.x, I had my doubts it would work but thought I would give it a go.

Well I am happy to report that the import tool did work, flawlessly, which was good considering I did have a very old version of BlogCFC (5.5), it imported all my posts, all the comments and categories. However it is not perfect as it did not import blog subscribers or comment subscriptions and did nothing at all with images in posts, so all the img url's remained the same.
This is not such a big deal as I don't really care about comments on old posts and a simple post on my old blog advising readers of the new URL will get them to update. The image issue is also easy to resolve, you can either:-

a) copy the folder that contained your images over form your old blog to the new blog.
b) do some url rewriting to redirect the image requests to the old url.

As my old blog is actually just a sub-directory inside michaels.me.uk and I will be keeping it running for a while until Google indexes the new one, I chose option b, and here is the rewrite rule in case your interested (I use Isapi_Rewrite on IIS btw).

RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^images/(.+) russ/images/$1 [QSA]
RewriteRule ^enclosures/(.+) russ/enclosures/$1 [QSA]

And here is the rule on my old blog to redirect the RSS feed

RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^rss.cfm http://www.michaels.me.uk/feeds/rss.cfm [QSA]

If you have any custom CSS for formatting CODE blocks and the like then you will also need to copy this across as well.

As I mentioned I have used BlogCFC before and here are just 2 of the cool Wordpress type features I really like about MangoBlog .

• Extensible with plugins
• Themes , it is also very easy to skin or modify existing themes.