I started creating a program for a good friend of mine about a month ago in my spare time. Essentially it’s a territory assignment program that assigns specific addresses in a territory to be called on by a field service agent. This territory would be then un-assigned when completed and the agent would move on to the next territory. As an added bonus and an experiment, I thought it would be nifty to actually SEE where the addresses were, instead of simply cranking out the addresses in an ugly list. The results were… inconsistent. Any more than a few addresses and I’d get a popup saying the address couldn’t be found. Normally I wouldn’t think anything of it, but the addresses were different every time the page generated. And ultimately I discovered that all of the addresses could be found.

After a bit of struggling, the first person I thought of who not only had the know-how to solve the problem, but also the inclination to do so, was Ray Camden whose articles I read often and I knew took on questions from readers.

I hadn’t realized that the first step in geocoding was translating addresses to latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates. Apparently if you send too many addresses to geolocate too close together, you get a 620 error from google maps and throws an error (or many errors).

Thanks again to Raymond Camden for his help, and here’s the article he wrote about it: http://www.coldfusionjedi.com/index.cfm/2009/12/15/Having-trouble-with-too-many-map-markers-and-CFMAP

I recently came across a job posting that immediately caught my attention. Not because it was a ColdFusion posting – quite the opposite in fact – but because it appeared at first to be my resume read back to me. The job was so finely tuned to my experience, I looked closer just to verify it wasn’t any of my previous employers filling a hole I had previously left void.

It is here in my hometown which is already a big plus, the position deals mostly with big-picture stuff (without the distraction of handling every little workstation hiccup) and features a team that seems to hold the same values as myself. There’s even a foosball table and a theatre room.

The first interview went long, which was great. It flowed more like a conversation than an interview. In fact it was the first non-tribunal interview I’ve had in ages. I’d almost forgotten how much I preferred one-on-one. Three days later and I’ve already been called for the second interview. I’m very optimistic about my chances.

Of course I will not neglect any chance I get to do programming or learning on my own time, but the focus may veer slightly to more server technology related issues and solutions.

…Assuming I get the job. I suppose I tend to get ahead of myself.

I’m still looking for any ColdFusion work at all. I had some back-and-forth with a company in the Netherlands but that fell through. And that pretty much sums up my entire list of opportunities since September. Right now I’m beginning a career in pizza delivery – a job that pays the bills for now but is ultimately unsatisfying.

This is new territory for me since I’ve never experienced an almost universally complete lack of response from any employers. Things must be really bad. Like… really really bad.

My writing on ColdFusion will probably slow now until I have professional cause to work with it again. Perhaps I should start another site where I discuss pizza at length. Perhaps not.