ColdFusion News Desk

Adobe Comes Up Short, Cans 600

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 09:04:00 EST

As fate would have it, Adobe picked the worst possible quarter to roll out the great update to its flagship Creative Suite widgetry. Because the economy is tanking, it hasn’t been selling the way it was supposed to. As a result, revenues came up short in the November quarter and Adobe has decided to lay off 8% of staff worldwide, 600 people.

ARM to Get Flash

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 10:30:00 EST

Adobe and ARM are gonna put Flash Player 10 and AIR, the stuff of web video and rich Internet apps, on ARM widgets by the second half of next year. They mean phones, set-tops, MIDs, TVs, car mojo and personal media devices, which have so far only had access to Flash Lite, not the best in browsing. iPhone happens to be based on ARM though whether that'll be true a year from now is unclear since Apple bought Power chipmaker PA Semi.

It's Saturday Evening, and I'm in San Francisco

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:00:00 EST

Of all domestic air carriers, I like Continental the most. They showed Mamma Mia and the food was bearable. Last month, I was in the air for 14 hours flying to Japan, and now the trip across the USA is a piece of cake. I have only carry luggage with me. This small bag has all the clothing I need for four days (4 t-shirts, four pairs of underwear, socks, three shirts, camera, laptop, over-the-shoulder laptop bag, toothbrush and shaver.

MAX is One of the Best Places to Improve Your Technical Flex Skills

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:00:00 EST

I’ll just give you one example. Last week my colleague and I were running a private Flex workshop for software architects of a large corporation who are about to start development with Flex. Needless to say that they are smart and experienced software professionals. Some of them already started working with Flex. While explaining various types of library linking in Flex, I said that if you don’t mention a class in the application, it won’t be included into the compiled SWF. One of the attendees responded, “It took me six hours to figure it out by myself”. He said it all.

The Cloud Comes This Week to San Jose

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:00:00 EST

A round-up of the many themes and topics of interest to infrastructure architects, developers and IT managers featuring at SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Expo being held November 19-21, 2008 at The Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California. The conference is expecting a record turnout of senior technologists including CIOs, CTOs, VPs of technology, IT directors and managers, network and storage managers, network engineers, enterprise architects, communications and networking specialists, and directors of infrastructure.

Adobe AIR Needs to Become a Real Desktop Platform

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:30:00 EST

AIR adds to Flex has a pretty straightforward API for working with local files and directories. There is a simple mechanism of installing and upgrading AIR applications. If you want, you can digitally sign them too. AIR 1.5 introduces local encryption, which means that you can encrypt, say a user’s password and save it in a local storage. component allows you to build a Web browser in several minutes. Flex developers would love to have it too...

Adobe MAX 2008: Signing My MAX Speaker Agreement

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 05:30:00 EST

Reading conference speaker's agreements may reveal some interesting gems. Since I don't have a PR agent, I have to make the following public statement by myself: "I'm not going to damage anyone's reputation (including developers of PureMVC framework) for abuse of design patterns. I'm ready to buy a beer to any Adobe Flex team member who can convince me that LCDS is that much better than BlazeDS."

What Does Obama Revolution Mean to Cloud Computing?

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:00:00 EST

The technology blueprint of President Elect Barack Obama, if implemented as promised, bodes well for the future of Cloud Computing. Let me consider some of the Barack Obama's Technology proposals and explain how it is relevant to the success of Cloud Computing. This is not a political post but rather an analysis of President Elect Barack Obama's policies and how it might help Cloud Computing. Please feel free to discuss the policies instead of politics in the comments.

Platform Computing CEO to Present at SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Conference & Expo, November 19-21, San Jose, CA

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 08:00:00 EST

There is much debate raging over whether cloud computing and grid computing are one and the same. In fact, there are many similarities and one key difference separating these burgeoning fields. Both cloud and grid propose an architecture that masks the complexity of managing thousands of commodity servers from their users. Consequently, those managing a grid or cloud require specialized management tools designed for large scale implementation - making it possible to manage a large number of servers without requiring an army of administrators. In both cases, users often serve themselves and pay for their usage as a utility. The key difference, however, is in the types of workloads each system processes, as well as how demand for the utility is generated. This session will explore these similarities and differences and discuss the future of cloud and grid computing.

AJAX World Expo to Take Place Monday Through Wednesday in San Jose, CA

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 08:20:00 EDT

On Monday October 20 in San Jose, California, the top Rich Internet Applications event of the Fall opens its doors: the 6th International AJAX World RIA Conference & Expo, with top industry keynotes from Microsoft's Silverlight supremo Scott Guthrie and Adobe's Chief Technology Officer, Kevin Lynch, headlining a lineup of speakers that includes some of the finest front end engineers, UI experts, user experience specialists, and software industry innovators anywhere in the world.

RIA Conference Keynotes: Adobe & Microsoft

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 10:45:00 EDT

Join Scott Guthrie as he discusses Microsoft’s commitment to web standards development, Rich Internet Applications and how Microsoft is contributing to help move the web forward. Join Adobe’s Kevin Lynch as he demonstrates how Flash and HTML come together to make the most engaging, effective user experiences across operating systems and browsers.

Adobe Named "Bronze Sponsor" of AJAX World RIA Conference, October 20-22, in San Jose, California

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 11:45:00 EDT

SYS-CON Events announced today that the leading global rich Internet technology provider Adobe Systems was named "Bronze Sponsor" of SYS-CON's upcoming AJAX World Conference & Expo 2008 West, which will take place October 20-22, 2008, at the Fairmont Hotel in the heart of Silicon Valley, in San Jose, California. Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information. For more than two decades, the company's award-winning software and technologies have set new standards for producing and delivering content that engages people virtually anywhere at anytime. From rich images in print, video, and film to dynamic digital content across multiple media, the impact of Adobe solutions is evident across industries and felt by anyone who creates, views, and interacts with information. With a reputation for excellence and a portfolio of many of the most respected software brands, Adobe is one of the world's largest and most diversified software companies

AJAX World RIA Keynotes by Kevin Lynch of Adobe and Scott Guthrie of Microsoft

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:00:00 EDT

Kevin Lynch, who will be keynoting on October 21, 2008, helped originally coin the term "Rich Internet Application" in 2002. He has been at the center of innovation in Flash and Adobe AIR since their inception, and currently drives Adobe’s technology platform for designers and developers across desktops and devices. Previously Adobe's Chief Software Architect, he was promoted to CTO in February '08. Guthrie, who will be keynoting October 20, 2008, was a founding member of the .NET Framework team and today runs the development teams that deliver the CLR, ASP.NET, Silverlight, WPF, IIS7, and the Visual Studio tools for Web, WPF and Silverlight development. Previously the General Manager of Microsoft's Developer Divsion, he was promoted to Corporate Vice President in February '08.

AJAX World Conference $200 "Gold Pass Registration" Savings to Expire This Friday

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 22:00:00 EDT

Rich Internet Applications offer the potential to fundamentally change the user experience and in doing so, yield significant business benefits. The theme of this October's AJAX World Conference & Expo 2008 West is 'Beyond AJAX to the RIA Era' and the Call for Papers, which is still open, specifically encourages submissions from exceptional speakers with high-quality use cases of the fast-emerging RIA alternatives.

From Enterprise to Cloud, Virtualization Today on SYS-CON.TV

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 04:00:00 EDT

Virtualization has become a critical part of Enterprise IT strategy. Why and how has it become one of the most important change agents in our industry? To answer these questions I had the good fortune recently to be able to speak to a select group of top IT industry executives who joined me in the 4th Floor Reuters TV Studio overlooking Times Square in New York City for a special SYS-CON.TV "Virtualization Power Panel."

ColdFusion Developer's Journal Special: How to Prevent an SQL Injection Attack

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 16:00:00 EDT

SQL Injection attacks are one of the easiest ways to hack into a website. One recent hack, using a script from verynx.cn, involves injecting sql into a web form that then appends some JavaScript code into fields in a database that then gets executed on the client side when a user views a database-driven page.

Voyager Offers Android, .NET CF, Java Runtime Support

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:15:00 EDT

Recursion Software released a private beta version of their Voyager mobile platform, with powerful interoperability for Android, Microsoft .NET and Compact Framework (CF), all Java editions (JME CDC, JSE and JEE), and more than 15 embedded operating systems. The Voyager platform is a powerful cross-platform development environment that allows developers to write one code-set natively in either Java or .NET and publish the code to mobile or desktop nodes that can execute transactions at runtime regardless of the virtual machine they employ. This beta version is an important step towards write once, run everywhere for application messaging and communications.

AJAX and Enterprise RIA Tools - JSF, Flex, and JavaFX

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:45:00 EDT

2008 is going to be an important year for Rich Internet Applications. Most organizations are delivering or planning to deliver Rich Internet Applications; however, at the same time, most IT managers are facing a dilemma: which Rich Internet Application technology and platform to use? The number of different frameworks and libraries is too vast to even consider evaluating a fraction of them.

CFDynamics Announces Renewed Agreement with SmarterTools

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 08:15:00 EDT

CFDynamics, a ColdFusion web host, has renewed an agreement with SmarterTools that will allow them to pass on immediate value to their customers. When a customers signs up for a dedicated hosting account they will now receive $750 worth of features including SmarterMail, SmarterStats and SmarterTrack.

SYS-CON's Virtualization Conference & Expo: Themes & Topics

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:30:00 EDT

From Application Virtualization to Xen, a round-up of the virtualization themes & topics being discussed in NYC June 23-24, 2008 by the world-class speaker faculty at the 3rd International Virtualization Conference & Expo being held by SYS-CON Events in The Roosevelt Hotel, in midtown Manhattan.

Adobe Betas Three Pieces of CS4

Fri, 30 May 2008 08:15:00 EDT

Adobe has put out three free public betas: Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Soundbooth, all of which will be part of the next-generation Creative Suite when it arrives. Its delivery date is still a big secret. The betas are only good for 48 hours once they're downloaded unless you're a Creative Suite 3 customer. Dreamweaver is for web design and development, Fireworks for prototyping and Soundbooth for audio creating and editing. Adobe describes the early release software as 'a taste of the radical workflow enhancements that we have in store as we redefine how designers and developers collaborate to deliver stand-out digital experiences.'

AJAX World - Google Prices App Engine

Fri, 30 May 2008 08:15:00 EDT

Google is opening up App Engine to one and all. The cloud-sharing gambit meant to entice developers to build their web applications on the same infrastructure that powers Google's own applications - and in the process lock them into Google instead of Microsoft - has been in beta for the last six weeks and limited to 10,000 developers. Google says that another 150,000 developers are on the waiting list and so on Wednesday, the first day of Google I/O, the company's two-day developer event in San Francisco, will take down the barricade. Google also disclosed what it's going to charge for App Engine starting later this year.

Red Hat Named "Platinum Sponsor" of Virtualization Conference & Expo

Thu, 29 May 2008 14:30:00 EDT

Red Hat is a trusted open source provider. Red Hat offers enterprise customers a long-term plan for building infrastructures on the quality and innovation of open source. Combining open source operating system platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, together with applications, management, and Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) solutions, including the JBoss Enterprise Middleware Suite.

Clear Data Builder 3.0 is Free Now

Thu, 29 May 2008 11:15:00 EDT

The popular code generator Clear Data Builder will become available free of charge. Originally, Clear Data Builder was released as a command-line open source code generator a.k.a. DaoFlex. We've submitted it to Adobe Flex component exchange about two years ago, and it quickly became one of the most downloadable components.

AJAX World - Adobe Flex 4 Is Shaping Up

Thu, 29 May 2008 11:15:00 EDT

Adobe has published their first plan of what should be included in Flex 4 that is scheduled to release next year. Since Flex is an open source product, you have a say in this too. Obviously, there's a hope that upcoming Thermo release will bring together developers and designers. I'm cautiously optimistic here. It's great that a designer's tool will automatically generate MXML. A developer will pick it up and re-factor. But will the tool be smart enough to reverse-engineer the re-factored code and present it back in a visual form to the designer for further work? That is a million dollars question.

AJAX World – Personal Branding Checklist

Tue, 27 May 2008 15:30:00 EDT

This is a checklist of items you need for an all-encompassing personal branding strategy. Personal branding is the process of marketing and selling yourself as a brand in order to gain success in business. Personal branding is a continual process just as knowing yourself is a continual process. As you grow, so does your brand. The need for personal branding arises from the fact that globalization has increased competition in the workplace. As the wheat is separated from the chaff, if you are left standing, you are left standing with others of good caliber. The playing field is now that much more challenging since your competition is as good as, or better, than you.

What Is ColdFusion in the Age of Java?

Fri, 23 May 2008 14:00:00 EDT

As CFML developers start to learn Java and move into the realm of Spring and Hibernate, it is very important to stop and ask 'What Is ColdFusion?'. ColdFusion, since CFMX, has been a J2EE application running within a J2EE server (JRun, JBoss, Tomcat, Websphere, etc.). This is important because thinking of ColdFusion like this lets us expand our mind to what we can really do with ColdFusion. We (CFML developers) can start to leverage J2EE services and frameworks like JPA, JNDI, JTA, and others to make ColdFusion a real player in the J2EE stack.

Ulitzer to Give Drupal 6.0 Its Biggest Scalability Challenge Yet

Mon, 19 May 2008 06:15:00 EDT

Ulitzer, Inc., which initially made the headlines with its 'job descriptions from the future,' announced today that it will launch its Ulitzer 'beta' site on July 4, 2008, with 5,500 authors and 600,000 original articles, published in more than 5,000 topic-specific online journals. Each journal offers up to 14 content-specific sections, written by the world's most respected authors, who are experts in their particular fields. All Ulitzer authors will get paid for their contributions.

Opinion: Give ColdFusion Some Room to Breathe

Fri, 16 May 2008 12:45:00 EDT

My personal approach has become to to let ColdFusion do what it does best, and no more. No AJAX generation or any of that silly UI stuff. Leave that to the AJAX frameworks, or Flex, or whatever your UI is going to be on the front-end. That's what the UI tool was designed for, CF wasn't. Let CF focus on three things: getting data into and out of RIA front-ends, rendering HTML with dynamic data, and providing services that Java and .NET cannot provide.

Viewpoint: Not Every ColdFusion Developer Should Be A Flex Developer

Fri, 16 May 2008 11:45:00 EDT

I am going to go ahead and contend that although a good number of ColdFusion developers can grasp and understand Flex very well, there are also a good number of ColdFusion developers who have no business going anywhere near Flex. Why do I say this? I am a big fan of Flex. I use it daily to create, what I think are, some kick-ass applications. It is a powerful tool that really changes the game on the web and the desktop. That being said, it is not a tool that every ColdFusion developer can grasp.

JavaOne 2008: Sun Talks Up its Late-to-the-Party AIR-Silverlight Rival

Fri, 16 May 2008 11:45:00 EDT

At Java One this week Sun has been selling its year-old-but-still-upcoming - and definitely late-to-the-party - Adobe AIR- and Microsoft Silverlight-competitive JavaFX Rich Client environment as a potential revenue-generator capable of putting ads on mobile applications and JavaFX Script, its newfangled high-performance GUI declarative scripting language, as the way to build consumer next-generation RIAs for desktops, mobiles, TV and other consumer devices.

AJAX World - Xceed Launches Microsoft Silverlight 2 Control

Fri, 09 May 2008 15:00:00 EDT

Xceed launched Xceed Upload for Silverlight, the commercial offering in support of Microsoft's promising new Silverlight technology. The product is available now for purchase or as a fully functional 45-day trial on Xceed's website. Xceed Upload for Silverlight lets developers add upload capabilities to any Silverlight 2 Beta 1 application. All upload operations are asynchronous; as a result, the Web page hosting the Silverlight application remains perfectly responsive and usable throughout the transfer.

AJAX World - Curl Launches Adobe AIR Competitor

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 18:30:00 EDT

Curl announced the beta release of Curl Nitro, the code name for an extension of the Curl Rich Internet Application (RIA) platform which offers enhanced desktop capabilities required by today's enterprises. The Nitro extension simplifies the process of installing and managing Curl applications accessed via a browser as well as directly from the desktop. Curl Nitro is the only platform for both traditional RIA and Desktop RIA that provides enterprise-level security, high performance and support for large data sets.

Is the Silverlight Adoption Rate Artificially Inflated?

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:45:00 EDT

Silverlight 2.0 is a freaking phenomenal RIA development environment and I would actually, at this point, put the development experience in Silverlight 2.0 above and beyond Flex. I can do more faster and have it look better and run more efficiently in Silverlight 2.0 than I can in Flex. BUT, when you're looking for case studies, look for ones where the person or organization who adopted Silverlight did so of their own volition, without being approached by Microsoft. I'm interested in hardcore, unbiased opinions from people who have been in the trenches doing their own coding, not watching Microsoft consultants do the coding for them. There are plenty of case studies like that out there, you just have to look past the shiny bouncing balls that are the Olympics and the Oscars and all the other crap that probably cost Microsoft a hojillion dollars in marketing funds and incentives.

Improve Your Coding Smarts with ColdFusion

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 07:45:00 EDT

If you read CF-related blogs, you've undoubtedly stumbled upon discussions of seemingly arcane subjects like continuations or closures or first-class objects or absence of side effects. It's likely bloggers have tracked down the source - some would say fount - of such concepts and you'll find them waxing eloquent. As they should.

Silverlight 2 - Adobe Flex Killer Is on Its Way!

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 11:00:00 EDT

Silverlight 2.0 kicks ass and I can't wait to start dropping more hardcore blog posts regarding it. Scott Guthrie's tutorials are a fantastic place to start. The issue I have, however, is that all of the tutorials assume you have installed Silverlight 2.0 tools for VS 2008. There is a small issue with that and I'm not sure everyone's aware of it.

Engelbart's Usability Dilemma: Efficiency vs Ease-of-Use

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:15:00 EDT

The mouse was the original idea of Doug Engelbart who was the head of the Augmentation Research Center (ARC) at Stanford Research Institute. Engelbart's philosophy is best embodied, in my opinion, in the design of another device that he invented, the five-finger keyboard - with keys like a piano, used by one hand. The problem was, Engelbart's five-finger keyboard and mouse combination was very difficult to learn.

Early Notes on GoogleApps

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:15:00 EDT

Now, what Google announced is really exciting! I'm not kidding. It's even better than I hoped. Yes, it's only Python, but IBM's PC-DOS was only BASIC and Pascal when it first came out, and it didn't matter. Yeah, I preferred C, but I coded in Pascal because that's what you had to do to get an app running. What you're going to see here that you've never seen before is shrinkwrap net apps that scale that can be deployed by civillians. That's a mouthful, but that's what's coming. Why? Because here is a standardized platform that can be stamped out in the billions of units. Maybe Google can't do it, but the perception is that they can. Who is willing to stand up and say Google hasn't nailed scaling? What PCs did in the 80s, Google is doing now. PCs took the black magic out of owning a computer.

Adobe Reorgs: Mandels and Ramadan Gone, Lynch in Charge of the Whole Magilla

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:15:00 EDT

Told ya Adobe was gonna reorganize and put its mobile/devices operation in with its platform operation in the name of moving to a single technology platform and runtime for PCs, handsets and consumer devices. Adobe's new CTO Kevin Lynch, the creator of AIR, is basically in charge of the whole magilla now. Gary Kovacs, VP of product management and marketing for the mobile and devices business, will be general manager of the unit, reporting to Lynch, replacing Al Ramadan, who is leaving.

Adobe Wants to Be on the iPhone and Will "Reorganize" Its Mobile and Device Business Unit

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 14:45:00 EDT

Rumor has it that in the next few weeks Adobe is going to 'reorganize' its Mobile and Device business unit where its Jobs-criticized Flash Lite lives and send the engineers to go work with the larger platform effort and Flash proper, which Jobs has also criticized. Presumably, Adobe is going to do what it takes to appease Jobs. It does want to be on the iPhone and needs Apple's help.