Latest News from ColdFusion Developer's Journal

Creating A New Business On The Internet: From Ground Zero to Cash Flow

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 05:00:00 EDT

You want to establish a new business on the Internet because of all the advantages you know exist with doing business exclusively on the Internet. This article starts with the concepts of the Internet black holes vs. conservative new Internet business creation and construction.

London, Manchester, Edinburgh - Don’t Miss SOTR Events

Fri, 29 May 2009 17:47:00 EDT

The organisers of Scotch on the Rocks are taking the annual conference on tour next week, setting up in London on Monday (1st), Manchester on Wednesday (3rd) and ending up in Edinburgh on Friday (5th). There is lots happening in relation to the Flash Platform this year - new releases of the Flex framework, Flash Builder...

SOA World Expo: Virtualization-in-a-Box?

Fri, 08 May 2009 20:30:00 EDT

Earlier this month I attended the IBM Impact conference in Las Vegas. The core theme of Impact was "Smart SOA" and how cloud computing comes together in the enterprise, with the emphasis on private clouds. The core notion of private clouds for IBM is really about extending their experience in virtualization, which is vast, into the more modern world of cloud computing. They hope to sell some hardware and software in the process.

Ben Forta Presenting at Next UKCFUG Meeting

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 10:00:00 EDT

Ben Forta, Director of Evangelism at Adobe, will be presenting at the UK ColdFusion User Group meeting to be held on the 21st April at Adobe’s central London office.

Learning Tree Announces Latest Addition to Adobe Curriculum

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:00:00 EDT

Learning Tree International has added a new course to its Adobe products-related curriculum entitled Adobe Flash: Developing Interactive Web Content. Over four days, an expert instructor will lead attendees through extensive hands-on exercises designed to provide in-depth experience creating and delivering Flash applications.

Ulitzer to Launch ColdFusion Developer's Journal 2.0

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 16:15:00 EST

Ulitzer to launch ColdFusion Developer's Journal 2.0. ColdFusion Developer's Journal was first launched 12 years ago. Ulitzer will bring more than 7,000 original CFDJ articles and ColdFusion authors from the archives to ColdFusion Developer's Journal 2.0 (http://coldfusion.ulitzer.com/).

Web Services Using ColdFusion and Apache CXF

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 21:59:00 EST

Since its emergence, Web Service technology has gone a long way towards perfecting itself and finding its right application in the real world. With the maturity of the specifications, Web Service technology, with its power of interoperability, is now the major enabling technology of SOA, which is being adopted by more and more enterprises to build their application integration infrastructure.

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."

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.

AJAX & RIA Journal Special: Results of OpenAjax Alliance's Browser Feature Wish List

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 05:45:00 EDT

What does the AJAX community want from future browsers? How are these different requests prioritized? Web developers have done amazing things with AJAX for both Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 applications, but what barriers need to be removed to enable the next generation of browser-based innovations? The future of AJAX runtime environments matters more than ever today.

"AJAX Is Not About Eye Candy," Says Microsoft's Stagner at AJAXWorld Keynote

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 06:00:00 EDT

AJAX is about a rich user interface that is not just reactive but also pro-active; it's about content, perhaps socialized (user-generated) content; and it's about pain-free deployment, with loosely coupled services.

Food Dial, a Facebook RIA Application Written in Flex

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:45:00 EDT

Food Dial is not just a book of recipes. Here's the big idea - you came back home, tired and hungry. Start the Food Dial application and open the fridge. Here's the red pepper. Turn the dial with food categories...

Yahoo & Microsoft: Week 21

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 08:45:00 EDT

On Tuesday TechCrunch and CNet, based on the usual 'sources,' reported that talks between Yahoo and Microsoft were back on, stories that prevented Yahoo's desperate, bewildered, shuttlecock stock from dropping below the 20-dollar barrier and landing in the high teens where it was when Microsoft entered the picture on February 1. It was certainly headed in that direction.

Red Hat Numbers Up

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:30:00 EDT

Red Hat saw earnings rise 6.6% to $17.3 million, or eight cents a share in its first fiscal quarter ended May 31 on revenue up 32% year-over-year and 11% sequentially to $156.6 million. EPS was dead flat year-over-year. Subscription revenue was $130.7 million, up 27% year-over-year and up 7% sequentially. Training and services were up 64% to $25.9 million.

Novell Delivers Optimized SUSE Linux Enterprise Performance for VMware Virtualization Environments

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:30:00 EDT

Novell announced it is collaborating with VMware to improve Linux performance in VMware environments by incorporating support for the VMware Virtual Machine Interface (VMI) into the SUSE Linux Enterprise kernel. Demonstrating their commitment to provide open interoperability and optimization for virtualized environments, the companies have worked together to optimize SUSE Linux Enterprise for the VMware platform.

Power Panel: The Importance of Middleware and Data Services

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:45:00 EDT

A panel of experts and executives from organizations that are leading providers and consumers of technology will discuss trends and important technologies for enterprise and Internet computing. The experts will discuss the role of databases and database technology trends that enhance SOA and Web development. The session will also focus on preferred solutions for architecture and middleware to enable applications and services to access data from SQL and other data sources.

VirtenSys Demonstrates PCI Express Based I/O Virtualization

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:45:00 EDT

VirtenSys has developed a PCI Express based I/O technology that virtualizes and shares off-the-shelf I/O adapters among multiple physical servers without the need for adapter, device driver, or server modifications. This technology is a critical capability that will accelerate adoption of the VirtenSys PCI Express I/O virtualization products. The cost effective VirtenSys products improve I/O utilization to greater than 80 percent; enhance throughput, and reduce I/O cost and power consumption by as much as 50 percent. The products also simplify data center management by dynamically allocating, sharing, and migrating I/O resources among servers without physical re-configuration, resulting in reduced Operational Expenses (OpEx).

Don't Let Inefficient Data Access Undermine Your Virtualization Goals

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:45:00 EDT

Data center architects naturally seek to employ server virtualization to maximize the use of their hardware systems. An often overlooked factor that can undermine this goal is data connectivity. 75 to 95 percent of the response time now associated with database access can often be attributed to the data connectivity layer - and that's using traditional, non-virtualized servers. Running multiple virtual servers on a single machine can introduce additional complications involving data access. This presentation will examine the importance of data connectivity in a virtualized environment, and the need to take an intelligent approach to data access in order to truly reap the benefit of a virtualization strategy.

SOA World - More on the Software Assembly Question

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:00:00 EDT

One aspect of the debate over software productivity and assembly is whether or not visual tools can help. I think that they do - visual abstractions can be very meaningful - but I do not know of any visual system that actually solves the complete problem (i.e none have solved the customization/round trip problem). UML tools are furthermore too object oriented for some applications - such as services and REST.

Cloud Computing: rBuilder Delivers Scientific Applications as Virtual Appliances

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 11:15:00 EDT

rPath announced that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) have been using rBuilder to deliver virtual appliances to both scientists' desktops and computational clouds. The use of rBuilder in these environments reduces the effort required to support users and allows researchers to take advantage of underutilized computational resources.

Avoiding a SOA Fiasco: An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure

Thu, 29 May 2008 14:30:00 EDT

While SOA can deliver dramatic cost reduction of an organization's business operations, it is a complex, multidisciplinary undertaking, and therefore introduces significant risk. This session presents a list of the most important risk factors and ways to mitigate them BEFORE it is too late. The session will be of interest to anyone planning an SOA initiative, primarily CIOs, Technical Managers, Project Directors and Technical Architects.

A Lightweight Approach to SOA and BPM in Java Using jBPM

Thu, 29 May 2008 14:00:00 EDT

SOA is mostly associated with technologies such as BPEL, SCA and Web Services. But does SOA really imply these technologies? In this session we will show how you can use the service oriented approach while staying inside the Java world. jBPM is a powerful lightweight framework that can be used to orchestrate services in the broadest sense. It is highly extendable, very versatile and can be easily embedded in client and/or server applications. Attendees will learn how jBPM can be used in a pure workflow scenario as well as in a situation involving automated business steps.

CEP - the Secret Weapon for SOA Application Performance Management

Thu, 29 May 2008 13:00:00 EDT

Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) can deliver tremendous value in flexibility, adaptability and cost savings. But SOA environments are complex by definition, with lots of loosely coupled components and a potentially vast combination of platforms, software, databases, applications and networks. One of the biggest challenges inherent in realizing the benefits of SOA is effectively managing all of these diverse components to ensure the high availability and performance of the applications running in them to meet crucial Service Level Agreements (SLAs). This session will explore Complex Event Processing (CEP) engines and offer practical insights into how CEP can be leveraged to enable rapid real-time problem correction and predictive problem prevention that is vital to successful SOA implementations.

Ruby on Rails 2.1 is Very Close

Wed, 28 May 2008 14:30:00 EDT

Nearly four years after its initial release, Ruby on Rails is edging ever closer to version 2.1. Rails 0.5 was released June 24 of 2004, and its creator David Heinemeier Hansson hopes that v2.1, currently in release candidate state, will be out any moment. 'We've been adding a ton of extra deliciously nice goodies in preparation of its release,' blogged Heinemeier Hansson just last month.

Can Windows Save OLPC?

Fri, 23 May 2008 14:00:00 EDT

Despite hisses and boos from the open source side of the house One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is now officially soldered at the hip to Microsoft. Its novel XO laptop is supposed to go to trials in a half-dozen developing countries next month fitted with XP and a student version of Office and it expects to have a dual-boot Windows-Red Hat version ready by October.

Microsoft to Support ODF in Office 2007 Service Pack 2

Fri, 23 May 2008 13:45:00 EDT

Office will support the Open Document Format (ODF) 1.1 format when Office 2007 Service Pack 2 arrives in the first half of 2009. Microsoft said users will be able to open, edit and save documents in ODF from directly inside Office application without having to install any other code. That means no more translators. They will even be able to set ODF as the default.

Neocleus Enters the $1.8b Desktop Virtualization Market

Fri, 23 May 2008 13:30:00 EDT

Neocleus announced a suite of trusted virtual solutions for endpoints such as desktops and laptops. The solution, Neocleus Trusted Edge, provides the means for employees, partners and customers to connect to corporate resources from any endpoint regardless of its state of security. Neocleus Trusted Edge is also a solution to come to market leveraging Neocleus' hypervisor open source contributions which include enhancements the company made to the Xen Hypervisor to work directly on endpoints.

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.

Building an IM Bot Using ColdFusion

Wed, 07 May 2008 13:45:00 EDT

I recently brought a Google Talk bot that I put online at cfdocs@gmail.com. Google Talk users can add this user to their buddy list and then submit CFML tag and function lookups to it. (I've also brought Yahoo IM and AIM versions online as nickname cflivedocs, but more on those shortly). In this column I'll explain exactly what the IM bot is and what it does, and show you how to easily create a bot of your own.

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.

"ColdFusion Killer" BlueDragon Open Source Launch Date Announced

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:15:00 EDT

The wait is coming to an end. We are working feverishly to get the open source version of BlueDragon into the wild on the 3rd of May 2008 at cf.Objective(), when Vince presents his BOF. Vince will illustrate the first public open source version of BlueDragon. This will including the building of it, the deployment and other items of interest. If you want to be among the first to witness this, then get over there.

ColdFusion Language to be Commoditized on Java Platform

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 09:15:00 EDT

New Atlanta will be creating and distributing a free open-source Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) version of BlueDragon, its ColdFusion-compatible web application server. It will be released under the popular GPL license, mirroring the licensing path chosen by MySQL and Java. BlueDragon has been around for nearly a decade now.

Task Portfolio Software Created Using ColdFusion 7

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:15:00 EST

Bolling Technology has announced that the Cordish Company is the first major client for its new online task management software product, Task Portfolio. Invented by owner and Baltimore native Raynard T. Bolling, Task Portfolio is an enterprise level, web-based task management tool that gives managers and employees the ability to efficiently assign and track tasks throughout their organizations. Task Portfolio can be used to manage various tasks in any company or industry.

Master Building Rich User Interfaces in Dreamweaver

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 09:45:00 EST

Web application developers and designers often give up on building rich, interactive user interfaces because they lack the JavaScript skills to make it happen. AJAX development power tools--including Dreamweaver, Spry and off-the-shelf AJAX components--make it easy to build rich user interfaces in AJAX with no JavaScript coding. Andre Charland will demonstrate how to install, set up and configure extensions to Dreamweaver, and will use them to build simple, rich interface AJAX apps. After this session, even beginner developers will be able to add AJAX interactions to web applications. This session is a must for ambitious, novice and intermediate designers anxious to use AJAX in their applications.

Microsoft's Office Chief To Retire; Replaced by Macromedia CEO During Adobe's Acquisition

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 14:45:00 EST

Microsoft disclosed late Thursday that Jeff Raikes, the head of its Office operation, second only to Windows in bringing in revenue, was retiring and will be replaced by Stephen Elop, 44, Jupiter Networks' short-term COO. Before Jupiter, Elop was president of worldwide field operations at Adobe by virtue of Adobe's 2005 acquisition of Macromedia, where he was president and CEO. Elop also has experience as a chief information officer. The plan is for Raikes, 49, to hang around until September as a backstop as a member of the senior leadership team for purposes of transition.

Customers Embrace CommonSpot Version 5.0

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 11:00:00 EST

PaperThin, Inc. announced that four customers have recently gone live on CommonSpot Version 5.0, including: LeSea Broadcasting, Ping Identity, Tulane University, and Tuthill Corporation. In addition, 30 customers are currently implementing the new solution which is being widely embraced for its inherent ease-of-use and improved flexibility.

Adobe Moves One Step Closer To AIR 1.0

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 11:15:00 EST

'AIR Beta 3 is an exciting release that takes us one step closer to AIR 1.0,' writes Platform Evangelist Kevin Hoyt in a recent commentary on eight changes from AIR Beta 2. 'Unlike the myriad of changes introduced in the move from AIR Beta 1 to AIR Beta 2,' Hoyt added, 'the changes in AIR Beta 3 are far more subtle.' This stability,e ne noted, indicates the growing maturity of the product.

T3 Sues IBM To Break its Mainframe Monopoly

Sat, 01 Dec 2007 18:30:00 EST

Its 47-page suit filed in district court in New York the other day says that since IBM's consent decree with the United States government was phased out in 2001 IBM has been systemically squeezing out any competition to its mainframe monopoly and that it has reneged on its undertaking to the government to keep its mainframe operating system available on RAND licensing terms after the decree expired.

Android: Who Hates Google Over the Phone?

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 02:45:00 EST

After Google's Android announcement, at least four big guys should be irritated: Sun Microsystems, Apple, Adobe and Microsoft.Google approaches telephony from the open source side - Linux-based platform, uses Java but does not care about sticking to Java ME - they are planning to use fast OpenGL libraries and are not afraid to be hardware-specific.

Lynda.com Releases ColdFusion 8 Beyond the Basics

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 11:00:00 EST

Lynda.com, a self-paced digital media and design training, introduced ColdFusion 8 Beyond the Basics. ColdFusion 8 Beyond the Basics demonstrates how to utilize ColdFusion 8 to its full potential, from setting up a project to using ColdFusion Components and sessions in a shopping cart application.

Hot Banana Now Available on Salesforce.com's AppExchange

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 05:00:00 EDT

Hot Banana, the Web Content Management Solution (CMS) from J.L. Halsey, is now available on salesforce.com's AppExchange marketplace. The two-way integration between Hot Banana's Web content management solution and Salesforce means that both sales and marketing get what they need in the format they want. Marketing maintains full control over Web forms and landing pages, while sales teams obtain lead generation data quickly and in their preferred format.

CFImage Part 3

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 11:00:00 EDT

ColdFusion 8 introduces the CFImage tag and dozens of image manipulation functions. We have already looked at reading and writing image files and we have covered the basic yet powerful image manipulation possible through CFImage tag actions alone. Now we know enough to be able to really start exploring the vast feature set of ColdFusion 8 image manipulation. When it comes to something like this your imagination is really the only limit, so it makes it a bit more difficult to come up with simple ways to learn this stuff. I find that task-based learning works well and will let us accomplish real-world goals while touching on many aspects of image manipulation.

Every Beginner Must Grow Up

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 11:00:00 EDT

Do you remember January of 2004? Macromedia had just released ColdFusion 6.1 a few months earlier. CFCs finally worked! Fancy JavaScript techniques were not pulled together under the moniker of AJAX. Rich Internet applications were just a casual mention in a Macromedia whitepaper. There was only one ColdFusion framework in common use and Flex was an unnamed beta behind the Macromedia cloak of secrecy. Macromedia Central was the way to deploy Flex apps to the desktop.

Working with the Apache Derby Database and ColdFusion

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 20:15:00 EDT

Early releases of ColdFusion (under Allaire) focused on the Windows market and it was common to include example Access databases. It was common for entry-level developers to take this example to heart and build systems on Access back-ends. One didn't have to install, set up, admin, or most importantly pay for anything. With the beta release of ColdFusion 8, Adobe is providing support for an array of open source databases. Now using PostgreSQL, MySQL, or Apache Derby (formerly IBM Cloudscape) has been made that simpler for CF developers since JDBC drivers for all of them are included. Any of these solutions can be used for the free distribution of databases on either Windows or *nix.

A Complete Application with RPC Communications...

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 11:00:00 EDT

For security reasons (similar to the Java sandbox concept), Flash clients can only access the domains they come from, unless other servers declare, explicitly or implicitly, trust to SWF files downloaded from our domain by a corresponding record in a crossdomain.xml file. But our portfolio SWF wasn't loaded from finance.yahoo.com, and we aren't allowed to install crossdomain.xml on the Yahoo! servers. We'll use another technique called Flex proxy.

My name is Dave Livingston and I killed BlogFusion

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 19:15:00 EDT

Hi, my name is Dave Livingston and I killed BlogFusion. Many of the folks in the ColdFusion community consider it dead and have moved off to other open source CF blogging applications. Well, it's not gone. BlogFusion is actually alive and well, we just haven't done a very good job of letting the rest of the world know that or how it's morphed.

Adobe ColdFusion 8

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 16:45:00 EDT

Exciting news for organizations and developers using ColdFusion: Adobe released ColdFusion 8 on July 30. This release is a major milestone for the product: it is the first full-version ColdFusion release by Adobe since the acquisition of Macromedia. With the release of CF 8, Adobe has shown their commitment to the product and their commitment to enabling ColdFusion developers to build better Web-enabled applications faster than with any other technology.

What Kind of ColdFusion Developer Are You?

Sun, 07 Oct 2007 11:00:00 EDT

My editorial last month was a high-level overview of all the new features in ColdFusion 8. Many of these features were generally divided into one of two categories: features that address developer productivity and those that focus on integrating with other products and technologies.

CFImage Part 2

Sun, 07 Oct 2007 11:00:00 EDT

ColdFusion 8 has a load of awesome image manipulation functionality. So much so, in fact, that it will take several articles to discuss it in any sort of decent way. In Part 1 of this article (CFDJ, Vol. 9, issue 5), we spent the entire post just exploring all the ways in which ColdFusion 8 can read in and write out/save images.

Test Driving ColdFusion 8

Sun, 07 Oct 2007 07:30:00 EDT

Of course, since this is ColdFusion I expected nothing less than this, i.e., powerful AJAX functionality combined with the simplicity of a tag-based language, and that's exactly what the Auto-Suggest AJAX component delivers. The code in Listing 1 is a simple example in which the auto-suggest attribute of the tag has been populated with hard-coded values. If you're running ColdFusion 8 yourself and want to get a firsthand look at this feature, you should be able to copy and paste the code from Listing 1 and save it as a new ColdFusion file. Figure 1 shows the suggested search terms displayed by the auto-suggest attribute as text is entered into the control.