Dale Fraser's Blog

ActionScript HTML 5 Compiler

2012-01-10T09:43:00.000+11:00

What Adobe need to do if they aren't already is allow ActionScript code from either a flash or flex application to be complied into various output formats. Currently the allow you to compile.

Shockwave Flash SWF
iPhone
Android
Blackberry
Windows
Macintosh
Linux

But with all the uncertainty about their recent departure from flash in the browser on mobile devices and the big HTML 5 push, why not announce you will eventually also allow compilation to HTML 5. Now perhaps not everything that flash does is supported initially, but most probably can be.

What this will do is stop people jumping of the flash path and heading down the HTML 5 path, as I can then have one code base that will compile and run pretty much anywhere. It also allows developers to use a nice strongly typed language and have the compiler have the necessary html 5 / Java script libraries behind the scenes.

HTML 5 is going forward with or without this, Adobe is one of few tools that allow wide range of cross compilation and tying all this together, just makes sense.

I have a feeling they are already working on this, and if so great however they need to announce it so that people can talk about this direction and answer questions over the future of their ActionScript projects.

Good, Cheap, Quick!

2011-11-15T18:29:00.001+11:00

One of my favourite old sayings, goes like this. Good Cheap Quick, pick any two you like.

I've used it often in software development, but it applies to everything in life, from having your house painted to organising a wedding.

You see its a simple concept, that people understand mostly, yet people still want all 3, well the all 3 doesn't really exist, if you think you have found the golden egg of technology that will deliver all 3, I'd love to know. Technologies are a strange and wonderful beast, they are combined to create a certain magic that enables the users to achieve things, automate things, create things. Whatever the application may be there generally is a technology that will facility the application.

I used to think that there would come a technology that would make everything good, cheap and quick. Yet the technology community loves to complicate things. Normally there is method to the madness of complicating things, but not always. Technology will not only set you free, but often lock you up. Its easy to get swept up in a technology trend, I once managed a software team, that was constantly we need, X, now we need Y, we should use this framework, now we should rewrite it using this framework and so it went on. Problem is nothing ever got done, so it was neither Good, Cheap or Quick. It was Bad, Expensive & Slow.

Lets take .NET as a technology example.

Good? Yes
Cheap? No
Quick? Yes

Well, you could debate that Good is No and Cheap is Yes (because its free right) and Quick could be a No also, especially if you don't know what your doing. But for the sake of the example, lets say.

Good: Clean typed language, great syntax and powerful framework
Cheap: Hell no, I need Visual Studio, MS SQL Server & MS Servers, its crazy expensive
Quick: Well it can be if you know what your doing.

But wait, that's the technology, that's really got nothing to do with the old Good Cheap Quick does it? Its the applications that you write using this technology that we want to evaluate? Well if your trying to sell a solution to a company, you can evaluate the tool, the development, the deployment, the maintenance in the good cheap quick.

Most just evaluate the application, but its not really fair to say .NET is free. Tool is free, if you use notepad. Database is free, if you use SQL Express. Deployment is free if you find a free .NET host, Maintenance is free if your .NET host is patching the servers for you and you don't change the app.

However in reality everything costs money. If you want a decent IDE you pay for it, if you want decent developers you pay for them, if you want good hosting / infrastructure you pay for it. And if you want your servers maintained you pay for that too.

So nothing is cheap then? Well in my opinion there is little real cost difference between most technologies. That means everything must be Good and Quick?

Don't be sucked into the ColdFusion is bad, Java is good, pick the right technology for the job.
Don't be sucked into the PHP is free, Oracle is expensive argument, pick the right technology for the job.
Don't be sucked into the Rails is fast and C++ is slow argument, pick the right technology for the job.

If your already lost and don't really understand the point I'm making, then your probably going to think that the Good Cheap Quick phase doesn't work in software development. I'd argue that it does, but technology is a small factor. Because these technologies don't do anything without one of these.

I have a Good Cheap programmer.
I have a Cheap Quick programmer.
I have a Good Quick programmer.

Which one would you hire :)

iPhone 5 Hardware Changes

2011-10-12T23:33:00.003+11:00

Along with all the features announced in the 4S, there are some specific things the iPhone 5 needs in my opinion. Things that would take it to the next level, in my order of preference.

Larger Screen
The phone is too small, for games, reading books, mail etc, it could benefit from a larger screen like other new smart phones, how large? Not sure, but picking up an iPhone 4 after playing with a new Samsung, the iPhone seems really small.
Vibrate Switch
Get rid of it, its not needed, and is a pain. Its constantly changing from vibrate to ring in my pocket, even with a cover. This really isn't necessary, swapping to silent should be a software switch like a lot of other phones
4G Support
This phone has to support the new 4G networks, like Telstra's
HDMI Output
The ability to output from the iPhone to a projector / monitor / TV would be awesome. This kinda already exists, but a mini HDMI port would be better.
LED Light
How I miss my BlackBerry LED light, it flashed and told me when I had something to check, I didn't need to turn the phone on to see. One multi color LED on the iPhone 5 could do so many things, with different color / flashing combinations, and allow the user to configure if and when it displays and what color to use for what.
1080p Screen
At 326ppi that might make the device too big, but who says we can't improve on 326ppi. The 4S records in 1080p, but what's the point if you cant see it. There are already some other 342ppi screens, so getting to the right density isn't as far off as it seems. And the new dual core chip upgrades should be able to render them.

Now if the iPhone 5 had all that, it would be truly amazing, probably unlikely. Personally I'd be happy if I get 1-3, which might just happen. Hope I didn't miss anything obvious, if I did, let me know.

Disable Windows 8 Metro Interface

2011-09-20T13:33:00.000+10:00

While there is no inbuilt way to disable the Metro aka Tablet interface of Windows 8 that is given to you by default, this is really necessary, especially if your trying Windows 8 on a laptop without multi touch support.

It however can be done, there are programs that allow you to switch it or if your like me and would rather just do it manually follow these steps

Hover your cursor bottom left, you will see a start menu, select Search
In the search box, type regedit, there will be one match click and run it
From regedit navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
Change the RPEnabled key to a 0 which is Metro off or 1 for Metro on

Windows 8 Desktop Interface

That's it your up and running, no reboot or anything required. Now to go and really test Windows 8

Windows 8 Not for the Desktop

2011-09-20T10:43:00.003+10:00

We have been trying Windows 8 our, and it went pretty smoothly to start with, it installed on a laptop, booted and ran quickly and ran our software in some quick tests.

However, the UI has completely changed, it designed to be run on a Tablet, not a Windows type pen based tablet either, an iPad / Android type tablet. Firstly you cant close a program, you just hit the tablet button (wait I don't have one on the desktop) to return to the menu of applications. I eventually worked out that the Windows key will get you there, but the entire UI of running applications, multi tasking, switching between applications has changed.

Conceptually the ability to run the same operating system on a Desktop / Tablet is great, I can get my normal programs, files etc., from any device. But in reality at the moment the operating system has moved too far to the tablet arena at the expense of Desktop usability. I'm assuming or hoping that between now and the release the two models will improve and the ability to switch between the two will be more natural.

On another note, this operating system really needs a multi touch screen or device, I'm not at all keen to touch my laptop screen even if it was multi touch (which it isn't) so really new laptops & desktops are going to need a largish multi touch trackpad, like the ones in the Mac Books and the Magic Trackpad for apple desktops.

Its safe to assume that Microsoft's hardware partners are thinking through this and this type of hardware will present its self well ahead of the release of Windows 8. The down side, is your current laptop really doesn't support Windows 8. And your current desktop will need a bit of extra hardware to take advantage. What this translates to is more expense and a hardware investment.

If Microsoft do manage to meld the desktop / laptop version of Windows 8 to a more desktop centric operating system before release, perhaps the multi touch devices wont be needed, time will tell.

If you currently wish to hack the UI to revert back to desktop mode you can do this by changing a registry setting see here for the full details
http://dale.fraser.id.au/2011/09/disable-windows-8-metro-interface.html

Developer Shortage

2011-09-19T21:08:00.003+10:00

Over the years in Melbourne Australia its been getting harder to get good developers. I spent over 10 years doing pure development, worked hard earned my promotions.

I always tried to do more or better than the guy at the next desk, while I was never worried about job security as I've never been unemployed, I wanted to prove my self to both management and peers. The situation is much different these days, there are more positions than developers, so developers are getting cold called for positions, can land a different job with more money often quite easily.

Advertising positions often finds a poor range of people / skills, a lot of people who have little or no work experience in Australia and looking for an opportunity, people from different states, long term out of work, and other various combinations of unsuitable people. There are good people out there, but how do you attract them?

Traditionally I've been a fan of getting young smart people and training them, I've had great success with this method for a long time, and will do it again, but it comes with a penalty of time and investment, this method isn't suitable if you want to replace a senior experienced person quickly.

I was wondering if less people look to move during difficult financial times as any move is risky and also subject to a probation, any new job you take may or may not be suitable, so perhaps less people are looking. I was also wondering has Seek had its day, are people sick of the volume of positions / emails that come through daily, they stop looking at them.

So perhaps its time to revisit recruitment agencies, which I am generally loathed to use due to an experience I had as an employee. An agency asked me how much I wanted, and when I told them, they said they could get me more, and they did. I of course was very happy with this at the time, but later reflected they are working for and paid by the employer, yet they are working against them, costing the employer more in salaries and in turn fees.

So what's the solution? More networking, more tweeting, more advertising, more time? There is no clear obvious solution, I think its going to be a combination of many things. I currently have 4 positions advertised received 40+ applications, and while there are some worthy of consideration, there are no stand out people. So I've spent $1,000 on seek, and while its not a lot of money in comparison to an agency, its not value for money.

I'm interested in what others are doing to find people, more so the good solid proven developers, how do you find them, how do you lure them away from the comfort of their existing positions.

How I got started in ColdFusion

2011-08-01T20:44:00.003+10:00

In around 2000 I worked for a company who was basically a DOT.COM and there wasn't anything to do. I was in technical pre sales, which meant running around with the sales team answering all the technical questions. Problem was they weren't selling anything, which meant I spent many hours in the office with nothing to do.

So I did some self learning, did a Red Hat certification, played around with various other technologies also. A company in Australia called Firmware from memory was sending me info and CD's on ColdFusion every month. The first few months just went in the bin, I got a lot of junk. But one day, I popped in a CD and had a play, before I knew it I was writing a simple app that pulled data from an Access database. I immediately thought, wow that was easy, compared to some Perl work I had done in the couple years prior especially.

Needless to say, that 9 months of boredom in, I left and took up a CTO position within a division of one of Australia's largest public companies. I was in charge of delivering a $2mil web development which was very big back then. Unfortunately it had already been outsourced and signed and I just needed to get it delivered. It was a large complex ASP application (Pre .NET). And while it worked and did what the spec said it should do, it was a piece of rubbish. It was supposed to have an admin module which it did, but it was a VB app.

I convinced the CEO that we should hire some staff and rewrite the admin module internally. This was far more cost effective than the external company maintaining the existing system. So having recently discovered how easy and powerful ColdFusion was, I thought, we could do this in ColdFusion very fast. We hired two developers and 3 months later had rewritten and deployed the admin functionality, web based and 10x the functionality.

ColdFusion did what it does best, delivers a solution quickly. The business loved it and me for recommending it and the rest is history. Unfortunately it was another DOT.COM and didn't last too long.

I have been a CTO now for 12 years across 3 companies and always found a use for ColdFusion, it might be a small development, it might be something large, but ColdFusion still has a place.

I do use and recommend other technologies also, I don't think that ColdFusion is the only solution and its not for every application, but I don't think I'll stop using it any time soon.

Why Nintendo Will Fail

2011-08-01T11:50:00.003+10:00

Nintendo are a great company with a great set of technology and games franchises. I have two kids, one 7 year old boy who loved Nintendo stuff, had a Nintendo DS since he was 3, had a Wii, loves Mario, Donkey Kong Country and lots of other games.

We have a lot of friends with kids of a similar age, all had Nintendo DS, and many also had Wii. But something changed in the last two years. My son didn't want the new Nintendo DSi or 3DS. He wanted an iPhone. I had an iPhone, my wife had an iPhone. Well he wasn't getting an iPhone, but I did say he could get an iPod touch.

He was only 5 at the time, and he was torn, he really wanted the new DS, but he also wanted the iPod touch. Ultimately he choose the iPod touch. He wanted more than just games, he wanted movies, YouTube, the camera and other things his DS didn't have at the time.

Now while Nintendo make some great games, there is so much rubbish released, you quickly get annoyed. I have purchased many $50 DS games that he played for 5 mins and never touched again. I looked at these games and they were rubbish, simple boring platform games but with a brand character like Sponge Bob that made him want it.

But the iPod was different, I gave him my password, disabled In-App purchases and said you can buy one game a week as long as its only $1. He loves this, he has an unlimited amount of free games / apps available that he can download and play instantly and then he can buy one a week. That one a week $52 yearly is about the cost of a single DS game, and I was buying around one a month.

What came next was unexpected. He completely ditched the Wii and the DS, never touched them again, never had any interest, I bring home an iPad from work, he plays it all weekend. But the DS and the Wii have been discarded. We have an Xbox also, and it wasn't ditched though it was played less, the advent of the Kinect and the nice online store helped there.

Now Nintendo are set to release a new console. It has a fancy touch screen controller and can play the entire game on the controller if someone wants to watch TV. Sounds good for families, until I saw the big cable out of the back of the controller. Now i'm not sure about everyone else, but wireless controllers are now required. Going back to a wired controller doesn't seem like a viable option to me. Also these controllers look big and expensive, when you have kids they want 4 to play with their friends, I'm not paying $100+ 4 times just for controllers.

What could Nintendo do? Well they could release their games on iPod / iPhone / iPad / Android, the SNES Zelda would sell millions of copies overnight alone. But this is unlikely, they are like apple and like to control everything.

What must Nintendo do? Well they must have a good online store with inexpensive and free games. And not just crappy ports from SNES, good quality independent games for free and $1. This is the only way I would consider going back. I will never pay $50 for another Nintendo game and I am seeing the same pattern from our group of friends with kids.

What might Nintendo do? They might come up with another must have device that everyone buys and is a major success. But the 3DS is NOT it and the Wii U is NOT it.

What will Nintendo do? I think they will scramble, try desperately to fix it, wait way too long before the realise the extent of the trouble they are in and then ultimately sell or collapse and suffer the fate of Atari, Sega and many others.

As a closing note, my 3 year old daughter plays our iPhones every single day, she has never played a Nintendo device and never shown any interest.

Flex 4.5 TextArea Enable Tab Key

2011-06-07T09:33:00.000+10:00

I was working on a file editor in Flex and I needed to be able to tab within the edit pane without actually tabbing out of the TextArea.

Well there are many ways to achieve this, firstly you could subclass the TextArea or listen for the tab key, but here is the solution I came up with, I find it simple and clearly visible to developers as to what it's doing.

As you can see i'm preventing the default action of the tab key then inserting 4 spaces in its place. Using the insertText method inserts the text at the current cursor position, this is ideal for editing where you wish to insert a tab mid paragraph etc.

Of course if you wanted to actually insert a tab you can just replace the 4 spaces with "\t"

Flash Builder 4.5 Produce Native Installer

2011-06-06T22:33:00.002+10:00

I discovered a new option in Flash Builder 4.5

Export as:

Signed native installer

This actually produces a native installer instead of the AIR installer. The application still requires AIR however as its still an AIR application. I haven't tested yet what happens if you attempt to install this without AIR installed, but I assume it will want you to install AIR first.

What I would really love to see is it produce a native application, and not just an installer, and bundle all required into a single standalone exe. There are other products out there that do this already, my favourite being MDM Zinc.

Code Signing Adobe AIR applications with DigiCert

2011-05-31T15:52:00.000+10:00

I'm posting this because the process of signing an Adobe AIR application should be simple, yet it isn't and the instructions on the DigiCert site doesn't really help.

First off I purchased a certificated from DigiCert. For under $200 a year, not too bad. After several days they eventually sent it, they have to verify your a real company and actually call you etc.

The certificate comes in the form of a link in an email. You click the link and it installs the certificate into your browser / system. From there DigiCert offer instructions for IE users and for Firefox users how to export it. I was using chrome, but with luck the ie instructions apply.

So it says to go into mmc add in the Certificates snap in, under personal, find the certificate, right click export. So that was easy enough, I did that generated it, plugged it into Flash Builder and made my AIR file.

Here's where it gets interesting.

Firstly you may get a weird warning when trying to install your AIR app about it being corrupt or similar, this really means that your application has changed but the id is the same and it cant compare the one you have to the one you want. Simple solution, uninstall any current version of your application.

With that done, I built it again, and it worked, except I still had the Not Trusted red X, no company name etc, whats going on? After looking around for a bit, I looked at my certificate and it's not valid. Its not valid because the root certificate couldn't be trusted.

Simple fix is to find the root certificate on the DigiCert website, and install it, make sure you pick to choose the location, it needs to go into Trusted Root Certification Authorities. If you go back and look at your certificate, you will see its now valid.

Root certificates for DigiCert are available here
The one I needed was DigiCert Assured ID Root CA which was visible from the certification path tab.

Rebuild the package and all is good.

Make sure that when exporting you tick Yes to export the private Key, and tick the Include all certificates in the certification path if possible. When you export it will ask for a password, use that same password when selecting your certificate from Flash Builder.

iPhone / iPad / iOS 5 Top 10 Wish List

2011-04-21T20:13:00.000+10:00

Apple,

Your 95% there, just finish the job. The iPhone / iPad are great devices, but there are some key missing bits that annoy me daily. And these I believe are simple things, so they shouldn't pose any real challenge. Also in non conversation mode, it knows if your message is a reply, but there is no way to click anything to see the original.

1. Mail
Please give me the option to see all unread mail. I need to do this every day, many times a day, and scrolling through a list of 1000+ mail items is just bad user experience and slow.

2. Exchange Sync
The exchange sync is pretty good, however it's still not BlackBerry good. Couple things, notes dont sync over wireless, u need to sync through iTunes. And events dont properly sync. If I accept a meeting on my PC (yes I dont use a mac) it still shows on my phone with an accept option, it doesn't know I've accepted the meeting elsewhere.

3. Facebook Chat
The facebook app is ok, but the Facebook website is much better. And on the iPad specifically works great, but the chat isn't enabled. Enable this and my wife doesn't need a laptop she can survive with just an iPad.

4. Application Ripoff
I didn't realize until recently that many apps come in two versions iPhone and iPod versions. I think this is a con / ripoff. Its like buying Photoshop and then you upgrade your Airbook to a 27" iMac and you need to buy it again. They are getting away with this because its a HD version, better graphics etc. But Apple need to stop this, it should work on all iOS devices. The pricing is also very unfair. Take Angry Birds for example $1. But $5 for iPad, is it 5x better, was it 5x as much work to develop? No its priced like this, oh you can afford an iPad you can pay more.

5. Restrictions
If you have kids, they love to play with these devices, so disabling in app purchases and deletion of apps is a must. But you cant disable rearranging icons. Every time my 2yo daughter gets my iPhone she moves every icon into groups etc and I cant stop it.

6. Messages
When viewing Text (SMS) messages, if there are a group of messages the device considers related it shows the time for the first one only, I need to see the time of each message thanks, put a timestamp on every message.

7. Dashboard
I'd like a dashboard / home screen that shows you upcoming meetings new mail etc, customizable of course. Every other device has something like this.

8. Notifications
I had to turn off all reminders, why? Because the iPhone decides that the best time to notify you of recurring events that don't have a time, such as birthdays is midnight. So rather than being woken at midnight I'd like it to allow me to pick a time for notification of untimed events or disable notifications of untimed events.

9. App Purchases
If you purchase an app that you have already purchased it tells you and says you already purchased this and so you can download it again free, great. But it doesn't tell you that until after. So I recently knew I had purchased an $8 app, went to get it again. Waited for the you have already downloaded it, but I never got it. And got charged again for the app. So wouldn't it make more sense to just tell me before hand or have a way to determine this.

10. Flash Player
This is only 10 because I dont think its coming. However my wife does Facebook, Facebook Chat, Facebook Games. 1 works fine on an iPad, 2 & 3 don't thus im not going to buy her one. Add flash for things like games etc and you will sell more devices plain and simple. For those performance / battery issues, allow people to disable it if they choose. If you think you will sell less apps because of it, well thats no longer relevant now that Flash can be compiled to iPhone legally and I'd rather have an installed app than run an online app any time. But Apple a high of all sports websites that show live scores use flash and there are many more examples like this.

I know I wont get all of these in iOS 5, but I think they are all reasonable requests needed for a reason not for a passion of desire.

ColdFusion & Server Side ActionScript

2011-02-28T15:02:00.000+11:00

Over 2 years ago, I posted why ColdFusion 9 Needs ActionScript Support

More recently Ben Forta has mentioned the idea again, and I'm still for it. We currently have two technologies that work well independently and talk together well, but there is no code sharing and a host of syntax / formatting issues.

We have a current requirement for some code that will run both on the server, and standalone, offline. So how can we do this exactly?

Well its currently ColdFusion code, this cant run standalone offline, not without a ColdFusion licence for every customer, thats not going to happen.

So we could rewrite the code in ActionScript, and run it offline in an AIR app, but that doesn't run on the server, not easily at least.

Thus what are we supposed to do, maintain two versions in different languages, thats just a bad idea, there needs to be a solution to this from Adobe, the lack of a solution will lead us to look at the other offerings.

I could use Microsoft C#, runs on the server under ASP.NET, runs standalone.
I could us Sun Java, runs on the server under tomcat etc, runs standalone.

In our case, Microsoft is off the list because it doesn't allow cross platform use. And Java has its own issues but at the moment the only solution.

But the solution I prefer is for Adobe to commit to having a server side version of ActionScript. And I care not if its called ColdFusion or part of ColdFusion, but having access to all the ColdFusion goodness would be great. But firstly I would like to see Adobe commit to it, it was demonstrated at Max several years ago. And I honestly don't think that many will wait another 2 years before they decide the future of the product.

Im sure some will disagree, but from my companies point of view, its needed.

ColdFusion 9 Script Based Queries

2010-12-03T13:46:00.001+11:00

We are gradually migrating over to ColdFusion 9.

With any future development we will use script based code as much as possible.

I've gotten used to it, love the new keyword, love ternary operations and lots more.

Writing my first bit of query code using full script, I was loving it, until that is I got to addParam.

There are two problems with addParam that I have

1. You have to used named parameters, which makes the code overly verbose
2. You have to still prefix the types with cf_sql_ which again is overly verbose.

Here is an example.

So what you can see here is both the named parameters on line 6 and the cf_sql_ on the data type.

Luckily the Query component is written itself in ColdFusion, so you can just change it.

I considered just overwriting the method addParam but thought it might get me into trouble down the path, so I decided to add a new method setParam which is in Query.cfc and looks like this

So as you can see very simple, just has the same parameters, name, value cfsqltype in a specific order. It also prepends the cf_sql_ if it doesn't exist in the type. So my original code can now look like this

Now I'm sure that not everyone will agree, but I don't like writing unnecessarily long verbose code for no good reason

ColdFusion demise on Seek

2010-08-28T00:56:00.000+10:00

ColdFusion and others seem to have fallen into a special category on Seek now.

It seems that if you search for something that isn’t significant enough, then it will give you what it thinks you are better off looking at.

So my daily seek ColdFusion email subscription, is now about 30 jobs, of which you would be lucky to find of those has ColdFusion at all.

Seek seems to think I should be moving to .NET most of the positions I get are .NET, but it’s a mix with Java & php & others.

Try it yourself, I think it’s a stupid decision of Seek, I just want it to find what I’m looking for not what you think I’m interested in. Now without going through all 30 adds someone looking can’t really tell if any of them have a ColdFusion requirement at all.

Try the link below

It’s a search for ColdFusion

2,750 jobs

See Seek Results Here

Searching for ASP.NET only returns 835

Hopefully if we make enough noise they might fix it.

ColdFusion Convert A Query Row to a Struct in 1 line?

2010-07-22T20:18:00.001+10:00

I was writing a webservice today and part of what I wanted to return was a query.

However the query also returns things I don't want like the sql, which shows database table names etc.

Since this is a webservice for a 3rd party developer, I didn't want them to have this. I tried using convertQueryForGrid which dropped the sql but seems to break access to the query data also, or at least the rules are different.

So I looked around asked a few people and got the answer not possible. I asked Steve Onnis on Skype and he also said not possible. But a few hours later came back with this.

Now I couldn't write this, but understand (kinda) what its doing, its generating a long complex variable using regEx and evaluating it. Very scary, but very cool indeed.

Melbourne Australia Cheap Flex 4 for ColdFusion Developers Training

2010-07-19T10:19:00.000+10:00

Kai Koenig is giving a talk on integrating Flex 4 for ColdFusion Developers
at cfobective ANZ in Melbourne this year.

This type of training is really expensive normally, and so $295 for a 1 day
course is excellent value.

Flex 4 for ColdFusion developers (and others) (Kai Koenig)
Price: AU$ 395 (early bird price until 31/08: AU$ 295)

A lot of server- and client-side web developers are interested in making the
leap towards using a Rich Client technology like Adobe's Flash or Flex. This
workshop will help you to get you up to speed with Flex and will put a
strong focus on integrating Flex applications with Adobe ColdFusion.

During the first half of the day we'll introduce the basics of Flex, discuss
MXML and ActionScript and certain elements of the Flex component library. We
will discuss event handling, basic skinning in Flex 4 and build a straight
forward Flex application following the Model-View-Controller pattern.

The second half of the day will focus on integrating with backends and data,
in particular ColdFusion. We are going to discuss HTTP and XML Web services
as well as AMF-based remoting and using CFCs as backend business and data
access logic. We're also going to have a look at the integrated BlazeDS
engine in CF 9 and will look into ways to speed up your development process
with using Flash Builder and its data wizards.

Also covered: XML configuration files for Flex in CF and setting up custom
channels and adapters to make your development and deployment processes
quicker and more flexible.

NOTE: You do not have to attend the conference to book a workshop.

http://www.cfobjective.com.au/go/program/workshops

Creating a new Gmail address took control of my Google account

2010-07-16T10:58:00.000+10:00

I have been using Google Apps on my domain for a couple years now, and its great. I have the same username and domain linked to my main Google Account, from which I run groups, blogs, and lots of other stuff.

But I recently signed up for another gmail account, and I'm not sure how but it decided to link these two accounts, apparently it warned me somewhere along the line, but I don't remember it. I either was logged into my Google account when I signed up or nominated that email as a secondary email address.

Here is what it said

If you complete this form, you'll be adding Gmail to this account, and your Gmail address will become your primary account username.

If you would prefer, you can create a separate Google Account for Gmail. You'll be logged out of user@domain.com and then be able to create your new account.

Little did I realise but it took this new gmail email and made it the primary email address on my Google Account, which used to use my own domain. So i've gone from an owned domain primary email address to some crappy gmail address that I just created.

The worst thing was, you can't change it. I was locked into it, I searched high and low for a solution and there was none. You can't change the primary email address.

I removed the now secondary email (my domain one) and tried signing up again using this, that worked however all my groups, blog, addsense everything was still linked to the other account, (the gmail one).

So I deleted the one I just created and re linked it to the main account, I'm back where I started, still searching looking for a solution, nothing.

I'm getting really annoyed as it's just ruined my Google account. But being fairly technical I kept trying things and came up with the solution.

From your google account, you can edit services, one of these options is to remove gmail from the account. When I removed the new gmail service, it asked me what I wanted to use for the new primary email, I specified my original one and voila im back in business.

I seem to have lost the gmail address, when I log into it, its logging back to my domain account and listed as an other username. No idea how to get rid of them, but I'll keep trying.

I really hope this helps all the people that think there is no solution. I did loose the new gmail address

Using Adobe Flex 4 and spark.effects to create a cool star-field

2010-07-03T14:59:00.002+10:00

Was working with the 3D features of Flex 4 and ActionScript specifically

spark.effects.move3D
spark.effects.rotate3D
spark.effects.scale3D

For a presentation at the Melbourne Flex User Group and decided to create a 3D star-field. This worked out well for my demo, it allowed me to demonstrate something real.

You can control the star-field, the controls, top-bottom are

Perspective Projection X
Perspective Projection Y
Speed of effect
Size of Star
Direction of Movement

Have a play, check out the source code, I have enabled View Source, so right click and view source from the star-field. All feedback welcome

View Star-Field In full window

Wake Up Steve Jobs

2010-06-03T21:01:00.002+10:00

It seems you have regressed to the ways back when you were outed from Apple last time, that is you think you know better than everyone else and just want your own way.

Well have a look in the mirror, think about the thousands of users your annoying and wake up.

Of course I'm referring to your stance on the Flash player, but its not just this. You like to control everything and block everything and force people to do things the way you want them to.

Some of this I'm prepared to say, oh well that's you way of doing things, fair enough. But watching your video today, just reminded me of how arrogant you are. Your basic stance is that well if people don't like it they wont buy it and we are selling one every 3 seconds.

Congratulations, yes you do have a lot of Apple fan boys who will buy products that they cant even tell you what they will use them for, bravo. But you also make good products and people realise that it might be good and just buy it, and of recent times the products have been quite good.

Specifically the iPhone, which is the best portable device / phone I have ever had, and I've had my fair share. Nokia's, Windows Phones, Blackberry's and now an iPhone. So its a great device, and had the potential to really take over the market and be the number one phone.

But when things go well, Steve Jobs get cocky and looses the ability to think rationally. Rather than support Flash like every other device is planning, he comes up with lame excuses, lets have a look at some, and how they keep changing to suit the day.

Flash is too slow - Umm, the iPad has a powerful processor, no longer valid argument.
It wastes too much battery - Umm they have enhanced this in 10.1 next
It crashes a lot - Clearly thats why almost every video site uses it because they like sites that crash, Youtube find something else Youtube keeps crashing, lame
Its no longer needed or relevant - Steve name your top 10 sites and I bet half have flash.

When the whole world knows that its really about the the money, you don't want to loose control over apps and your share of the profits, you want to remain big brother. You could just be honest.

While the iPhone is a great device, the software is quite lame, if Microsoft released this they would be laughed at. Consider the following and I'm just picking on mail here I could go through each app like this.

There is no way to see unread mail, I have to scroll through hundreds of messages to find the one I haven't read, really a Nokia can do this?
The system often just crashes and looses everything, all mail etc and then just quietly starts syncing it, if we don't tell them we got an error its like it didn't happen. Microsoft were smart enough to actually capture it and display a message, aka Blue Screen of Death.
It doesn't remotely sync notes, Blackberry has done this for years.
It knows that I have replied to a message, but there is no way to see this message, I need to go find it, come on?
And lots of other little items.

So while your products are selling well, others will come along do what your doing, do it better and cheaper and you will again loose a dominance that you could have sealed. We all know Apple is no good at making products at a reasonable price point.

The HTC Desire android phone, already addresses most of the above issues and its brand new. But you don't care because your selling 1 every 3 seconds. Is it really a surprise to you now that Android is outselling the iPhone, wake up Steve Jobs and think about how many you could be selling if you weren't so inflexible.

WebDU 2010 Review

2010-05-09T20:45:00.003+10:00

WebDU 2010 was the first time I've managed to attend a WebDU, its always been a hard decision you need to consider the time, the cost and value of talks on offer. But this year it was easy, this is due to two things, there were a lot of topics I was interested in and there was also a Mini User Group summit the day after.

Cost and time wise its still a decent investment, is that investment worthwhile? Well for me yes. I actually enjoyed every session I attended, this was a 50/50 mix of technical / management type topics. Meeting the people you talk to on Twitter also has some value, I managed to end up sitting next to people that I follow and after talking to them realise who they were.

The event has a very different feel to MAX. Its much smaller, much more personal and has a more casual feel to the whole event. You don't book your topics, you just turn up on the day, which I was initially wondering how that would work if too many people wanted one topic, but it seemed to work, never struggled to find a seat. You got to walk away from the conference feeling like you knew a decent % of the people there.

The venue it's self was a bit dated, but it was clean and in a great location right on Bondi Beach. I really liked the close proximity of the rooms to the conference rooms, it meant you could sneak back to your room and do some work if you wanted to during lunch or other breaks. This suited me very well. The actual conference rooms were well equipped, with the mandatory water, mints and really good sound & video. I wasn't in a single session where the audio visual wasn't working.

The hidden treasure of WebDU that didn't really hit me before, is that it's not really an Adobe conference. While there is a large % of people doing Adobe stuff, other players were well represented. The final day speaker question panel consisted of Adobe, Microsoft, Yahoo & Atlassian. I really loved that they did that, and these guys like to jibe each other and have fun. Interestingly enough, 3 of the 4 people had actually worked for Adobe at one point.

The speakers were very good, and aside from the good quality topics the speakers were generally entertaining, I found Terrence Ryan's talks very good and Tim Buntell's Muppet was classic.

And finally the organisation of the event was top notch, Geoff Bowers and his team, seemed to be able to sit down calmly and let it all happen without raising an eye brow. Sessions started and finished on time and everything ran like clock work. There is nothing worse than missing the first 10 minutes of a talk.

I would like to see Twitter handle & perhaps avatar on the ID, some people wrote it on. The ID should also be printed on both sides, these things keep flipping to the blank side. For someone that doesn't attend many conferences it would make it easier for me to identify and connect with people.

The Mini User Group manager summit was also good, turned out to be different than I expected, we did probably 50/50 strategy / socialising. But there was defiantly a lot of passionate people there that are working hard to help the community.

Overall I was very impressed with the entire event, I actually preferred WebDU over MAX, the main 2 factors being the size and the mix of vendors. I will definitely be back or send others in following years, we will also be attending Remix2010 and cfobjective ANZ this year and perhaps others.

Open letter to Adobe Flash Player team.

2010-04-22T21:16:00.006+10:00

Dear Adobe,

Please consider that every time you decide to limit what the flash player can do, you are really stopping people taking existing applications and converting them to Flash / Flex.

We have some software, that is very simple in concept, it displays some stimuli and asks you to respond and records your responses. Now without reading every spec and doc, flash seems like it would do this easily, and it does. Compared to our C++ version, the Flex version is less than 20% of the code.

But there are the gotchas.

First our application allows you to use a mouse,

Left Click = No
Right Click = Yes

But no, I can't use the Right mouse button in Flash, Adobe won't allow it, I have no idea why, thus my flash version can't support this type of input.

Well OK, I guess users will just have to use the keyboard. Because you can also press

D = No
K = Yes

Which seems simple enough, no way the flash player would stop that right? Wrong, once you go into full screen mode, you have no access to the keyboard. This is the most unusual security feature I have ever come across.

The only semi valid reason I have stumbled across, is that someone might emulate a desktop and try to get you to enter some personal details, passwords etc. But hey even if that is valid and it may be, I only want to use two keys, 4 actually.

K, D, Enter, Tab

Now the latest Flash player 10, they have relaxed the security and now allow

Tab, Space & Arrow keys. 6 keys

So a step in the right direction, perhaps people can now do full screen games.

But why adobe, do you decide the keys, why is left arrow safer than K, how is Tab better than Enter, the answer is they aren't. Adobe you have decided to take a guess at some keys that might be handy to some and allow them rather than think through the problem a bit more.

So I have a solution for you Adobe, rather than give me the 6 keys you predefined, allow me to use any 6 keys I wish. Let me register 6 key codes that will work with my application. Better yet let me use any 6 alpha keys and any 6 non alpha keys. People writing full screen 3D games in flash can then use the traditional wsad keys with the arrows, perhaps, ctrl to shoot, shift to jump.

So please consider Adobe, allow me to specify which keys I can use, and while your at it, consider why I can't decide to use the right mouse button if I so choose.

A visitor suggested I raise issues to allow people to vote and comment, so I have done this.

Allow programatic control of what keys are allowed
https://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-4397

Allow programatic use of right click
https://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-4398

Why webdu 2010

2010-04-16T10:03:00.002+10:00

I'm finally going to go to WebDU, first time. And in the past I have been critical of both the price and the fact that it doesn't move.

I still think the price is a bit on the high side, but having spent a lot of time in the US of late, you come to realise that things in Australia are just more expensive, thus the cost of running WebDU in Australia is more expensive than something comparable overseas.

I would still like to see it roam, I like the MAX style conference, where not only do you get to go to a conference you get to see a different city. Vegas 2006 being my favourite. The other big reason for it to roam is to just get different people through the gates, but given this is an independantly run conference not run by Adobe it's unlikely. The good news is that, Mark Mandel now runs a Melbourne cfobjective.

So what compelled me to go this year, well it isn't the location or the surfing and i'm not getting a free ticket. Its the content. WebDU this year has so much good content that I'm actually going to have to miss a lot of good stuff.

We are moving prety rapidly to Flex and the entire Flash / Flex stream has lots of great topics that warrant my attention. The other main track that I really like is the Team / UX one, as a manager, there are some great topics in there i'm also interested in.

Its really hard for me to find a conference, where I look at the agenda and say, wow there is a lot of stuff in there for me, but there really is this year. And that to me makes it a worthwhile investment.

If you haven't already checked out the WebDU agenda, I would encourage you to do so.
http://www.webdu.com.au/agenda

ColdFusion Advanced Rounding

2010-04-16T00:22:00.007+10:00

I wrote this a long time ago, and some recent twitter questions made me go dig it up. Here is a ColdFusion function that will round a number by any amount, ie 1 or .1 or 100 up, down, or average and fixes large floating point values.

roundBy(4.4999999999999999, 1)
roundBy(102, 100, 'U')
roundBy(12.97, .05, 'D')

Will produce

4 - Rounded it with no option, which is average and thus down to 4
200 - Rounded it up to nearest 100
12.95 - Rounded it down to nearest .05

You can view the full source here.
http://code.fraser.id.au/roundby/colorcode.cfm

Apple Stupidity

2010-04-09T13:52:00.004+10:00

Apple have changed their developer agreement from

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs.

to:

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

In an attempt to block CS5 and other tools that allow you to compile to the iPhone.

This would have to go down as one of the most stupid decisions ever made. Allowing this would have seen millions of developers without access to a Mac and no desire to code in Objective C the ability to make iPhone Applications. These applications need to go on the App store, resulting in revenue for Apple.

There are literally millions of flash games that could have easily been ported to iPhone resulting in millions of dollars worth of sales, even if a small % of these applications are converted.

The only reason for this, is Apple's desire to control everything, the same reason they wont allow you to run OSX on a PC. They want you to buy a Mac, buy the developer tools, pay a developer licence and then give them a cut of the money for each sale.

I really can't believe that all the Apple fan boys out there, don't see past this. Microsoft on the other hand, say using Visual Studio or one of the free versions, or the command line tool with Notepad, compile your apps and distribute them royalty free.

And yet its Microsoft that gets all the bad press.

I honestly cant believe that there is a single person out there that would consider that Objective C is better than C# or ActionScript for that matter. Its two steps backward, I would choose C# or ActionScript every time.

Apple really should think twice or be prepared for a huge backlash.

New ColdFusion Documentation Site Launched

2010-03-05T10:24:00.004+11:00

Yesterday I released a beta of CFMLDocs.

I worked on this a while ago, but never got around to completing it, there were a number of problems with the ColdFusion 8 documentation that always annoyed me. Then when they announced Coldfusion 9 with better documentation, I put the project on hold and waited.

While the ColdFusion 9 is actually better, it suffers from a lot of the same problems as the old one. So the problems I have addressed here are.

1. Size Does Matter
This documentation is a fraction of the size, most documentation pages are somewhere between 5% and 30% of the Adobe content. Why you might ask, well try doing a view source on the Adobe documentation, there is a lot of bloat, crazy long id's and all sorts of unnecessary bits.

2. Simple URL's
Ever just want to get to the docs quickly? Sure, all the time, well the adobe ones are never quick, because they dont have simple URL's and also the size makes it slow also. This documentation allows you to use the domain and function / tag name to jump straight to the content cfmldocs.com/cfoutput for example

3. Consistency
There is a lack of consistency on the documentation, you will realise this if you ever try to scrape it. For example, there is a page where you can see all tags, but no page where you can see all functions. And within the content its self, there is often no consistency in the format, layout or content of each tag / function

4. Compliant?
Always bothered me that Adobe, which could be called a Web company could release HTML documentation that wasn't HTML or CSS compliant, its not even close. This documentation is both fully HTML & CSS compliant.

5. Other
There are a whole heap of other things that have been fixed along the way. The entire content is stored in a database and produced as static html when first browsed, thus to change the format etc, I can just delete the html and next time someone browses, it will get regenerated.

6. Whats next
There are a few things I will be releasing soon, some this weekend. The main things I wanted are.

Ability to download all the documentation in a simple ZIP file to use locally
An AIR version that you can run and search locally
The ability to print a piece of documentation in a nice format as PDF.
The ability for users to edit the content, I plan on setting up a group of editors who can fix / edit any issues.
Daily auto Tweet a tag to introduce you to a new tag.

Now because of the volume of the content, I haven't reviewed it all, I expect there are problems, please use the contact page to report any problems being errors, omissions etc. The way it has been designed, they should be easy to fix across the board.

The content is still vastly the Adobe ColdFusion 9 documentation which its self is quite good, this just mainly addresses the presentation & delivery of that content.

I welcome all feedback

http://cfmldocs.com

Poker Blind Timer Version 2

2010-02-27T15:06:00.011+11:00

A while back I wrote a Poker Blind timer, first using javascript, then Flash, then Flex. I have had a lot of requests to enable users of the Poker Blind Timer to customise the sequence of the increments. So i've implemented a very simple method of doing this, by allowing the user to enter a comma separated list of small blinds.

For example, 10,30,80,120 would be the small blinds for rounds 1-4

There are also 3 finishing options.

Double - This continues to double the blind at the end of the defined sequence.
Repeat - This continues to repeat the last increment, so if the increment was 300,500 it will continue to increment by 200 ie (500-300).
Stay - This leaves the blind time as is, thus the final sequence defined is the maximum.

I also redid the entire thing in Flex 4 using spark controls, I have used one of the default skins, which looks a lot better than no skin.

I've built both a Flash Builder web version and a standalone AIR version. For those who dont know, AIR is Adobe Intergrated Runtime, which will allow you to run standalone on Windows, Mac & Linux

Web Version
http://code.fraser.id.au/blindtimer2/blindtimer2Flex.html

AIR Version
http://code.fraser.id.au/blindtimer2/air/index.html

Release Notes
http://code.fraser.id.au/blindtimer2/release.html

If you have any suggestions or standard sequences you would like included, let me know.

ColdFusion 9 Disappointment

2010-02-24T10:09:00.005+11:00

We always quickly adopt new technologies and looked to migrate to ColdFusion 9 on immediate release. But there are things that have changed between version 8 and 9 that break our application. I really cant remember that ever happening before. It is related to changes with the DHTML ExtJS components.

We were actually told that this would be fixed in a hotfix, and to my disappointment the latest hotfix hasn't fixed anything.

So we have a purchased copy of ColdFusion 9 that we cant use, with no easy workaround or solution or even timeline to a solution.

I'm starting to think that Adobe has no interest in support of legacy ColdFusion features, they have really dropped the ball over the last few releases, we use these new features only to find out later that they have no plans to fix, maintain or update them going forward. This isn't the first time this has happened to use either. Some examples.

1. We wrote a large part of our application in Flash Forms, found an issue with dates, and Adobe never addressed or fixed it. And seem to have dropped updating this technology.
2. We wrote a large number of reports using ReportBuilder and adobe seem to have left this product in the trash also, the blog for the product hasn't even had a post since 2007
3. We do a lot of HTML to PDF conversion for reports etc, and every time there is an update to this, the scale or layout changes and we have to go and fix everything.
4. Been burnt multiple times by this one, CFGRID. Its gone from a Java version to a Flash version to an ExtJS version and none of the previous versions ever get any attention.

It begs the question, that perhaps I should just abandon ColdFusion for front end applications the rapid development benefit of ColdFusion for this purpose is quickly eroded by applications that break with new releases.

I really like ColdFusion and there are lot of things in ColdFusion 9 we would like to take advantage of, such as hibernate, but how do I know Adobe wont just stop updating or supporting this going forward also.

Disappointed.

What will the ColdFusion IDE Bolt be named?

2009-05-18T10:04:00.006+10:00

Flex Builder will change names at version 4 to Flash Builder 4. This is a move that I support, there is confusion between what Flash / Flex really is, and I think this naming change both removes the confusion and strengthens the Flash brand.

This got me thinking about what Bolt should be named. Firstly I really hope that Bolt is just a code name, because if you search for Bolt you mainly get references to the Dog Movie. Secondly, like strengthening the brand, it needs to strengthen the brand of either ColdFusion or CFML.

I would propose either

ColdFusion Builder
CFML Builder

I prefer the later and they could develop this in such a way that it is the defacto IDE for CFML, regardless of if you use ColdFusion, Railo or Open BlueDragon, then to call it CFML Builder makes sense.

I hope that the CFML advisory board could put this to Adobe or at least have a say as to what they think it should be called. Adobe have the right to call it whatever they like however, but they do listen to opinion.

Windows 7 RC Build 7100

2009-05-18T09:34:00.002+10:00

Been working with Windows RC Build 7100 now for a couple weeks, found it to be even better then previous releases. Ie8 is now final and doesn't seem to crash which was my biggest issue with earlier releases.

It also seems faster again, although that might be due to the reinstall.

I also noticed they changed the default window sounds, it's amazing how they stand out, compared to the old sounds that you were so used to you hardly noticed.

My thoughts on Bolt

2009-04-20T13:15:00.004+10:00

I have been thinking about Bolt and what it will offer. And while I'm keen on the idea of an official ColdFusion IDE, I was wondering why Adobe are doing this and why now.

I will almost certainly adopt Bolt, not just me but our team here where I work. But it will come down to one thing, price!

If they charge for Bolt, which I think they will, it had better be worth it, after all I currently use CFEclipse on Flex Builder, and that works fine, so what are the benefits for the dollars.

One line of thinking is that ColdFusion might change the pricing model, charge for the IDE so that the server can be less expensive or free. This appeals to me if they do this, I prefer this model, it is somehow easier to spend $X hundred dollars for each developer rather than X thousands of dollars for each server.

If Adobe decide to keep ColdFusion pricing as is and still charge for Bolt, then I think they have misread the market. Given cost cuts in business and the competitors having free offereings, Adobe need to make some brave moves on pricing, and they need to make them now.

iPhone Missing Features - Email

2009-02-24T11:13:00.004+11:00

This is the first in a series of posts I'm going to make about the iPhone. After months of use, its just amazing that they iPhone is missing core features that I need and want, I was holding off thinking they will be included with the next update, but they don't seem to be coming.

This post I will talk about the features missing in Email.

You can only view 200 messages, that's like a day's worth for me, useless, cant get to messages I received or sent last week. The blackberry had a last 30 days option, with the iPhone memory there is no logical reason to have such a small limit.
You can't search messages, if they fix the limit of 200 messages, they need to add search so that you can search and find a message your looking for.
When you reply to an email you get an icon indicating you replied, but there is no way jumping to or seeing that reply
No way to set message importance, don't get this, it's like iPhone decided no one uses this and left it out.

I encourage you post your issues with iPhone email features, they have done a really half ass job of this, and its all fixable via a software update. When BlackBerry people talk to be about how I like my iPhone I tell them I miss the features of a BlackBerry. You can't really do business email on an iPhone.

How Close is ColdFusion 9?

2009-02-24T11:10:00.005+11:00

Am looking at setting up some new servers which will require some additional ColdFusion licencing. But was wondering how far ColdFusion 9 is.

I don't want to be one of those people who buys a licence and then a week later sees the post of anyone who buys now gets a free upgrade to ColdFusion 9 and I've wasted my money.

Reading between the lines of a lost of posts etc, it seems pretty close to me, but I'm not sure if that means 3 months or 6. While I might be able to hold off 3, 6 will be a stretch.

So anyone with any info on when it might be available or when they will announce buy CF8 now get CF9 free when it's released, let me know

ColdFusion 9 Needs ActionScript Support

2009-02-14T13:56:00.004+11:00

I've talked about this in part in other posts and on other blogs. It seems everyone I talk to about it thinks its a good idea, but that doesn't mean it will happen.

What am I taking about, well it is now common knowledge that ColdFusion 9 will support full script syntax, that means that if you wish you can write all your cfc's without a single tag.

Great, cant wait, there is no place for tags in clases IMHO, and yes they are classes as far as I am concerned not components.

Adobe are on a big push about how ColdFusion 9 and Flex 4 will play so well together, well if they are serious about this, they need to bridge the gap and do it now, not in ColdFusion 10 or later, as they will miss the boat.

And by bridge the gap, I mean, they need to have a common (or similar) syntax between both ColdFusion & Flex. There is no reason they cant do this, the cfc's are parsed and compiled before anything is executed, so its just a bit of extra parsing.

Some examples, if I may

Script: var q = new Query();
ActionScript: var q = new Query();

Now technically ActionScript 3 would have
var q:Query = new Query();
But seeing as ColdFusion is loosly typed, this isn't necessary, thus the above two are equilivant, perfect, Im a happy man.

But this isn't always the case.

Script: Component {
ActionScript: public class {

This one annoys me, why ColdFusion people needed to call a class a component is beyond me. Especially annoying since a component in Flex is something completly different, everyone else calls it a class, so lets call it a class.

The next one is annoying because of how often you write it

Script: private function query getEmployee(employeeId) {
ActionScript: private function getEmployee(employeeId):query {

now this might seem minor, but if you are swapping back and forward from CF to AS all day, it will be very annoying.

Now the major reason they should do this and now, is that there are a lot of legacy Flash developers, moving to ActionScript 3 and Flex who are looking for a back end. They try things, I've seen them on twitter asking what to use, amfphp, weborb, coldfusion. Now if coldfusion supported an actionscript style syntax, it would be a no brainer, and we might turn a large user base of ActionScript people over to ColdFusion.

Now, I'm not saying we should drop old school cfscript syntax or tags, these should work also, as backward compatibility is important, but there is no reason why the parser cant support both. I urge all you who agree to comment, post a blog, comment on the Tim Buntel or Ben Forta blogs. Make a noise and lets lock in a long future of Flex and ColdFusion.

Windows 7 Is Ready For Release

2009-01-24T11:05:00.004+11:00

Ive been running on Windows 7 now for a couple weeks on my work computer, and it is awsome. I have two identical laptops, both Dell XPS 1530's one at home, one at work.

The home one I still have running Vista Home Premium. I can honestly say I have more issues at home than at work, Outlook always wants to repair on Vista, works fine on Windows 7.

Every single device on my Dell worked with Windows 7, I didn't have to install a single driver from Dell. Im running Windows 7 64 bit, and so I get to take advantage of all my ram, but I also figured that the 64 bit version might not work with all hardware & software. But it does, even the multiple beta's that im running.

The only issue I have is with browsers.

IE8 crashes about once or twice a day, this is annoying, but the rest of the time it works. And firefox always starts in safe mode for some reason, once again, just annoying.

I really think they should release it sooner rather than later, it's more stable and faster than Vista.

I really hope I wont have to go back to Vista if they end the Beta

Windows 7 Beta Rocks

2009-01-12T17:07:00.006+11:00

Ok,

I'm not sure I ever installed a beta of Windows before, not sure what it was that drove me to want to install this one, perhaps the fact that Vista is slow or to use 64 bit and take advantage of all my Ram.

But I don't regret it, I'm not one for half jumping in, install in a VM or a separate Partition, I just reformatted my entire work Laptop and installed from the 64 bit ISO.

The install was a breeze, the speed of the whole thing is much quicker than Vista, I swear Vista must have a for (i=0; i<1000; i++) loop after every statement.

So far all my applications run and run well, this gives me a good feeling, because if they run well on a Beta O/S it can only get better. I'm also running quite a bit of Beta software, some I can't name due to NDA's. But Skype 4 Beta and Flex 4 Beta both work as do others.

I like the new task bar, once you get used to it, and use it's benefits its great, I must admit I always stick with the new way things work, it is tempting to change to the old style, but they changed it for a reason, try to stick with it.

I also like the name, Windows 7, I wish they would just stick with numbers. from 1, 2, 3, 95, 98, XP, Vista, 7. It's easy to forget that this is the seventh main release, that's not a high number, given how long its been around. And especially if you compare it to other software that has been around a lot less and might be at version 13 or higher.

I had also tried the IE8 beta several times and didn't like it, but IE8 (which is what comes with Windows 7) seems prety good, all my regular sites worked and besides a couple minor quirks, I haven't had the need to go install anything else.

The release is late 2009, but I recommend you get onto the beta and try to use it until then. As soon as I can buy a key, I will.

Good job Microsoft, looking forward to what gets added between now and release.

Please test your site in IE.

2009-01-09T10:03:00.002+11:00

This is really annoying, I use IE almost exclusivly. But more and more, I am finding problems with major sites not working with IE.

I then proceed to try them in FireFox and they work, now you might say well just use FireFox, but that is not the point, there is nothing wrong with IE, this is a problem of lazy developers failing to test their code properly in multiple browsers.

Our company uses one site in particular, which I wont name, and I contacted them to tell them that half their site doesn't work in IE. Their answer, was it works in FireFox use that.

Pathetic, does this mean they really dont care about the 50% of people using IE, its just pure laziness.

Could not initialize class coldfusion.monitor.event.RequestMonitorEventProcessor

2008-12-29T11:00:00.004+11:00

Coldfusion

Error 500
Could not initialize class coldfusion.monitor.event.RequestMonitorEventProcessor

Hmm, this just started happening for no reason, and I'm running ColdFusion 8 Standard.

Googled this message and found nothing. With some help from some friendly Twitter folk, I started looking through the log files, found an error saying that the neo-runtime.xml couldn't be read.

Had a look and sure enough it was empty, not sure how, but I recreated it by copying one from another server and fixed up mappings and custom tag paths, which must live in this file as I lost them, and all was good.

ColdFusion 9 Needs Drastic Changes

2008-12-11T13:42:00.003+11:00

ColdFusion 9, codename centuar is in development and looks to be feature rich from what people have disclosed. Thats all good, and Im looking forward to it, but there are some other things I hope they are working on for ColdFusion outside the product. These things are lacking and have been for some time.

1. Some decent online documentation, perhaps adopt the Flex style docs or similar.
2. An online bug tracking system where you can see bugs, log bugs and track bugs, using JIRA like Flex does would be great also.
3. A heap of marketing, with the cool new features and CF getting good press at the moment, the timing is great for Adobe to invest in the product.

If Adobe dont have the time / money to do 1 & 2 then they should hand it over to the community to manage.

Im hooked on Twitter

2008-12-05T09:38:00.004+11:00

I signed up to twitter, but didn't really think much of it, didn't think I would use it, but Paul Kukiel kinda talked me into it, and now I'm hooked.

You can follow me @dalefraser

If your not on twitter, its kind of a cross between micro blogging and a group IM, I like the group IM side of it, you say stuff, people respond, people say stuff you respond, and you read and find out lots of stuff, some of it relevant to what your interested in and some not so much.

But I seem to be twittering lots of times a day now, over 100 in two months, you need a good twitter client, I've tried both twhirl and tweetdeck, both are Air apps and both prety good with their own quirks.

See you soon on Twitter.

ColdFusion Resurgence

2008-12-04T14:02:00.004+11:00

Ive noticed a lot of talk about ColdFusion and have noticed a lot of .cfm sites of late, and the talk about ColdFusion and its future seems to have died and been replaced with new positive talk.

I've always been a fan of ColdFusion, sometimes a critical fan, but in looking at where ColdFusion is now and especially at some of the new ColdFusion 9 features, I really think that Adobe are listening. In fact, most of the features that I've ever wanted in ColdFusion are there now and some of the minor gaps will be plugged further in ColdFusion 9.

ColdFusion is still unmatched in terms of framework, the features and simplicity of how it implements things is far ahead of anything else, show me some ASP, PHP or JSP and I'll show you how I can do it easier and better in ColdFusion.

Unlike ASP, PHP & JSP, ColdFusion isn't free, this is a thorn in a lot of peoples side, it has been in mine, but after recently evaluating Railo & BlueDragon, I came to the conclusion that even if they were 100% free for my needs, I would still pay for ColdFusion. I want the Adobe name, I want the support and large community, I want a product I know is solid and stable and I want all the new features when they are released, not when the others catch up.

ColdFusion 9 & Flex 4 are what we will be using for 2009, we have started already, its a great sign when you start developing large applications in products that aren't even in Beta.

What if ColdFusion was Renamed?

2008-11-21T15:46:00.004+11:00

Sometimes, in a products life a change of name is necessary to seperate the old from the new, to give the product a new life, to highlight a change in direction.

Think Turbo Pascal -> Delphi
Think Lucky Goldstar -> LG

There are many examples I can think of. I was thinking that perhaps that time is near for ColdFusion, ColdFusion suffers from a bad name, bad press and confusion between the product ColdFusion and the theory of Cold Fusion.

Given the evolution from Alaire, Macromedia to Adobe. Perhaps something more in line with the new product set is appropiate. I have some ideas, but was also interested in what others thought and what names you think might suit the product if in fact you think a rename would ever be on the cards.

Mine are

Adobe Server
Flex Server
Bolt Server (like Bolt IDE)

I like the Bolt one, of course loose the lightning bolt graphic, but the name is nice and clear and there is a link to the past.

TomTom Ripoff

2008-10-16T18:23:00.002+11:00

I have a TomTom One V3, love it, really good. However the day I purchased it, I found it had last years maps. Ok not so bad, I'll go and update. What, I have to pay, wait a minute, I just purchased it, surely it should come with free updates for a period, its not my fault that I got one that must have been sitting on a shelf or in a warehouse for X months.

The TomTom One V3 cost me $220, a new map $150. Its a rip off, if I had known I would not have purchased it. The maps should be inexpensive and on a subscription, ie $50 per year gives you free updates.

Not Happy!

Top 3 ColdFusion 9 Wishes

2008-09-11T13:22:00.005+10:00

I was thinking what I would like to see mostly in CF9. Thought I'd put together a top 3 list.

1. Full script support (for every tag including queries)
2. Support for Public / Private Key encryption
3. A free edition to compete with BlueDragon & Ralio

I think 1. will take the language to where it needs to be so that hard core might like it more and the taggers can still do tags. 2. Is becoming more usefull when you are developing say an Air app with a CF backend. And 3 just makes sense since the other players are doing it and it will help increase market share.

Anyway, I dont really want this to be a war, everyone will have different ideas, post your top 3.

ColdFusion 9 Static Classes

2008-08-19T19:12:00.004+10:00

One thing I would like to see in ColdFusion 9 is the bringing together of ActionScript and CFML. The more similarities the better for all concerned.

Having worked with a lot of Flex recently, I love ActionScript and would love in particular to see ColdFusion introduce Static Classes.

While Im on my wish list, a couple nice things that would be easy to implement, and save some confusion.

They should introduce a new tag

<cfclass

which is exactly the same as <cfcomponent but with a different name, the reason being, is that the names are confusing.

In ActionScript a Class is a Class and a Component is something different.

In ColdFusion a Class is a Component and a Component is a Class.

Not sure why they didn't name it like this from the start, at least the extension is correct, (CFC = ColdFusion Class)

Fantastic Contraption

2008-08-16T18:59:00.014+10:00

I stumbled across a good Flash game recently, Fantastic Contraption. Not only a really good game, it plays well, challenges the mind and hooks you in.

I was playing this game and realised that there are probably a lot of ways to complete a level, in fact when you complete a level you get to see how others did it, which is very cool.

I tried to focus on simple solutions, some other solutions I saw were more complex, some were simpler and some were simply amazing, I saw one level where the person catapaults the ball and something to catch it, to the other side of the level, amazing.

So I thought i'd post my solutions, through the 20 levels for others to enjoy.

1. Rolling Away
2. Reach Up
3. Mind The Gap
4. Junkyard
5. The Wall
6. On a Roll
7. Full-up
8. Higher
9. Around the Bend
10. Up The Hump
11. Mission to Mars
12. Up The Stairs
13. Big Ball
14. Four Balls
15. Down Under
16. Awash
17. Handling
18. Tube
19. Back and Forth
20. Unpossible
21. U-Turn

I really want to go back now and find other solutions, because you learn different moves as you go, I have to admit that I had to google the solution to Tube because to me it seemed impossible.

Apple iPhone Sync with SBS Exchange 2003

2008-08-02T19:43:00.003+10:00

Firstly let me say that this IS POSSIBLE. There are a lot of posts out there that say.

You can't do it with Exchange 2003 you need Exchange 2007
You need to use iMap
You need ISA server in the middle

This is all rubbish. I have a fairly standard Single SBS 2003 box with exchange all on the one server, very typical for a small company.

Straight out of the box, I ran the exchange wizard on the iPhone, and guess what, it worked perfectly, great I thought, isn't it wonderful when technologies just work.

Then I took it home, and to my surprise it didn't work externally. Strange I thought, I had lots of theories, mainly being that

Firewall has some necessary ports blocked
DNS has cached the internal name of the exchange server
Something isn't configured correctly

So here is what I did, firstly opened all ports on the firewall, still didn't work, ok that eliminates the firewall as the issue.

Tried removing the settings and setting up again externally, still didn't work, I thought that should eliminate the DNS issues.

So I started searching, found lots of posts saying it doesn't work. I posted questions, people told me it doesn't work. I thought, hang on, but it works internally so it must work.

I eventually found a post that said it works using OMA (Outlook Mobile Access) which is accessible via

https://exchange.company.com/oma

Could I get to that, I tried and I couldn't. IP restricted, I changed the settings on the virtual directory to allow it external access and still no luck I checked a few of the other exchange virtual directories and a couple had this internal only also, so I enabled them. I then restarted IIS and all was good.

In the mean time I had lost hope, this all occurred over 3 days, I tried IMAP and VPN and all sorts of things, and IMAP is rubbish compared to Exchange sync, you don't get calendar or contacts and it wasn't syncing my deletes or moves.

So now I am happy and can configure this for the rest of the company. I hope this helps someone, I can confirm it 100% works and works well with SBS 2003 Exchange.

Apple iPhone 3G vs BlackBerry 3G

2008-08-02T19:14:00.002+10:00

I have been using a BlackBerry 8707g for a couple of years now, and have really liked it, previously I was using a O2 XDA 2 which I also liked.

A couple people at work were moving to iPhones so I was playing with one trying to get it all setup (Another Post Coming) and as I played, there were a couple things that the iPhone did that my BlackBerry struggled with. These really jumped out at me being someone who mainly uses my BlackBerry to read emails. Here's what I found.

1. I could actually read emails as they were formatted, including html emails, this was fantastic, reading emails zooming in if needed with top text quality. The BB really is good at reading plain emails, but anything special, formatted it struggles.

2. I get a lot of emails from our Jira system, which is a web based system. One thing I've never been able to do on the BB is to read the jira Issues on the web, the BB just doesn't render web pages well enough. But on the iPhone it was flawless, displays the web pages perfectly, zoomed out, then you can zoom in and move around as you need, I was impressed.

3. I then thought thats nice, I wonder how other webpages look, and they prety much all look great, shame there is no flash support, but all in all it was a great experience.

4. Then opened a PDF & PPT attachments and wow, they were almost perfect, the PDF's are great, this is a real pain on the BB, you get a thumbnail, then need to say, more, more, more until you get the whole thing.

I was about to get a new BB, but figured it would be the same old stuff, and this iPhone was truly taking my email / web browsing mobile. The keyboard is no where near as good, but I read a lot and don't reply to a lot from my phone.

So long story short, I went for an iPhone, this is my first ever Apple purchase, I'm not into music so I missed the iPod craze, and am a Windows / Dell man.

The iPhone has beaten the BlackBerry at it's own game, email. BlackBerry is set to become the next Palm unless they can address these issues.

They have done a great job, there are some things missing, simple stuff that they will fix with future software updates, but a very good device.

Here is a list of pro's and cons of my new iPhone, all of the cons can be fixed with software updates.

iPhone Pros

Better render of emails, formatting and html emails.
Better rendering of webpages
Better screen, bright, large and crisp
Has 16gig of memory, my BB doesn't take a memory card although new ones do.
Has a camera, my BB doesn't once again new ones do.
Good online access to additional programs etc.

iPhone Cons

Couldn't work out how to order email by sender or search emails
Emails show that you have replied but don't allow you to link to the reply
Emails marked as Urgent aren't highlighted
Can't copy and paste
Notes don't sync with exchange

Flex + ColdFusion = Awesome!

2008-06-24T11:41:00.005+10:00

We have started doing a bit of work with Flex, being a CF house mainly. The enhanced UI that we can generate with Flex and the ease of which it talks to CF is just awesome.

We are writing full applications, using.

1. Flex Front End
2. ColdFusion Back End
3. ColdFusion Report Builder for Reporting.

I have to say, that developing web based real word data centric applications like this is working out better than I had hoped. At some point in the future I might post some screen shots.

I would encourage all CF developers / managers out there to give Flex a serious look.

AIR Security or Lack there of?

2008-05-29T18:43:00.003+10:00

I found this really strange, a co worker pointed this out to me.

He installed my Poker Blind Timer - Air Version and then went into

c:\Program Files\Poker Blind Timer\META-INF\AIR\application.xml

And edited a lot of the application settings, run the app again, and it changed to reflect the edits, you can change the title, logo, and windows size, allow minimize etc.

As a developer you want and need to control these things, why would they just put all that in an XML file and allow anyone to come along and edit it. I know you can do similar stuff with registry edits for other programs, but thats a lot harder and less obvious.

Poker Blind Timer - Air Version

2008-05-29T18:41:00.004+10:00

So my AIR version of the Poker Blind timer, is doing the rounds.

I submitted it to Adobe Market place to get a free code signing certificate. Then I signed it with the real cert. So now you can download & install using a a button from Market Place and the app is signed.

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?event=extensionDetail&loc=en_us&extid=1544518

NEW VERSION: http://dale.fraser.id.au/2010/02/poker-blind-timer-version-2.html

ColdFusion 8 Vista SP1 Solution!

2008-05-27T20:54:00.010+10:00

Anyone having problems with ColdFusion 8 on Vista since SP1. Well lots of people are having problems with the install / config.

I reported to Adobe and the answers are a bit disapointing. Firstly they knew nothing about it, you might think they would test the software post a release of a major Service Pack, or even on one of the betas. Secondly the response I got, was I tried it and it worked fine.

Anyway, after many, many hours I know exactly what the problem is and there is a simple workaround.

The problem lies in IIS, if you don't install the right bits, it won't work, im not sure if these used to be installed under Vista by default but they aren't there anymore.

There are two things you need to manually select when installing IIS. You need to manually tick the three things highlighted here. Once you do that and install IIS, make sure you reboot before installing ColdFusion, even though it might not ask or force you too. IIS doesn't start working until after a reboot.

After that it's smooth sailing, just install ColdFusion 8, there is no need to run as administrator or do anything else special.

ColdFusion 8.01 Broken on Vista SP1 with IIS

2008-05-12T14:48:00.004+10:00

I have had several people try this now, and CF8 will not install on Vista SP1 using IIS.

Below is what you get, I could probably manually hack lots of IIS settings and get it working, but since there is nothing on the NET on this, I would like to know why.

I have narrowed it down as I didn't originally know if it was 8.01 related or SP1 related, and it is definately Vista SP1 that breaks everything.

I have reported this to Adobe and they have contacted me asking for more info, so the wheel is in motion. Until then, I don't even have a workaround, mainly because I haven't had the time to work out what config file is missing etc.

Anyway after installing, the configuration page will not open as the connector is not installed properly or not properly configured / connected.

Server Error in Application "DEFAULT WEB SITE"Internet Information Services 7.0Error Summary HTTP Error 404.3 - Not FoundThe page you are requesting cannot be served because of the extension configuration. If the page is a script, add a handler. If the file should be downloaded, add a MIME map.Detailed Error Information Module StaticFileModuleNotification ExecuteRequestHandlerHandler StaticFileError Code 0x80070032Requested URL http://127.0.0.1:80/CFIDE/administrator/index.cfmPhysical Path C:\inetpub\wwwroot\CFIDE\administrator\index.cfmLogon Method AnonymousLogon User Anonymous Most likely causes: " It is possible that a handler mapping is missing. By default, the static file handler processes all content. " The feature you are trying to use may not be installed. " The appropriate MIME map is not enabled for the Web site or application. (Warning: Do not create a MIME map for content that users should not download, such as .ASPX pages or .config files.) " If ASP.NET is not installed. Things you can try: " In system.webServer/handlers: o Ensure that the expected handler for the current page is mapped. o Pay extra attention to preconditions (for example, runtimeVersion, pipelineMode, bitness) and compare them to the settings for your application pool. o Pay extra attention to typographical errors in the expected handler line. " Please verify that the feature you are trying to use is installed. " Verify that the MIME map is enabled or add the MIME map for the Web site using the command-line tool appcmd.exe. 1. To set a MIME type, use the following syntax: %SystemRoot%\windows\system32\inetsrv\appcmd set config /section:staticContent /+[fileExtension='string',mimeType='string'] 2. The variable fileExtension string is the file name extension and the variable mimeType string is the file type description. 3. For example, to add a MIME map for a file which has the extension ".xyz": appcmd set config /section:staticContent /+[fileExtension='.xyz',mimeType='text/plain'] Warning: Ensure that this MIME mapping is needed for your Web server before adding it to the list. Configuration files such as .CONFIG or dynamic scripting pages such as .ASP or .ASPX, should not be downloaded directly and should always be processed through a handler. Other files such as database files or those used to store configuration, like .XML or .MDF, are sometimes used to store configuration information. Determine if clients can download these file types before enabling them. " Install ASP.NET. " Create a tracing rule to track failed requests for this HTTP status code. For more information about creating a tracing rule for failed requests, click here. Links and More InformationThis error occurs when the file extension of the requested URL is for a MIME type that is not configured on the server. You can add a MIME type for the file extension for files that are not dynamic scripting pages, database, or configuration files. Process those file types using a handler. You should not allows direct downloads of dynamic scripting pages, database or configuration files. View more information »

USB Error 04x80070052

2008-04-30T02:41:00.004+10:00

Ever had this error on a USB drive? Well I can explain why it happens and how to fix it.

It's prety simple once you know, but working it out wasn't so simple.

When a USB stick is formatted with the FAT file system (which is the default) there is a limitation (bug) as to how many files can be stored in the root of the drive. This limitation does not apply to files stored in directories on the drive (odd I know).

So there are two solutions.

1. Store files under directories in the root and not in the root of the drive it's self.
2. Format the memory stick as FAT32

I prefer option 2, then you will no longer have this limitation or error.

FlexCF.com Launches!

2008-04-18T09:49:00.001+10:00

We are very pleased to announce the launch of http://FlexCF.com this is a sister site for http://LearnCF.com and focuses on Flex application development with a ColdFusion backend. There are seven tutorials published on launch, with more to come.

These sites are Not for Profit community sites, you can contribute tutorials. All costs for hosting & development of these sites are provided free by the operators. Any revenue generated will be used to purchase prizes for tutorial authors.

Free BlueDragon Opens Doors

2008-03-20T14:32:00.007+11:00

I was initially unfazed by the announcement of the Free Open Source BlueDragon, I have never used, never wanted to. Mainly as it's not priced well against ColdFusion 8, if I wish to pay almost full price, I might as well get the real deal.

But I've been thinking about it for several days, and there have always been applications that I wanted to develop, but couldn't because of the ColdFusion pricing limitations. Those applications that I want to either develop and give away or develop and sell for $1000 or less, the cost of this is prohibited by the CF price tag.

No Adobe and it's supporters will argue, you can get cheap hosting, etc, etc but it's not the same. For example, I once developed a really cool intranet / document management system that was very well received by companies, but I had to price it too high to cover the CF cost. I have thought of developing a system similar to JIRA, but same issue. And when ever I have one of these ideas, I think I will need to do it in PHP, .NET or Java.

Adobe don't seem to understand this, but Im sure that many of you out there do. So now a free ColdFusion is coming that will have no limits on usage, and the only major feature to be dropped is most likely the CFDOCUMENT stuff. Well all my little project ideas, now have a new life.

I can write a simple time sheeting application, with an AIR client and a BD back end, cost to customer, my choice I have no on cost so I can give it away or sell it for $99.

I can write my intranet tool and not have to worry about any costs, utilise MySql and free PDF libraries and do whatever I like, once again I can give it away or sell it for $99, $999 or $9999.

The more I think about it the more I realise how many applications I can develop like this, and the more I feel that CF missed the boat and should have done this years ago, then developers with ideas like this that end up turning into something bigger needing, enterprise versions with support etc, would be in ColdFusion.

Adobe might now sit back and say, well you can do it in BD, then when you want more come to us, I say that ain't going to fly. I will support BD if these applications eventuate into something bigger, as it was them that made it possible.

IE8 Breaks ColdFusion

2008-03-09T16:43:00.004+11:00

IE8 is a nice browser, it renders the Acid 2 test perfectly and Microsoft has finally taken a leap of faith that not even Firefox has.

But with a leap of faith comes a host of issues, IE8 will not render a whole lot of sites very well. Including Blogger. I couldn't post this from IE8.

And all the CF8 Ajax / DHTML features are broken. Even in IE7 emulation mode the grids will not render correctly.

So who's fault is this? Is it Microsoft for being so brave, Adobe for including DHTML stuff, EXT for not working.

Well it's a combo, but most notably Adobe will have to fix it, and hopefully fix it by moving to EXT 2 rather than anything else. Others have blogged that ColdFusion including large libraries of javascript and DHTML was risky, Adobe are aware of this and now have no choice but to fix it.

Now Adobe need to release a CF8 update before Microsoft release IE8.

Adobe AIR 1 vs Zinc 3

2008-02-27T17:25:00.003+11:00

Well what is the difference between

Adobe Air

and

Multidmedia Zinc

Not a lot in fact both provide similar yet different APIs to cover the non web bits, File access, local DB etc.

I like AIR a lot, but I also really like Zinc 3. Here is a summary of the key differences

Adobe Air 1 Pros
It's Free
It's intergrated
Its signed code
It gives you a package that installs through the air Installer
You can make an application from HTML

Adobe Air 1 Cons
You need the AIR framwork installed
You can't customize the installer
You can't produce a standalone version (exe)
You need to purchase a certificate to become a known publisher.
You need to take your app say flex and write it differently for Air.

Zinc 3 Pros
It's nice new studio for building your package
You can customize everything and use a third party installer if you want
It can produce standalone native exes and mac / linux equivilant
It requires nothing addditonal for your users to run your program
You require no code changes to turn your SWF into an exe

Zinc 3 Cons
It's not Free
It's not as nicely intergrated, although they do have plugin versions
It's has a huge new competitor Adobe that it may struggle against.

Given the good marketing and hype that AIR has received I think it's important to consider the options, I personally don't get it since Zinc has been around a while, I've been thinking but I've been able to do this for a long time.

And don't choose AIR just because it's free, remember that you need to purchase and renew certificates. If you haven't tried either, I recommended that you give them both a go.

Adobe AIR Code Signing Certificate Expiry

2008-02-27T16:48:00.002+11:00

We have looked at signing our Flex applications using a purchased certificate, but the question lurked in the back of my mind on how the expiry of these cerftificates affected the applications.

Recently at a talk in Melbourne Australia by Danny Dura I asked him these questions, and he didn't really know, but asked me to ping him later and he would chase the answers. Which I did and I got all the answers back promptly. Here is a summary of the questions and answers, note not the verbatim questions or answers.

Q: When you purchase a code signing certificate you might notice you are purchasing it for 1 or 2 years. So what happens to your application once the certificate expires?

A: Nothing, the application will still function normally and will still have the Green tick, the certificate expiry is indeed different to SSL type of certificate expiry, it expires only in the sense that once expired you can no longer sign code with this certificate, thus if you wanted to release a new version you would need to renew your certificate.

Q: How does the application validate the certificate, do you need to be connected to the internet for the certificate to be validated back to the certificate host?

A: No, the certificate validates locally without going to the network.

More info on that here
http://livedocs.adobe.com/labs/air/1/devappsflex/help.html?content=distributing_apps_13.html#1037515

So this all makes sense and is good, you sign your app and distribute as much as you like, in the event your cert expires or you want to distribute a totally offline app that will never have internet access, then these answers say your good to go.

Flex 3 vs ColdFusion 8 Ajax

2008-01-21T22:34:00.001+11:00

Round 2,

Well I love the new ColdFusion 8 Ajax stuff, just completed an entire configuration application using it. Then move onto a small Flex 3 project, which then went to Air.

After completing the Flex 3 app, I thought hmm, I wonder if the configuration application would be better in Flex. The answer in this case is probably yes, I'm going to do it again in Flex and see how it goes, the good thing is the CF8 version is driven by CFC's which I can still use in the Flex version.

I thought I'd summarise what I think are the pros and cons of both.

ColdFusion 8 Ajax Pros

Fast and familiar for ColdFusion developers to learn.
Easy integration into existing CF sites designs, security models etc.
Still code based, no designer yet, and being a coder, I like writing code.

ColdFusion 8 Ajax Cons

Harder to debug
Slow on the loading (large libraries)
Slow rendering
Not as easily extendable
Not as graphically pleasing

Flex 3 Pros

Robust classes which extend easily
Easily make graphically pleasing UI's
A Designer for placement / snapping of UI can make UI design faster.
Nice ECMA compliant language

Flex Cons

Long learning curve for CFers'
Need to use and learn FlexBuilder (different if your not on CFEclipse)
A lot more complex, the easy stuff is easy, but it gets complex quickly.

So I think if you use both you might want to consider which is best for your needs. Some of our customers simply are not allowed to install the flash player, so Flex is out. But I would say that it's worth playing with both and seeing which suits your needs best.

Poker Blind Timer Flex Version

2008-01-10T18:36:00.001+11:00

I did this once before, but somehow lost it, so did it again in Flex.

The original Flash 9 version was almost identical. I've made this version available with View Source enabled, so you can pick on my code if you like. (Right Click on the Timer to view source)

http://flex.fraser.id.au/BlindTimerFlex/

INSTRUCTIONS.

1. Enter the Minutes, how often blinds increase.
2. Enter the starting small blind amount.
3. Tick if you want the blinds to balance to 250 once at 200 or higher.
4. Click Start to start the timer, a sound will sound when blinds increase.
5. Click Pause if you wish to pause the timer at any point during the game.
6. Click Reset to reset the timer back to your options, normally at the start of a new game.

200/250 balance explained.

Lets say you have a poker game starting at small blind 50 so the small / big blinds would look like

50 / 100
100 / 200
200 / 400
400 / 800
800 / 1600
1600 / 3200

You can see that those numbers after 200 aren't really nice numbers. But with 200/250 balance ticked, you will get the following.

50 / 100
100 / 200
250 / 500
500 / 1000
1000 / 2000
2000 / 4000

EDIT: Got the AIR version running, that was too easy, Nice! If you want to install the AIR version, can get it here.
http://flex.fraser.id.au/BlindTimerFlex/BlindTimer.zip

All feedback welcome.

NEW VERSION: http://dale.fraser.id.au/2010/02/poker-blind-timer-version-2.html

Is Flex the ColdFusion Killer?

2008-01-10T12:04:00.001+11:00

I am a big ColdFusion fan, and I love the ColdFusion 8 features, especially the Ajax stuff. But being in the ColdFusion space you are inundated with Flex stuff, there is a lot of Flex at every ColdFusion conference, a lot of CF people are moving to Flex and writing blog posts and tutorials etc. Try finding a CF conference that doesn't have Flex path or topics.

Even the CF god Ben Forta is heavily involved in the Flex side of things these days.

Adobe and the general community is pushing Flex. Now there is a good reason for this, it's a good product, but the overwhelming push into the CF community is seeing a lot of CF developers move to Flex.

I have to say that the more Flex I do, the more I like it and the less I want to do in ColdFusion, mind you I do use ColdFusion for the back end. There are some things that Flex has that ColdFusion missed the boat on.

1. A nice ECMA scripting language ActionScript.
2. Full OO Capabilities.
3. A Fully integrated and good IDE.

Honestly, writing Flex / ActionScript code then going back to CFSET and GTE is a bit painful. So once ColdFusion programmers pick up Flex, how many of them will want to do Flex only and leave the ColdFusion for others.

I Miss ColdFusion 8 Beta

2007-09-11T21:55:00.001+10:00

Why?

Well because they had a bug tracker, I could submit a bug and find the status of that bug. This is a great and powerful feature that instills confidence that a reported bug has even been seen.

What we have now is a wish form, where you can send through a bug or wish, but you never know what has happened with it after that. Every hot fix that comes out you check the release notes hoping that your bug made it, and if it didn't you wonder, did they get it?

The bug I'm referring to is the   placed in every tab of <cflayout making it hard to place content at the top of tabs. Now compared to the bugs that were fixed in this first hot fix, it's probably not significant and I'm really happy that they have released a hot-fix so quickly, great job.

It's the unknown factor that I am uneasy with. There may be a good reason why there isn't a bug tracking system like in the beta where you can track your bug, see if QA has verified it and perhaps see which release or hotfix it might be fixed in, but I really can't think of any negatives for that. And they have the program already, it was in the beta system.

CFWACK Delayed but Almost Here!

2007-09-11T12:45:00.001+10:00

I have pre-ordered all 3 books of the CFWACK through Amazon, and thought I would share that I got an email from them saying that the

ColdFusion 8 Web Application Construction Kit, Volume 1: Getting Started

Had been delayed. The new estimated arrival was: 09/25/2007 - 10/03/2007

Which isn't that far off, it looks like the books will not be released at the same time, not much time between them however, I thought this might be the case and ordered mine to ship separately so that I can get each book as quickly as possible.

I kind of skim these books these days, but I buy every release for the office, new developers and existing developers always get great value from them. I actually learnt to program ColdFusion reading this book around 2001 and can highly recommend them.

If you read Blog posts (and you do if you are reading this) then you will be glad to know that both Ben Forta and Ray Camden are the main authors on this book so expect high quality content.

Here is what Amazon tells me for the books

Volume 1: Getting Started
September 25, 2007 - October 3, 2007

Volume 2: Application Development
October 18, 2007 - October 26, 2007

Volume 3: Advanced Application Development
November 10, 2007 - November 19, 2007

ColdFusion Color Coding Released

2007-09-05T15:32:00.001+10:00

I said I would release the modified version of the color coding for ColdFusion code when I was happy with it and here it is.

Thanks to Steve Onnis who fixed a problem with one of the regular expressions and added in a missing one.

See Demo and Code

learncf.com Launched!

2007-08-31T18:38:00.001+10:00

learncf.com has been launched (ahead of schedule). The site is now live and function and we will be looking to add a minimum of 1 tutorial per week to the site.

Enjoy!

http://learncf.com

learncf.com is Coming!

2007-08-28T10:39:00.000+10:00

A new training based website aimed at providing a collection of good quality tutorials will be launched on the 1st of September AEST. This is a 100% free community based website, there will be no advertising.

Every tutorial must meet the following requirements

Must run on CF8
Must be self contained (ie not require frameworks or third party libraries)
Must use the coldfusion demo databases if it uses databases
Must have a working example

We are looking for people to either author a tutorial or offer an existing tutorial that they may have blogged, simply post your interest here or email me. We will take the tutorial, ensure it is appropriate and not too similar to existing tutorials. Authors will be credited.

Visit the site learncf.com for a sample tutorial so that you can see what they will look like.

Color Coding ColdFusion Code

2007-08-26T23:30:00.000+10:00

I've been working on a website, one of the things I needed was a code formatter.

It's a work in progress, and I won't post the code yet, but it seems to be working. It's based around the code from BlogCFC which looks to be originally written by Dain Anderson.

It had a few bits that I didn't understand, and some formatting that I didn't want. So I have severly hacked it for my own purposes. Here's what I did:

Change it from being script to tag based (refuse to use script until 100% support)
Made use my favourite var local = {} to ensure all variables are scope.
Added a colorCode from file method
Added line numbering to the output
Change the formatting and some of the colors to match DreamWeaver (might add an eclipse option also)
And just a general tidy up of variables that were not being used etc.

Because of the way that it works, lots of regular expressions on <> combo's it won't color it's self properly, not sure I need to fix that.

If your interested in a simple example. NOTE: Link removed, this has been released, see the New Blog Entry.

As usual all comments and suggestions welcome and I will share the code once I finalise it.

.NET for ColdFusion Developers

2007-08-22T10:33:00.000+10:00

I saw a blog entry today, that linked to some videos on .NET for ColdFusion Developers, the link didn't work, but I found the videos and thought I'd post

Introduction to ASP.NET for ColdFusion Developers (Part 1 of 3)
Introduction to ASP.NET for ColdFusion Developers (Part 2 of 3)
Introduction to ASP.NET for ColdFusion Developers (Part 3 of 3)

Free Poker Blind Timer

2007-08-13T20:02:00.001+10:00

I wanted a Poker Blind timer for the poker night with the Guys, did a quick search and couldn't find anything that was even half decent.

So I thought I'd write one, I started in Javascript, then lost interest quickly, then whipped it up in Flash using ActionScript 2. I got that working using timers, but wasn't really happy, found that a 1 second timer isn't very accurate.

I then rewrote it in Flash CS3 and ActionScript 3. This time using Date object thus keeping the countdown in sync with the clock. All was good and working, but it looked a bit drab.

So I thought I'd try it again in Flex 2, actually used the Flex 3 Builder beta. And the port from Flash CS3 to Flex 2 was fairly painless, actually quite liked it. Creating the interface in Flex is much easier and linking into methods was easier also.

I'll probably compile this up as a Adobe AIR product soon, just need to read the docs or find a quick tutorial. I've never really looked at AIR.

Anyway, have a look, all comments and suggestions welcome.

Poker Blind Timer

Minutes: Minutes between blind increase
Blind: Small Blind Starting Point
200 / 250: Balances blinds such that when they reach 200, they go to 250, so that you get 250, 500, 1000 etc.

Start: Start the timer, also allows Pause and Resume.
Reset: Stops the timer and resets all options the entered values.

I think it's self explanatory, if you play poker.

NEW VERSION! http://dale.fraser.id.au/2010/02/poker-blind-timer-version-2.html

CF8 Server Monitor Quandary

2007-08-08T22:41:00.000+10:00

I have an issue with CF8 Standard and lack of Server Monitoring.

Adobe, say this is not an issue as you can us it in the developer version, so you can develop, test, tweak and monitor the performance. Cool right?

Well not quite, as if your planning on deploying on Standard, then some features are throttled. But when your developing on developer they are not throttled, so monitoring performance is not really a true indication of performance once you push to prodution on Standard.

So what is needed here, is something, either.

1. Add single server monitoring to Standard
2. Add the ability for developer version to go into throttled mode.

Obviously I prefer 1 over 2, but even 2 would be better than nothing.

ColdFusion 8 vs Flex 2

2007-08-06T15:04:00.002+10:00

I posted a while back that we were not moving to Flex 2 but we were waiting to see what ColdFusion 8 had to offer.

I have evaluated the features and benefits of both languages and have made the decision that ColdFusion 8 is a better solution.

The addition of DHTML widgets, such as Tabs, Grid etc, etc has been a welcomed addition for us. We develop applications that are for use within Clinical Trials and a lot of our customers simply do not have the permission to install the flash player. This makes it hard for us to use Flex or any of the CF7 flash features.

But the new HTML options available in ColdFusion 8 will now allow us to have a Web 2 dynamic application that is both functional and attractive.

The other thing that hurt Flex in this evaluation is that compare to ColdFusion, Flex is hard work. ColdFusion excels better than any other language that I have ever used at making complicated things easier.

I did tout that we might consider our future with CF and move to .NET (which would be our second choice) given the price hike, but I'm over that now and we purchased standard edition.

So pricing issues aside, this is just a great product, probably 25% better than ColdFusion 7 and the speed increases are fabulous. So in a market where we were tossing up between Flex, .NET and ColdFusion 8, even though the other two are free, ColdFusion still wins.

Ive Come To a Sad Realisation - Disable User Access Control in Vista

2007-08-02T11:35:00.000+10:00

Several months in on Vista, and I'm sick of the User Access Control. It really annoys me, some things you do ask you 2 or 3 times to confirm. What makes it worse, is that it's not intelligent, it doesn't have the ability to remember the things that you want to allow.

I have also never (0 times) had it pop up where I didn't want to allow it, so to me it's just a waste of time and annoying. This would have to be the worst feature ever introduced into Windows and I'm turning it off.

Here is a helpful like I found on how to disable it.
http://www.petri.co.il/disable_uac_in_windows_vista.htm

ColdFusion 8 Released

2007-07-30T14:56:00.000+10:00

Ok It's out, there will be millions of posts, the 25% increase in price has me pissed off.

It's a good product so if your on standard you aint going to loose, but there is no reduction either.

If you are on Enterprise, i'd suggest boycotting the price hike and purcasing standard, the feature set is not worth the price difference.

Outlook 2007 RSS Duplicates

2007-07-26T10:39:00.001+10:00

Duplicate RSS Items in Outlook 2007 are driving me nuts.

Im using two clients, a laptop at home and a laptop at work both going back to an exchange server. Outlook doesn't seem to be clever enough to know that it already has RSS items before getting them again, this results in me getting almost every RSS item more than once.

I've read lots of discussions around this, but can't find a solution, I'm prety sure there must be one, or one coming as a lot of people are talking about it. But Microsoft were talking about it a year ago, so what's the deal.

I'm hoping someone might read this and point me to the solution or someome might fix the problem, it's driving me nuts and Outlook is the perfect vehicle for me to read RSS I really don't want to use another reader

Adobe Does ColdFusion Justice

2007-07-17T14:15:00.000+10:00

When Adobe took over Macromedia, I was a happy camper, when pitching ColdFusion solutions, people who haven't heard of it, say who make ColdFusion, now I could say Adobe.

And everyone as heard of Adobe, so they say nice and everyone is happy.

But in the back of my mind, when every new take over I'm thinking I hope they don't stuff it up, hope they improve it, push it and ultimately sell it.

Now many months later, I think that Adobe have done a really good job, first the ColdFusion 8 Beta product is excellent, it has been prominently featured on Labs, it is in the Labs Most Popular section, it was also featured smack in the middle of the Adobe home page for a while, and still is shown there as text under the Labs section of the home page.

The beta program has been very active, the CF team has been very responsive and quick to fix bugs and the marketing team has done a good job of communicating new features, speed improvements etc.

So now it's time for the sell bit, it's probably going to be released any day now, my guess is on or before 8/8/07. With that will come the most important bit of the puzzle to sell this great product, the release of pricing information.

Adobe have done this well for other products, managed to get me to upgrade from Studio 8 to CS3 because the pricing options were good, so I'm hope full that Adobe will get the pricing right also and knock every one's socks of in the process.

ColdFusion IS Object Oriented

2007-07-10T10:46:00.000+10:00

After reading a Blog Entry of Ray Camden, in a general comment, he made this statement.

"CF is not OO. CF should NOT be OO. And lastly, I pray to God that CF never becomes OO."

I didn't agree, I actually think ColdFusion is OO, and thought that view especially from Ray was odd, then I thought, well perhaps I have it wrong, perhaps CF is not OO and i'm the only one who thinks it is. So I ran a Survey, posted to both cftalk and cfaussie.

The results are quite interesting.

1. Do you consider ColdFusion to be Object Oriented?
Yes: 66%
No: 34%

2. What percentage do you think ColdFusion achieves the ability to code OO style.
0-20%: 2%
20-40%: 4%
40-60%: 24%
60-80%: 44%
80-100%: 26%

3. Would you like the Adobe ColdFusion team to further develop ColdFusion OO features?
Yes: 58%
No: 42%

4. What is the number one feature missing from ColdFusion from an OO point of view?
None / Pass: 52%
Overloading: 16%
Constructors: 10%
Overriding: 4%
Interfaces: 4%
Multiple Inheritance: 2%
Serialization: 2%
Other: 10%

That last one was free text, so I combined a lot of dumb answers into None / Pass and lots of single votes into Other. I consider that CF already does Overriding, but I left it in the stats and CF8 does Interfaces but I left it in also.

But here is my summary of the survey

Of the people surveyed 66% of people think that ColdFusion is an Object Oriented language, 70% of people think that the OO features are between 60-100%, just over half 58% of people think more development needs to be done and the main two things missing are Overloading and Constructors.

So ColdFusion is Object Oriented after all, I have always thought so and am supported by the numbers, we here code our entire application in a OO way so to me it was a no brainer. You could read deeper that if Adobe just added Overloading and Constructors that the CF OO feel would be almost complete but then again 52% of people passed on what the main missing feature was.

I'll continue to collect stats
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=vFsaAhAI9bGA0MKKJ99eQw_3d_3d

nuFramework 1.0.0. Released

2007-07-05T13:02:00.000+10:00

This is a series of complex custom tags that interrelate.Each tag is nested in a subset of other tags to create sophisticated and advanced data managment forms. Each form can contain unlimited fields and tabs of related content.Some people would call this a CRUD, i'd say it kind of is, but this is very powerfull and can be used to maintain any set of data.

This framework was developed to develop an Accounting, Manufacturing and Wholesale Distribution application which was developed and sold to Public companies.This framework is also used to manage content of some very large database driven websites.

http://nuframework.riaforge.org/

ColdFusion 8 Standard or Enterprise?

2007-06-29T15:04:00.000+10:00

When upgrading to ColdFusion 8 i'm unsure if I should move of Standard and go to Enterprise. It's a low volumne site we host, and allways will be as it's specifically for a set of customers for a period of time.

I'd say that our current ColdFusion 7 Standard serves us prety well, there are a about 20-30 instances of our application with probably no more than 10-20 concurrent users across all instances at any one point in time.

So is it worth it?

ColdFusion 8 White Space

2007-06-18T14:35:00.000+10:00

I noticed in playing with ColdFusion 8 that it generates a whole lot LESS whitespace than in previous versions. This is even before I attempted to optimise it with white space compression etc.

I always thought it's shouldn't be hard to fix, haven't seen it posted anywhere. I wish there was a complete list of every little change in CF8 somewhere.

ColdFusion 8 Release Date

2007-06-15T19:24:00.000+10:00

There is some debate as to the release date of ColdFusion 8. Most think it will be 1st August 2007. Some would like to think it would be released on 08/08/08.

But I have heard that the actual release might be exactly when they always said it would be, mid year. Just in case your not clear, that's 1st July 2007.

Now time will tell I guess and I always take these things with a grain of salt. But now I'm excited as I can start using it.

Mind you, I have a CF related site that I was planning on launching at the same time, and that date doesn't give me much time

Why LiveDocs Need Help

2007-06-04T15:15:00.001+10:00

LiveDocs really irk me, the docs themselves are ok, but the ability for users to leave comments at the bottom is really a good idea gone wrong.

I think the point of the comments should be to highlight an error or ommision.

People are asking general forum style questions here, and what's worse sometimes getting answers. Here's how it should work

User comments on error or ommision, someone (moderator) reviews, if not appropiate then removes comment. If appropiate, either leave the comment, or ideally modify the documenation online and get rid of the comment.

After all, when reading docs, I don't want to have to sift through comments checking that the docs are correct, I should see there is a comment, something is off or there are no comments, everything should be ok.

Unlimited Free Joost Invites

2007-06-03T21:14:00.001+10:00

Ok,

Following on from my previous posts, I'm now giving away unlimited free Joost invites.

All you need to do is send me an email. Look up my email address and send me an email with your Name as I need to enter your name in the invite field.

http://groups.google.com/groups/profile?enc_user=MTRrNxEAAADmTh4PiwOMsRp4h2CvmN9NdPDdXUjlbOn07G5UBWfiIg

I generally send them out fairly quickly (with 24 hours) but if you think i've missed you, just send me another request.

ColdFusion hurts ASP & Java

2007-05-31T12:56:00.000+10:00

While ASP & Java might get more press and dollars thrown at them. ColdFusion is really hurting these technologies, how so you might say. It hurts them in terms of productivity. Java, ASP & even PHP are just hard work, so hard in fact that you need to either spend a lot of time or employ a framework just to get you almost equivalent to ColdFusion.

It is evident to me that while Adobe need to better market ColdFusion than was done by Macromedia, Java and ASP people are quick to jump in with the it's crap, I thought it was dead type of comments. Funny that these people are even bothering to read such ColdFusion articles, what are they looking for if they have moved on. I know I'm not reading any Dig articles on ASP or Java releases.

They are also happy to jump in with the we moved here and did this and it's been good.

But here is my story, in 2001 I was a CTO in a division of a large public company. Decided to rewrite a 2.6 million ASP development in ColdFusion.
Straight away people were on my back, is that the right decision, ColdFusion is dying. ASP is much better, your making a mistake. Hang on, that's 6 years ago, surely the life support must have been turned off by now and they would have stopped releasing new versions.

More recently joined another public company as CTO and replaced a large and complex Java application again with ColdFusion.

Why would I do this, is it because I don't understand ASP or Java, not at all, have written lots of Java and ASP stuff, have recently studied at uni using PHP and Java, HD in every subject. The reason is that they are just hard work, sure Java might have a good new framework, but that's part of the problem. Had a team of Java developers that were always chasing a moving target and getting nothing done.

What do I mean my moving target, well they had a Java application that used various frameworks and libraries, but there was always a new one that they wanted to use or play with, we want to try hibernate, we want to use JSF.
All this costs development time and money. Even the developers couldn't agree on what frameworks to use.

So when I introduced ColdFusion, they all got scared, telling the business that I was crazy, I didn't know what I was doing and that I was making the wrong decision. But for some reason the business trusted me (The new guy) and not the rest of the team, perhaps I was very convincing when I pitched the idea of starting again to the board.

Now pitching to rewrite large applications, is not an easy pitch, it's not an easy or inexpensive process either. But to me it's simple, I've done this before, it works and the business will see the benefits.

So after spending the past 2 years rewriting all the applications (not
personally) in ColdFusion and building a 100% new development team, what is the result? A very good one, the functionality is superb, the development time is very low, there are less development staff required. And ultimately the business is happy.

We use 99.9% ColdFusion, there is one Encryption JAR that we wrote. But other than that it's all CF, pure OO CFC's with no framework, which I choose not to use due to the issues I've explained with Java framework moving targets.

In summary, I use ColdFusion because it works, it's easy and it's good for the business. I look forward to ColdFusion 8 and future versions, Adobe and the CF team have done a great job on this release and CF is now even further ahead of the competition.

ColdFusion 8 Public Beta Released!

2007-05-30T14:39:00.000+10:00

As predicted two days ago, many a hint were to be found.

Coldfusion 8 Public Beta has been released, not sure but is this the first ever Public Beta? First one I recall.

Enjoy

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/coldfusion8/

ColdFusion 8 Public Beta Coming!

2007-05-28T12:32:00.000+10:00

A public beta of ColdFusion 8 codename Scorpio is about to be released. This will undoubtably be one of the biggest releases of ColdFusion and Adobe's first. I'd love to see that stats of number of downloads.

While the closed Beta has been running for Months, the public Beta will mean that Adobe will be able to lift the wraps off the features. Here are some of the key features that have already been announced.

CF8 Will Have a Debugger on offer as a CFECLIPSE Plugin

CFDBINFO - Tag to ease obtiaing info about a database
CFFEED - RSS Tag
CFIMAGE - Image creation and manipulation
CFTHREAD - Multithread support
CFZIP - ZIP and Archive tag

There is a LOT more, and I mean a LOT. I just picked what I think are some of the Key features that have already been anounced.

Stay tuned for the CF8 public beta, you are sure to be impressed.

What ColdFusion needs to survive!

2007-05-25T13:37:00.000+10:00

Ok,

You might think this is just my opinion, but I think these are the facts, these are the things that are needed if ColdFusion is to survive the next 5 years.

1. Standard Edition Must be FREE for commercial use.
2. Enterprise Edition should be LESS expensive.
3. Charge for the IDE CF Builder.
4. Have ability to write code 100% without tags (CFSCRIPT) perhaps .cfs extension.
5. Market 1, 2, 3 & 4 heavily with some serious dollars.

I think that 1, 2 & 3 would produce no negative sales benefit. There are a lot more developers than servers thus you sell a lot of IDE's.

To stop the YUCK factor that .NET and Java people experience when viewing code, developers must be able to develop code without using tags, it's that simple, and from developers that I talk to, if they could they would.

And if Adobe can offer 100 million for Flex stuff, I really expect to see some serious $ for Coldfusion 8 out of Adobe, I think they get one shot and this is it.

PS: I love ColdFusion and want it to survive, have replaced ASP and Java solutions using it with much benefit and time saving. I really don't want to have to go back again.

PPS: If you want to comment, comment on if you agree or don't agree on points 1-5 not on if I should have written this or not.

Joost for All

2007-05-23T15:07:00.001+10:00

Ok,

So I have a lot of Joost love to give. If you look up my email address, which you can do here

http://groups.google.com/groups/profile?enc_user=MTRrNxEAAADmTh4PiwOMsRp4h2CvmN9NdPDdXUjlbOn07G5UBWfiIg

And send me an email that contains the words Joost and ColdFusion (Caus I like ColdFusion) then i'll invite you.

I Want My Joost TV

2007-05-22T14:02:00.001+10:00

Money for nothing and Joost for free.

Well lots of people are posting offers for Joost Invites, still haven't got one so thought i'd post asking for one.

So if anyone has one spare, send it my way.

PS: I'm happy to offer up an invites I get in return.

Vista & Flash Sound Issues & Delays

2007-05-16T13:32:00.000+10:00

I have noticed that since moving to Vista there are sound delay issues. When playing sounds from flash or other players such as Media Player there is a noticable delay before the sound starts playing.

Further investigation hasn't turned up much, but there must be heaps of Flash people out there that play sounds in time with animations that are having this problem.

If anyone has any clues, feel free to comment

EDIT: I have found the problem, turns out Vista is trying to be too clever and enhancing my sounds, disable sound enhancements and all is good.

See Screenshot Below: It's under Control Panel, Sounds, Speakers.

WOW! You can afford CS3

2007-05-08T09:38:00.000+10:00

Having already owned Studio 8 which was an upgraded from Studio MX.

I was looking at my upgrade options for CS3. I was able to upgrade to CS3 Web Premium for only $500.

This is a great deal, even though I only really use Flash & Dreamweaver I get a host of other goodies that are of value including.

Acrobat
Contribute
Fireworks
Illistrator
Photoshop

I've always wanted Photoshop but could never afford it. It's a smart move by Adobe as they are bringing in long time Alaire / Macromedia people into the rest of their product suite. I've made a conscience decision to drop my current graphics program (Ulead PhotoImpact 12) and do everything in Photoshop. And the stuff I used to do in Corel Draw I will now do in Illistrator.

Why, because I got them for free, they are good products which are the industy standard.

Well done Adobe

Blog Moved from BlogCFC to Blogger

2007-05-01T17:40:00.002+10:00

While I liked BlogCFC the user interface did my head in, having no ability to format posts nicely or easily include images and lists was just hard work.

My main pet hate was when I wanted a break between paragraphs, BlogCFC decided it knew better and stripped them so I'd have to resort to double blank lines or using other tricks.

I really hope Ray uses some of the new Scorpio stuff to improve this. The ability of blogger to easily customize the look and feel of a blog is obviously much better in Blogger and I appreciate that the may have spent more time on it than Ray.

So the additional work, installing, configuring and customizing BlogCFC would have been OK, if the posting entries had been better, after all that's what a blog is for.