ColdFusion News Desk

Microsoft's Virtualization Chief Mike Neil To Keynote SYS-CON's Virtualization Conference & Expo

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 09:15:00 EDT

Mike Neil is general manager for virtualization strategy in the Windows Server Division at Microsoft. Mike is focused on the delivery of the Windows virtualization technology, including Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Microsoft Hyper-V Server and Virtual PC 2007. Mike also directs the technical enablement of Microsoft's broader vision for virtualization, to include virtualization management tools and virtualized desktop infrastructure. Prior to this role, Mike was responsible for Microsoft?s server and PC virtualization efforts since 2003.

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

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:45:00 EDT

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

Adobe's Kevin Lynch and Microsoft's Scott Guthrie to Keynote AJAX World RIA Conference & Expo

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 08:00:00 EDT

Two of the biggest launches in Rich Internet Application history took place in 2007/2008 when Adobe launched AIR 1.0 in February '08 and Microsoft launched Silverlight (September '07). At the 6th International AJAXWorld RIA Conference & Expo in October SYS-CON Events is delighted to be presenting major industry keynotes from the two industry executives with overall responsibility for both of those massive richer-web initiatives: Adobe's CTO Kevin Lynch and Scott Guthrie, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft's .NET Developer Platform.

Voyager Offers Android, .NET CF, Java Runtime Support

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:15:00 EDT

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

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

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:45:00 EDT

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

CFDynamics Announces Renewed Agreement with SmarterTools

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 08:15:00 EDT

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

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

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:30:00 EDT

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

Adobe Betas Three Pieces of CS4

Fri, 30 May 2008 08:15:00 EDT

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

AJAX World - Google Prices App Engine

Fri, 30 May 2008 08:15:00 EDT

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

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

Thu, 29 May 2008 14:30:00 EDT

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

AJAX World - Adobe Flex 4 Is Shaping Up

Thu, 29 May 2008 11:15:00 EDT

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

Clear Data Builder 3.0 is Free Now

Thu, 29 May 2008 11:15:00 EDT

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

AJAX World – Personal Branding Checklist

Tue, 27 May 2008 15:30:00 EDT

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

View "Virtualization Power Panel" Live on SYS-CON.TV

Sun, 25 May 2008 12:45:00 EDT

Red Hat CTO Brian Stevens, Citrix CTO Simon Crosby, Egenera CTO Pete Manca, Allen Stewart, Group Manager, Windows Virtualization at Microsoft, and Brian Duckering, Sr. Director of Products and Alliances at Symantec were the top industry executives who joined Jeremy Geelan in the 4th Floor Reuters Studio overlooking Times Square for a special SYS-CON.TV 'Virtualization Power Panel' recorded on June 22, 2008, the day before the opening of SYS-CON's 3rd International Virtualization Conference & Expo - which was held 23-24 June 2008 in New York City.

What Is ColdFusion in the Age of Java?

Fri, 23 May 2008 14:00:00 EDT

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

Ulitzer to Give Drupal 6.0 Its Biggest Scalability Challenge Yet

Mon, 19 May 2008 06:15:00 EDT

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

Opinion: Give ColdFusion Some Room to Breathe

Fri, 16 May 2008 12:45:00 EDT

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

Viewpoint: Not Every ColdFusion Developer Should Be A Flex Developer

Fri, 16 May 2008 11:45:00 EDT

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

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

Fri, 16 May 2008 11:45:00 EDT

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

AJAX World - Xceed Launches Microsoft Silverlight 2 Control

Fri, 09 May 2008 15:00:00 EDT

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

AJAX World - Curl Launches Adobe AIR Competitor

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 18:30:00 EDT

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

Is the Silverlight Adoption Rate Artificially Inflated?

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 17:45:00 EDT

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

Improve Your Coding Smarts with ColdFusion

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 07:45:00 EDT

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

Silverlight 2 - Adobe Flex Killer Is on Its Way!

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 11:00:00 EDT

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

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

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:15:00 EDT

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

Early Notes on GoogleApps

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:15:00 EDT

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

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

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:15:00 EDT

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

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

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 14:45:00 EDT

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

AJAXWorld and Bear Stearns

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 09:00:00 EDT

This was the first time I've included into the list of the RIA players a little known product called Curl. Even though this language was created in MIT, it's mainly used in Japan. I had a chance to spend an hour with Curl folks today, and it seems that this language may be a good fit for RIA that require solid processing power on the client. I need to spend more time studying this language to form an opinion about this language Curl.

Adobe Puts Out AIR for Linux

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 05:30:00 EDT

Adobe has put an alpha pre-release of AIR for Linux up in hopes, it says, of getting feedback from the community, not to mention winning adherents. It's English-only. The company also joined the Linux Foundation to encourage the growth of RIA technologies on Linux, it said. The company says Linux developers can use HTML, AJAX, Flash and Flex to build rich Internet applications (RIAs) that deploy to desktops across operating systems.

Web 2.0 Is Fundamentally About Empowering People

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 05:00:00 EDT

'Unlocking content to be remixed into new business value' is the driver of Web 2.0 in the enterprise, says Rod Smith, IBM VP of Emerging Internet Technologies, in this Exclusive Q&A with Jeremy Geelan on the occasion of IBM's release of a new technology created by IBM researchers, codenamed 'SMash' - short for Secure Mashup.

Why Do 'Cool Kids' Choose Ruby or PHP to Build Websites Instead of Java?

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:30:00 EDT

Here is a question that I have been pondering on and off for quite a while: Why do 'cool kids' choose Ruby or PHP to build websites instead of Java? I have to admit that I do not have an answer. Why do I even care? Because I am a Java developer. Like many Java developers, I get along with Java well. Not only the language itself, but the development environments (Eclipse for example), step-by-step debugging helper, wide availability of libraries and code snippets, and the readily accessible information on almost any technical question I may have on Java via Google. Last but not least, I go to JavaOne and see 10,000 people that talk and walk just like me.

OpenAjax F2F Meeting in New York City

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 07:30:00 EDT

The F2F meeting of OpenAjax Alliance at NYC on March 21st worked out really well in my oppinion. As a result of the last F2F meeting in October 2007, we formed a new task force called 'Runtime Advocacy Task Force' at OpenAjax. The goal of Runtime Task Force is to collect a 'wish list' from the Ajax community, get the communities involved, have active dialogs and engage browser vendors, with the goal of fixing the issues that have bugged down Ajax developers and help build a better web. So far we've collected a list of 29 issues, of which we hope to open up to the general public for review/comments/voting.

Billy Hoffman Explores AJAX Vulnerabilities at AJAXWorld

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:30:00 EDT

The work of Billy Hoffman, lead security researcher for SPI Dynamics (www.spidynamics.com), which was purchased by Hewlett-Packard last year, has been featured in Wired, Make magazine, Slashdot, G4TechTV, and in various other journals and Web sites. Today though he is in full flow at the inaugural AJAX Security Bootcamp, an all-day deep dive into Web application vulnerabilities being held on Day One of the 5th International AJAXWorld Conference & Expo in New York City.

Drupal Creator Forms Company

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Acquia has yet to price its maintenance and support subscriptions - there should be a variety of SLAs - but they're supposed to include an electronic update notification system code named Spokes for updates that have been reviewed for security and compatibility and are supported by Acquia. Acquia is currently at 12 people, expecting to be 25 by the end of the year. Its Series A money comes from Northbridge Venture Partners, Sigma Partners and O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. According to Dries' blog, Drupal 7 should offer the ability to create, share and mashup managed content, letting Drupal be a data repository accessed by tools and web sites across the network.

Task Portfolio Software Created Using ColdFusion 7

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:15:00 EST

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

ILOG Ships Graphical Visualization Tool for Flex

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 17:15:00 EST

ILOG. a member of the OpenAjax Alliance, announced that its graphical visualization offering for Adobe Flex, ILOG Elixir, is shipping with feature and sales channel enhancements. ILOG Elixir, available now, was warmly received by the Adobe Flex community during its Beta period.

RIA Development Update: Flex 3, Air 1.0 and BlazeDS Released

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 10:00:00 EST

Eighteen months ago Flex 2 was released, which literally changed the way people think of rich Internet applications. Since then lots of things have happened in the Flex community. In 2007 Adobe announced that Flex will go open source, and now it has happened. All ActionScript 3 and Java code including Flex compilers and debugger (FDB) are going open source. And let?s not forget about the number of other open source products released by Adobe during the same period of time.

Where Are RIA Technologies Headed in 2008?

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 02:45:00 EST

I am always being told off by i-technologists for quoting Picasso as having said that computers are useless. But I still love his reasoning: 'Because they can only give you answers.' Picasso, like AJAXWorld Magazine, liked questions. So we thought we would share with you what some of the world's leading rich Internet application pioneers are thinking may be the next questions that we need to see answered. From that, readers can themselves infer: where is AJAX headed next?

Should You Choose AJAX or Adobe?

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:30:00 EST

AJAXWorld in 2007 was sponsored by the world's leading rich web technology providers including: 3Tera, Addison-Wesley, Adobe, Apress, Backbase, Bindows, Conference Guru, Cynergy Systems, Dynamic Toolbar, Extension Media, Farata Systems, Flash Goddess, FrogLogic, GoingToMeet.com, Google, Helmi Technologies, IBM, ICEsoft, ILOG, IT Mill, Ittoolbox, JackBe, JetBrains, Kaazing, Krugle, Laszlo Systems, Lightstreamer, Manning Publications, Methods & Tools, Microsoft, Nexaweb, OpenSpot, OpSource, Oracle, Parasoft, Passport Corporation, PushToTest, Quasar Technologies, Rearden Commerce, Servoy, SmartClient / Isomorphic Software, SnapLogic, Sun Microsystems, TechTracker Media, Tele Atlas, The Thomson Corporation, ThinWire, TIBCO Software, TileStack, Universal Mind, Vertex Logic, Web Spiders, and Webtide.