I recently brought a Google Talk bot that I put online at cfdocs@gmail.com. Google Talk users can add this user to their buddy list and then submit CFML tag and function lookups to it. (I've also brought Yahoo IM and AIM versions online as nickname cflivedocs, but more on those shortly...

Like the previous incarnations of, the new AJAX enabled HTML grid allows data to be updated right within the grid. When it is used in edit mode, column values may be edited as needed, and rows may be deleted. Unfortunately, the current implementation of the HTML does not support insert...

Everyone is excited about ColdFusion 8; the blogs have been buzzing, feedback has been superb, lots of attendees expressed relief and gratitude at seeing such a compelling ColdFusion built in this new Adobe era - no complaints, no negative feedback, just real enthusiasm and excitement....

Since 1998, finalsite has been bringing cutting-edge web design and web software to leading independent schools and organizations around the world. finalsite currently serves nearly 200 independent schools and a total of nearly 500 schools and educational organizations of all types. fi...

Here is some more information about the first public beta release of Flex 3 (now available on Adobe labs), the first major deliverable for the open source Flex project (including a public bug base, and the beginning of public nightly builds). Some of the new features in Flex Builder 3 ...

Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), formerly known as Apollo, is a cross-operating system runtime that allows developers to use their existing web development skills to build and deploy rich Internet applications to the desktop. And you can get it right now on Labs.

There have been some comments on other entries here regarding JSON. JSON is a data interchange format, and is primarily used as a way to package data for use with AJAX development. ColdFusion 8 (aka Scorpio) adds support for JSON in several ways.

I plan to post a series of examples demonstrating how to use the new Ajax functionality in ColdFusion 8 (many based on examples used during our recent usergroup tour). The first one I'll start with is the auto-suggest control. Auto-suggest is a modified text input box, one that display...

Many of us have built related select controls, forms with two (or more) drop down controls, where making a change in one control causes the available selections in the related control to change. For example, selecting a category in one control displays category products in a related co...

ColdFusion MX7 introduced the ability to asynchronously spawn ColdFusion requests using an event gateway. While many take advantage of this capability, it has some significant limitations, the biggest of which is that threads can only be spawned, there is no way to monitor spawned thre...

After a 7 year hiatus, ColdFusion once again has an interactive debugger, and this time it is built on top of Eclipse (and uses the same debugging interface as Flex Builder, and other Eclipse plug-ins). If you are interested in taking the debugger for a spin, here's what you need to kn...

This is an example that I used when demonstrating ColdFusion 8 .NET integration on the recent usergroup tour, and as requested, I am posting it publicly. GetDriveInfo() returns a query containing specifics about the hard drives on your server, it returns all drives unless an optional d...

The ColdFusion extensions for Eclipse include RDS panels, a Services Browser panel, a CF Log Viewer, RDS support, help, wizards, and of course the interactive debugger. These extensions are available for download along with ColdFusion 8 and will be distributed with the product when it ...

So what does this have to do with ColdFusion? Well, Jason Delmore mentioned this in passing at cf:Objective (and few picked up on it), but we plan to include Apache Derby in ColdFusion Scorpio. The practical implication of this is that if you have to distribute an app that needs a data...

This is a feature first demonstrated in CT yesterday, a new tag in Scorpio named which does just that, it returns information about databases (and data sources, and tables, and columns, and stored procedures, and more). This first code snippet shows how to obtain a list of tables in a ...

One of the Scorpio features that we've been demoing to wide acclaim, is the increased control and flexibility in managing ColdFusion Administrator Access and RDS access. In ColdFusion today, there is a single password for each of these features, and a user with the Administrator passwo...

At one of the usergroup sessions this week someone asked if there was a way to get file information (size, date time, etc.) easily using a function. I said they should use, but afterwards remembered that we did indeed add a new function to Scorpio called GetFileInfo() which returns a s...

Amidst the hustle and bustle leading up to MAX, I managed to steal some time to work on a skunkworks project. The idea was to let people experience the fun and instant gratification of Flex, without needing to download and install anything at all. And thus The FLEXifier.

The opening keynote was superb, definitely one of our more exciting keynotes, and without a doubt the loudest. After several 'let's tease Ben' segments courtesy of Kevin and Shantanu, I got to present two segments. The first concentrated on ColdFusion. I talked about the CF/Flex integr...

Marcel Boucher is the Product Manager in the Technical Marketing Team for the Adobe Enterprise and Developer Business Unit (whatever that means!). In practice, he's a hardcore techie who has been with Adobe for a decade or so, has been involved with LiveCycle for years, is a Java-head ...

It's been more than half a year now since Macromedia and Adobe combined, and during this time we've been hard at work leveraging the strengths of each of these companies to forge the new Adobe. One of Macromedia's greatest strengths was its user community and the resultant relationship...

I've been spending quite a bit of time in FlexBuilder lately, and have started to rely extensively on some shortcuts. Some of these are actually Eclipse shortcuts, but regardless, these are some of my favorite:

Web Host Industry Review is running a story about how 'minor league hockey organization the Ontario Hockey League has begun conducting its draft online through an interface resembling those used in many online fantasy sports pools.' As per the story, the application saves time and mone...

Spry is a JavaScript framework for creating AAJX applications, a library that makes it easy to incorporate XML data into HTML pages using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Want to learn more? Paul Gubbay has written an introduction to Spry. Spry examples are posted on Labs. And you can downlo...

Flex beta 3 is now available for download from Adobe Labs. Download new versions of Flex Builder, Flex Data Services, Charting, Flash Player, the ColdFusion/Flex connectivity bits, and the sample applications. The ColdFusion updater updated ColdFusion to 7.0.2. In addition to the Flex ...

In Flex 2 this all changes. A server is no longer needed to actually serve Flex requests. You may in fact want a server (Flex Data Services), but it is not actually needed. In Flex 2 you can write your code (MXML and AS) and then compile it, generating a complete SWF (in much the same ...

We're being really open with the Flex 2 beta. Anyone can download the bits from the Labs site, and you are free to share the MXML/AS code you write and even deploy the Flex 2 apps that you create. Just keep in mind that in order to execute your apps, users will need to be running the F...

The Flex Developer Derby is your chance to write cool Flex code and win sweet prizes (six chances to win a Xbox 360 and a 42' plasma TV to use it with). The deadline for the contest has been extended to May 31st - more time for you to create one of the winning entries!

This one is intriguing, Feed Rinse allows you to define your RSS feeds, define filters, and then access a single filtered RSS feed.

Several of you have contacted me with problems using Flex beta 2 to connect to ColdFusion via Flash Remoting. A couple of the issues turned out to be configuration problems in flex-enterprise-services.xml (installed under WEB-INF\flex, and needed by the Flex compiler). Here is the file...

One of the examples that I have been using in my user group presentations is a ColdFusion Session Tracker. This application uses Flex Enterprise Services to push real time session details to a connected Flex client.

I have posted a sample ColdFusion powered Flex 2 application to Adobe Labs. The Phone Selector application is a very simple example of a ColdFusion powered Flex application. This sample application is deliberately small and highly focused so as to demonstrate ColdFusion Flex integratio...

ColdFusion MX 7 has some exciting new functionality but the most important and revolutionary of these new features, hands down, is the event gateway. Event gateways are to application server environments what the CFQUERY tag was to database interaction.

It looks like I am going to get the opportunity to present to user groups all over the U.S. in February and March. The subject will be Flex 2, with an in depth look at what this means for us ColdFusion developers, and will include coverage of Flex Builder 2 as well as new ColdFusion Fl...

Several users have wanted to know if ColdFusion supports SQL Server 2005. And the answer appears to be yes. I am using ColdFusion MX 7.01 with the default SQL Server driver, and am connected to SQL Server 2005, and so far so good. Microsoft does have a new SQL Server 2005 JDBC driver i...

Apparently CNet's News.com staff writers Declan McCullough and Anne Broache just can't resist the lure of sensationalism and fearmongering. After yesterday's blatantly inaccurate and highly inflammatory Government Web sites are keeping an eye on you (which undoubtedly generated lots of...

The text reads: 'agencies are prohibited from using persistent cookies or any other means (e.g., web beacons) to track visitors' activity on the Internet'. It does not prohibit all persistent cookies, only those used to 'track visitors' activity on the Internet'. The text does not expl...

FusionReactor is a really powerful add-on for monitoring, debugging and performance tuning your ColdFusion applications and servers throughout the development, testing and production cycle. It lets you look inside ColdFusion and take action when there are problems. Key features include...

I was just on a web site (no, not a ColdFusion powered site, and no I will not name names) browsing for specific content. The URLs used typical name=value query string conventions, and so I changed the value to jump to the page I wanted. And I made a typo and added a character to the n...

CIO Magazine ran a story on Web Services last month. The story is presented as a quiz entitled 'Are You Ready For Web Services?' with 12 multiple choice questions, each with answers worth from 0 to 5 points. I have issues with a few of the supposed right answers, but question 8 really ...