Viewing by month: June 2009
1 Day, 3 Track Flex and ColdFusion Event in Boston - Looking for Community Input
Posted on Jun 15, 2009
As my regular readers probably know, for the past two years I have run the Flex Camp in Boston each December. Both years have been hugely successful, drawing close to 250 people each year despite horrible weather. This year, I am looking to switch things up a bit. First of all, I am hoping to run the event earlier (October) to avoid the snow storms (hopefully). The other, even bigger change is that I plan to have 3 tracks running consecutively with one focused on Flex, one on ColdFusion and one on related products, technologies and disciplines. The plan right now is to have two keynotes (1 for Flex and 1 for ColdFusion) and to organize it so that if you are interested in CF but not Flex, you could do a full day of only CF and the same goes for Flex.
Continue Reading →My Top 10 Albums from eMusic (so far)
Posted on Jun 15, 2009
I have been a fan of eMusic for
many years. I originally signed up some 6 or so years ago back when you
could download unlimited songs for a flat monthly fee. This changed
about 5 years ago and I put my account on hold for a bit but ended up
returning again about 4 years ago. The reasons at the time were that I
believe in paying for my music but I hate DRM and I believe music
prices are priced artificially too high. Emusic offered me alternatives
to DRM and high prices for much of the music I listen to (which is
mostly not Top 40 stuff, though I do occassionally purchase some
popular artists such as Fergie, Gwen Stefani and Rihanna).
As of
July, eMusic is changing dramatically, by signing with some big name
labels and offering more mainstream artists. This affects our accounts,
especially people like me who are grandfathered in at old rates.
However, it may be offset by a greater amount of options. I can comment
on that more once we see what exactly they are adding (we've only been
given hints so far but few specifics). For now, I wanted to list my
favorite albums that I have downloaded from emusic (in alphabetic order by artist). This only includes
the period from 2006 that my account tracks and, for the most part,
they are all still available on the service.
Feel free to share some of your favorites in the comments.
A Beginner's Guide to the Mate framework for Adobe Flex
Posted on Jun 09, 2009
My latest article for the Adobe Edge Newsletter has been published. It is a beginner's guide to using the Mate framework for Flex and while the example in the article uses a ColdFusion back-end, that isn't the focus of the article. Frameworks, whether in Flex or ColdFusion, can be a bit of the "flavor of the week" type of thing and its easy to get caught up in the hype. However, I have found that, for me, the Mate framework has been a fantastic help in my Flex development. So, if you've been looking to get started with the framework, please check my article out.
On a related note, I will be presenting this very topic at this year's CFUnited. My presentation is "A ColdFusion Developer's Guide to the Mate Flex Framework" and, obviously, will have a stronger focus on how Mate works spefically with a ColdFusion back-end.
Continue Reading →ColdFusion Open-Source Update - June 9, 2009
Posted on Jun 09, 2009
Two new projects and four updates this week. Apparently the OO vs Procedural debate continues to rage on comment threads throughout the ColdFusion community. Thankfully, I am much saner this week having unsubscribed from all the comment threads. However, when you all have bridged that divide and solved the divide in the ColdFusion community, feel free to let me know.
Continue Reading →ColdFusion Open-Source Update - June 2, 2009
Posted on Jun 02, 2009
One new project and two updates this week. Yes, I am late...again. I am noticing that somehow I don't feel like working on this late Monday night because, as you may know, Monday's suck.
Continue Reading →