RSS feed for InstantSpot site cfguy

ColdFusion 8 - Now with 30% more functions!

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 13:51:56 GMT

ColdFusion 8 introduces 88 new functions to the 291 already in CF.

Rahul Narula lists them - as an image...?

Mad Props to My Homies at the Big 'A'

Wed, 25 Oct 2006 23:25:02 GMT

(Or for you Canadians out there, the Big 'Eh'.)

Just a quick note to gush about how well Adobe has taken care of us attendees at this years' event.

The food is excellent; hot buffets of internationally themed meals (and dessert!), and they have been swinging us perks like a free cappucino bar and Häagen-Dazs ice cream.

The venue is outstanding, except for the fact that people are smoking in the hallways (it's Vegas, after all), and like Ben blogged, it's such a large event that improptu get-togethers are not really happening left and right. I have only run into a handful of people that I know, in fact!

So thanks Adobe for doing such a great job on the conference. Now if you can get the kinks out of the registration process by next year, you should be good to go...

PS: There is a rumor going around that a certain band that is near and dear to my heart is going to be playing at tonight's event at the Palms. It may be time to get ill this evening if the rumors are true...

Notes from MAX, Tuesday, Oct 23

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 20:42:28 GMT

So, it was an exciting general session this morning. Blue Man Group was the suprise opening act, they put on a great 15-minute condensed version of their stage show.

Some exciting stuff on the horizon!

Photoshop and Fireworks will both continue to be developed, and it looks like Adobe will market Fireworks as the layout/interactivity tool for web designers, and will push Photoshop as the high-end graphic design and production tool.
Adobe is releasing an audio editing tool.
The next version of Acrobat will load faster and be less of a resource hog. Yay! It will also support loading and saving data from PDF forms using web services. It will ALSO have a tool that can 'intelligently' convert a scanned-in paper form to a database-driven, fillable PDF!
Flex 2 is FREE. Nobody seems to know this. Download it now. How is it free, you ask? Because Adobe will make money selling their FlexBuilder IDE (which is NOT required in order to develop Flex apps - you can use Dreamweaver, notepad, whatever.. Just like CF), and it's charting plugin. Adobe will also sell 2 versions of a highly optimized Flex Data Services 2 add-on. Flex Data Services 2 Express Edition is free however.
ColdFusion MX8 (Scorpio) will support interfacing with .NET components NATIVELY. This is freaking huge. It basically means you will be able to leverage a vast majority of new code being written on EITHER MAJOR PLATFORM - Java and .NET! For those of us that have had the misfortune of leveraging .NET web services using CF in the past, this will be greatly eased as well!
The new Jaguar (not sure which model) has a 'command console' (temperature, gps, all that good stuff) that runs Flash. It was demoed live and in person at the General Session this morning. Cool Stuff!
A few Apollo apps were demoed. I didn't really "get it" until this morning, but here's the bottom line: Apollo will allow you to develop flex apps that run on any platform (PC, MAC, Linux, Solaris) without any modification. It will leverage each operating system's standard interface. Awesome! It will also allow you to build apps that run online as well as off-line. An demo of an RSS reader that downloads videos for later off-line viewing drove the point home. Keep your eyes on Apollo, it's going to be HUGE.

Stay Tuned!

Adobe MAX 2006 Las Vegas Survival Guide

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 07:38:02 GMT

Just a few quick tips on Adobe MAX 2006, from a Vegas veteran. :)

Check out the monorail. It's reasonable ($10 per day) and will get you all over the place.
If you like table games (BlackJack, etc.) but don't like playing $15 per hand, take the rail down to The Sahara. They have $3 BlackJack tables 24-7. It's an old place, but they've just finished remodeling, so it's not bad, and the dealers are friendly.
If you're in one of the hotels near the Venetian, use the back entrances (parking garages, etc.). The conference center is in the rear of the Venetian, and is quickly accessible from most nearby hotels.
Mind the gap(s)! If you take the rail somewhere and decide to do some walking, make sure you're not more than a mile from the next rail stop. I took the rail down to the Sahara today, and walked back to Imperial Palace, and it took a long-ass time! And there is NOTHING interesting between the Sahara and the Wynn, which is a couple blocks away from IP.
Hawkers and Flickers. The Hawkers are these nice people that usually open by asking if you're going to be here through tomorrow. The Flickers are folks who snap cards with nudie pictures about 2 inches from you (waaaaay inside your personal space) when you're walking by. The hawkers want to sell you a time share. It's not a good deal, trust me. If you want to buy a timeshare, get it on the resale market, people are giving them away. The flickers want to sell you a hooker. Not a good deal unless you have an affinity for exotic diseases. Don't look either of them in the eye, pretend like they're not there. If they sense any interest or curiosity on your part, they will figuratively (maybe literally too) hump your leg until you can shake them off and make a run for it.
Things to see. Yes, Las Vegas is a tourist town. It's kitschy, and sometimes tacky. There are also some legitimately awesome things to see and do here, too. Here's my list of things that I think everyone who comes to Vegas should do:

See the fountain show in front of the Bellagio. Twice. Once during the day and once after dark. Eac show is amazing and spectacular in it's own way. PRICE: FREE
Have dinner in the Eiffel tower at Paris casino across the street from the Bellagio. It's expensive, but if you go at night and palm the Maitre De 10 bucks, you can get a window seat overlooking the Bellagio Fountains, and kill two birds with one stone. The food is first class, and the view is stunning. PRICE: $30-75 per person (worth every penny though - think of it as a 'once in a lifetime' opportunity)
The architecture here is outstanding. See New York, New York, The Venetian, The Wynn, and The Mirage, in particular, but if you have the time, walk the strip and visit them all! PRICE: FREE
Free shows: The Fountains at The Bellagio (see above), The Pirate Show at Treasure Island, The singing gondoliers inside the Venetian (near the turnaround in the canal), The Lions at the MGM, The Carnival In the Sky at Rio (There's a free shuttle from Harrah's), The Lion Exhibit at The Mirage. PRICE: FREE

That's all for now. Let me know if I missed anything, and I will get this updated!

MiniMAX 5 Recap

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 05:29:00 GMT

Last night was MiniMAX 5 here in beautiful and extremely weird Las Vegas, NV., and I thought I'd do a quick recap for those of you who wanted to come but couldn't make it. So here it is. :)

Greg Hamer opened the non-conference with an introduction of the upcoming speakers, and then presented on using ColdFusion to develop Rich Internet Apps, the options available, and covered some of the advantages and disadvantages of each approach.
"Never Bet on The Philadelphia Eagles." Adam Bell showed how to quickly produce 3D Flash animations using Illustrator, while wearing only his man-panties, which was perhaps the most terrifying thing I've seen in my life. Seriously, it was an enlightening presentation, even if over my head, and I learned that sometimes the best way to produce Flash animations is by using something other than Flash.
Stephanie Sullivan followed with an almost-presentation about "creating lean, creative sites with CSS" using Dreamweaver, which did not materialize because of some technical issues (hint: "I'm a Mac!", LOL). Stephane nonetheless earned her keep by setting the tone for the rest of the event by warming up the crowd. Which is probably pretty easy when you're an extremely attractive, athletic brunette surrounded by 50 geeks. To say that she had the audience's attention would be an understatement! Stephanie, you still owe us a presentation, so cough it up!
Scott Fegette from Adobe also had some technical difficulties (of which I don't think it's necessary for me to mention the nature) giving his preso on animating a green screen still using After Effects, but he recovered while Adam worked the crowd to stall (adding a boa and a red teddy to his ensemble). His presentation was worth the wait, and it was mind blowing to watch him create a beautiful, compelling, HDTV-ready animation in the space of about 10 minutes. Again, outside my realm of expertise, but still extremely cool!
Tom Green stepped up to the plate next, with his assistant ~~(whose name I forgot, sorry, I suck)~~ Tiago demonstrating how to wrap a video around a textured object using Flash and After Effects. This was very neat stuff, and it amazed me that anyone could produce these kind of special effects using any cheap-o PC from Wal-Mart or Dell with a very small investment in some special software. It seems like just a few years ago (maybe more, think 'Video Toaster') it cost thousands, if not 10s of thousands of dollars, to achieve a much, much less convincing but somewhat similar effect.
Todd Sanders wrapped up the show by cranking out a web 2.0-styled web layout using Photoshop in just a few minutes. I wish I had it recorded so I could play it back in slow-mo a few dozen times. Another amazing demo of some skills I wish I had. :)

All and all it was a very good night, definitely worth the money.

I'm at MAX 2006...

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 16:23:14 GMT

...in Las Vegas!

I'm going to try to make a few posts about what's going on here, so stay tuned.

I have a good feeling about this trip.. There have already been some good omens.

I got a fortune cookie last night that says

Also, check out my room number... :)

w00t! Stay tuned.. :)

ColdFusion Best Practices

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 17:17:00 GMT

I will be presenting on ColdFusion Best Practices at the Houston ColdFusion Users' Group meeting on 10/18.

Ever work on someone else's code and have trouble reading it, or getting through all the includes, or fixing something simple that ends up taking way longer than it should?

I'll share with you some simple coding practices developed by the brightest minds in the CF community that will make your code easier to maintain, easier to upgrade to future versions of CF, and more compatible with other platforms. Following a few simple guidelines can make your life easier, and make you more valuable immediately and in the long run!

"quoted" vs. non quoted attributes

lowercase, UPPERCASE, PascalCase, camelCase, strHungarian case, or does it really matter?

Are extra pound signs in variables bad? Where should they go/not go?

File naming conventions

Application Structure

Code Indention - When & where to wrap

Variable Naming

CFC's, Custom Tags, cfinclude, cfmodule

As an added bonus, I will show you an easy technique that can improve the performance of certain slow-running pages by up to 100 times!

ColdFusion Developer Urgently Needed in Houston

Fri, 22 Sep 2006 11:47:00 GMT

ColdFusion developer needed ASAP in the Galleria area of Houston. This is a permanent, full-time position that will pay in the ~$60k range.

Required skills include ColdFusion and SQL Server, but they are growing quickly and value a diverse skill set for future need. Immediate availability is a big plus!

There is no significant travel.

They provide services in the income tax industry so there is a busy season before April 15th that will include significant overtime that will be balanced during the off season. There are bonuses available and good benefits.

Shoot me an email with your resume' attached if you're interested. My email address is my first name @ my full name (no underscored) dot com.

-Seth
(Mr. Bienek if you're nasty)