Damon Cooper, the guy who runs the ColdFusion engineering team, is blogging at http://www.dcooper.org/blog/client/. Welcome aboard Damon!

The Detroit Lions, my local NFL franchise, also has a ColdFusion MX powered site at http://www.detroitlions.com/. In addition, the Ford Field site at http://www.fordfield.com/ and the Lions media site at http://media.detroitlions.com/ are also powered by ColdFusion MX. This one courtesy Chris Poterala of TEKgroup (the company which built and hosts these sites).

The Dallas Cowboys website at http://www.dallascowboys.com/ is powered by ColdFusion MX. And their cheerleaders have a ColdFusion powered site too at http://www.dallascowboys.com/cheerleaders/. Thanks to Tony Weeg for this one.

Web services are making new inroads into e-commerce. When mobile electronics and wireless phones retailer Car Toys Inc. sought out an online marketplace retailing solution, it turned to Mercent for a system that enabled it to grow its presence online and minimize IT costs. And the solution was built in ColdFusion. Story at http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1648824,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594.

French company Parrot S.A. will be introducing a new device at a Paris Motor Show tomorrow. According to the press release, "The Parrot CK3300 is the first Bluetooth car kit to provide GPS functions that allow the use of PDA or smartphone navigation software while using the phone hands free. The CK3300 is compatible with all existing navigation systems and Bluetooth® telephones". In other words, it is a Bluetooth handsfree device (speakerphone) and a GPS receiver all in one. Too cool. Details at http://www.driveblue.com/.

The 3rd edition of my "Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes" has just been released in Swedish by Pagina Förlags AB. Information on this book, and a link to the new Swedish edition, are at http://forta.com/books/0672325675/.

Contribute 3 includes a set of out-of-box Contribute Publishing Services (CPS, part of the Web Publishing System or WPS) for logging, e-mail notification, and user management. But did you know you can create your own services too? The real power of CPS is unleashed with custom services that extend and integrate Contribute in exactly the way you want. Tom Lane has posted an article on using ColdFusion to create a custom CPS. See http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/contribute/articles/custom_cps.html.

ColdFusion debug output is displayed at the bottom of the generated page, right? Well, not necessarily. Ever since ColdFusion MX, this output has also been available in a separate window, as well as in the results panel in Dreamweaver (in a really nice tree control). But, as many Dreamweaver users know, clicking the debug button might generate no debug output at all, because the relevant IP address may not have been defined in the ColdFusion Administrator. One of the Blackstone Dreamweaver extensions solves this problem, cleanly and transparently, so that debug output will be generated when the debug button is clicked without having to manually set any IP address.

Need to add a datasource but don't have access to the ColdFusion Administrator? One of the Blackstone extensions to Dreamweaver solves this problem for you. Click the + button above the list of datasources and you'll be prompted for all the details needed to define a datasource, details which Dreamweaver will then submit to ColdFusion creating the datasource on the server (without ever having to open the ColdFusion Administrator). This one will make life easier for lots of users.

Blackstone will ship with Dreamweaver extensions designed to simplify ColdFusion application development (especially for beginners, but some useful for all developers). One that I was just using is a toggle inserted into the Application panel that changes the list of displayed CFCs, toggle one way to show all CFCs and toggle the other way to see just the ones in your application. My server-wide CFC list has grown to the point that this list was too long to be useful, and this little enhancement is much appreciated.

Need a hand picking your next cell phone? Try PhoneScoop's Phone Finder at http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/finder.php. Select the features or services important to you, and PhoneScoop will show you the matches.

I've been tempted by Blackberry, but thus far have shied away from the device (I don't like the bulky form factor and was never impressed with the phone functionality and interface). But that might have changed. Blackberry has announced the 7100, a Blackberry that feels and looks more like a phone, it supports Bluetooth (an absolute base requirement for me) and quad-band GSM. The only problem I see is that the device is locked and only supports T-Mobile, and I have seen no details of an AT&T edition (or better, an unlocked phone). Details at http://www.blackberry.com/blackberry7100/.

This one totally changes the meaning of the word "bugs". Terminix, the pest control company, uses ColdFusion MX (and Fusebox) for their site at http://www.terminix.com/. Thanks to Alex Sherwood for bringing this one to my attention.

I mentioned this in Europe this week, and as others have blogged it I thought that I should mention it directly myself. My public facing sites (http://www.forta.com http://www.cffaq.com and others) are running on Blackstone, and have been since early alpha days. I did not mention this until now because I wanted to see if users would comment on any problems or issues, and none have. While I have definitely found bugs in some of the new Blackstone features, core CF (pre Blackstone functionality) has been running perfectly, not an error, and no problems logged. As a matter of fact, I have even been updating the server every few days with newer product builds (yes, server updates, on a live production box) and so far so good. Blackstone, now in beta, is essentially ColdFusion MX 6.1 with new stuff added to it, which means that core CF is for the most part unchanged. All indications are that they CFMX.x to Blackstone migration, when the product finally ships, should be one of the most painless ColdFusion upgrades ever.

I just finished a full day of Blackstone related activities in Cologne, Germany. Once again, this was a very interactive and engaged crowd, they were even willing to delay their coffee and cake break so as to be able to see more demos! :-) The big winners, (which was greeted with the now regular "I need it now" response), Flash forms, and event gateways. Lots of interest in the new deployment options too. Kai König was blogging in real time from the back of the room, you can read his comments at http://www.bloginblack.de/.

I spent less than 10 hours in Italy yesterday. A quick flight in, a taxi to the venue, a presentation, and then back to the airport. The event was a combined usergroup and partner presentation, a format used during my previous Milan visits. The Italian CF community is not that big, but they are close knit and very knowledgeable. The presentation lasted several hours, and the crowd was enthusiastic and very interactive (despite the language barrier). The big winners? and Flash forms, until I talked about event gateways that is. Another great event.

I arrived in Cologne, Germany, last night (by way of Frankfurt), and checked in to my hotel to discover that their high-speed network is down.

Well, it is a good thing I have dial-up as a backup. Right? Nope, the modem in my notebook is dead, I tried to pick up a PCMCIA modem before I left the US but could not find one in any local store, and left it too late to order one online (apparently users are not buying that many modems nowadays, which is kind of understandable, actually).

But, I have a GPRS card, I'll just use that. Right? Nope, it is a dual-band card, the wrong two (850 and 1900 which are usable in the US, instead of 900 or 1800 which are usable in the rest of the planet).

Last resort, a Bluetooth connection to my quad-band phone. Right? Nope, my ThinkPad does not have built in Bluetooth. I use a PCMCIA card, and just managed to bend another one. A replacement had been ordered, but it did not show up before I left.

There is a very naked feeling to not being able to get online at all. Which is kind of scary actually, both the feeling, and the fact that it exists.

Anyway, I am the venue for today's events, and there is a wireless LAN here. Thank goodness.

I just arrived in Milan, a little later than planned, and I am on my way to the event venue (posting this from inside of a taxi). I'll be discussing ColdFusion Blackstone and Flex with partners and users this afternoon, and then it's up to Cologne (via Frankfurt). Ciao!

The usergroup event this evening went really well. A standing room only crowd of 80 attendees packed into the venue, an old church that had been renovated into a high-tech office, and the response and feedback to Blackstone was phenomenal. What most impressed me was how tech-savvy and current the group was, over 90% of those present were running CFMX or CFMX6.1, a considerably greater percentage than what we usually see. The big winner here was , most attendees identified that tag is the reason to upgrade. The close runner-up was event gateways. As I said, a very tech-savvy crowd indeed.

Next stop, Milan.

I am in Amsterdam, the only place in the world where I have seen multi-story parking lots for bicycles. It has been a while since I was here, and longer since I spoke to a usergroup here, so I am looking forward to tonight's event.

I'm heading out of the door to catch a flight to Europe. I'll be presenting Blackstone (and more) this week at events in Amsterdam, Milan, and Cologne. If you are in the area, drop by!

A few weeks ago I blogged a series of posts on defending ColdFusion against other technologies (see http://www.forta.com/blog/index.cfm?mode=e&entry=1266). Marco Casario has translated these posts in to Italian, and they can be found at:

Defending ColdFusion against ASP.NET http://www.ingenium.ws/tutorial.cfm?id=238

Defending ColdFusion against PHP http://www.ingenium.ws/tutorial.cfm?id=240

Defending ColdFusion against Java http://www.ingenium.ws/tutorial.cfm?id=242

Defending ColdFusion against ASP http://www.ingenium.ws/tutorial.cfm?id=241

Thanks Marco!

To MAX, and to election day in the US. Without turning this into a political forum, the upcoming election is one of the most important in US history, and looks to be an incredibly close race. If you are a US citizen eligible to vote, and are attending MAX in New Orleans, you will need to arrange for an absentee ballot in order to vote in the election (just like you had to do if you attended DevCon 2000). I applied for my absentee ballot yesterday, and urge you to do the same. Absentee ballot details and rules vary from state to state (and possibly from city to city), so consult your own state laws for more details. The MAX team has posted a list of state links at http://www.macromedia.com/macromedia/events/max/election/.

I spoke at a conference recently. As a presenter I was given a login to a site to upload speaker materials, read feedback, and more. The site sent me occasional e-mail reminders (need your bio, provide session description, etc.), and every e-mail included, as a reminder, my login and password. Yes, my password, in a plain old SMTP message, in clear text. Nice, huh? So I sent the organizers several messages suggesting that passwords not be sent in e-mail messages like that, and I thought the situation had improved. But ... they just sent another e-mail message, this time not to me but to an events person at Macromedia (someone who helped set up this speaking engagement), and of course the message contained my login and password! Let this serve as a reminder to all to use different passwords for different apps and sites.

Macromedia has created a hot fix to address a problem with ColdFusion MX 6.1 Updater in the server configuration (which uses an internal version of JRun 4) or the J2EE configuration running on JRun. If a request is sent to ColdFusion MX before the ColdFusion application is fully loaded and running, ColdFusion will not serve requests. See http://www.macromedia.com/support/coldfusion/ts/documents/cfhotfixrequests.htm.