With the MAX announcement last week of a $100,000,000 fund created by Adobe to invest in Apollo projects, Ted Patrick has posted some useful info on VC 101 and what you need to know if you'd like a slice of the pie.

I am in Taipei, capital city of the Republic of China, Taiwan, and home to an estimated 2.5 million people. My hotel is right next to the tallest building in the world, Taipei 101.

I got in late last night, and have ColdFusion and Flex related customer meetings today. And then MAX Asia starts tomorrow morning.

The ColdFusion Portlet Toolkit is a proof-of-concept library that allows you to use ColdFusion as a Portal Application within an IBM WebSphere Portal Server (WSPS version 5 and greater). Using the toolkit you can quickly and easily create portlets using ColdFusion. The toolkit is now on labs.

I am in Kansai airport in Osaka, Japan, and have an hour layover here. The airport has free (but s-l-o-w) WiFi, so I logged in to upload/download e-mail. Next stop, Taipei and MAX Asia.

Italian Adobe user group actionscript.it is hosting a full day seminar in Rome on November 6th. As I am going to be in the area I'm planning to drop by to speak on ColdFusion Powered Flex, and to show some Scorpio sneaks. Registration is required.

I am on my way to MAX - MAX Asia that is, in Taipei, Taiwan. I'll be presenting on both ColdFusion and Flex, and will also be presenting some of my MAX keynote content from last week. MAX Asia continues in two other Asian locations that I will not be attending as I have to be in Europe next week. Others will indeed be attending multiple locations, including Ted Patrick who will be in Taipei and Singapore.

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.

Using The FLEXifier you can enter and compile any combination of MXML and ActionScript (the one limitation being that you can only compile a single file, so no external files or data or images). You can start with one of the examples, or enter code of your own. Assuming the code compiles you'll see the results immediately (if not, you'll see error messages instead). And then, when you are happy with your creation, The FLEXifier can even e-mail the SWF and MXML to you directly.

The application itself is a combination of ColdFusion and Flex Java libraries. Initially I was using <cfexecute> to spawn the command-line Flex SDK compiler, but that was just not fast enough. I tried several other options too, before plugging in a very clever Java API interface to the compiler created by Clement Wong (formerly of the ColdFusion team, now on the Flex team). I also implemented a sophisticated caching mechanism to avoid unnecessary compilations. And finally, the application was given a Spry based front-end, thanks to help from Ray Camden.

Enjoy The FLEXifier, and if you have suggestions on how to improve it, please share.

For the latest on Apollo, go to http://www.adobe.com/go/apollo. The page has just been updated based on information released at MAX this week.

Markdown is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML. Seb Duggan has ported the code and created a Java CFX tag named CFX_Markdown.

If you were not able to attend MAX, or just want more information on Apollo, then you may want to join Mike Chambers for an online seminar on Thursday, November 2nd at 3:00 p.m. (Eastern). Registration is required.

The LiveCycle Productivity Kit is a Java package contains several classes that implement LiveCycle APIs as helper classes (and as Java classes, they can be called by ColdFusion, too). These classes cover LiveCycle Security, Reader Extensions, Workflow as well as Policy Server. There are also other classes that implement XML parsing (including XPath) and Base64 encoding and decoding. The LiveCycle Productivity Kit was created by members of the Adobe eTech team, and has been posted to RIAForge.

I've been using the Nokia E62 for over a week, and have really tried to like it. Actually, I do like it, but I've decided to return it.

As mentioned previously, the screen is like nothing I have seen on a phone before, the phone audio quality is superb (and loud, I was able to use it on the loud MAX floor), Bluetooth support sets the bar higher than any device I have used previously, and the web browser is phenomenal.

So why am I giving up on it?

Firstly, I just can't get used to how sluggish this phone is. I don't know if it is Symbian or needing a faster processor, but pressing the Address Book button and having to wait 1-4 seconds for it to display is frustrating. When the text message alert pops up and Show is clicked in can take several seconds of staring at a blank screen until anything happens. And even moving from message to message is painfully slow. The device response time is just unacceptable.

Secondly, the applications are simply sub par. The Calendar app is so simplistic that it is basically useless. The SMS app must have been written by people who don't use SMS very much. The Address Book is barely configurable. And the list goes on. It is a shame to see a device with this much potential hampered by such poor applications. About the only really impressive apps are the e-mail clients, which brings me to my final verdict.

Verdict: The Nokia E62 is a very impressive device, and a really good phone. If your primary needs are phone and e-mail then this is hard to beat (which I guess puts the E62 squarely in the Blackberry category). But if you need real PDA functionality, then this won't cut it. For me, e-mail is less important, whereas calendar and SMS and other apps are just as important as the phone itself. That, coupled with a response time that makes the Treo (and even Windows Mobile devices) look snappy, making the E62 unusable for me.

BTW, if you find yourself in the same boat, and want to return the device, use the following code to reset the device back to factory defaults (removing all of your data and configuration): *#7370# (default lock code is 12345).

And so the search for the perfect phone goes on.

I just got back to Michigan. I left Las Vegas earlier today, after my final session (the 4th time I presented a hands-on introduction to ColdFusion Powered Flex).

The sneaks general session this morning went very well, with attendance better than I expected for an 8:30 morning-after-the-party event. The ColdFusion sneak was not a sneak for many by this point, as we had been demoing the server monitoring in sessions previously (we'll be showing more of Scorpio as we move from alpha to beta). Still, the crowd were pleased to see what we have planned (and seemed to get a kick out of Scorpio Man!). The FDS/Ajax sneak was very impressive, as were the Dreamweaver and Flash 9 sneaks.

These past few days have been a blur of meetings, sessions, presentations, chatting with attendees, some partying, and not much sleep. The general consensus seems to be that this was one of the best conferences ever, which was great to hear.

And now I need to get to work on my content for MAX Asia next week.

Jen deHaan has posted detailed blow-by-blow descriptions of MAX Day 1 and Day 2 keynotes. These are the best summaries (if you can call them that) I've seen yet, and are a definite must read!

It's been a long day here at MAX. This is the first chance I have gotten to get to my computer, and it looks like all of the bloggers here have beaten me to the punch. But, here are some thoughts on MAX thus far:

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 integration in CFMX 7.0.2, showed the ColdFusion Flex Application Wizard, and then discussed "Scorpio". I did not have time to cover Scorpio in detail, but mentioned the sessions on server monitoring and .NET integration, and then showed a little of the imaging capabilities, a subset of what is covered in the image session. The second (which, apparently, surprised many) was on PDF/SWF integration. I first showed some current PDF functionality, concentrating on PDF form field recognition and turning forms into live intelligent forms. I then showed a sneak at the ability to auto-generate a SWF version of a PDF form by running wizard in LiveCycle Designer. I also pointed out that Scorpio, when it ships, will also integrate with PDF forms and allow PDF file manipulation.

This afternoon I presented a 90 minutes session on getting started with CF powered Flex. Despite some initial logistical and technical hurdles, the session went really well. I present that session three more times over the next two days.

We also hosted two ColdFusion BOFs this evening. The first was an open discussion on ColdFusion IDEs, the interaction was far less contentious than I had expected, and we received lots of great feedback. The second was our annual "Meet The Team" session, this time featuring several former members.

Overall, Day 1 has been a phenomenal success. The buzz is good, the crowd excited, the noise level high, the sessions well received ... today felt like MAX is supposed to feel.

The only bummer is the venue. Don't get me wrong, The Venetian is an amazing hotel, and Vegas is, well, Vegas. But I am reminded of why I am not a big fan of these type taking place here in Vegas. There are too many distractions, too many other events going on, too much distance between rooms ... it's hard to find folks just hanging out. Still, this has been a great Day 1.

Tomorrow's keynote concentrates on mobile and devices. Yep, we've done that before, but this year we have an announcement that should make the content far more relevant. Stay tuned!

I just bumped into the Fireworks Product Manager. Yes, the Fireworks that we design-challenged-coders love so much has a Product Manager, and she told me that Fireworks 9 is in beta, and that you can sign up for the beta now.

Oh, and to all of you chicken little doomsayers, phhhbbttthhh!

I am in Hall D of The Venetian going over tomorrow's opening keynote content. Opening rehearsals are going on behind me, and this opening will blow you away. Remember the laser light show in 2000? This tops it! The opening is being kept top-secret, I absolutely can't share any details. Sorry. ;-) The keynote starts at 8:30, be there earlier for the best seats! Trust me on this one, DON'T SHOW UP LATE!

In what seems to be an annual ritual, my flight to Las Vegas was delayed and delayed and then delayed again. And then when we landed we were delayed and delayed waiting for a gate.

But I am here, finally. Now where are folks hanging out?

I'm on way to Las Vegas! MAX 2006, here I come! To those of you already partying, I mean working, see you this evening!

(This message is being sent from my new Nokia E62, about which I have very mixed feelings).

TextMate is a powerful and popular Mac text editor. Bill Duenskie wrote to tell me that he has created CFTextMate, a ColdFusion bundle which provides ColdFusion support for TextMate.

I am a big XM Radio fan, and I kinda like ColdFusion, too. Being able to combine the two sounds pretty compelling to me. So ...

• XM Radio Canada (Toronto, Ontario) is looking for an intermediate ColdFusion developer to work on a large ColdFusion deployment. This is a 6 month contract, and it could potentially turn into a full-time position. Requirements include ColdFusion experience as well SQL Server and MySQL experience. Flex experience is a plus. Details online.

I was just looking at final MAX registration numbers, and yes, we did it! As far as I can tell, MAX 2006 will be the best attended event ever (beating the previous record of 3000 attendees set by Allaire Developer Conference 2000 in Washington, D.C.). Yeah! Can't wait to see you all next week!

BTW, online registration is closed. But we will be accepting walk-up registrations at the event. So it's not too late!

Steve Erat has announced that the Online ColdFusion Meetup Group will be meeting offline Tuesday evening at MAX. It's great to see more and more unofficial events and impromptu meetings cropping up. After all, networking (the social kind, not WiFi) is a big part of the MAX experience.

Lots of you have been asking if there will be WiFi at MAX this year (as there has been in the past). And yes, there will be WiFi available in the exhibit area, as well as in the foyers on levels 3, 4, and 5. The SSID and access code will be prominently posted, too.

So yes, you can blog away and post Flickr pictures to your heart's content. And I guess you can work too, if that is absolutely necessary.

Looks like I'll be heading over to Taipei the week after MAX for MAX Asia (well, the first venue, MAX Asia will actually be held in three locations). I was last there for MAX Asia 2004 (MAX Asia 2005 was in Hong Kong) and am excited to be going back.