Users frequently ask me for platforms and operating system recommendations, wanting to know which is best for ColdFusion. And having just answered this one yet again, I am posting it here so as to be able to refer people to it in the future ...

There is no recommended operating system for ColdFusion, and ColdFusion should not be driving your OS decision. From a ColdFusion perspective, there is not a lot of difference between Windows or Linux or anything else. ColdFusion runs in a JVM, and the same core ColdFusion bits run in the JVM regardless of underlying platform. The only real exception to this is Windows specific functionality (like COM support), but core ColdFusion is the same any all operating systems (since CFMX).

So, which OS should you use for your ColdFusion server? I'd not get too hung up on which OS is better for ColdFusion, as just explained, ColdFusion really does not care what the underlying platform and OS is. The deciding factors have to be all the reasons that generally go into OS decision making, things like what in house experience and expertise you have, cost (taking into account ongoing costs and maintenance costs and more), platforms already in use for other servers, and so on.

And as long as you end up deciding on a platform that ColdFusion supports, you're all set.

Tax day is fast approaching, and I've been working (on and off) on my tax forms. The IRS lets you download just about every form you could need from a forms page - pick the form you want and save the PDF, simple. The forms are not just printable forms, they really are PDF forms, in that you can fill in the forms using Acrobat Reader and save them locally while you work. And then when you are done, print them, sign them, and send them in. The big advantage is that the final printed forms are far more readable than my handwriting, oh, and making edits while you work is a whole lot easier.

But I am filling in the forms and see instructions like "Gross profit. Subtract line 2 from line 1c. " and "8 Total income (loss). Combine lines 3 through 7. " and "Cost of goods sold (Schedule A, line 8) " (that's right, just copy a number you entered elsewhere on the same form), and I can't help but think: No! I just typed in the numbers, you calculate them for me! Come on IRS, in 2004 you started distributing fill-in PDF forms, that's great. Now take the next step, it's not that complicated, you just add some very simple computation logic when you design your forms, and you'll have more accurate returns and happier users. For 2008? Please?

cf.Objective() is the only ColdFusion conference that focuses solely on Enterprise-level development. The cf.Objective() 2007 site has been updated with new schedule information, a managers guide (in case you need help convincing your boss to let you attend), a chance to win an iPod, and more.

<cfgrid> has been around for a long time. It started life as a Java applet, then in CFMX7 we added a Flash grid and XML generation, and in Scorpio we plan on adding an Ajax powered DHTML grid.

You'll be able to pass a query to the grid as you did previously, like this:

But where things get really interesting are when data is retrieved asynchronously (in much the same way as in the auto-suggest example I mentioned earlier this week). Look at this example:

The bind attribute specifies the CFC and method to be invoked, and the current page, page size, and sort information get passed to the CFC method which then returns the appropriate query data. And yes, this does mean that paging is supported, the grid contains paging controls and when you move through pages (or resort columns) the CFC method is asynchronously invoked and the grid is updated accordingly.

And of course there is more, for example:

Of course, this is all subject to change. :-)

We've confirmed two European venues for the upcoming Scorpio usergroup tour:

• May 29th: London, England
• May 30th: Munich, Germany

And later that week you'll get to see even more of Scorpio at Scotch on the Rocks in Edinburgh, Scotland.

A meeting in Italy is planned for later in the year, but no date has been set yet.

My boys and I spent this evening playing with my newest toy. The H-Racer is a real hydrogen powered car, a toy that runs on a real hydrogen fuel cell. The car is a kit, and some minor assembly is required - this is actually a really good thing as it helps with learning what the components are and how the car works. You get the sleek looking transparent car, a fuel cell, an on board hydrogen storage balloon, a hydrogen generation station (fill it with water, and power it by A cell batteries or the included solar panel), as well as all tubing and valves. This is not a remote controlled car, nor is it a high performance toy - but it is a real working hydrogen fuel cell powered model. This one is just too cool!

Creative Suite 3 has been officially announced. For an interactive introduction visit the Creative License page. To learn which products are included with which editions, see the product page (click on the Compare Editions tab). And for those of you who were worried, CS3 includes an update to our much beloved Fireworks. Yeah!

Last week Tim and I showed off some of the Ajax functionality that we are working on for the upcoming ColdFusion Scorpio. One of the controls we demonstrated was an auto-suggest control implemented as an extension to the existing <cfinput>l tag. As demonstrated, the tag can be used in two ways. It can use a hard coded list, like this:

Of course, the list need not be static, it could be programmatically generated at runtime as needed. This is an ideal option for shorter lists.

For longer lists the suggestions can be populated via asynchronous calls back to a ColdFusion Component on the server after a delay in typing. The syntax would look something like this:

This points to a CFC named fruit.cfc in the same folder and invoked a method named getFruit() passing the current field value as an argument. The invoked method receives that argument as a string, does whatever processing it needs (perhaps using it in a ) and then returns results which are then used to populate the list.

Of course, all of this is subject to change, but you get the idea.

Ordering a pizza seems to be a popular example use case when building applications. Close to a decade ago, when I was first teaching the "FastTrack to ColdFusion" course, students needed help brushing up on basic HTML form functionality and how to work with the submitted results. So, I had them create a "let's order pizza for lunch" form, which ended up becoming part of the core course.

But Ryan Favro has done a much more impressive job with his Flex Pizza Builder, a Flex application with a really nice data selection interface, a very engaging display, and a cool mashup driven backend. Check it out!

Simon and Schuster was founded back in 1924, originally as a publisher of crosswords and games, but over the years as the home of many important imprints and significant authors and publications. Simon and Schuster is now owned by CBS, and the Simon and Schuster website, SimonSays.com, is powered by ColdFusion MX 7. This one sent to me by Will Tomlinson.

Four positions to post this week:

• eBay (San Jose, CA) an expert ColdFusion/J2EE developer for an internal web-based workflow application. Requirements includes at least 3 years of ColdFusion or J2EE experience, and at least 5 years of Oracle experience. Experience with Flex, Flash, Java is a plus. Details posted on Monster.
• Xeequa (Palo Alto, CA) is looking for a highly experience ColdFusion developer to work on a Web 2.0 project. Must have experience with ColdFusion MX 7 (including Flash Forms and Flash Remoting), JavaScript, ActionScript, Ajax, and MySQL. Contact career@Xeequa.com.
• Metro-North Railroad (New York, NY) is looking for a contract developer with ColdFusion and Oracle experience. This position will also involve helping training existing personal on ColdFusion (including CFReport), JavaScript, and more. This position will not exceed 50 weeks. Contact Jim Hughes.
• Abercrombie & Kent (Oak Brook, IL) is looking for a ColdFusion developer to work on public facing and internal applications. Requirements include experience with ColdFusion MX 7 (1-2 years minimum), SQL Server, and JavaScript. Experience with Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and Acrobat is a plus. Details posted online.

I presented the opening keynote at Spring <br /> this morning. The first half of the presentation covered Flex Data Services, I demonstrated practical benefits of using Flex Data Services (now known as LiveCycle Data Services) as opposed to just client initiated AMF calls via Flash Remoting. Less than half of the almost 300 attendees had any Flex experience, and less than a handful had any understanding of Flex Data Services, so I spent more time on this segment than I had initially planned.

Next came a ColdFusion Scorpio sneak. I demonstrated image manipulation, presentation creation using <cfpresentation>, server monitoring, PDF form integration, and ... some very cool Ajax controls which really got the crowd buzzing. Some of the demos included:

• An HTML (non-Flash) version of <cfinput type="datefield">
• HTML grids created using <cfgrid> that loaded data via asynchronous calls back to ColdFusion Components.
• Auto-suggest implemented using just <cfinput>, with both hardcoded lists as well as dynamic lists returned from asynchronous CFC method calls.
• A rich tech editor embedded by simply adding richtext="true" to <cftextarea>.

We'll be posting more details in the coming weeks and months, stay tuned!

I was working on a report today, and needed horizontal dotted lines between columns in each row, essentially joining the columns to make it easier to read across. There is no automated way to do this in the ColdFusion Report Builder, but Mr. CF Reports (aka Dean Harmon) sent me this brilliant hack ...

Change the field contents from:

To (yep, append lots of .'s with spaces between each). The spaces are key, the reporting engine tries to fit in as many whole words as it can, and without the spaces it'll try to embed all of the .'s or none at all. As long as the Stretch With Overflow property for the field is set to FALSE, the reporting engine will display the column values followed by as many .'s as can fit. Nice!

A week or so ago I did something foolish, I installed Vista on my primary laptop. Ok, so foolish may be a bit strong, after all, I did take precautions. Rather than upgrade my existing machine, I bought a new hard drive and installed Vista on that (so that my old configuration remained intact, just in case). The foolish part of this is that I need my machine all the time. I had to present Apollo at CFUnited Express last week, and will be presenting both ColdFusion Scorpio and Apollo at Spring < br/> this week. I can't afford any down time, and so unnecessary machine upgrades probably fall into the foolish category.

Why did I bother? Probably because Vista is a new toy, and I like new toys. That, and the fact that customers are already running Vista, and I need to experience what they are going through with our products. I need to install Apollo apps, I need to try Scorpio (and in doing so discovered an issue on Vista that we'll address in the next beta), I need to try other stuff that I can't refer to by name yet ... you get the idea.

So, with all of the media hype around Vista, with all of the discussions about upgrade problems, and broken applications, and poor performance on all but the latest hardware, and why you should wait, I must confess that I have so fallen for Vista that I won't go back to Windows XP. Even though it means that I have to do without a few applications for now.

The installation itself was utterly painless. IBM has the ThinkPad drivers I needed, so no problems there. I have to run beta versions of Adobe's virus scanner and VPN client for now, but so far no problems with those either. I needed to upgrade a few utilities to newer versions (WS_FTP, XMLSpy, and others). I needed to apply service packs and hot fixes to SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio .NET. Most of the other apps I needed ran as is. And a few I'll have to live without for now.

I also installed Office 2007 which is superb, but that's a separate post.

Vista takes a little getting used to. Some of the utilities and tools are buried in places other than where they used to be, but that's easily learned. The new UI is slick, the new Windows Explorer replacement is superb, Wi-Fi support is orders of magnitude improved, printer support is close to perfect (it scanned my network, found them, added them, just the way it's supposed to work!), when I plugged in a projector the screen auto-switched cleanly and simply, the peripherals I have thrown at it (cameras, microphones, SD readers, and more) have just worked, performance has been great ... truth be told, I have yet to run into a single real problem yet. And this is not even a new laptop or one designed for Vista, it's the ThinkPad T43P that I got before the ColdFusion MX 7 launch in early 2005. Everything thus far has just worked, and worked really well. As one of my co-workers teased, my laptop is now behaving like a Mac, and maybe it is. ;-)

But none of this is why I'm hooked on Vista. The single reason that I'm not going back is a reason I have not seen mentioned by the press or the reviewers. The reason is simply how much easier Vista is on the eyes. Not being a designer or a creative type I can't quite put my finger on what it is that I like, but the system fonts are much easier to read, the screen contrast is more pleasant, the curves and borders and lines are all gentler and feel less intrusive, edges of fonts and buttons and windows all feel less harsh, icons and notifications don't feel like they are screaming at you. And this is true of the laptop LCD display, my ThinkVision monitors at home, my NEC monitor in the office, and even displays projected on those large conference room screens - they all look and feel better. I guess I did not realize how tough Windows XP was on the eyes until I started using Vista and then went back to XP (to retrieve stuff of that drive that I needed). And with the amount of time I spend staring at a screen, the easy-on-your-eyes gentler Vista is all the reason I need to switch.

Wow, this is Labs week! Newly posted to Labs is Flex Data Services 2.5, now known as LiveCycle Data Services. Go get it!

Adobe is conducting a series of site visits in the San Francisco Bay Area over the next couple of weeks, and here is your opportunity to give your feedback to our researchers.

We are looking for people who are working full-time with web technologies. If this describes you, please fill out this questionnaire. If selected, 2-3 researchers would come to visit you at your office, the session would last 2-3 hours, and you'd be compensated with $200.

Thanks!

I usually only post these once a week, on Friday's. But this ColdFusion opportunity at an organization we all love so dearly, well, it's too good to wait, so ...

Mozilla (home of Firefox and Thunderbird) is looking for a freelance ColdFusion developer who can design, develop, and deploy a set of web applications (including existing ColdFusion applications) to help visualize information from internal and external data sources. This will involve participation at all phases of development, including data model design, application architecture, user interface and user experience design, development, test, and final deployment of the solution. This is a contracting opportunity with a project duration of approximately 3 to 6 months. Please forward a cover letter and resume to breckard@mozilla.com.

In honor of the free posting of the Apollo alpha on Adobe Labs, lynda.com is making a 14 part online Apollo training course by Mike Chambers (almost an hour of content) totally free to the community.

Now that Apollo has been released to Labs, you may be itching to learn more. Well, Luis Polanco, Senior Product Manager for Apollo, will be presenting an e-seminar on Apollo on Thursday, March 22nd, 2007 at 12:00pm East Coast time (9:00am West Coast). Details and registration info are online.

Apollo, the cross-OS runtime that allows developers to leverage their existing web development skills (Flash, Flex, HTML, Ajax) to build and deploy desktop RIA's, is available for download from Labs.

The MAX 2007 site is up, with dates and locations for all three MAX events. Not a lot of info there yet, but there is a link for you to suggest topics (you have until April 10th, 2007 to do so).

My most recent book, MySQL Crash Course, has just been released in Italian by McGraw-Hill Informatica. Information on this book, and a link to the new Italian edition, are on the book page.

The full list of non-English editions of my books is at http://forta.com/books/intl.cfm.

Another Labs release, this time an update to the XMP Toolkit. XMP (Extensible Metadata Platform) is a labeling technology used to embed metadata within media files. The XMP Toolkit allows developers to programmatically access metadata in AVI, EPS, INDD, JPEG, MOV, MP3, MPEG, PNG, PS, PSD, TIFF, and WAV files. The update to XMP Toolkit 4.1 adds Java support (among other things) which means that the toolkit can be used within ColdFusion applications.

Subject says it all, the pre-release version of Flash Player 9 for Solaris (both Sparc and x86 systems) has been posted to Labs.

Spring <br /> is next week, and it's not too late to sign up. Once again they've lined up top-notch speakers including fellow Adobians John Cummings and Kevin Hoyt, as well as Phillip Kerman, Rob Gonda, Joseph Lowery, Steve Drucker, Dan Switzer, and many other well known names. It's been a few years since I last made it down to Athens OH, but I'll be there this year, presenting both a keynote and a lunch time presentation. Topics to be covered during this one day conference include ColdFusion, Flash, Flex, Apollo, Ajax, and more. You get 7 tracks, close to 40 sessions (including 3 hands-on sessions), lunch included - and all for $35 (or less)! That's one heck of a deal, and there is still some space left. I hope to see you there!