It's official, MAX 2008 will be in San Francisco, CA, at the Moscone Center, November 16-19, 2008.

Yesterday (while I was offline) Adobe launched the new Adobe Developer Connection - the new consolidated portal with everything you need to build on our platform and products, all wrapped in a slick ColdFusion powered DHTML interface. Very cool stuff indeed, check it out!

I am all packed up, and about to hit the road - driving to Chicago for MAX 2007. See you there!

This is a first! In 9 years (MAX, DevCon, etc.) we've never had to do this before, but ... we've sold out MAX 2007 in Chicago, and registration has been closed! Wow! I can't wait for next week, see you in Chicago!

Oliver Merk has announced that Flex Camp is coming to Toronto on November 15, 2007 (from 5pm to 10pm) at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

FuseTalk Inc has announced version 3.1 of their flagship FuseTalk forums software. This new version adds new features (including blogging support), and has been tested on ColdFusion 8 where "average page time and requests per second turned in a whopping 50% improvement".

The Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority (MPEA) is a municipal corporation created by the Illinois General Assembly. Its Board of Directors is appointed by the Governor of Illinois and the Mayor of Chicago. MPEA seeks to promote and operate conventions, fairs and expositions in the Chicago area in an effort to strengthen the local economy, and as part of this effort, MPEA owns and manages the McCormick Place complex (the venue for MAX 2007). And the MPEA web site is powered by ColdFusion. (Not that that would have anything to do with why we picked this venue, would it? ;-) Hummm).

The three official MAX 2007 hotels are all sold out, which is to be expected considering our record breaking attendance this year. But don't despair - use this hotels.com search and you'll find available rooms a mile or so away from McCormick Place (the MAX venue). And if you have yet to register, you have less than a week to go, so do so now!

A "Get Started with ColdFusion 8 in 30 Minutes" tutorial has been posted online, and can be downloaded from ColdFusion Developer Center Downloads page. The PDF tutorial steps are also online.

We are eBay fans, and have been so for years. We've bought all sorts of stuff on eBay, and have sold a few things too. And we've always been very careful to provide accurate feedback, and have expected accurate feedback in return.

But a few months ago we had a less than perfect buying experience. We bought a product that arrived defective (after a several week delay). The seller (after weeks of nagging) agreed to take the item back and replace it, and eventually he did in fact do so. As the seller did indeed deliver in the end, we opted not to give him negative feedback, but he definitely did not deserve positive feedback either. We left neutral feedback which we felt was honest and appropriate. And the seller responded by leaving entirely undeserved negative feedback about us. Since then, we've been sure to leave our buyer feedback only after the seller has left feedback for us.

But we have another item that we need to leave feedback on, and we intend to leave neutral feedback for this one, too. The problem is that the seller refuses to leave feedback for us until we've left our feedback for him. And we don't want to leave feedback for him until he has left feedback for us.

Apparently, many eBay users are running in to the same issue. Feedback used to be an important way to help determine which buyers and sellers to do business with. But as feedback has become less honest and more retaliatory, the system is fast becoming useless. High positive feedback no longer means that the individual has only high positive feedback, it also means that he or she may have lots of negative feedback that was never left for fear of retaliatory negative feedback posting. The result is that when transactions are good for all parties, lots of positive feedback is posted. But when the transaction is less than good, no feedback is left. Sellers (especially those with scores in the hundreds or thousands) don't care if the feedback is not left, and buyers (especially those with lower scores) can't risk being the recipients of negative feedback.

In other words, feedback scores mean next to nothing nowadays, and that is hurting buyers, sellers, and the whole eBay experience.

eBay needs to fix this by enforcing feedback rules:

1) Feedback should be mandatory, and must have a time limit (perhaps 30 days). After that time limit, feedback should no longer be allowed, and the system should automatically generate negative feedback for non-compliance.

2) All of the feedback for any given transaction should remain private until all parties have provided feedback (or have exceeded the time limit). Parties should be informed that feedback has been left, but they should not be able to see the details until they have left their own feedback.

These changes will help level the playing field, and will help make eBay feedback scores relevant once again.

Way back when, during the usergroup tour, when first introducing ColdFusion 8 server monitoring, I repeatedly made the point that different parts of the feature were intended for different purposes, and that the "Memory Tracking" option was not to be used on production boxes (it's intended for use during development and perhaps during testing, but not for runtime use).

Well, my site was misbehaving the past few days. I was experiencing massive memory spikes, sporadic poor performance, periods of non-responsiveness, and worse. And I just figured out what was wrong. Yes, "Memory Tracking" was enabled. I am not sure how I turned it on, I have to assume that I inadvertently enabled it while tinkering in the Server Monitor some time last week. But, it was indeed enabled, and was busily tracking memory when it should not have been doing so.

So, I apologize if you are one of those who experienced poor performance or downtime. And let this serve as a reminder to others not to make the same mistake.

Eight ColdFusion positions this week:

• Grand Valley State University (Allendale, MI) is looking for a web developer. Requirements include proficiency in server side scripting language required (including ColdFusion) and SQL experience. Details posted online
• Figureseven, Inc. (Fitchburg, MA) is looking for a ColdFusion developer. Requirements include 2-5 years of experience, advanced knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript, and strong relational database skills. Contact careers@figureseven.com.
• North American Technology Corporation (Birmingham, AL) is looking for a ColdFusion developer with at least 2 years of experience using ColdFusion MX or later. Requirements include experience using HTML, JavaScript and CSS, experience using Eclipse and Subversion, as well as strong SQL Server skills. Details posted on Monster.
• Attendee Interactive (Columbia, MD) is looking for a ColdFusion developer. Requirements include 3+ years experience with ColdFusion MX or later, CFCs, JavaScript, SQL, CSS, and more. Details posted online.
• Unnamed client (Boston, MA) is looking for three ColdFusion developers for a 9+ month contract (via JVT Advisors). Contact Bethany Bailey.
• State of Ohio (Columbus, OH) is looking for a ColdFusion developer for a 6 month contract (via The Vortechs Group). This is a ColdFusion 8 position in a large Java shop, so ColdFusion Java integration experience is a plus. Contact Glen Gardner.

In January 2007, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received a donation of a photograph album that appears to have belonged to SS-Obersturmführer Karl Höcker, the adjutant to SS-Sturmbannführer Richard Baer, the commandant of Auschwitz. The album can now be viewed in its entirety online, and features Karl Höcker, Richard Baer, Rudolf Hoess, Josef Kramer, and über monster Josef Mengele (known to inmates as The Angel of Death).

This album is incredibly disturbing, in a way unlike any other album I have seen from Auschwitz or any other camps. The album contains no pictures at all documenting Nazi atrocities. Rather, the pictures are all of happy Nazis just going about their lives - all within feet of where millions were exterminated. Pictures of a hunting trip, snacking on blueberries, dedicating a new hospital building, a visit to a coal mine, and more.

It is easy to dehumanize the purveyors of Nazi genocide so as to help come to grips with the Holocaust, but this album shows a very normal looking human side to some of the most notorious men in Nazi Germany, and that's more disturbing that I had expected.

Chris Brown of Motionbox snagged the 4000th MAX 2007 registration spot, and won a copy of CS3 Master Collection. So, we've broken 4000 - is 5000 doable? Would be fun! There is still space at MAX 2007, sign up now!

The final MAX 2007 BOF schedule is now online.

Ted Patrick just posted the following MAX 2007 registration graph.

Too cool, and we have over a week to go!

Oh, and I think we may have a nice surprise gift for whoever is the lucky 4000th! So, if you have not yet done so, register now!

Andrew Shorten has announced that he is given away free MAX Europe passes next week (one each day), and that one person will even get flights and hotel covered!

As mentioned previously, Tim Buntel, Ted Patrick, and myself, will be presenting a seminar in Italy next month (the week after MAX Europe). Registration is now open.

Adobe has partnered with Total Training to offer free online Flex training for 30 days. Details online.

Andrew Binstock has written a great article for the Software Development Times, sharing his thoughts on ColdFusion 8.

Am posting these a little late this week, sorry:

• Arrow (Laval, Quebec, Canada) is a looking for a bilingual (English and French) speaking ColdFusion developer for an unnamed client. Experience with MVC based methodologies is required, as is experienced with CFCs and SQL Server. Details posted online.
• Singlebrook Technology, Inc. (Ithaca, NY) is looking for a ColdFusion developer (requesting a "ColdFusion wizard" specifically). Requires experience with ColdFusion MX or later, JavaScript, SQL, CSS, and more. Details posted online.
• Blue Raster (Arlington, VA) is looking for a Flex developer. ColdFusion experience is a plus for this one. Details posted online.
• Perrin Quarles Associates (Charlottesville, VA) is looking for a ColdFusion developer. Requirements include experience with XML, Web Services, Java, SQL Server, and Oracle. Details posted online.
• Southwest Signal Engineering Co. (Jacksonville, FL) is looking for a ColdFusion developer to work on ColdFusion 8 Applications. Requirements include 3+ years experience with ColdFusion, CFCs, object oriented concepts, SQL, and more. Please send resumes to Alan Daveline.

Ben Clinkinbeard, Brian Holmes, and Brendan Meutzner have announced flexmdi, a really cool extensible, open source solution for creating MDI interfaces in Flex. The demos are very impressive, and this is one I can see a real need for.

Adobe is hosting a full day event entitled "Adobe Business Exchange 2007" in Brussels, Belgium (on October 24th, 2007) and The Hague, Netherlands (on October 25th, 2007). I plan to be at both of these events to talk about ColdFusion and more.

Tim Buntel, Ted Patrick, and I, will be presenting a full day seminar on ColdFusion and more in picturesque Pavia, Italy (near Milan) on October 22nd (the week after MAX Europe). Details posted online.

Vishnuprasad, a ColdFusion developer in India, has started a blog on ColdFusion .NET integration.