As has been previously noted, AMF is the preferred method of communication between applications running in the Flash Player and server back-ends. ColdFusion developers have long benefited from AMF being built into the core ColdFusion server. And Java developers have been able to obtain AMF support via BlazeDS and LiveCycle Data Services.

But what about PHP developers? There are several 3rd party options for PHP AMF support, including AMFPHP, WebORB for PHP, SabreAMF, and AMFEXT. Thus far there has been no official support from Adobe for our friends using PHP, but that is about to change.

Zend and Adobe are working together on a proposal that would add AMF support to the popular Zend framework, and some details have now been posted on the Zend Framework Wiki. The project is being led by Wade Arnold who also runs the AMFPHP project.

Of course, if PHP developers really want to experience productivity, we invite them to try ColdFusion and experience its Flex and Flash integration. But, even if they opt not to do so, I'm glad that they'll still be able to leverage AMF to build their Rich Internet Applications.

Oh, and Adobe is also a platinum sponsor of the Zend Conference this year.

And another ColdFusion engineering team member has started blogging, this time Jayesh Viradiya who plans to cover ColdFusion, Flex, AIR, and more.

Joe Rinehart has written an article for Dr. Dobb's entitled Building RIAs on J2EE Foundations. Joe explains RIA development from a very ColdFusion and Flex centric view of the world, and walks through an example in detail. Nice job, Joe!

I'm about to head out to Lansing to present at <michigan:FlexCamp>, my shortest commute for any FlexCamp to date. I'll be covering Flex, AIR, LiveCycle Data Services, BlazeDS, and of course some ColdFusion.

Here's a fun AIR app for you, AIRmikan, from Fuji Television Network. What is AIRmikan? Well, I could never describe it as well as the following quote from the AIRmikan page:

Airmikan is desktop virtual pets of digital comic [mikan seijin gril], which is based on Adobe AIR. This Airmikan is selfish so you need to look after carefully. It will die or become so big and your computer will be running slow. You need to watch out!

Come on, with a description like that, how could you resist?!?

With the recent spate of hacking attempts targeting ColdFusion sites, we've added a much needed MAX session entitled "Hack-Proofing Your ColdFusion Powered Sites". Scott Stroz will present the session which is not listed on the MAX site yet, but will be shortly.

I like Vista. I've said it before, and will say it again, Windows Vista works for me, and works well.

But, it's no secret that Microsoft has run into problems convincing the masses to really give Vista a try. And so Microsoft is trying something creative, a fun campaign named the Mojave Experiment. Microsoft assembled a group of users who'd not been exposed to Vista personally, but who seem to have all of those preconceived notions that prevent Vista adoption. Microsoft presented a new version of Windows codenamed "Mojave" to these individuals, and only later revealed that what they were demonstrating was in fact Windows Vista. The videos are fun (well, some of them), as are the participants' reactions. And while I highly doubt that this campaign will change all of those lingering doubts, I really would like Microsoft to succeed at this one. After all, I do like Vista.

But here's the interesting thing. Obviously, Microsoft wants the Mojave Experiment to be viewed as much as possible by as many users as possible on as many machines as possible, and it wants a high quality experience and consistency while ensuring that just about anyone connected to the Internet could immediately view the content. And I am guessing that's why the site is powered by Flash, and not by Silverlight.

As a general rule, you want to be using AMF for communication between Flash Player on the client (running a Flash or Flex app) and your back-end server (unless you need messaging and push and data management services, in which case LiveCycle Data Services is what you'll want).

Lee Brimelow explains this (and lists AMF options for different back-ends) in a recent post entitled What the hell is AMF? And James Ward demonstrates the performance implications in his Census - RIA Data Loading Benchmarks.

ColdFusion engineering team member Sandeep Paliwal is now blogging.

Adobe TV has posted a recording I did on building ColdFusion powered Flex applications. The video, entitled Building Flex Applications Powered By ColdFusion, is one of the longer Adobe TV sessions, and walks through the concepts, building the CFC back-end, coding the Flex client, retrieving data, working with results, events, passing data back to the server, and even working with renderers. The example built uses the standard ColdFusion 8 example databases (so if you have CF8 you have everything you need to be able to follow along), and uses both Flex Builder and Dreamweaver for the actual coding.

I've been a fan of AVG Anti-Virus for a long time. I recommend it to friends and family, have installed the free version countless times, and have a paid multiple computer license for my home network.

I used to use Norton AntiVirus, but that was a long time ago. I abandoned that product in frustration because the software kept getting bigger and bulkier and more sluggish. Utility software should be invisible, doing its work quietly in the background efficiently and unobtrusively, only alerting you to its existence when absolutely necessary. Norton AV started that way. But eventually fancier UIs, the constant addition of new ways to check and scan, bigger and slower updates, just being far more intrusive and in the way ... well, Norton AntiVirus finally become more of a hindrance than a help. So goodbye NAV, and hello AVG.

But this week I updated my wife's machines to AVG 8. And to my dismay, AVG has now fallen into the same trap. The machine instantly became more sluggish, task manager shows the app constantly working harder and chewing up precious resources, web pages started taking longer to load ... you get the picture. But hey, the new version looks so much prettier!

Fortunately, AVG allows you to selectively enable and disable features, and I found a combination that works and seems not to impact performance. Still, it's sad to see yet another vendor succumb to the temptation to build bloatware, a path blazed by the likes of Norton AntiVirus, McAfee, Netscape, RealPlayer, and so many others.

Title says it all. Registration for MAX 2008 Europe in Milan is now open!

We'll be debuting a new session format at MAX North America this year, the MegaLab. I'll be presenting one, a getting-started crash-course session on LiveCycle Data Services and BlazeDS entitled Getting Started with LiveCycle Data Services on Monday, November 17, 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm. I've posted details on the official MAX blog. This one is expected to sell out pretty quickly, so if you want to take part, sign up now!

Lynda.com has released a new course by David Gassner entitled AIR for Flex Developers. This course looks at how Flex Builder 3 and the Flex 3 framework can be used to build cross-system desktop applications with Adobe AIR, and covers every point of integration with the host operating system, including working with the local file system, creating and maintaining local databases, and managing native windows and menus.

I've been debating posting this for the past few days. But, as it does not really disclose anything more than has been publicly discussed as of late (on this blog and elsewhere), and as it actually makes useful suggestions pertaining to securing ColdFusion (specifically from SQL injection attacks), here goes ...

Last week 0x000000 # The Hacker Webzine posted an entry entitled Attacking ColdFusion. The post primarily describes SQL injection attacks, and explains the danger inherent in not using <CFQUERYPARAM>, and also shows the right way to use the tag. It also notes:

The cfqueryparam is generally secure because it utilizes a prepared statement, that is always binded as a string, which in term is nearly not exploitable. But, many ColdFusion applications do not use the cfqueryparam mainly because developers do not know about this, and also because this feature came only in to being, with later versions of ColdFusion.

I strongly recommend that you read this post, if for no other reason then to reinforce the reality that this risk is publicly known and being exploited, and to remind yourself (and your managers, coworkers, clients, etc.) that you must address this potential vulnerability immediately!

The 0x000000 post was also referred to yesterday by ScanSafe STAT Blog in an entry which notes that monitoring in recent days indicates that ColdFusion is now the target of an attack that had been previously targeting SQL Server powered ASP sites.

The use of <CFQUERYPARAM> as a means to enhance the security of ColdFusion applications (and also deliver a side benefit of improved performance) has long been advocated. But, judging by the number of sites that have been compromised by a recent spate of SQL injection attacks (that may in fact be targeting .cfm pages specifically), many have yet to apply this simple and effective enhancement.

I've discussed this subject repeatedly over the years. But, it's critical enough that I want to highlight a post I made 2 1/2 years ago entitled SQL Injection Attacks, Easy To Prevent, But Apparently Still Ignored.

LiveCycle Data Services 2.6 (aka LiveCycle Data Services ES Update 1 has been released. Release notes have also been posted.

I just confirmed that I'll be speaking at the upcoming FlexCamp on the Michigan State University campus in East Lansing on July 30th. I plan to present an opening session on Flex, AIR, Data Services, and more. For more details and registration information, see the FlexCamp site.

Glenda Vigoreaux has been part of the ColdFusion family for many years. She spoke at usergroups, was a highly regarded and requested trainer (and was the highest rated speaker at MAX one year), and was liked by all who knew her. She loved teaching, and considered motivating others her true passion. While I did not know Glenda well, our paths crossed regularly. She assisted in a hands-on session I presented at MAX and then presented that same session a year later, she attended numerous of my presentations, and we once ended up sharing a taxi to Chicago's O'Hare and suffered traffic delays and flight cancellations together, an opportunity she used to share some of her very colorful early life in Puerto Rico.

Glenda was a fixture in the community, a face you expected to see and were glad when you did. But alas, no more. Glenda was found dead in her home in Glendale, AZ, last week, apparently the victim of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

She'll be missed.

[Via Charlie Arehart, who has posted details on his blog].

Tim Anderson has written an article for The Register entitled Consume .NET services without Silverlight describing how he built a Flex app that uses a .NET back-end using Web Services. Thanks to Joel Stobart for bringing this one to my attention.

Adobe Platform Evangelist Serge Jespers (who has extensive Flash and Flex experience) took a 3 day Silverlight training class this week and has posted his thoughts in an entry entitled Silverlight: The good, the bad and the ugly.

J. Peter Bruzzese has written an article for InfoWorld entitled Trade-offs of open source in the enterprise, and uses ColdFusion as the example to demonstrate why both open source and paid commercial offerings are needed. OpenBD's Alan Williamson and Adam Haskell are both quoted in this story.

Long time ColdFusion/Flex/AIR/ etc. friend, Chong-Bing Liu (aka Bing) wrote an article comparing RIA trends (including Flex, Silverlight, JavaFX, and Curl) by using Google Trends. The original article is in Chinese, and he just just posted an English translation.

"Gumbo" is the codename for the next major version of the Flex SDK, and some details on Gumbo have been posted to the Adobe Open Source page (also see the Flex Team Blog).

LinkUp is a job search site, and they currently have 244 ColdFusion related positions listed (at the time of this post). Thanks to Mike for bringing this to my attention.