Yesterday's Adobe Developer Day in Bucharest was a success. Over 200 attendees attended multiple sessions, with presentations from Adobe SVP Digby Horner, Adobe Romania Director Alexandru Costin, fellow evangelists, Mihai Corlan, Miti Pricope, and Cornel Creanga, and other speakers. I presented an opening keynote session, and an afternoon session on ColdFusion. I also got to meet with local press, and took part in a live Romanian Business IT TV show (was supposed to be for 30 minutes, but we were cut off at 24 minutes because the TV station broke away for a speech by the Romanian President, oh well, I guess he has seniority!).

I am now in Prague, and tomorrow we do it all again. Once again, I am presenting an opening session, and am also presenting a session on Data Services. The event will take place at the beautiful and historic National House Smichov, and a large crowd is expected here, too.

I am in Bucharest, and today I took part in a full day Adobe Developer Day. I head to Prague tomorrow for an event there on Thursday. Next week I'll be in Moscow for customer and partner meetings, and to present at a FlexCamp on Tuesday, May 26th. If you're in either location, please drop by!

I'll be spending much of next week and the week after in Eastern Europe, starting in Bucharest where I'll get to present at an Adobe Developer Day, and then on to Pargue. Adobe Czech Republic is hosting a full day conference on Rich Internet Application development and the future of the Internet, and I am presenting several sessions. Registration is now open.

Simon Horwith has posted a 4 part series on ColdFusion Architecture for RIAs. He covers ColdFusion Components, Ajax, Flex, LiveCycle Data Services, and more. Not a lot of new info here, but a very worthwhile introductory read. Click for Part 1, Part II, Part III, and Part IV.

I am back stateside. The past few days were insanely intense, but were actually fun. It's been too long since I did one of these country-per-day tours. European ColdFusion Specialist Claude Englebert and I met with about 400 developers, talking about ColdFusion 9 plans, Flex, AIR, Data Services, and more. And the response was incredibly positive (although I was somewhat dismayed by how few people had taken a look at LCDS and BlazeDS, many seem to still not understand what these are).

For those of you looking for the LCDS examples I was referring to, here is what you need.

And as a reminder, for any and all ColdFusion related questions in EMEA, Claude Englebert in your man.

I just got back from presenting to the UK CFUG tonight. 140 developers showed up for 2 hours of LCDS, Flex, and a sneak peek at Centaur and Bolt. The crowd was great, highly interactive, and full of questions (a few of which I even answered).

And tomorrow I have to be up ridiculously early, leaving the hotel at 5:00am to catch a train to Brussels. Pictures coming soon.

I'm heading back to Bucharest, Romania! Adobe Romania is hosting a full day developer day on May 19th, 2009, with sessions covering Flex, AIR, LCDS, and more. I am scheduled to present several sessions including an opening session. Fellow evangelist Mihai Corlan has posted more details on his blog, along with a registration link. Mihai will be there, as will evangelists Miti Pricope, Cornel Creanga, Adobe SVP Digby Horner, and more. Registration is open, and some sessions are already sold out!

Adobe partner Universal Mind has announced the private beta of SpatialKey, a next generation information visualization, analysis and reporting system, designed to help organizations quickly assess location based information critical to their organizational goals, decision making processes and reporting requirements. An intro video has been posted, as has a complete feature list. The app is built using Flex and BlazeDS.

I can't read any of it myself, but, a RIA Day attendee has posted this detailed report in Polish. (The pictures are self explanatory).

It's early Tuesday morning in Milan. MAX Europe started yesterday with a keynote by Michele Turner and Mark Anders. The content was similar to the U.S. keynote, but with local partners and examples highlighted. The Fiat AIR app in particular was a thing of beauty, and the crowd loved the Cocomo demo by evangelists Serge Jespers and Andrew Shorten (I'll post links to those doctored images when I get them).

I presented my 3 hour hands on Flex/AIR/ColdFusion/DS lab yesterday, and this time all worked flawlessly. Phew!

We're now backstage prepping for the Day 2 keynote. Tim Buntel and I are reprising The Agency, slightly modified for the local audience, and with local agents recruited to join the fun.

I just arrived in Wroclaw, 4th largest city in Poland, home to about 650,000, and the location for RIA Day 2008 today. I am presenting an opening session as well as a session on data services. Other sessions are covering Flash, Flex, AIR, and ColdFusion. We're still a couple of hours from start time, so not many people here yet. But, apparently, the event sold out entirely within two days, so am looking forward to a packed room. Which reminds me, I have to finish my opening presentation ...

As a follow up to my MAX session on data services, an attendee e-mailed me to ask me to explain the differences between the various connectivity options supported by LCDS and BlazeDS. I replied with a link to a post entitled BlazeDS and LCDS: Channels, Channels Everywhere on Damon Cooper's blog, and am posting it here as well in the hope that it is useful to others.

This morning I presented a 3 hour MegaLab session at MAX, 180 minutes of LCDS, CF, Flex, and AIR. And things did not go as smoothly as I'd have liked. The 400MB ZIP file that we prepared for attendees worked fine on Windows, but would not work on Mac machines. Apparently, when the ZIP file was expanded, one folder contained files on Windows but was empty on Mac! Other that that, the session went really well. For the Mac users, as promised, I will have a corrected ZIP file built for you to download, and will post the link to it when that is done.

As a follow-up to last week's story on how NaturalInsight uses ColdFusion 8, TechRepublic is running a new story entitled How FoodSHIELD's developers put ColdFusion 8 to good use. In it, Brian Kotek explains what FoodSHIELD does, and how they use ColdFusion, Savvy CMS, Adobe Connect, and more to power their important work. Among the ColdFusion 8 features mentioned are Ajax support and the integrated LiveCycle Data Services (used to power AIR applications).

Once again, I am a MAX track manager, which means I help to define and review lots of the MAX content. In fact, this year I am responsible in some way, shape, or form, for about 50% of the sessions presented at MAX. It's an insane amount of work, but it does come with one great perk - I am one of the first to get to see all of the great MAX content. Last year I used this opportunity to highlight a few "must attend" sessions for the ColdFusion community, and am doing the same this year. And the first session I am compelled to recommend is an update of one I recommended last year ...

LiveCycle Data Services (LCDS) integration was first introduced in ColdFusion 7.0.2, allowing ColdFusion developers to incorporate messaging, push, and data synchronization capabilities into their applications. ColdFusion 8 enhanced this integration, and even supports a single integrated high-performance installation of both ColdFusion and LCDS. And the new LCDS 2.6 adds support for AIR and more, while the free open source BlazeDS allows ColdFusion developers to leverage messaging at no cost.

Many of you know Tom Jordahl. He was engineering lead for several versions of ColdFusion (he joined Allaire a bit before I did), worked on the ColdFusion Flex integration as well as the ColdFusion event gateways, and now works on LCDS engineering. He is thus the perfect choice to discuss ColdFusion's integration with LCDS and BlazeDS.

Tom's session last year on this subject was immensely popular and highly rated. And so I asked him to present an updated version of the content at MAX this year. I have just reviewed the final draft of his session BlazeDS and LiveCycle Data Services ES for ColdFusion.

And once again, this is an absolute must-attend session, and I encourage all ColdFusion developers to add this one to their schedules. Tom is the definitive expert on this subject, and there is no better way to learn about ColdFusion and Data Services than by spending an hour with Tom.

Tom Jordahl's session runs just once this year, Tuesday, November 18, from 4:30pm to 5:30pm.

We've had to make some minor MAX scheduling changes. My 3 hour hands-on MAX session Getting Started with Real-Time Flex and AIR via LiveCycle Data Services has been moved to Wednesday, November 19th, 9:00am-12:30pm. That's the bad news. The good news is that the room we're in accommodates over 200 people, and there are still some open slots left. I hope to see you there, and don't forget to bring your laptop!

I previously mentioned that I'd be presenting a MegaLab session at MAX this year. The session is titled Getting Started with Real-Time Flex and AIR via LiveCycle Data Services, and it'll be a massive bring-your-own-laptop hands-on event where we'll build Flex and AIR apps powered by LiveCycle Data Services, BlazeDS, and ColdFusion. The idea is to give you first-hand experience building apps that leverage messaging, push, data synchronization, online/offline processing, and more. We'll make sure your laptop is configured and ready to go (you'll get setup instructions a few weeks before MAX, and we'll have techies present on the day to help you, too), and you'll walk away with knowledge, and a fully working environment of your own. Fun stuff!

But, as we've started to plan the content, we've determined that 90 minutes is just not enough time, and so the MegaLab sessions (all three, including mine) are now 3 hours long! (Well, 3 1/2 hours actually, but we'll give you a 30 minute break in the middle).

The MegaLab room will accommodate at least 200 attendees, so there will be plenty space for you and your laptop. But, these sessions are already being signed up for, so don't miss out on this MAX first, and register now!

San Diego Department of Child Support Services (SDDCSS) has been using ColdFusion for years, and they have built and deployed innovative systems that truly do make a difference in the lives of children and their families. They've now built a new version of their solution, this time using ColdFusion and LiveCycle Data Services on the backend, and Flex and AIR on the client.

SearchSOA.com is running a story on this project entitled Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) melds with ColdFusion - builds calendaring system for child services agency, and explains in detail why ColdFusion was chosen, why it is still the platform of choice, and how ColdFusion is being used in conjunction with AIR and Flex.

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.

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.

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!

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.

ColdFusion 8 includes LiveCycle Data Services 2.5, and the instructions we've provided on getting CF to use the about-to-be-released LCDS 2.6 leave much to be desired. Joshua Rodgers has written a superb step-by-step post on getting this all working. [Via Ryan Stewart].

At Scotch on the Rocks this week, Adam Lehman and I chatted about ColdFusion, Flex, and LiveCycle Data Services (LCDS for short). We spent quite a bit of time on the latter because when I polled the crowd of 150 or so, only 3 raised their hands when asked who'd looked at LCDS. That's a shame, as LCDS is tightly integrated with ColdFusion 8 and can even be seamlessly installed along with ColdFusion 8, and few ColdFusion developers have taken the time to figure out the value that LCDS bring to the table, and especially the value of the Data Management Services. Which is why we spent time on the subject in Edinburgh, and why I focused on it in recent presentations in D.C., Toronto, Atlanta, and more. So I was really pleased to see that Adobe TV posted my Understanding Data Management Services session today, it's not ColdFusion specific, but it does explain the basics.

I just presented an opening session at WebManiacs in D.C. in the magnificent auditorium at The Carnegie Institution. Less than a handful of those present had any experience with Data Services, and so I spent the bulk of the time on LCDS, BlazeDS, data management services, and more. If you have yet to tinker with Data Services, you may want to check out Christophe Coenraets' LCDS Test Drive and BlazeDS 30 Minute Test Drive.