Last night I presented ColdFusion, Flex, and more to a joint meeting of the local Flex and ColdFusion groups. The group took a little while to warm up, but then really got going. The session ran over 2 hours and was highly interactive.

Big winners were spreadsheet integration, ORM, Bolt extensions, and the data connectivity in Flash Builder 4. We also got into a lively and heated tangent conversation about the AS3 server proof-of-concept shown during the MAX sneaks last year (the crowd was lobbying heavily to turn this into a product).

Last night wrapped my scheduled usergroups presentations, for now.

I am on my way to Toronto for tonight's usergroup presentation on ColdFusion and Flex. Details posted online.

I am in San Francisco for a few days of meetings, video shoots, and more (almost all MAX 2009 related). But tonight I'll get to do what I really enjoy doing, presenting to our usergroups. I'll be presenting ColdFusion and Flash Builder futures to the BACFUG group this evening at 6:30pm in the Adobe San Francisco office (601 Townsend). Details posted online.

"Debbie" is a persona, a composite character representing a type or class of developer. Lots of Flash Builder 4 features are being built with "Debbie" in mind, and Tim Buntel is asking for help finding Debbie to validate and test features. More on Tim's blog.

I presented to 4 usergroups this week, primarily focusing on ColdFusion futures (including "Bolt", the planned ColdFusion IDE) but also covering Flash Builder 4 and Flash Catalyst.

The reactions at all groups were highly consistent - enthusiasm, excitement, and lots of spontaneous applause. The big winners (measured using the rather unscientific applause-o-meter) were the spreadsheet support planned for ColdFusion "Centaur" (easily #1), ORM support, and "Bolt", as well as the Flash Builder 4 ColdFusion data integration.

I'm not presenting to any groups this coming week, but will present to the San Francisco and Toronto groups the week after that. And there are lots of other tour dates too, presented by other members of the Adobe Platform Evangelism team.

Last night's usergroup event in NYC was incredible! A crowd of about 120 packed one of the beautiful new conference facilities at NYU Medical Center, and we chatted for over 2 hours about ColdFusion, Flex, Flash Catalyst, and more. The crowd was amazing, dozens of questions and comments and interruptions before I had even gotten to the second feature! The crowd was so involved and engaged and enthusiastic that I actually had to ask them to stop the questions a couple of time so as to get to the next topic, and that does not happen often.

Thanks to Ben Nadel and Clark Valberg and crew for putting together an incredible event, complete with top notch catered food (sandwiches, sushi, and even ColdFusion branded cupcakes)! Oh, and sorry about the late start (darned NYC construction crews and cabbies who are unaware of them).

Next up, flying to Minneapolis for tonight's session to the Twin Cities ColdFusion Usergroup.

Yesterday's usergroup presentation in Washington, D.C. went very well. Lots of excitement, good (and some tough) questions, and the interactivity I've come to expect from this group. What I did not expect was the poor turnout, this has been one of the best attended groups for over a decade, and yesterday's numbers were the lowest I have seen for this group. That was quite a disappointment, but I'll chalk it up to the suddenly nasty weather (which also wreaked havoc on flight in the area).

After the presentation I was treated to a tour of the White House. I got to follow the standard tour, through the Red Room, Green Room, Blue Room (RGB colored rooms, interesting), the State Dining Room, and more. I also got to look into lots of other rooms, including the Cabinet Room and the Oval Office. And then I got to see parts of the White House compound not on the official tour. The experience was entirely surreal, and rather awe inspiring (despite the fact that every room felt smaller than how I had envisioned it from pictures).

I am now in NYC, parked in the Adobe office so as to get some work done. This evening Adam Lehman and I will be presenting to a join session of the NYCFUG and the local Flex usergroup. Once again, I am looking forward to great turnout and the loud interactive session that this group has always delivered. I hope to see you there!

Last night's usergroup presentation in Atlanta went really well. About 100 attendees turned out for an hour of ColdFusion "Centaur" and "Bolt" and close to an hour of Flash Builder 4. The Atlanta group is home to some of the more vocal users, but the crowd was a little more subdued than usual, probably the result of no A/C running. Still, lots of good questions, and spontaneous applause for the Server Manager, Data Services in FB4, spreadsheet integration, and more. I am now in Atlanta airport, on my way to D.C. where we do it again this evening.

I am on my way down to Atlanta (literally,I am posting this from on-board a Delta flight featuring on-board wifi, and I can feel the plane starting to descend). Tonight I'll be presenting to the Atlanta usergroup, one of my favorite groups to speak to. We'll be talking about ColdFusion and Flex futures, and more. Atlanta is the first stop for me, here are the locations I'll be visiting:

• June 8th, 2009: Atlanta, GA
• June 9th, 2009: Washington, DC
• June 10th, 2009: New York, NY
• June 11th, 2009: Minneapolis, MN
• June 25th, 2009: Toronto, Canada

Visit the links above for details and registration information, and I hope to see you at one of the events!

We have a long history with ESRI, the world's leading GIS technology company, and ESRI has long supported the use of Flash and Flex as a front-end to the offerings. But check out the ArcGIS Server Live User Sites page - Flex examples dominate! (And the very first app listed is powered by ColdFusion, too, and built by our pals at ROK Technologies).

In conjunction with the public beta of Flash Builder 4, Adobe Developer Connection has published lots of new ColdFusion related content, including:

• Flash Builder 4 beta for ColdFusion developers
• Updated Flex for ColdFusion developers mini learning guide
• Getting started with ColdFusion and Flash Builder 4 beta
• Understanding the role of CFCs in Flex application development
• Binding ColdFusion data to Flex UI components with Adobe Flash Builder 4 beta
• Managing ColdFusion data with Adobe Flash Builder 4 beta
• Generating ColdFusion forms with Adobe Flash Builder 4 beta
• Deploying a Flex application with ColdFusion URL variables

We've just kicked off a massive usergroup tour, and Adobe Platform Evangelists are spanning the globe to talk about upcoming versions of Flash Builder, Flash Catalyst, ColdFusion, and the new ColdFusion IDE. I'll be presenting at the following locations:

• June 8th, 2009: Atlanta, GA
• June 9th, 2009: Washington, DC
• June 10th, 2009: New York, NY
• June 11th, 2009: Minneapolis, MN
• June 25th, 2009: Toronto, Canada

Visit the links above for details and registration information, and I hope to see you at one of the events!

Title says it all, public beta versions of Flash Builder 4 (formerly Flex Builder) and Flash Catalyst are now available for download on Adobe Labs.

I'll be presenting ColdFusion and Flex futures in Atlanta, Washington DC, New York, and Minneapolis the week of June 8th. And now I can confirm one more location, I'll be in Toronto on June 25th. I'll post a link as soon as I have one.

I've mentioned SapphireSteel's Amethyst Visual Studio plugin-in previously. SapphireSteel has just announced the availability of Beta 5 which, among other things, adds refactoring support, improved debugging, and more. If you are a Visual Studio developer who also uses (or wants to use) Flex, this one is worth a look at.

Oh, this one is just too cool! Tour de Flex allows users around the globe to experiment with Flex code snippets and examples. And I do mean around the globe. Greg Wilson just posted a link to a Flex dashboard which uses ILOG Elixir controls to show a real time heatmap of current Tour de Flex activity. LiveCycle Data Services are used for the connectivity, and a GeoIP database maps requests to locations. Very slick. So slick, that I'll even forgive them using PHP pages on the backend instead of ColdFusion (just this once). ;-)

I am in Moscow for a couple of days, the last stop on this Eastern European trip (and yes, I know that it's a day off in the U.S., but I seem to manage to always be working out of the country on days off!). I spent the day with customers and journalists in Adobe's Moscow office. I've met hundreds of journalists over the years, but these three impressed me with the range and depth of their questions on everything from Flex and AIR technical details to competitive positioning to the Adobe Macromedia acquisition to Flash Media Server use to Flash Lite and future mobile plans and much more. And the translator seemed to be able to keep up with me, too! Tomorrow I'll get to present at a local Flex Camp event, and with any luck I'll get to see some of the city tomorrow evening.

I spent most of this week in Bucharest and Prague, and the events in both cities were well attended and highly successful.

I am on my way to London for the weekend, and then next week we do it all again in Moscow. Details on FlexCamp Spring 2009 in Moscow are online.

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!

Over the past 24 hours or so, word has gotten out that the next major version of Flex Builder, currently codenamed "Gumbo", won't be named Flex Builder, the final product name will be Flash Builder 4. This is a good thing, it'll greatly simplify explaining the Flex/Flash relationship, an obstacle that we still deal with every time we present Flex. So, the Eclipse based tool will be named Flash Builder, emphasizing that it is used to build apps for the Flash Platform. The Flex framework will still use the name Flex, as will the Flex SDK. This greatly clarifies what Flex actually is, Flex is an ActionScript 3 framework for creating apps for the Flash Platform. It's nice and clean, you can use Flash Builder and/or Flash Professional to build apps for the Flash platform, and when doing so you can start from scratch or you can use the Flex framework (which makes you a Flex developer, so you are free to still call yourself one).

For more on the subject, Tim Buntel has posted his thoughts, as has Lee Brimelow (who also posted a FAQ), Serge Jespers, and Duane Nickull.

IBM China software engineers have published a document on Integrating Adobe Flex and IBM WebSphere Portal.

We launched Tour de Flex at MAX last November, and since then users the world over have been using it to browser and learn Flex. Tour de Flex has become more popular than we ever imagined, so popular that it has now served close to 5,000,000 samples. And to celebrate this achievement, fellow Adobe evangelist Greg Wilson has announced a cool prize giveaway for the first three people to send in a screen shot of the counter at exactly 5 million!

We're planning a massive usergroup tour next month, and I have been confirmed for the following locations:

• June 8th, 2009: Atlanta, GA
• June 9th, 2009: Washington, DC
• June 10th, 2009: New York, NY
• June 11th, 2009: Minneapolis, MN

More details to follow.

I am on the plane, about to fly to Seattle. I am going to be presenting an introduction to Flex at the 2009 Creative Suite Developer Summit. If you are in the area, and are interested in this no cost multi-day event hosted at Adobe's Seattle offices, there are still spaces available.