Nokia has announced the next version of their 9000 Communicator series, the model 9500. New features include additional GSM frequencies, an integrated camera, integrated music player (supports MP3, AAC, WAV, MIDI, and Real Audio), MMS support, Bluetooth (the lack thereof was my biggest complaint of the prior versions), GPRS support, EGPRS (not that many providers support it yet, but with 236.8 kbps we can dream), 80 MB RAM (up from 16 MB), 64K colors (up from 4K). Oh, and it weights just a bit less too. Availability Q4 2004. Details at http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,,54106,00.html.

I'll be offline until the end of the week, back online late Sunday. So no new blog postings until then. Seeya!

This was just brought to my attention. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CFMX_JAVA/ is the address of the CFMX_JAVA Yahoo Group. Not a lot of content yet, but there are code snippets showing how people can use CFMX embedded J2EE and extended J2SE together with the help of a java reflection class.

All versions of Macromedia ColdFusion MX include a MySQL JDBC Type 4 driver. However, some users may choose to use the latest MySQL JDBC driver distributed by MySQL. This new TechNote describes how to configure ColdFusion MX to use a newer version of the driver, see http://www.macromedia.com/support/coldfusion/ts/documents/config_mysql.htm.

Support for dynamic datasources was dropped on ColdFusion MX (it had been introduced in ColdFusion 5), and this has made it difficult to connect to data files without having to define a datasource. I was asked about this several times while in Japan, and promised to respond via e-mail with details on a workaround. Having just done so, I thought it worthwhile to share the info with others too. The trick is the use of the non-standard SQL keyword IN (not to be confused with the IN operator used in WHERE clauses) which allows a physical file name to be passed in a SQL statement. Macromedia TechNote http://www.macromedia.com/support/coldfusion/ts/documents/dynamic_dsn_cfmx.htm explains the workaround, and Microsoft page http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/off2000/html/acsqlINX.asp lists the exact syntax to be used for Access, Excel, DBF (dBase etc.), and Paradox.

Here is a nice little free utility, courtesy of V-Mobile Software. Bluetooth Dialer is a Pocket PC application which can dial a phone number on your phone directly from the PDA contact list. Select the contact person name on your PDA and send it to the phone to dial (without needing to store phone numbers in your phone). This is a free download from Handango at http://www.handango.com/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=1&catalog=0§ionId=0&productType=2&platformId=2&productId=110906.

I'm about to head to Narita to fly back to the U.S. MAX 2004 Tokyo was an incredible event, thousands of attendees (even more than at MAX in the U.S.) and two days of sessions, presentations, shop talk, and of course bars (including one at which I was hit on by a rather drunk non-English speaking guy, fun stuff!). I gave two presentations, one on running multiple instances of ColdFusion on top of J2EE, and one on Web Services. On the first night of MAX we hosted a ColdFusion User Group presentation. A panel comprised of Brandon Purcell, John Dowdell, and myself answered questions for over two hours, and we were amazed at the interactivity (which usually does not occur when there is a language barrier). Pictures (only one for now, I'll post more when I get them) are at http://www.forta.com/about/theroad.cfm?trip_id=73. Once again, Tokyo does not disappoint. I'll be back.

One of the local Macromedians has a USB Flash disk. I know what you are thinking, "so what, we all do". True, but does yours look like a duck? I am serious, this Flash disk is in the shape of a small rubber duck, the kind a kid would play with in the bathtub. But this rubber duck has a little USB plug sticking out of it, and when inserted into your computer the duck glows blue. That is it, just a Flash disk. But in the shape of a duck? I can't even imagine why anyone would create such a device, but honestly, it is so silly that I just have to get one.

I just arrived in Tokyo for MAX 2004 Japan. A crowd of about 3500 is expected for the event which starts in the morning. Should be fun.

With being on the road again I completely missed this announcement. DRK6 is out, details are at http://www.macromedia.com/software/drk/productinfo/product_overview/volume6/. ColdFusion developers will like the tag (modeled on ), as well as several Internet protocol tags including the ever useful DNS and reverse DNS lookup tags.

Last week I commented on the newly released Flash MX 2004 Wizards, and stated that I'd be posting a detailed article demonstrating their use shortly. Well, that article is now live at http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/coldfusion/articles/dc_wizard.html. The article will walk you through building a complete application, from the back-end CFC code, to master-detail view data grids, to data entry, to popup windows and alert boxes ... Enjoy.

Looking for details on installing and configuring multiple ColdFusion MX 6.1 instances with IIS and Apache? This article is where you should start: http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/coldfusion/articles/multi_instances.html.

Interesting article on security and Bluetooth at http://www.computerworld.com/mobiletopics/mobile/story/0,10801,89495,00.html?nas=MW-89495.

Nice article on FlashPaper, and it's potential as an alternative to PDF. See http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php?id=453219018&fp=16&fpid=0.

ZDNet is running a story about a series of attacks on Flash community sites, see http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/developer/0,39020387,39146184,00.htm. The attacks exploited a flaw in a PHP based mailing list program allowing hackers to install code that gave them root access.

"Conventional wisdom dictates that code, all code, be written with portability in mind. After all, you wouldn't want to have to revisit and rewrite code when moving between platforms or environments, would you? And while I do believe that coding for portability is a good thing in general, I also believe that when it comes to databases and SQL, coding for portability is a very bad thing indeed." See http://www.sys-con.com/coldfusion/article.cfm?id=705.

MySQL Administrator is a powerful GUI for managing MySQL servers. It can be used to configure databases and tables, manage users, run backups, view logs, and even monitor server health. MySQL has needed this badly, and the alpha of this tool can now be downloaded from http://www.mysql.com/downloads/administrator.html. Details are at http://www.mysql.com/products/administrator/index.html (look at the screenshots on that page). If you use MySQL then you'll definitely want to grab a copy.

The Macromedia Flash team has released two new Flash Wizards. The "Data Connection Wizard" simplifies the process of connecting back-end data (Web Services or XML) to a data set and data grid, setting up all the controls and bindings. The "DataGrid Column Editor" generates ActionScript code for datagrid manipulation and configuration.

Both wizards are available for immediate download from the Flash Exchange at http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm. I have written a detailed article that uses these Wizards in ColdFusion / Flash integration, it will be posted next week.

I just replaced a poll that I had been hosting on my site for a few months now, I left it online longer than most polls because I wanted to at least 1000 responses (which I now have). The poll asked "What is most compelling about CFMX 6.1?" and gave 5 possible answers. 49% picked "Increased performance" as most compelling, no surprise there. But what did surprise me is that "Multiple instances" and "Enhanced " pretty much tied for 2nd place (with 16% and 15% respectively), I'd have expected "Multiple instances" to rank far higher.

So, are you using multiple instances? And if not, why? I know that cost is a factor, ColdFusion Enterprise costs more, and so for many of you that may very likely be the reason. But lots of you do indeed own ColdFusion Enterprise, are you not installing ColdFusion on top of J2EE? And again, if not, why? Please share.

Several of you have e-mailed me to tell me that links to Breeze presentations are not working. Macromedia has been consolidating Breeze servers, and so some of the URLs have changed. So, in case you were looking for them, here are the new URLs for the current Breezos:

Java and ColdFusion MX: http://mmbreeze.breezecentral.com/p17254872/ The marriage of power and productivity, ColdFusion helps deliver the promise of Java.

When One ColdFusion is Not Enough: http://mmbreeze.breezecentral.com/p52798426/ Multiple ColdFusion instances, how and why this is so important.

Introducing A Better : http://mmbreeze.breezecentral.com/p35896736/ is the most used Internet protocol tag in CFML, and has been dramatically enhanced in ColdFusion MX 6.1.

I'll be attending MAX 2004 in Singapore in March. Details are at http://www.macromedia.com/ap/events/max2004_singapore.html. Hope to see you there.

Brian Kotek has written an article on CFC polymorphism for Builder.com (see http://builder.com.com/5100-6386_14-5144505.html). While the explanations feel a little skimpy at times, this is still worth the read.

From Mindrally: "Forklift will change development with ColdFusion MX. Forklift will help bridge the gap for CFMX developers who have not been introduced to Object Oriented Development and the advantages that is brings to application development. It will also help those who are accustomed to using Object Oriented methodologies leverage ColdFusion Component’s to implement advanced application architectures. Forklift is a foundation for implementing business requirements without spending a lot of time laying the ground work for data access." Details are at http://mindrally.com.

It is possible to write an entire ColdFusion application using just Custom Tags (and a single file as an entry point). Similarly, it is possible to write an entire ColdFusion application using just .cfc files (I've yet to see one of these, but it is doable). So, when should Custom Tags be used? And when should .cfc files be used? Where is the logical spilt between them?

While in London last week, I got into an interesting discussion on just this subject with Simon Horwith (initially at a customer site, and continued the next day at a local Starbucks). The truth is that there is a lot of overlap in the capabilities of Custom Tags and ColdFusion Components, and I don't believe there is an absolute right or wrong here, but, here's what we agreed on ...

CFCs are best-suited for data abstraction, for business logic and transaction encapsulation, for processes, for doing stuff. While CFCs can indeed be used to generate and even display output, that is not their core strength. CFCs provide basic object type functionality (not true objects, I know, I am not going to get into that discussion here), and are best used where objects would typically be created and used. That is not to say that CFC methods should never render output, they may (although I'd want specific methods, or inherited CFCs to be used for this). But that is not where they add real value to ColdFusion development.

Custom Tags, however, are perfect for presentation and data formatting. In fact, that is what they are best at (they are only used for everything else because CFCs were first introduced in CFMX, we used Custom Tags because we had no better option). The syntax, the use of tag pairs and child tags, multiple execution modes, the simplified attribute passing, all of those make Custom Tags perfect for wrapping around content so as to present it as needed. And the lack of multiple entry points, the lack of formalized parameter passing, the lack of persistence and inheritance, all of those make Custom Tags poor choices for data and logic abstraction.

So, CFCs for logic and data abstraction, Custom Tags for presentation, and good old .cfm files to hold it all together. Considering capabilities, usability, and performance, that seems like the best combination to us. If you have another opinion I’d love to hear it.

Canada is home to CFML Radio, broadcasting on 107.9 FM in Burnaby, British Columbia. This caught my attention when forwarded to me, but alas, it has nothing to do with ColdFusion. Site is at http://www.radiocfml.com/.