2008 Positions In GA And MI
Several ColdFusion positions this week:
- Unnamed client (Atlanta, GA) is looking for a 2-3 ColdFusion developers with Flex experience. Oracle and Java experience preferred. Contact recruiter Steve Douglas at Kinetix.
- Unnamed client (Ann Arbor, MI) is looking for a ColdFusion developer for a 16-18 month contract. Requirements include experience with CF7 or higher, a good understanding of CFCs, and familiarity with object oriented development. ActionScript experience a plus. Contact recruiter Lancet D. Brothers at TEK Systems.
2008 Implicit Array And Structure Creation Revisited
To the delight of many a ColdFusion developer, in CF8 we added support for implicit array and structure creation. And now we're taking this one step further in the ColdFusion 8 updater (due out shortly) to allow for arrays and structures to be nested. As an example, the following should work (and I did say "should", this is planned, and plans change):
You get the idea. Oh, and before you ask, the updater is coming ... soon!
2008 Adobe Product Security Incident Response Team Now Blogging
The Adobe Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) has started a blog to post security related information pertaining to Adobe products and technologies.
2008 Microsoft Support Surprises
Microsoft is a common target for rants, dislikes, and disdain. And the negative views and opinions are frequently justified. But Microsoft can also be surprising, and I had that experience this week.
I have only ever contacted Microsoft Support twice, both in regards to my home network. The first occurrence was a year and a half ago. I had made some significant network changes, upgrading my home servers to Windows Server 2003, installing a new firewall, changing how Active Directory was configured, completely revamping DHCP and how IP addresses are assigned, and more, and I ended up with a rather bizarre Active Directory/WINS/DHCP/DNS issue which was causing painfully slow network login times for many clients. I spent hours, many hours, trying to figure it all out. And finally, in frustration, I paid $99 and opened an e-mail based support case with Microsoft. The case was assigned to a support engineer named Ewen Tang who sent me a long e-mail with things to try so as to report back to him. I collected the information for him, and he then followed up with utilities that he wanted me to run to help diagnose the problem. In the course of a lengthy e-mail thread that ran for several days (the delay caused by my traveling), Ewen figured out what the problem was, and offered me a series of solutions. I opted for the quick hack workaround solution just to get things working, and Ewen offered to leave the case open for a while (it ended up being months) until I had the time to implement his other suggestions. Yes, I paid for support, but time is money, and that was $99 very well spent.
But did I just luck out, or is Microsoft's e-mail based support actually as good as my experience seemed to indicate?
This week I ran into another issue, this time with Terminal Server licenses that I was relying on to manage my headless servers. After wasting many hours tinkering, I paid the $99 and opened another e-mail based support case. This time the case as assigned to Steven Shao, who immediately sent me an e-mail telling me that he'd look into my issue, and then sent me a detailed follow-up e-mail that essentially explained that I had misunderstood Terminal Server licensing and requirements, providing me with links to clarify things, and explaining what I needed to do to fix the situation, saving me money by pointing out the configuration I need so as to not have to buy additional TS client licenses. Steven's advice did indeed help me solve my problem (and he saved me money, too), but he didn't actually have to do any real technical troubleshooting. And so he offered to refund the $99 I had paid, and I then received several follow-ups to confirm that all was now well, and to ensure that I was indeed getting my refund.
Bashing Microsoft is a common occurrence, and is sometimes lots of fun. And yes, there is definitely a lot to bash and make fun of. But, at the same time, when a company like Microsoft gets something right, that really should be noted. And Microsoft Support has indeed impressed me.
2008 Welcome Chet Haase
Chet Haase, author of "Filthy Rich Clients", and Java client guru, has joined the Flex team, and is now blogging. Welcome, Chet!
2008 Tom Jordahl Presenting On BlazeDS
Tom Jordahl has announced that he'll be presenting a Connect session tomorrow on BlazeDS to The Online ColdFusion Meetup Group. He'll cover exactly what you get in BlazeDS and how it relates to LiveCycle Data Services, and will detail some of the reasons why you might want to use these server technologies. He will also explain how ColdFusion developers can take advantage of BlazeDS in their applications.
2008 Christophe Coenraets Updates SQLite Admin
AIR includes the SQLite engine, but it is just that, an engine, and it has no UI for creating and working with tables. To address this, Christophe Coenraets created a great little AIR app called SQLite Admin, and earlier today he posted an updated version for use with the released AIR 1.0.
2008 eBoy's Cool AIR Launch Poster
I just love this eBoy AIR launch poster (follow link for a larger clearer copy). Check out the CF Dude on the ping-pong table!
2008 Todd Prekaski On Digitally Signing AIR Apps
Adobe Developer Connection has published an article by Todd Prekaski on the details of digitally signing AIR applications. This one is required reading for anyone building AIR apps.
2008 Adobe Joins SQLite Consortium
SQLite is a vital core component of newly released AIR, providing a local SQL data store for your desktop AIR applications. Dave McAllister has announced that Adobe has joined the SQLite Consortium, supporting the continued growth and improvements in SQLite.