The O'Reilly InsideRIA Best of RIA 2009 - Semi Finals is now open for voting.

I think it may be a bit of both! Check out Beavis and Butthead go to MAX video.

BlazeDS is LiveCycle Data Services' little brother, our free open-source server-based Java remoting and web messaging technology that enables developers to easily connect to back-end distributed data and push data in real-time to Flex and AIR applications.

If you use BlazeDS, then take a look at BlazeMonster, a little app that generates Flex code to consume BlazeDS Remoting services, and also generates configuration files to expose Java classes as Remoting services. BlazeMonster was built by fellow Adobe evangelist Sujit Reddy G.

MLB OnBase keeps you up to date with Major League Baseball. Stay up-to-date on the latest baseball buzz with news delivered from MLB.com as well as tweets from fellow fans, right to your computer desktop! With MLB.com OnBase, it's easy to know when exciting events are taking place, or when there is high activity around a player, team, or topic.

U.K. based Speed-Trap has announced that its analytics software now supports Adobe AIR applications allowing you to capture and process detailed data on users' application interactions.

Check out this MAX widget, created with Flex Builder and powered by ColdFusion on the backend. And then, get others to embed it, and if you are the top referer you'll get a free pass to MAX, and free software!

A security update has been posted to fix a potential cross-site scripting vulnerability in Flex SDK 3.3 or earlier.

Have you found any of the hidden goodies on the MAX 2009 homepage? Try clicking between areas, above and below parts of the screen. I am aware of 3 Flash based interactions that you might not have seen initially. And there may be more, too!

With ColdFusion 9 in public beta, we're dedicating quite a few MAX 2009 sessions to the subject this year. Here are some CF9 sessions that you should be aware of:

• ColdFusion Product Manager Adam Lehman is presenting a high-level What's New In ColdFusion 9 session.
• ColdFusion Engineering Manager Hemant Khandelwal presents a detailed look at ColdFusion 9's internals (and focuses on lots of lesser known goodies) in An Insider's Guide to ColdFusion 9. Hemant presented a version of this one at CFUnited recently, and it was one of the most popular and best attended sessions there.
• Adobe Platform Evangelist Terry Ryan is presenting a session on using ColdFusion with Microsoft Office, SharePoint, and Exchange.
• ColdFusion Jedi Master Ray Camden is presenting an Introduction to ColdFusion ORM, and ColdFusion engineering team member Rupesh Kumar is presenting a follow-on session on Advanced ColdFusion ORM. Adam Lehman is also teaching a hands-on lab on the subject entitled Hands-On ORM with ColdFusion 9. Yep, three sessions on this one, it's that important.
• ColdFusion engineering team member Rakshith Naresh covers ColdFusion 9's new AIR integration (including the online/offline support) in Building Offline Applications with ColdFusion 9 and Adobe AIR. Simon Slooten also covers this important topic in his hands-on lab Taking ColdFusion Apps Offline with Adobe AIR.
• Rob Brooks-Bilson explains the new ColdFusion 9 caching options in Advanced ColdFusion Caching Strategies.
• Terry Ryan explains ColdFusion's new exposed services layer in Leveraging Exposed Services in ColdFusion 9.
• Pete Freitag will discuss the new portal integration options in his session Building JEE Portlets with ColdFusion.
• ColdFusion engineering team member Praveen Gupta will cover upgrading to ColdFusion 9, as well as the new ColdFusion 9 server management features in Managing, Monitoring, and Upgrading Your ColdFusion Servers.

And there are lots of other ColdFusion related sessions, too!

Oh, and by the way, MAX 2009 discounted early bird pricing closes in 11 days! (And if you need one of those discount codes I mentioned previously, I snagged a few more and have a handful left).

Security hotfixes have been posted for ColdFusion and JRun.

This special is only available at CFUnited (Adam announced this during our opening keynote), so don't tell 'em that I spilled the beans here ...

Purchase ColdFusion 8 today to receive a 30% discount, and also receive 3 free copies of Flex Builder 3 Standard with your order. In addition, buy maintenance and support plan and you'll receive ColdFusion 9 before the end of this calendar year at only 20% of its price.

For this offer you'll need to call one of dedicated ColdFusion account reps, and reference code CFUN09:

• Dominick Conte, U.S. East, (408) 536-6464
• Timothy Pontier, U.S. West, (858) 847-7479
• Matthew Troedson, Government, (858) 736-6182

The Ext team has announced the release of Ext JS 3.0, and has also released a Designer Preview tool built using Adobe AIR. Good stuff!

Great post by Bruce Eckel on Flash, Flex, HTML5, Silverlight, JavaFX, and knowing your options before plunging in.

The 2009 Community Achievement Awards were announced today at CFUnited, and the ColdFusion Web Application Construction Kit series won in the Best Book category. Here is the full slide deck of nominees and awards.

During the CFUnited keynote this morning, we announced plans to support ColdFusion 9 in cloud computing deployments. Not a lot of details were given, and pricing was not discussed, but this is what we did say:

• The current CPU based ColdFusion licensing, including no restriction on instances or virtual servers, remains as is in ColdFusion 9.
• In addition, ColdFusion will introduce new licensing options for cloud environments, where there is no per CPU model. ColdFusion Standard will allow a single cloud instance, and ColdFusion Enterprise will allow up to 10 cloud instances.
• Split licenses won't be allowed, so no ColdFusion Enterprise running on 1 CPU and 5 cloud instances, sorry.
• We do plan to support Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) specifically by creating ready-to-use Amazon Machine Images (AMIs).

More details to follow.

I am in the ballroom at the Landsdowne resort, venue for CFUnited 2009. I hung out at the resort bar briefly last night, it was great to see so many familiar faces, many of whom I meet only once a year. Opening keynote starts in about an our, making this the perfect time to tweak our presentation.

I am about to leave for the Greater D.C. area for CFUnited 2009. I'll be presenting tomorrow morning's opening keynote session, with assistance from Adam Lehman and Terry Ryan. And, for those of you who think you know all there is to know about CF9, well, we have a very significant announcement planned. ;-)

As in previous years, I have managed to obtain MAX discount codes. But, unlike in previous years, this year they are not open ended (they expire August 31st) and I have fewer of them. So, if you want to go to MAX 2009 in Los Angeles, and need a little help with the registration fee, read on:

• My discount code is for $400 off the full MAX price of $1495 (and $200 less than the early bird discount).
• The discount codes can't be used with any other discount, and they cannot be used if you have already registered for MAX (no canceling and registering again, some tried that last year apparently, only to find out that the codes were not going to be honored).
• I don't have many of these, so only ask for one if you'll use it.
• The discount codes expire August 31st, 2009, so only ask for one if you can use it by then.

If you are interested, send me an e-mail (don't just leave a comment here).

Scotch On The Rocks Europe is now officially a go, and registration is now open. Locations are:

• October 19: Munich
• October 21: Zurich
• October 23: Milan
• October 26: Amsterdam
• October 27: Brussels
• October 29: London

Terry Ryan has announced a Twitter ColdFusion Trivia Friday game on Friday, August 7th. Prizes include the ever popular ColdFusion Rocks t-shirt, and limited edition CF8 scotch glasses.

URL shorteners (like TinyURL, or bit.ly, or tr.im) are used to shorten URLs (duh!) so that you can post or e-mail or tweet smaller more manageable URLs instead of longer ones.

SitePoint is running an article by Kay Smoljak entitled Get Shorty: Trim the Fat with ColdFusion in which Kay shows you how to create a URL trimming service in ColdFusion. And along the way, Kay also shows the basics of getting up and running with ColdFusion 9 and ColdFusion Builder.

Serge Jespers demoed a series of augmented reality apps at the DevSummit in Bangalore, including one that got quite a laugh from the audience. SQL Server Usergroup Belgium has posted Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Augmented Reality Experience, and of course it is powered by Flash. Actually, this is not surprising, as Silverlight does not have support for webcams. As for me, well, I like SQL Server, and so I'm glad that we can be of assistance in any way. Really! ;-)

The AIR team has announced the release of AIR 1.5.2. Changes and fixes are listed in the release notes.

I am in Washington Dulles airport, waiting for my connecting flight to Paris, and then on to Bangalore, India. This is my 4th trip to Bangalore, and this time I'll be meeting up with fellow platform evangelist Serge Jespers for several days of meetings with customers, partners, and press, and a full day 1000 attendee event Adobe DevSummit (which still has a few spaces left, if you have not signed up yet).

I've not posted these in a while, sorry about that. Four positions this week, including one in London, England:

• Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN) is looking for a senior ColdFusion developer. Requirements include ColdFusion experience, as well as experience in data modeling and design on enterprise level databases. Experience working with rich internet application development using Adobe Flex, AIR, or AJAX is preferred. Details posted online.
• Softstone (Westport, CT) is looking for a ColdFusion developer. Requirements include ColdFusion, JavaScript, and SQL skills. Knowledge of ETX or JQuery preferred. Details posted on craigslist.
• Blue Raster (Arlington, VA) is looking for a ColdFusion / Flex developer. Requirements include at least 5 years of ColdFusion experience, as well as a strong knowledge of Microsoft Windows Server/IIS, and SQL Server. Experience with Adobe Flex and RIA a strong plus. Details posted online.
• Tag (London, England) is looking for a ColdFusion developer. Link posted online.