Hey folks, this is just a quick post to let everyone know registration for BFlex and BFusion 2010 is now open. Having spoken at both of these events for the past two years I know what high value these two days of hands on training offer participants. And you will participate as BFlex/BFusion is not you run of the mill event. You experience hands on training from seasoned ColdFusion and Flex developers.

I'll be there helping out the crew again this year. If you are anywhere near Bloomington, Indiana I hope to see you there. But don't forget to register here: http://bflex.info.

If you weren't fortunate enough to attend CFUnited this year you've been given a second chance so-to-speak. Tim Cunningham has posted videos of many of the sessions he attended. You can check out all the videos here, or go straight to my caching talk here.

My CFUnited 2010 presentation materials (slides and code) have been uploaded and are ready for download. If you are interested in learning about new caching features in ColdFusion 9 feel free to hit the download link and view the slides after the break.

Continue Reading

I just received an e-mail from the founder Ehcache, Greg Luck, letting me know they have added a new page to their Web site that includes information on how ColdFusion uses Ehcache. Included on the page is information about which versions of Ehcache ColdFusion supports, how to enable and use distributed caches, and a short list of community resources on using ColdFusion and Ehcache together.

If you want to learn more about Ehcache and ColdFusion I recommend you check out their new page and the ehcache.org site in general.

I'm turning what's normally a short two hour flight to D.C. into a two day trek from Nashville to CFUnited by car. I should be arriving at the Lansdowne resort on Monday, July 26 and am interested in playing golf sometime on Tuesday the 27th. I might play an additional round on Saturday too. If you are into golf and you want to play, hit me up by e-mail or post a comment below.

As of a few moments ago, Adobe released the first major update to ColdFusion 9.0, which itself was released in early October of 2009. This new release, brings ColdFusion's version number to 9.0.1. So what's in the updater? The short list of my favorite features include: Amazon S3 support, caching enhancements and an upgrade to Ehcache 2.0, and logging enhancements (you can now generate log files for HTTP, FTP and other services).

Let me reiterate that's my short list of features to call out. There's many more enhancements and fixes included in the updater that you might find useful.

For more information on what's new and to download the updater, please check out the links below. NOTE: There is not a full installer for 9.0.1. You must first download and install 9.0 and then download and install the 9.0.1 updater.

ColdFusion 9.0.1 new features list is here.
ColdFusion 9.0.1 release notes are here.
Download ColdFusion 9.0.1 here.
Download Updater SOLR installer and Dreamweaver extensions here.

Two weeks ago today I brought aaronwest.net live bringing all my content from trajiklyhip.com and trajiklyhip.com/blog to a brand new, consolidated interface on a new domain. Before I talk about my new site and what I like about it, I want to give a (somewhat) brief overview describing my sites evolution over the last 8 years. Keep reading after the break.

Continue Reading

Hey folks, just a quick blog post to let everyone know I am looking to hire two great Flex developers right now. These two positions will start contract and will have an opportunity to go full-time. This is an immediate need and will pay well. I need folks who understand Flex and AS3 intimately and who know how to build fantastic looking interfaces on top of a lot of data. These positions can be filled by folks in Nashville or anywhere in the world really.

If you are looking for an awesome project that you can start on right now, please contact me so we can discuss. You can hit up my contact form and send me an e-mail, or use the Google Voice widget on the same page to enter your digits and ring my mobile.

Keeping my ear to the pavement I learn about new development jobs from time to time in the Nashville area. Yesterday I learned about two new openings at Vanderbilt University. Both positions are full-time, Nashville-based jobs specifically targeting folks with 36 months experience and beyond. I happen to know one of the folks on the development team and can vouch he really likes his job. Hit up this link if you are interested in learning more.

Last week I gave a presentation to the Connecticut ColdFusion User Group (CFUGitives) on integrating BlazeDS and ColdFusion 9. This is the same talk I've given other places without the hands-on aspect. I've zipped up my slides and code and made them available for download here. When you extract the downloaded zip file you should see the following folder structure.

• /FlashBuilderProject/FlexMessaging.fxp (a full Flash Builder 4 project)
• /Slides/IntegratingBlazeDS_ColdFusion.pdf (my slides in PDF format)

To get started, import the FlexMessaging.fxp file into Flash Builder 4 as a new Flex project. This will setup nearly every aspect of the project. I typically customize my Flex 3 projects in Flash Builder with two other settings. Right-click on your new project folder and select properties. In the resulting window, select Flex Build Path. Change the Framework linkage setting to "Merged into code" and add an appropriate Output folder URL (this setting is located at the bottom of the window). I put my project in my Web root, so I typically set Output folder URL to "http://localhost/project_name/bin-debug/. Adding this setting will allow you to build the project and run it in your default browser with a localhost URL versus a filesystem specific URL.

More after the break.

Continue Reading

This coming Monday, February 15 I'll be giving my ColdFusion 9 and BlazeDS presentation to the Connecticut ColdFusion User Group. It's all going down online via Adobe Connect so fire up your browser at 6:00pm CST on Monday if you want to be part of the fun. All the relevant meeting info, such as the Adobe Connect URL, is located on the CFUGitives site.

But, here's a quick presentation description:

In this presentation Aaron will show you how ColdFusion 9 and BlazeDS are integrated into one server. Aaron will demonstrate how to build a one-way, real-time messaging application from start to finish, using Flash Builder 4 beta and ColdFusion Builder beta.

It didn't take long for the release of the iPad to spurn negative reactions from Apple fans and geeks everywhere. In fact, I heard 80% of the buying public was unimpressed with the iPad. Hitler wasn't impressed either as evident in the Downfall video meme you can watch here. But the best Downfall spin-off yet was when Doug McCune put Hitler in the speaker lineup for CFUnited 2009!

I've been using Google Voice ever since it was Grand Central back in the day. I'm quite fond of the service as it lets me display a phone number on sites like Twitter and Facebook without giving out my mobile number. I also like the call me widget that sits in the right sidebar of this blog. If you'd like to try Google Voice I have three invites I can send out. Warning, I'm going to be a bit stingy with these invites. Since I don't have many I want to make sure the folks I sign up actually use the service. So please don't take it personal if I ask why you want to use the service. In fact, just make it easier on me and with your "sign me up" comment to this blog post tell me why you want in.

A few hours ago Liz Frederick, manager of the Adobe Community Expert program, announced the program name has been changed to Adobe Community Professionals. The history behind the original name and why it has been changed might not be interesting to you, but I'm proud that I was part of the process to help choose a new name. In fact, the entire Adobe Community Experts group was responsible with coming up with candidate program names that were ultimately submitted to Adobe for final approval. I'm quite happy with the new name as I believe it reflects more on what we are tasked to do. Which is...

The Adobe Community Experts Professionals Program is a community based program made up of Adobe customers who share their product expertise with the world-wide Adobe community. The Adobe Community Experts' Professional mission is to provide high caliber peer-to-peer communication educating and improving the product skills of Adobe customers worldwide.

Being an expert in anything is immensely tough to do. In fact, I often argue that there aren't any experts, there are simply people at different stages of understanding and learning. At the moment you consider yourself an expert you're likely to stop working hard, stop investigating, learning, and growing in your field, and ultimately stop being an expert. Being an Adobe Community Professional on the other hand still means you work hard at what you do, you serve as a leader in your online community, and you help others learn and become more skilled by sharing your expertise.

I welcome the switch from expert to professional and am extremely happy to report that my request to stay with the program in 2010 has been accepted. This marks my eighth consecutive year in a program that has gone from Team Macromedia, to Adobe Community Experts, to Adobe Community Professionals. A big "shout out" and thanks to Liz Frederick (Adobe Community Professional Manager), Adam Lehman (ColdFusion Product Manager), Rachel Luxemburg, and the entire ColdFusion team for allowing me to serve the ColdFusion, Flash, and Flex communities yet again.

I also want to send out a hearty welcome to new members of the program! I went through Liz's list and picked out names I a) recognized and b) were new to the program.

Continue Reading

I write many blog posts that instruct readers to press command+this and command+that and for the longest time that's exactly how I wrote them. But isn't it much better to say press ⌘+i or press ⌘+m?

To display the ⌘ symbol online simply use the HTML Entity ⌘. This works in Safari, Chrome, and Firefox, the only browsers I tested. And frankly, the only browsers worth using really.