Adobe/ColdFusion News Brief: March 9, 2007

by Ryan Hartwich

CFEclipse 1.3 Released

Last month, the open source CFEclipse 1.3 was released and it supports both Eclipse 3.1 (Flex Builder 2.01 is based on this) and 3.21 (the newest release). Unlike the original Flex Builder 2, the new Flex Builder 2.01 is now supported and available for updating your existing 2.0.0 release and should work cleanly with the newest CFEclipse.

ColdFusion User Groups Have Great Speakers and Content!

Are you active in your local ColdFusion (or other Adobe) User Group (find one at http://www.adobe.com/communities/usergroups/)? Adobe sponsors official user groups around the world that help to bring developers and designers together for networking, learning and fun. Most groups meet monthly and are a great source of technical and professional assistance. One great benefit of the groups is that they are BY and FOR developers/designers. While Adobe dictates some minimum requirements (updated website, frequent meetings), they are very hands off, while still being supportive. They send care packages to the group leader twice a year, assist with software giveaways, t-shirts, and even technical presentations. Ben Forta's upcoming tour around the United States and presumably Europe and Asia is not done alone, but through the careful organization and assistance of the user groups and the on-staff Adobe community relations group.

Here are two recent presentations that may interest you. The second was broadcast live to anyone interested and the recording (using Adobe Connect) is now available for your viewing pleasure. Stay tuned on March 27th for a great user group meeting in your area!

ColdFusion Developer Centric Search Engines and Browser Toolbar

Lately, we have seen a proliferation of new search engines targeted to ColdFusion developers, using the Google-based Co-op tool. Among those offering this service are House of Fusion (the ColdFusion-specific search is at the top of every page of the site), Jeff Gladnick, Joshua Cyr, Charlie Arehart and Adam Howitt. Charlie Arehart did a helpful blog entry listing several of these new search engines.

CF-specific Google search engines (yes, that's plural)

If you are looking for a way to easily access ColdFusion blogs, sites, resources and podcasts, check out the newly released ColdFusion Toolbar.

ColdFusion Community Toolbar

Fusebox 5.1 Released

Avid Fusebox developers may already know about the recent update to Fusebox, but if you don't, here are relevant links to learn more about the newest release.

Flash Player Adoption Rates

Adobe has released their quarterly review of the current player penetration statistics, up to the end of December 2006. All measured markets are now at over 50% penetration, with emerging markets reaching as high as 65%. With the recent release of Flash Player 9 for Linux and these rather high adoption rates in the six months since release, we can expect to see a rather large jump in companies willing to use Flex-type applications in their websites.

Adobe Flash Player Version Penetration

Version and Source Control

You have probably heard the terms CVS and Subversion before, or at the least source control. Large, well-organized IT shops are probably already using these techniques and technologies to track and store their source code. Those of us who work in smaller, less organized groups (or independently) have probably avoided the issue. Here is a great, very brief synopsis of the technologies to give you a basis to start researching if source control is the right way to go for you. Give yourself three minutes to read through this blog entry.

Dev Chair : Version Control for Beginners (Download Squad, February 28, 2007)

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