After listening to ColdFusion Weekly , I got motivated to do the whole "New Year's Resolution" thing. A think a year is a bit too long for me. I need shorter intervals to stay motivated (keep from procrastinating), so a figured three months is good.

So, here is:

• Finish DataMgr 2.0
  
• Make at least 2 blog entries per week
• Make at least one basic Flex application
  
• Start Unit Testing
• Finish my first version of my "Demo Application"
• Play with Apollo
  

DataMgr 2.0 is actually coming along nicely. The second beta is nearly ready for release. It doesn't have many new features over the first beta, but it is becoming more stable. I will be giving a presentation on DataMgr to my local users group next week and to the Nashville CFUG in February.

I was going to say "blog more frequently", but management studies have concluded that specificity of goals is a major determining factor in performance. I would love to set my goal higher, but I think I will try to work up gradually.

I also have a few more open source applications that I am planning, but I don't want to overfill my plate for this quarter, so those will have to wait until the second quarter of the year.

If I can get keep to this modest list this quarter, I will be pretty happy.

Ever since The ColdFusion Podcast first came out, I have thought that I would like to listen to podcasts about ColdFusion. Despite my intentions, however, it hasn't really happened.

The ColdFusion Podcast has been inactive lately (though they plan to start again next year), but ColdFusion Weekly has been brodcasting pretty regularly. In the past several months, however, I have listened to only one or two podcasts from each.

Basically, I am unable to listen to a podcast while I work because it is to distracting. If I am not working, then I am usually spending time with my wife. Since she is not a programmer, it seems rude to make her listen to a podcast about ColdFusion.

Ideally, I would listen to a podcast on the drive. A few things prevented this, however - an unwillingness to wear headphones as a drive and a lack of an MP3 player in the car.

Thankfully, a combination of factors has finally solved this. My wife and I recently went to NYC for a brief vacation. While there we picked up a new iPod Nano for my wife to replace her iPod Shuffle (at the Apple Store of course!). This means that I have an iPod Shuffle now (I love leftovers! - product of being the youngest siling, I suppose).

This summer we bought a new Honda Element (not so flashy as the Mini Cooper it replaced, but more useful and still lots of fun).

The Element has an auxillary input, the result of which is that I can listen to the iPod in the car while driving. I did just that today on my drive out to the post office. The drive was only long enough to get through about half of the most recent ColdFusion Weekly, but it was still really nice.

It really felt like I was just listening to a normal broadcast radio show on ColdFusion. In many ways, new technology has the same feel as the old. The major difference is that network radio is unlikely to cover ColdFusion programming, so niche markets are well served by technology that makes content production and distribution.

I look forward to hearing more of both podcasts in the future.

This weekend my wife and I went to Orange Peel - a show put on by our alma mater .

It included performances by local band, The Hero Factor as well as comedy by Bill Engvall (the reason for our presence) and Alan Jackson as the main attraction (we are told that he is a very well known country singer). In my opinion, this is an improvement in the level of entertainment from recent years (which I haven't attended primarily due to scheduling concerns).

Bill Envall's set was one of the funniest I have ever heard and all of the material was new to my ears. In it he mentions acting like a fool when meeting George Strait. I found myself greatly relieved after my experiences meeting ColdFusion gurus (I think I heard myself tell Ben Forta that he was a celebrity). I always think I will act dignifies upon meeting people I respect, but invariably something stupid escapes my lips.

Although we hadn't heard of The Hero Factor before the show, we liked their music enough that we bought a CD for ourselves and one to send to my wife's brother in Iraq (a member of the band was nice enough to sign his copy).

I was amused, however, when I looked at the Hero Factor web site. Take a look. The whole page is one image! Now that is how to make sure the site matches the design. Why hadn't I ever though of that?

In other news - Mailer.cfc just got a small update.

Friday was the last day at Adobe. The conference was great and I met a lot of people. It took a while for me to get re-oriented to my normal life, but I think I am readjusted now.

Adobe also provided two days of fast-paced Flex training. From what I have seen so far, I am really impressed with Flex.

Although I think that most web sites and even most administrative sections would still be better served with a mostly HTML interface, I think that Flex is an impressive tool for applications that benefit from a Flash interface (where a highly dynamic interface is needed, for example).

It is interesting to me that ColdFusion has long been criticized by proponents of other languages for its tag-based syntax. This format, however, has been popular and is becoming increasingly so.

For example, Flex uses an XML-based declarative language (MXML) with a scripting language (ActionScript) as well as CSS for styling. This is basically the same approach as good HTML which uses HTML (or its XML-based cousin, XHTML) with a scripting language (JavaScript) as well as CSS for styling. ColdFusion, for its part is a tag-based language that includes its own scripting counterpart (cfscript). Of course, it can output HTML or many other formats.

JSP has even added a tag-based format. XAML looks like it will be an XML-based format.

I guess ColdFusion isn't too far off-base after all.

In any event, the structure of Flex seems to be very well thought out. The class itself was very good. I don't envy the instructor his challenge. He was teaching a class of more than sixty and trying to cover five days of material in two.

Coincidentally, CrystalTech just announced that they have upgraded to ColdFusion MX 7.02, so you can now do Flex development on sites they host (though not with Flex Data Services, of course).

I am in town for the Adobe Community Summit and taking advantage of free Flex training.

A few hours into the class and I am really impressed with Flex.

The building here is really neat as well. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera. Fortunately, I am rooming with Michael Smith and Ryan Hartwich (who did remember to bring his).

Ryan has some good pictures of the building as well as one from our hotel room.

Well, class is starting again. Better get back to it...

I once heard that a wise man learns from his mistakes and a happy man learns from the mistakes of others. While I wouldn't say Ray Camden made a mistake in buying a Mini Cooper, he has certainly been suffering as a result. I feel his pain and fear looking at our Mini someday in the way he looks at his.

He is not alone in this, I have heard others complaining about trouble with their Mini Coopers as well.

So, since we were needing a more practical car soon anyway, we decided to trade in our Mini Cooper while we still have fond memories of it.

We traded it for a new Honda Element. Among the best features is an auxiliary input which (once I get an iPod) will allow me to listen to ColdFusion Podcast and ColdFusion Weekly on my way to and from client meetings.

The removable back-seats and wipe-off floors aren't bad either.

Here is the before and after: