When I first read Luis's entry on ColdBox Beta 2: Flex/AIR Integration this is pretty much that immediately went through my head ...Gotta be honest: at first I didn't buy into it... You have to be careful on separating your logical layers... if ColdBox is a front-controller, why would a Rich Front End talk to it? It should talk to your Service Layer... and your Service Layer doesn't need ColdBox ...

I blogged about Pownce yesterday, and I'm liking it a lot... I just wish that since it's built on top of the Flash Platform, it took advantage of server-side push technology such as FCS, FMS, LCDS, or bare XML Sockets... instead, it pulls every few seconds, which is extremely annoying. I understand that XML Sockets require additional server components, though most php, .net, j2ee servers have that capability built-in ... and it requires using a none-standard port ...

Papervision3D moves from private testing to a full public beta. It's very easy to use and to integrate into your Flash 8, Flash CS3 and Flex projects. It is released under the MIT Open Source license, which means it is absolutely free for any commercial use. Source code The project is now hosted in Google Code, where you will find all the downloads, the very latest source code via Subversion, issue tracking and project workspace. Existing users must use this new svn address.

Quick note on debugging a Rich Internet Application. As you probably know, RIAs usually don't refresh and communicate to the server in the background. You can't easily see the traffic, so I usually recommend using Firebug for Firefox, Live HTTP Headers, Fiddler, and my recommendation, Service Capture.... Well, there's a new kid on the block ... not so new perhaps, but I just finally tried it and I'm loving it.

I know it's been in the blogsphere for a few days, but if you missed it, ColdFusion 8 Public Beta is Live on Labs; it will let you develop next-generation Internet experiences faster and more easily than ever before. Here are just a few of the key features that you'll discover in the public beta: Significant performance improvements - up to 5Xfaster than ColdFusion MX7. Server monitoring identifies server bottlenecks, allowing for tuning and improved performance.

I'm presenting a really small preview for my Flex Intensive CFUnited pre-conference class tomorrow at the CF Meetup. It will be at 12:30 and you can access here. The presentation will cover basics of Flex, why you would want to learn it, show you the huge amount of topics I will cover, and some Q&A... so it will be 1/2h tops, thus you can easily connect during your lunch time and check if you're interested in attending.I'll post my slides tomorrow after the presso.Cheers.

CFUnited posted a small video summary of some of last year's random interviews and I'm featured in the first slot :) ... so check me out at CFUnited and try to make it this year to say hi ... The conference has improved every year and promises to do so this year again.BTW, if you have any interest in Flex, don't forget my pre-conference 8h intensive Flex class, for all levels.

I presented a session on Cairngorm last week at CF.Objective() and explained all its elements, design patterns, event flow, levels of abstraction, and walked-through steps on a simple example. You can find my slides and examples -- MVC1.001, 002, and 003 -- and each adds a little more functionality. MVC1.001 just displays a form, 002 adds a click event, fire an event, traps is in the controller, executes a command, updates the model, and 003 also uses a business delegate and a service locator.

Developer Circuit is growing and looking good. They provide a nice widget, in two different sizes, that are displayed in influential sites, such as top ColdFusion and Flex community blogs. It is currently syndicated by 52 sites and displayed over 8000 times today. The widgets were developed in Flex 2 (check them out in my jobs section). To post a job click here, and to find out more about the widgets, check out their widgets section.

Flex is so cool! Check out the full story.