I am always being told off by i-technologists for quoting Picasso as having said that computers are useless. But I still love his reasoning? "Because they can only give you answers." Picasso, like AJAXWorld Magazine, liked questions. So we thought we would share with you what some of the world's leading rich Internet application pioneers are thinking may be the next questions that we need to see answered. From that readers can themselves infer where AJAX is headed. What are the top questions to ask next about AJAX? Eric Miraglia of Yahoo! 1.  (From March'08) How do I calculate the ROI of building my RIA on the iPhone SDK vs using AJAX? 2.  How do I assess the performance of my app and decide what to do next to make it faster?  3.  When it comes to accessibility, how do I know what's required of me for my rich web apps?  Beyond what's required, what makes good business se... (more)

Cloud People: A Who's Who of Cloud Computing

Behind every cloud service or cloud-based solution, there are real people... A robust ecosystem of solutions providers has emerged around cloud computing. But who are the CEOs & CTOs behind those providers, who are the internal and external entrepreneurs driving companies involved in the Cloud, who are the leading engineers, developers, analysts, researchers, marketing professionals, authors...who, in short, are the people behind the cloud? This list will be updated weekly between now and November 4-7, 2013, when 13th Cloud Expo | Cloud Expo Silicon Valley opens its doors in the Santa Clara Convention Center, in the heart of California's Silicon Valley. Here are some highly prominent "Cloud People" to kick off with... RANDY BIAS | @randybias "Randy Bias is visionary. He sees things others don't." [Emphasis added.] That is how Mårten Mickos puts it, as succinctly as ever.... (more)

ColdFusion Developer's Journal Special: How to Prevent an SQL Injection Attack

SQL Injection attacks are one of the easiest ways to hack into a website. One recent hack, using a script from verynx.cn, involves injecting SQL into a web form that then appends some JavaScript code into fields in a database that then gets executed on the client side when a user views a database-driven page. To learn more about this hack, go to this link.   more)

Open Letter to the President of Syria Bashar al-Assad

Thursday, July 29, 2010 Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey   To the President of Syria, Mr. and Mrs. Bashar al-Assad Mr. and Mrs. President Bashar al-Assad: At the tender age of 17 months my severely ill daughter Sofia, an American citizen, was abducted by her mother on Monday, July 26, in Istanbul, Turkey, and taken to Syria. Fox News: ▸ video ▸ story I was informed yesterday by Sofia's mother that she will not be coming back to the United States nor will she allow Sofia to return home. Sofia has been diagnosed with a severe medical condition that requires immediate treatment in the United States. It was scheduled to start on July 27, 2010, in New Jersey, the day after her abduction and was supposed to last until she reaches the age of 3. Any delay in the urgently needed treatment will result in a life-long disability for Sofia and make her dependent for the whole of her a... (more)

Macromedia ColdFusion Debugging - Don't Forget Your Bug Spray!

"Sorry about that Adam, we'll have to take a deeper look at it. Uh-huh. Yeah. No, I totally understand. Okay then, I'll give you a call if I still can't replicate the problem." Many of you recognize this phone call: the client has an issue and now you have to figure out why. I usually find issues like this much more frustrating than a cold hard error. At least with an error you get something concrete, you get facts about the problem. But these types of bugs, often problems with the application's logic, are the ones that sneak through to the client and are difficult to track down. I call this kind of bug No-see-ums, named after the teeny tiny mosquitoes commonly found in the Everglades. Luckily for me, ColdFusion provides great tools for tracking down bugs like these. So armed with a fly swatter (error handling) and a can of Off (debugging), away I work at tracking d... (more)

Google Joins the Tech Wreck

After Intel and IBM came up short this week, Google's Q3 numbers were released early Thursday utterly surprising a market high on its business, an enthusiasm that had driven its stock to all-time highs. It missed big on both the top and bottom line, instantly creating a big sell-off of its high-flown stock, losing $19 billion in market cap, before it was halted at the company's request at $687.30, down roughly 70 bucks or 9%. It was not clear what was going on and whether the company actually intended an early release since it's unusual for a company like Google to post its numbers during the trading day. The release also looks like a draft with a placeholder for a quote from Larry Page. A half and hour or so after the crisis broke Google came out and blamed RR Donnelly, its filing agent, for sending its 8K to the SEC without authorization. Such an event is practica... (more)

Cloud Expo 2011 East To Attract 10,000 Delegates and 200 Exhibitors

SYS-CON Events announced today that the 8th International Cloud Expo will take place June 6-9, 2011, in New York City. The International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo series is the world's leading Cloud-focused event and is held three times a year, in New York, Silicon Valley and in Europe. Over 600 corporate sponsors and 10,000 industry professionals have participated in Cloud Computing Expo since its inception, more than all other Cloud-related events put together. Cloud Computing Expo 2011 East Call for Papers Deadline November 30, 2010 - SUBMIT YOUR SPEAKING PROPOSAL TODAY! The four-day event will offer a rich array of sessions led by exceptional speakers about the business and technical value of cloud computing with more than 150 sponsors and exhibitors and over 5,000 estimated delegates from well over 48 different countries. Explore Cloud Expo Sponsorship &... (more)

Cloud Expo, Inc. Announces Cloud Expo 2011 New York Venue

Click Here to Save $800 at Cloud Expo New York ! Cloud Expo, Inc. announced on Thursday that Cloud Expo 2011 New York, the 8th International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo, will take place June 6-9, 2011, at the Javits Center in New York City. Cloud Expo - International Cloud Computing Conference & Expo series is the world’s leading Cloud-focused event and is held in New York, Silicon Valley, Prague, Tokyo, and Hong-Kong. Over 900 corporate sponsors and more than 65,000 industry professionals have participated in Cloud Expo since its inception, tenfold more than all other Cloud-related events put together. Click Here to Save $800 at Cloud Expo New York ! "Cloud Expo was announced on February 24, 2007, the day the term ‘cloud computing' was coined," said Fuat Kircaali, Chairman and Founder of Cloud Expo, Inc. "Cloud has become synonymous with ‘computing' and ‘soft... (more)

The Cloud: Floor Wax or Dessert Topping?

Who can forget Saturday Night Live’s classic Shimmer Floor Wax and Dessert Topping skit? Yes, Chevy Chase oozes, it’s a floor wax and a dessert topping. The humor results not just from the dissimilarity of the two products, but because so many vendors try to be good at too many things, even though they often end up being mediocre at all of them. Software vendors have been taking the floor wax/dessert topping approach to their respective markets for years, of course. ZapThink followed this trend closely in the SOA space during the ‘00s, as the dominant players were rolling up the market. We learned that whenever a vendor touts a “suite,” especially if they assembled it by acquiring various companies, then you usually end up with a collection of dissimilar products integrated at the PowerPoint level into a single product only Chevy Chase’s smarmiest pitch man could l... (more)

CFEclipse: The Developer's IDE, Eclipse For ColdFusion

Many paths lead developers to ColdFusion. In the past ColdFusion was often viewed as an entry-level language enabling designers and other nonprogrammers to build dynamic sites. Since the release of CFMX it has become more recognized among developers familiar with languages such as Java and PHP. This is partly due to language enhancements such as CFCs, and partly because it now runs as a Web application on top of a J2EE servlet container, thus allowing it to be used to develop the presentation layer for complex J2EE applications. For both types of developers there are requirements that an IDE must support. Many Web development tools are geared toward the first type of users mentioned above. They include features such as WYSIWYG Design Mode and image mapping functionality. For many developers falling into the second category, the WYSIWYG tools are lacking in the featur... (more)

Did You Get the Web 2.0 Memo?

No, you did not miss the memo or a software upgrade notice. Yet you’ve already arrived at Web 2.0. The “upgrade” from Web 1.0 to the new Web 2.0 world has been an evolutionary process, continually driving the Web to be more interactive, useful, and interesting for consumers and the business community. The evolution from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 has been about improvements in the Web “experience” – from that of simply browsing static content and graphic images that display upon request, to an all-new highly interactive, programmable, and much more useful Web. Oh, and also a much more dangerous place as well. Back in the early 1990s, our Web usage resembled that of a visit to a library in search of information or data. And as far we know, rarely has anyone ever been attacked by a book in a library. In the new Web 2.0 world, however, ... (more)