I recently brought a Google Talk bot that I put online at cfdocs@gmail.com. Google Talk users can add this user to their buddy list and then submit CFML tag and function lookups to it. (I've also brought Yahoo IM and AIM versions online as nickname cflivedocs, but more on those shortly). In this column I'll explain exactly what the IM bot is and what it does, and show you how to easily create a bot of your own.

The mouse was the original idea of Doug Engelbart who was the head of the Augmentation Research Center (ARC) at Stanford Research Institute. Engelbart's philosophy is best embodied, in my opinion, in the design of another device that he invented, the five-finger keyboard - with keys like a piano, used by one hand. The problem was, Engelbart's five-finger keyboard and mouse combination was very difficult to learn.

ColdFusion 8 introduces the CFImage tag and dozens of image manipulation functions. We have already looked at reading and writing image files and we have covered the basic yet powerful image manipulation possible through CFImage tag actions alone. Now we know enough to be able to really start exploring the vast feature set of ColdFusion 8 image manipulation. When it comes to something like this your imagination is really the only limit, so it makes it a bit more difficult to come up with simple ways to learn this stuff. I find that task-based learning works well and will let us accomplish real-world goals while touching on many aspects of image manipulation.

Early releases of ColdFusion (under Allaire) focused on the Windows market and it was common to include example Access databases. It was common for entry-level developers to take this example to heart and build systems on Access back-ends. One didn't have to install, set up, admin, or most importantly pay for anything. With the beta release of ColdFusion 8, Adobe is providing support for an array of open source databases. Now using PostgreSQL, MySQL, or Apache Derby (formerly IBM Cloudscape) has been made that simpler for CF developers since JDBC drivers for all of them are included. Any of these solutions can be used for the free distribution of databases on either Windows or *nix.

ColdFusion 8 has a load of awesome image manipulation functionality. So much so, in fact, that it will take several articles to discuss it in any sort of decent way. In Part 1 of this article (CFDJ, Vol. 9, issue 5), we spent the entire post just exploring all the ways in which ColdFusion 8 can read in and write out/save images.

Of course, since this is ColdFusion I expected nothing less than this, i.e., powerful AJAX functionality combined with the simplicity of a tag-based language, and that's exactly what the Auto-Suggest AJAX component delivers. The code in Listing 1 is a simple example in which the auto-suggest attribute of the tag has been populated with hard-coded values. If you're running ColdFusion 8 yourself and want to get a firsthand look at this feature, you should be able to copy and paste the code from Listing 1 and save it as a new ColdFusion file. Figure 1 shows the suggested search terms displayed by the auto-suggest attribute as text is entered into the control.

This release is the first one to include contributed content from Rob Gonda, Tom de Manincor, Brian LeGros, Sana Ullah and Aaron Roberson. The ColdBox Team and contributors are growing. So enjoy this release. The ColdBox website is also being renovated and will be launched soon. Development is now strong for version 2.1.0 and we have some extraordinary features coming your way. So please show your support and God Bless.

As a ColdFusion developer, hopefully by now you have heard at least a little about XML (eXtensible Markup Language). Wikipedia defines XML as a 'general-purpose markup language' designed to 'facilitate the sharing of data' and also designed to be 'relatively human-legible.'

Flex is a complete set of tools to develop rich Internet cross-platform applications based on the Flash platform. With Flex, you can create applications that not only have the 'wow factor' necessary to please clients and users alike, but the 'usability factor' necessary to make your application a real success.

Now that Scorpio is here (at least in beta), it is time to start figuring out all the new tricks of the trade, right? However, as most of your clients will not be switching immediately, you will still have to be doing ColdFusion 7 work for some time.

Until recently, tuning IT application performance has been largely a guessing game. This is both surprising and unacceptable considering the relentless focus IT organizations put on cost-efficiency and productivity. The traditional approaches to database and application tuning that involve collecting large volumes of statistics and making trial-and-error changes are still in widespread use. Today, most server management and monitoring tools deliver 'server-oriented' statistics that don't translate to concrete end-user benefits.

As both a .NET programmer and ColdFusion developer, I always wondered how I could leverage the world of .NET in ColdFusion. Both platforms come with powerful features and using them together might be a wonderful friendship, if one could only make them cooperate. There are two worlds out there and none of them is an island.

For Web developers, form validation is a basic task, and yet one that presents some interesting challenges. Even discounting security issues such as SQL injection attacks and cross-site scripting (XSS), form validation is a critical step in your error handling strategy.

Many times object-oriented programming (OOP) is billed as the end-all solution to cure the spaghetti code that can come from procedural style applications. After all, you just have to stuff your logic code into a component (big OOP buzzword - encapsulation), and now your code is instantly better, right? How hard is it to stick a createObject function call or a tag in when you need to access that bit of code? Can anybody look into the future and see a problem here?

You have to love a software product that makes developers, even relatively inexperienced ones, productive quickly and empowers them to do seemingly impossible things. The more I work with and learn about ColdFusion the more it seems as if there are no limits to what can be done with it.

This article describes a basic method for indexing and searching images and digital photographs based on color using ColdFusion and CFImageHistogram (www .leavethatthingalone.com/ projects/cfhistogram/). This method indexes and searches color in images quickly using ColdFusion.

Keeping up with the latest Web technologies is tough nowadays. Every week it seems new sites are launched that push the envelope further and further in terms of what can be accomplished using just a Web browser.

In the July 2006 issue of CFDJ, I wrote about the Directory Watcher event gateway, and how easy it was to set up and how powerful a tool it could be for managing files and external interfaces. While this is true, there are some potential hazards waiting for the unsuspecting developer who jumps into DW waters without a life preserver.

I can't wait to get started.' The sentiment struck me pretty hard as I struggled to get some sleep on a packed red-eye flight leaving Las Vegas at 11 o'clock at night.

As the Web develops, the need for easy and efficient Web site and portal management increases. Developing an easy-to-use future-proof content management system (CMS) from scratch isn't easy. The basic functionalities can be assembled in a reasonable timeframe, meaning that you will be able to edit the structure and the content of the Web site.

Often the hardest part of developing an application is getting agreement on what exactly it should do. Intent Driven Design (IDD) is an approach that simplifies and standardizes the process of getting detailed technical requirements from non-technical business users so you can develop more complete and consistent requirements in less time.

I'm a Webmaster for the Air Protection Division (APD), EPA Region 3 in Philadelphia and in April 2006, I wrote an article for CFDJ entitled 'How ColdFusion MX 7 Made Me a Hero at the Office' (Volume 8, Issue 4). That article described how I harnessed the power of ColdFusion to improve access to our most vital business information.

Want to make your Flash forms more FLEXible? Well, now you can! But, is there any point, you say, now that Flex 2 is out and effectively free (if you can make do without FlexBuilder)? Well, if you can go with Flex 2 then do so, but maybe like me, it's currently off limits to you...

The sign of an experienced developer is solid design. Novices edit examples they find on the Net, journeymen figure out how to code something as they do it, but craftsmen plan their work. Starting out, this can look like wasted time, but if your app is any good, your customer will want to expand it. Then, if you need some help, you'll have to explain all that intuitive code to ten people, all of whom you are paying by the hour. Diagrams would be nice then, right?

While the IPO market on Wall Street has cooled substantially, there is a new IPO looming on the horizon that has the potential to make you millions of dollars in the coming years. This is not hype. This is not a pipe dream. This is not a fantasy. It is a reality that is yours for the taking.

When I found out this month's issue would be a 'back to basics' issue, I was torn between several topics that I hope are of interest to every CFML developer. I settled on the array, which is a powerful tool in the hands of a skilled coder. Just to make sure everyone's on board we'll start with the assumption that we need to explore the nature of an array first.

Flex is one of the greatest technologies around. Combine it with ColdFusion and it just gets better. Adobe has made it possible to use Flex 2 efficiently with ColdFusion and easily get data across the server to a Flex front-end.

Errors and bugs: they happen in all code, mostly in development but in production too and perhaps more easily in CFML than in compiled languages. There are several features to help better handle, debug, and test for them, and this article will focus on those.

Way back when ColdFusion 4.5 was released, the concept of structures (associative arrays to some of you) was introduced. Never one to be receptive to change - not to mention having no background in other programming languages - I shunned structures for the most part and kept on my merry way working with arrays and lists. Over the years, however, I have come to appreciate the simplicity and functionality of structures and embrace them as my favorite ColdFusion data type.

As ColdFusion programmers or system administrators, there are times when we go through the CF Admin interface to try and optimize the server. A particular section located within the standalone version of the ColdFusion Administrator is simply called Java and JVM. When you reach this section, unless you have a healthy dose of Java experience, you may scratch your head and think, 'I don't really know much about this' and skip to something else. But the catch is, this section is the most powerful and important area to look at.

Many ColdFusion developers expressed this sentiment after downloading and working with the Flex 2 beta. Flex 2 has made developing rich Internet applications in the Adobe Flash environment possible for everyone (not just those of us who know and love timelines and tweens).

Developers are no different, yet I see 'improv developing' all the time. A project manager will just describe what's needed - the outlines of a plot - and let the developers work it out. The results are often what you'd see with a movie. However, designing an application with UML can act as a script for developers. They're still free to use their own creativity and experience when implementing the design, but the UML documents provide them with a map of what the final product should be.

One of the latest crazes in Web development is AJAX. Unless you've been living in a cave for the last year, you've heard of this old, yet currently popular, technique for making HTTP requests to a server without refreshing the Web page. While claims of smaller bandwidth, faster response, and highly interactive user interfaces may intrigue you, one must ask, 'Will it work for my user base?'

Putting support for XML processing in ColdFusion 6.0 was regarded as a major feature upgrade. With the switch to Java, ColdFusion could leverage the existing Java functions in Jakarta Commons and add support for things like Web Services (Axis). However, binding itself to Java also bound ColdFusion to the limitations of the Java feature set.

When the March 2006 issue of CFDJ arrived, I had just begun working on the maintenance interfaces for the support tables of a new system. There are many of these tables, and implementing the associated maintenance routines looked set to consume a lot of time.

I don't like browser-based WYSIWYG editors. There are a reasonably large number of them and several of the recent versions are even cross-browser-compatible with Mozilla and even some less popular browsers (although Safari continues to be problematic).

One complaint I have heard from many developers being introduced to object-oriented programming (OOP, OO) is that it is more work than it's worth. Setting up your objects, DAOs, gateways, etc., is a lot of coding that, until you have realized the power of OO, probably does seem like quite a bit of work. Here is where an ORM tool, such as objectBreeze, steps up to the plate. In the ColdFusion community we have recently seen a few object-relational mapping (ORM) tools hit the scene. These powerful APIs allow a developer to easily interact with their data persistence layer in an object-oriented pattern with a little setup involved (or none in the case of objectBreeze).

I must admit to having been excited at the prospect of the Pet Market frameworks project when Simon proposed it to us at the Fusebox & Frameworks Conference in September. I once tried to do something similar by creating a small blog application using the three popular frameworks that I was aware of at the time (Fusebox 3-4 and Mach-II) and the onTap framework.

I recently spoke to a group of attendees at the Fusebox and Frameworks Conference 2005 about the framework that I call TheHUB. Then when I was asked to write this article, I thought it would be a great way to compare and contrast it with several of the frameworks discussed at that conference. So I jumped at the chance to share my approach to developing ColdFusion applications.

It's all Simon's fault. We say this to all framework writers who, even now, are trying to recover from the task assigned them by CFDJ's editor-in-chief: provide an article and an implementation of the Macromedia Pet Market application in their chosen framework.