I decided to give myself a new AIR/Flex project, one that would specifically use the built-in database. My project was a simple one - a time tracker.

RIAForge, which launched a bit over a year ago, has had a pretty good year. The stats at years end are:

Total Active Projects: 383
Total Views: 2,778,627
Total Downloads: 170,953
Total Verified Users: 2,731

I know folks are still waiting for multi-user SVN and project administration. I'm still hoping to get this "real soon now", but as this is in my spare time now, it's been delayed.

I'm also curious to know - has anyone implemented the RIAForge source? Care to share how?

Someone just asked in the CF IRC channel what they can do with set of encrypted templates. The developer on their team encrypted a bunch of code, deleted the originals, and left the company.

In the past, you could Google and download a tool to decrypt the files. Technically you were (as far as I know) breaking your license w/ Adobe. But apparently this tool doesn't work with recent servers.

I also heard rumors, and this was way back in the Allaire days, that you could call the company, explain the situation, send the files, and get the decrypted source back.

But what is the answer now? I don't want to promote any illegal hacks, so if someone knows the "official" answer, I'd like to know.

Of course, the best solution here is prevention. If your code was checked into a source control repository, and the developer didn't have admin rights to that machine, then your code would have been safe.

This morning a discussion came up on cf-talk about how to run JavaScript functions from within ColdFusion 8 containers. (What do I mean by 'container'? I mean any of the new Ajax UI elements like the Pod or Window.) The person asking the question was trying to use ColdFusion.navigate. I can see how you could possibly think this would work. One way to run JavaScript functions is with links, as in:

I'm thinking this is something folks have blogged about before, but I just ran into it today. When using array and struct implicit creation, you cannot use the syntax directly in a udf/method call. Let me explain. Consider this example:

In this example I use shorthand notation to creation a structure. I then pass it to somefunc as an argument named data. This works just fine. But this version, which should be the same, will give you a syntax error:

I also tried the simpler form:

Which also failed. It looks like you can only use the implicit creation in cfset statements. (Which is certainly ok, I'm just happy we have this shortcut!)

Just a quick note to tell folks Merry Christmas. We just got done eating and my kids are now learning to use their new computer (the 20 inch iMac with some good educational/typing games). My wife picked me up a beautiful Swiss Army watch (the brown Chrono Classic) to add to my collection and I'm contently letting the pumpkin pie settle in. I'll be back in the office Thursday. (And back on the diet. ;)

p.s. I find it incredibly ridiculous that Cox is broadcasting an HD channel showing nothing but a fireplace. I find it even more ridiculous that I have it on.

One of the most surprising things about the XBox 360 console is not the "big" games, but the fun little games you can play via XBLA (XBox Live Arcade). These games typically run from 5-10 dollars and are simple games. They may not have the graphics of Call of Duty or the depth of Bioshock, but they can be quite good for the price. About a month or so I finally listened to a friend who told me to check out Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords. I knew it was a puzzle game, but it was also - get this - a RPG. Now frankly - I like RPGs quite a bit, and I like puzzle games a bit, but I thought this would mix like beer and oatmeal. Turns out the game is great and easily one of the best purchases I've made on XBLA.

So how exactly do you mix a RPG and a puzzle game? The basic idea of the game is that each battle is done via a puzzle. The puzzle is simple - mix 3 or more of the same color gem. But the RPG aspect kicks in when you are look at what matching gems get you. Some gems given you a form of mana (magic points) which are distributed among four different types. Some gems give you gold or experience, and some gems do direct attacks on your enemy.

You have a few basic character classes, including your typical fighters and mages, and you can customize your name and picture. Your character also has multiple skills that affect your magic ability and fighting skills. You also have an inventory of weapons, armors, and magical jewelry you can add as well.

But wait - along with basic combat you also have a citadel (I called it my crib) that you can customize. You can capture enemies and learn spells or train them as mounts (my sexy female knight spent the game riding a giant rat). You can even craft new magical items. Oh - and you can even lay siege to cities. Once a city is captured, it will give you money once a month.

And oh yeah - there was a plot to the game as well. Something about killing some big undead dude. I'm not intentionally trying to downplay the plot. It was ok. But frankly, I just enjoyed playing the game and increasing my character stats. In ways it reminded me of Diablo. Diablo had a plot - but really it was just a fun RPG to play.

Anyway - check the game out. You can download a demo for free and the game even includes multiplayer. By the way, the screen shots below are from the PSP version. My source for screen shots didn't have any from the XBLA version which is definitely better than the ones you see here.

Since I consider Out of Office email auto responders to be the spawn of the devil (I've gotten maybe 100 this holiday season and frankly I despise them - if you can't at least configure them to respond to a unique email once, then you are no better than most spammers), I thought I'd drop a quick note to let folks know I'll be off this week. As always, the 'rule' is to not find any major bugs in my software while I'm on vacation. ;)

If you send email, most likely I will not respond until later this week, so please keep that in mind.

And to my readers - may your Christmas be at least 1000 times better than this horrible final Saints game I'm watching.

Ben posted last night that you can now find even more free chapters from the CFWACK online. This is an excellent way to 'sample' the WACK series if you aren't sure it's right for you (although if you don't buy the WACK, PHP wins, and we don't want that, do we?). You can find the new downloadable chapters on the book 2 page, and the older chapters on the first book's page.

As a reminder, don't forget the book has an online forum. I don't peruse the forums as much as I should, but I'm going to subscribe now so I can be sure I don't miss requests.

Devon asks:

I am using custom tags to do my layout and thought this would be great for creating printable pages easily by being able to just include a different stylesheet if boolean print is true. Then I thought after reading the reporting chapter in WACK 1 why not cfdocument ...well because it moans about unclosed tags and I kinda saw that coming once I opened my 1st if statement.

So I'll sit this evening and give Ch 25 from WACK 2 a proper read but I was wondering if it would be possible to print out the content of a custom layout tag using cfdocument and maybe a content variable?