Now, what Google announced is really exciting! I'm not kidding. It's even better than I hoped. Yes, it's only Python, but IBM's PC-DOS was only BASIC and Pascal when it first came out, and it didn't matter. Yeah, I preferred C, but I coded in Pascal because that's what you had to do to get an app running. What you're going to see here that you've never seen before is shrinkwrap net apps that scale that can be deployed by civillians. That's a mouthful, but that's what's coming. Why? Because here is a standardized platform that can be stamped out in the billions of units. Maybe Google can't do it, but the perception is that they can. Who is willing to stand up and say Google hasn't nailed scaling? What PCs did in the 80s, Google is doing now. PCs took the black magic out of owning a computer.

The NY Times had a story yesterday, much-written-about in the blogosphere, that said that bloggers were working themselves to death. This was one article about blogging I was glad to be left out of, even so, it could have been about me, a number of years ago, when my lifestyle almost did kill me.

I asked what she did for a living. She said she was a software engineer working with SOA. I did not think about my plane ride much until I arrived in San Francisco to attend the SOA World Conference & Expo this past Monday and Tuesday. The first day of the conference as I walked into the hotel, guess who I saw? My friend who I met on the Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul. What a small world, isn't it? Her company was one of the sponsors of the event.

If you use Adobe Flex Web applications that connect to Plain Old Java Objects on the server side, chances are you use a popular, robust, and freely available server called Apache Tomcat. If you use Eclipse-based Flex Builder, you can smoothly debug both Flex and Java code without leaving Eclipse. Flex Builder debugger does not need any special configuration. But we need to add a couple of parameters to the startup routine of Tomcat so it'll engage the Java Platform Debugger Architecture (JPDA), which will allow other applications attach to JVM that runs Tomcat and debug deployed Java classes remotely.

Many people are confused about the relationship between Flash, Flex and AJAX. It's a bit tricky, because in many cases the three technologies are similar to each other: all three allow web developers to add dynamic elements to static web pages very easily. Flex and Flash are both delivered via the Flash Player (normally used as a plugin to browsers), AJAX applications are delivered via the browser. AJAX is written with JavaScript, XML and HTML components, Flex applications are written with ActionScript, XML and MXML components.

On any given day, more blogs about i-Technology appear at SYS-CON.con's myriad domains than any other destination site on the Web. Topics range from Java, AJAX, enterprise open source, Web services, SOA, Linux, wireless technologies, XML, .NET, Eclipse, PowerBuilder, Search, Security, Storage, and Adobe's welter of technologies from PDF and Photoshop to ColdFusion, FlexBuilder and Flex 2.

I gotta say, I had a lot of fun at the Real-World Flex Seminar SYS-CON put together. Things went, for me, really smoothly. Registration, getting Internet at the booth, and hooking up with my team. Free coffee was readily available, so I was set.

I'm sure most everyone wants the new Studio 8. It rocks! But maybe you just recently broke down and purchased Studio MX 2004 (or any of the products contained therein) and you're just not ready to fork over more cash just yet. Well -- maybe you don't have to. If you purchased on or after July 8th, make sure to read Macromedia's page with the upgrade rules (www.macromedia.com /cfusion/knowledgebase/in dex.cfm?id=tn_15313). You might be pleasantly surprised!

Don't forget that you can blog yourself now, too, under the MXDJ domain - just follow the blog-n-play link from http://mxdj.sys-con.com.

Don't forget that you can blog yourself now, too, under the MXDJ domain - just follow the blog-n-play link from http://mxdj.sys-con.com.

If one of the true signs of a vibrant developer community is an active blogosphere surrounding a technology, then the MX suite of technologies certainly passes that test with flying colors. Don't forget that you can blog yourself now, too, under the MXDJ domain - just follow the blog-n-play link from http://mxdj.sys-con.com.

If one of the true signs of a vibrant developer community is an active blogosphere surrounding a technology, then the MX suite of technologies certainly passes that test with flying colors. In case you're not yet actively blogging yourself, MXDJ brings you here a comprehensive selection from some of the best known blogger-commentators (and some of the not so well-known too), by way of whetting your appetite.