ColdFusion Weekly
Shortly after Apple released the Podcast update for my iPod I chugged through the screens on the Apple website subscribing to all kinds of NPR fun plus some random tidbits I thought I'd listen to. Less than 3 days later I was behind with podcasts backed out the door unlistened to. So I did the rational thing. I deleted them all and vowed never to listen again!
Recently I heard about the competition to win passes to CFUnited for ColdFusion weekly podcast listeners so I subscribed to the feed with the intention of snatching some tickets. I didn't subscribe to any others, just this one. That was three weeks ago and I'm still listening on the days when I get to stand on the bus because there are no seats left for me to sit and read. I'm delighted that I have heard each one, maybe a little delayed but I have listened intently, nodded my head in agreement with things I hear and frowned as I disagree. This morning I even guffawed as I heard the song to wrap the show - "Woman you've got a jive inheritance tree". It's a good show, well put together and a good format. They start with the news before getting into a topic, closing with the competition and then throwing a goofy song in at the end.
The show I heard this morning included a piece on Virtual Machines (VM). I've used VMWare with great success at the office, the first time was to allow me to view IE6 after I upgraded to IE7. I also installed Firefox 1.5 on there too so I've got four browser versions to play with. The second one I created was to run an Ubuntu image with EasyVM running the BlueDragon 7 beta.
The only issue with VM is the RAM size so if you are playing with CF instances I would order some memory to push you over 2GB.
They skimmed briefly over the "old tools" for getting screenshots of your application working on different browsers and OSs but I think they deserve more attention. If you haven't got the money for all the OS costs and the time to install these VMs, check out Browsercam. We use it at the office after Jeff found it. Sure it will run your URL through most PDA, Unix, Mac and more browsers but they also offer remote desktop instances too. This means that next time a user calls to complain about your site looking funky on their Windows 98 machine, you can dial up a remote desktop window, fire up the browser they were using and see exactly how your application works there.
Great job on the Podcast guys and I'm looking forward to my complimentary CFUnited pass ;-)