JRun 4 and ColdFusion MX 7 J2EE Installation A full version of JRun 4 is included with ColdFusion MX 7 Enterprise Edition. If you wish to install ColdFusion's J2EE edition you must have a separate install of JRun 4 on the system or any other Java server. I haven't tested this on Tomcat or Resin, but I imagine the results would be similiar.

I ran this using the developer editions of both JRun and CFMX 7 with no problems.

The following steps are guidelines to the installation process: Install JVM

Install updated Sun JVM (Java Virtual Machine) 1.3 or higher http://www.java.com/en/download/index.jsp Install JRun 4

1. Install JRun 4 and select Install JRun as a Windows Service when the option is given.

2. Install JRun 4 Updater 6 from Macromedia.com http://www.macromedia.com/support/jrun/updaters.html - this update is required and JRun will not work with the current versions of JVM without Updater 6.

3. After installing Updater 6 verify JRun is running  From the Start Menu select the Macromedia JRun Management Console. This is the Administrative screen for JRun4.

Select Create New Server from the options in the top menu bar. A pop-up window will appear. Enter cfusion for your new JRun Server Name. The new JRun Server Directory will automatically be assigned. Click on Create Server to finish. This will create a server in the JRun 4 directory:

C:\JRun4\servers\cfusion

4. Verify the server was created

Cfusion is created as a server and its default HTTP port is also listed. The server is stopped at this time.

5. From the Start Menu select the Macromedia JRun Web Configuration Tool to verify JRun is working with your web server ex. IIS. If not you can add IIS to as your default web server.

Installing ColdFusion 7 MX

After entering your License Agreement, the Installer Configuration menu will allow you to select the J2EE configuration. Select the EAR File as the desired package.

When the installation process is completed you will have a file called cfusion.ear in your default ColdFusion MX 7 directory.

C:\CFusionMX7\cfusion.ear

Now that you have the cfusion.ear file created you are ready to add that .ear file to a JRun server. Creating a JRun Server to hold the new CFMX 7 Installation

Expand the EAR file by performing the following steps:

1. Open a console window, navigate to the directory that contains the EAR file, and make a new directory named cfusion-ear:

md cfusion-ear (mkdir cfusion-ear on UNIX)

2. Change to the cfusion-ear directory and expand the cfusion.ear file with the jar command:

cd cfusion-ear

%java_home%/bin/jar -xvf ../cfusion.ear

This expands the cfusion.ear file into cfusion.war and rds.war (rds.war is not included if you specified a context root of / when you ran the installation wizard).

3. In cfusion-ear, make a new directory named cfusion-war.

md cfusion-war (mkdir cfusion-war on UNIX)

Change to the cfusion-war directory and expand the cfusion.war file with the jar command:

cd cfusion-war

java_root/bin/jar -xvf ../cfusion.war

This expands the cfusion.war file.

When you are completed the folder structure will be:

4. ColdFusion MX 7 is setup on JRun. You can verify this installation by loading your browser and going to:

http://localhost:8101/ -- OR whichever HTTP port you selected for your cfusion server.

For configuration of JRun with your Web Server such as IIS, please refer to Macromedia's Technotes:

JRun4 Technotes

I woke up this morning reading the saddest news of the day.

"Dell to buy Alienware in gaming computer expansion"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060323/tc_nm/dell_alienware_dc

I didn't think Alienware would sell out to Dell, but apparently every man or company has their price. I guess the boys from Alienware were ready to retire.

Found this linked off of Ben Forta's blog and wanted to paste it here as well. Its great to see Flex being pushed forward by Adobe - The Flash Forward Conference made that very clear.

"From Adobe Labs

The Adobe Developer Relations team is releasing a set of free and open ActionScript 3.0 APIs to help developers get started building Flex 2.0 applications. The projects are listed below, along with descriptions and links to source, docs, and zip files for each individual project. The ZIP files contain source code, documentation, and SWCs (compiled versions of the libraries)."

http://labs.macromedia.com/wiki/index.php/ActionScript_3:resources:apis:libraries

Back from the conference and I thought it was excellent. It was definitely a designer conference, however the developer crowd had a presence. FFC definitely stressed Flash (of course) and the regular Adobe lineup with Photoshop and Illustrator, but overall you got the sense Adobe plans to push the Macromedia line hard and continue integrating ColdFusion with new products such as Flex. I believe there might have been only one or two classes that directly dealt with CF, but every class or workshop I was in mentioned CF at some point.

It was a Flex workshop that was the highlight of the trip for me. Flex is more or less Adobe's attempt at Ajax. Rich applications that are XML based. The drawback of course is its not free. Adobe hasn't officially completed Flex 2.0, but you can get a beta on their website.

The Flex beta they demonstrated called CFCs using remote object handling and it was very very cool. The ability to reuse existing CFCs and throw a very clean interface quickly is very appealing.

I know Ajax is the buzz word right now, but I wonder what the long term future holds for it because it seems somewhat thrown together. I could be wrong. I also wonder if loading up the client has a breaking point. I've seen it in the past, but I also realize the browsers today are much more powerful than 4-5 years ago.

The Adobe folks have high hopes for the Macromedia lines and they want to integrate them as much as possible. Even though it was Flash focused it touched on almost all of the Studio products. The conference was packed - completely sold out. Mostly designers, but some developers... To have the Adobe gurus out there got the creative juices flowing again and I was very happy that EverydayUps was able to make it.