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Having recently posted about PageRank I wanted to expand on it a little here, not the recent update but the confusion and myths often associated with PR. I had a few emails after the post, asking questions about PageRank most making over exaggerate claims and misleading assumptions on its impact in relation to their search engine rankings.

The truth is many Webmasters often obsess over the importance of PageRank in relation to their Page Rank. Note two words, "Page Rank" not PageRank (PR), two different things. PR is just one of the many factors that Google uses to determine a page's actual Page Rank on their search result page (SERP) for a given search query.

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Just wanted to wish the CF community Happy Christmas.

I am a huge fan of Dreamweaver it's been my main editor of choice for over 5 years. It helps me to conveniently manage all my projects and websites in one place, a feature sadly lacking in Eclipse. I got a change to try out the Beta release of Adobes Dreamweaver CS4, the second release of Dreamweaver since Adobe absorbed it 3 years ago. I have been using the Dreamweaver CS4 Beta now for just over a month, with the final release looming I wanted to review my experiences so far.

The first thing I noticed was how quick Dreamweaver CS4 loaded in comparison to Dreamweaver CS3, however my old version has well over 100 site definitions and many extensions which the fresh copy did not, so it's not an exact evaluation of its performance.

The most obvious change to Dreamweaver CS4s is the new user interface. The new interface now looks like rest of Adobe's Creative Suite, and is much more intuitive to use than before, you can customise it for yourself or pick from a list of predefined workspaces such as coder, designer, coder plus, app developer and so on. It's seems highly flexible in creating a working environment which best matches your own needs.

Dreamweaver appeal has always been because its designed for both the beginner and advanced user, while the designers can use the new integration features such as Smart Objects, coders like myself have always needed something closer to what Eclipse has. Well its now seems like DW has caught up for web languages anyway. The new related files bar, which appears between the document toolbar and the document itself, lists all CSS, JavaScript and server side files linked to the page, you can split the page using live view and watch changes as you make them, very cool. Setup correctly with my ColdFusion server I found the live view very helpful.

I will post more reviews as I play more

Dreamweaver CS4 Requirements

• 1GHz or faster processor
• Microsoft® Windows® XP with Service Pack 2 (Service Pack 3 recommended) or Windows Vista® Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise with Service Pack 1 (certified for 32-bit Windows XP and Windows Vista)
• 512MB of RAM
• 1GB of available hard-disk space for installation
• 1,280x800 display with 16-bit video card

Until recently the Web Application Construction Kit series were the only books worth purchasing if learning ColdFusion 7/8. I have all 3 of these books and I often find myself picking bits out of each.

Although excellent books for someone just learning CF it can get expensive. This was a concern a local university shared and one of the key factors in the decision not to teach it. "Can students afford to buy all 3 books at almost £40 each just for a 6 week module?"

Today I got my copy of the ColdFusion 8 Developer Tutorial. One book covering all the basics and even some in depth AJAX stuff.

I just want to say thank you to John Farrar the author of the book for giving the ColdFusion community more options on reading material, and I hope this is the start of things to come. A great book for learning CF and the authors deserve praise.

If you are learning ColdFusion or new to some of the CF8 features I would recommend it. If you are an advanced CF user then it serves only as good refresher.

Universities you no longer have an excuse for not teaching the best web application development language!

While browsing YouTube last night I came across these why ColdFusion videos. The first one is by Ben Forta, the second by some random person but funny so worth a watch. Ben Forta - Why ColdFusion? Why ColdFusion? Dance with Lana Rudkovsky