Why should you be interested in ColdFusion? As Charles tells all us webmasters, "if business likes it, you love it." And businesses love ColdFusion, because this database-to-Web gateway provides an effective and simple way to make a dynamic Web.
In this three-day tutorial, Charles starts by identifying those who could benefit from using ColdFusion. He then moves on to tackle some of the backend work: identifying a data source on the server and making the modifications needed to get the database ColdFusion-ready.

We've all heard how powerful ColdFusion is and most of us have experienced this power at one time another. We've also heard how easy it can be to program in ColdFusion versus other languages that are currently available. But, one thing you don't hear is how easy it is to install and set up a ColdFusion server. To some, setting up and configuring the server is child's play; to others, it's not so easy.

In this tutorial, I'll show you how to set up a ColdFusion Development server on your home computer (Windows 2000 or XP), and how to get it to work with Apache 2.x (I'll show you how to install this as well).

After a long period of author R&R I am pleased to welcome you to the second tutorial of Introducing ColdFusion.  The aim of this tutorial is the further your ColdFusion development knowledge and provide you with the building blocks necessary to begin building your own more useful ColdFusion applications.

We will begin by introducing functions to you along with explanations and examples of their use.  As you delve deeper into the tutorial we will see how the tags and functions you have learned can be used within the ColdFusion application framework to produce robust, secure and efficient online applications.  The tutorial culminates in a step by step guide to producing a session enabled online survey - a useful addition to any web site that wishes to gather user information.

ColdFusion is a tool made by Allaire that runs concurrently with most Windows and Solaris Web servers (it can also be used effectively on intranets, but we'll leave that for a separate tutorial and another check from the good folks at Wired). If you host your own server in-house, you can install the package on the same machine; if you host with an outside provider, you'll have to convince them to purchase and install it. There's also a growing number of Web providers offering ColdFusion as an available service. You can expect to pay more than you would for a standard hosting account, but, as you'll read in the next section, the time-saving properties of ColdFusion are well worth the extra loot.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to invoke and return results from web services in a Macromedia Flash movie using ColdFusion MX. Using the Flash Remoting service in ColdFusion MX, you can interact with web services directly from your Macromedia Flash movies like any other remote service in Macromedia Flash Remoting. Moreover, you do not need to build a single ColdFusion page or component.

To build Macromedia Flash movies that interact with web services using ColdFusion, you must have the Macromedia Flash MX authoring environment and ColdFusion MX installed. The Flash Remoting service is a feature of ColdFusion MX and does not require an additional installation.