Now that I've begun settling in to the role of editor-in-chief of CFDJ, I'm beginning to incorporate some ideas I have for the magazine. The first change you'll note this month is that Tales from the List is gone. That's not because I'm too lazy to both edit the magazine and write a monthly column - far from it in fact. Though the column is meant to focus on threads from the CFDJ-List, as the title implies, I have also used it from time to time as a forum to discuss community events and trends. I think that's a good thing, and so the column is now titled Community Focus. Each month, the column will discuss one or more community events, trends, discussion list threads, blog entries, Macromedia announcements, or other community-related topics.

Also new this month is a bit of an experiment - a pretty heavy focus on specific topics, including articles with similar if not identical themes written by different authors. I want to see what happens if we choose a few specific topics and explore them more deeply, rather than running a mixed bag. This month, CFDJ has two focus topics: security and "selling" ColdFusion.

On security, Wayne Graham has written a terrific article about a rather advanced topic - how to use public-key encryption in ColdFusion applications. The nice part is that he uses nothing but free Java-based software in his examples so no developer working with sensitive data has an excuse to not be using public key-based encryption/decryption. Alex Hubner's article introduces and explains ColdFusion's Sandbox Security. If you've never explored the security features built into ColdFusion, I strongly suggest you read his article. Michael Smith of TeraTech and CFUN fame and security expert Bryan Murphy both list their top tips for building secure applications. Even my community focus article is getting in on the action, as I recap several recent security-related blog entries.

Another focus topic this month is "how to sell ColdFusion." It seems like this has been a hot topic for ColdFusion developers for longer than I can remember - more so now than ever before. We have two ColdFusion legends giving their take on the subject. Ben Forta has written an article based on several recent blog entries and e-mail exchanges that summarize ColdFusion "selling points" that are specific to the alternative technology being evaluated. Hal Helms' article is based on a discussion he recently had with a client who had to justify the use of ColdFusion as a development platform. Both articles are a must-read, as we all end up in the same situation of defending CF to a client sooner or later. Be prepared!

Also this month is an interesting article by Harry Klein about a Mach-II unit testing framework, a jointly authored article by Matthew Fusfield and Ryan Emerle about how they used Java to monitor networks, and Jeffry Houser's monthly CF101 column in which he discusses the ColdFusion application framework.

Please let me know what you think of the "deeper reach" format we've experimented with this month by dropping me an e-mail at simon@horwith.com If enough of you approve, I'll do my best to ensure we produce more issues like it. If not: back to the drawing board! If you have any suggestion(s) for articles, regular columns, other changes to the content, or any other ideas for CFDJ, now's the time to speak up. In the meantime, I have a few of my own experiments planned. Your feedback is invaluable in determining what does and does not work, so please do let me know.