Even a cursory glance at our (and other) jobs boards reveals a growing demand for administrators and developers on the Force.com platform. IdeaExchange has this great post where you developers and admins are saying things like:

• "It's easier to get funding for courses that are part of a certification program that a stand alone course"
• "[I was] overlooked due to the inability to really affirm my prowess with Salesforce.com"
• "That would be good for SFDC, their users and for my CV"

Well, pretty soon you will be able to join and attend courses for a certification program, affirm your prowess and improve your CV. Education Services are rolling out Developer and Admin Certification, globally, over the next two or three quarters. It will soon be available in the Americas, and a little later in EMEA. Read our Guide to Certification to learn more about the certification process, access free study guides and to register for any of the certification programs. I think this is a significant development for our community. Let me know what your take is.

I just found out about this free webinar from Model Metrics, our Force.com Platform parter on "Platform as a Service from salesforce.com" and thought it might benefit you all.

As many of you know, the Force.com platform allows you to extend Salesforce.com to all parts of your business. Here is your opportunity to learn more about how Force.com enables your IT department to quickly provide solutions for its backlog of database and system requests. Billing, operations, recruiting, fulfillment, resource management, call centers, and many other non-sales departments can benefit greatly. Note that native apps delivered through the Force.com platform are easy to build, affordable to deploy, and best of all – faster to implement than traditional applications developed using .Net or Java.

Join Model Metrics on Wednesday, March 19 at 11 AM CST for a deeper explanation of what this means for your business, along with a demonstration of applications built using the Force.com platform. You’ll learn how organizations across different industries have been able to benefit from extending Salesforce.com functionality well beyond CRM. Register Now!

Happy Learning!
The developer.force.com Team

Take advantage of all the new Development-as-a-Service features in Spring ’08 with the latest release of the Force.com IDE.

The Force.com IDE enables developers to build Force.com applications, test Apex Classes and Triggers, and deploy customizations from Sandbox and Developer Edition to production—all from the familiar Eclipse workbench.

This major release updates the IDE with the following features:

• Create and edit Visualforce Components and Letterheads
• Edit Static Resources, Documents, and Email Templates
• Create projects from any Eclipse-enabled version control system
• Support for latest Salesforce.com SOAP API (v12.0)

And to help you get up to speed quickly, we’ve published two immersion labs from our Tour de Force kickoff event.  In these tutorials, you’ll use the IDE to build an application with Apex Code and Visualforce pages, and even practice checking out a Code Share project.

To get started, visit the Force.com IDE page on developer.force.com, where you’ll find detailed product information, installation and upgrade guides, release notes, and FAQs.

 

In the midst of all the technology news, you may not have noticed something we rolled out developer.force.com, the new name for our developer program and website. With the launch of Force.com in October and the accelerating shift in the developer community toward a range of enterprise app development that goes well beyond CRM, it was time for a new name that better reflects the full breadth of the Force.com platform. And the new name is just the latest in a series of improvements, updates, and new features the DFC team has delivered in recent months, including the launch of Force.com Ideas, an overhaul of the discussion boards, and a redesign and refresh of the wiki and developer blog. Let us know what you think.

Have you been developing great Apex and want to deploy it into your production instance? Or are you looking for a more powerful development environment for VisualForce pages and controllers?

The best tool going for editing Apex and S-Controls has just become a lot better with the major upgrade released today!

This latest Developer Preview release includes the following changes:

* Support for creating and editing Visualforce pages and controllers
* Support for editing custom fields and tabs
* Support for creating and editing custom objects, applications, and profiles
* Detection and synchronization of edit collisions for the newly supported file types
* Improved usability through the addition of a Force.com perspective that preselects tools appropriate to Force.com platform development
* Support for new Salesforce.com SOAP API (v11.1)

And as in the previous release, the Force.com Toolkit for Eclipse includes a deployment wizard that now publishes not only Apex and S-Controls, but all the new types as well!

There's a lot here. Make sure you check out the release notes, FAQs, and installation guide on the toolkit’s main page on the Apex Developers' Network, http://wiki.apexdevnet.com/index.php/Force.com_Toolkit_for_Eclipse

Kick off the New Year with Tour de Force San Francisco!

You do not want to miss this free event and the chance to learn about how to use software as a service and the Force.com platform. This event will help developers, admins, IT managers, and entrepreneurs who are new to Force.com or have already been using Force.com technologies and would like to create the next generation of business applications and companies.

As this will be a content-rich day, you will have unique opportunities to learn new skills, get expert guidance, and hear inside information on the latest Force.com development technologies.

Also, by attending, you will receive a hard copy of the new Force.com Cookbook for free.

Register Now!

See you on Jan 17, 2008 in San Francisco.

-The Force.com Team

Have an idea for a new Web services API method or an idea for improving the Apex Toolkit for Eclipse?  Looking for a specific tutorial on integrating salesforce.com with (name your favorite database)? Well, thanks to the Successforce and IdeaExchange guys, the developer community now has its own Ideas forum where one can post, promote, and comment on Force.com ideas.

By promoting your favorite ideas, you're telling us and the community what your desire in future products, samples, or articles.  Ideas with a high promotion count mean that they are well liked, relevant, and conceptually sound. The more popular an idea is, the higher it is promoted on the site.

Browse on over to Force.com Ideas to post or promote an idea or just to check it out.

This will be a great webinar for those of you who spend most of your time as Salesforce.com Admins.
If you want to learn, how to get started on building powerful applications without programming, to support any process or department in your company, I recommend you attend this live webinar. You will learn how to use Force.com to create custom apps that take advantage of the platform's latest features, including workflow, rollup summary fields, and formulas.

Day/Time: Wednesday, November 14, 10am - 11am PST.

By the way, everyone who attends this webinar will receive access to exclusive tools and resources, including the newest edition of our popular e-book Creating On-Demand Applications Using Force.com.
Register Now!

Happy Learning!
The ADN Team

If you'll be in the vicinity of our nation's capital next week, perhaps you'll consider dropping in on the New New Internet conference in Reston, Va. on November 1st. I'm looking forward to joining Amazon's Web Services Evangelist, Jeff Barr, for an early-morning "armchair discussion" of the business potential of Web 2.0 -- and the rest of the agenda looks seriously interesting as well.

Drop me a line at my salesforce.com address ("pcoffee") if you plan to be there -- and expect to see further notes on the conference sessions here.

As many of you already know, Salesforce.com has recently opened up the Visualforce Developer Preview program to all customers, partners and prospects.  You can quickly sign up for this program on the ADN website, and now I'm excited to announce a detailed tutorial that has just been added to all the great Visualforce content already available. This is an easy to understand article which walks you through hello-world and much more, many thanks to Jon Montjoy, this is one you will want to bookmark!

Just a quick sampling of the ADN content shows that we have something for everyone, if you are a visual or auditory learner, check out this Webinar replay.  If you are like me and prefer to dive head-first into source code, then take a look at the tag cloud implementation posted in (the test drive for) the Employee Directory application, thanks again to Jason and Appirio for open-sourcing that work.  If you prefer to read first and then cook up your own solutions, we have that ready and waiting for your review in the Visualforce chapters in the Cookbook.  There are lots of other resources and code samples on the ADN site, but for those of you who like to talk back, there is a gem of a resource available to help get your Visualforce game on, that is the recently opened Visualforce Developer board. Where else can your questions get read and answered by the team writing the code that makes the magic happen!

For those that can't wait, we just published a wiki page that details all the exciting features coming in  Winter '08 for developers. 

Hop on over to http://wiki.apexdevnet.com/index.php/Winter_08 to get an early look.

 

We've just released an important update to the Force.com Toolkit for Eclipse. If you're already using the Toolkit, you'll want to pick up this update.  If you aren't using it yet, now it a great time to see why this is still the best tool going both for editing Apex code and s-controls, and for publishing finished Apex code into other Salesforce instances.

This latest Developer Preview release includes a large number of fixes and usability improvements, especially in the areas of package handling, project synchronization and deployment. See the release notes for details.

If you already have the August 16 release installed, you can pick up this update using the update facility built into Eclipse. You can find detailed instructions here.

Make sure you check out the release notes, FAQs, and installation guide on the toolkit’s main ADN page.

Did you miss Dreamforce ‘07? You can now watch over 30 Developers@Dreamforce sessions across four tracks. These practical presentations and demos from Force.com technical experts give you essential fundamentals, insider tips and tricks, and development best practices on the latest Force.com technologies.

Here is a sampling of sessions topics you may want to watch:
    - Platform State of the Union
    - Getting Started with Visualforce
    - Deep Dive : Visualforce
    - Apps for Admins: Real-World Apps Built by Fellow Admins
    - End-to-end Applications Built Using the Salesforce Platform
    - Building the Ultimate Google & Salesforce Mashup
    - Flex Your Apps: Using the Flex Toolkit to Develop Rich UIs for Salesforce App
    Watch Now!

Please note that since our general-purpose application development platform now goes by the name of Force.com, we've changed the name of the category on this blog that's used for comments relating to making your living in that space: what used to be called "The Business of Apex" is now called "Forceful Thinking."  We look forward to building that community with you here.

Mark your calendar for Thursday, September 27, 2007 at 10am PST for this free webinar. Watch as noted EAI author David Linthicum teams up with salesforce.com's Andrew Leigh to demonstrate how the leading on-demand platform is already delivering on the promise of SOA. You will also learn how integrating an on-demand platform into your enterprise architecture makes it possible to:

    * Build processes that serve your business goals-not the limits of your infrastructure
    * Tap into new web services quickly and integrate seamlessly with best-of-breed solutions
    * Save time by reusing existing design, code, configurations, metadata and application architectures

Enjoy!

The ADN Team

Have you been developing great Apex Code and want to get it into your production instance? Or have you wished you could merge the changes being made by your team mates to s-controls or Apex Code?

We've just released a major update to the Apex Toolkit for Eclipse. See why this is the best tool going both for editing Apex Code and s-controls and now also for publishing finished Apex Code into other Salesforce instances.

This latest Developer Preview release includes the following changes:

• Support for Apex Code language changes
• Wizard for moving Apex Code between organizations, included deployment into production organizations ("Deploy to Salesforce")
• Local file handling, including initial support for Eclipse built-in Team development capabilities
• Detection of edit collisions between change in Apex toolkit and changes made in organization or by another developer using the Apex toolkit
• Support for managed packages
• Synchronization perspective to merge conflicting changes
• Support for new Salesforce.com SOAP API (v10)

There's a lot here. Make sure you check out the release notes, FAQs, and installation guide on the toolkit’s main ADN page.

WebGuild, a Silicon Valley professional network, holds monthly talks at Google on various technology topics. This month, they're focusing on the topic of online platforms. Come hear us weigh in on issues surrounding technologies and business models relevant to on-demand/SaaS (Google & Rearden Commerce are also on a panel that will be moderated by Office 2.0 evangelist Ismael Ghalimi).

Future of Online Platforms
Wednesday, August 15, 2007, 6-9:30pm
Googleplex
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Building 43
Mountain View, CA

There is a nominal fee to attend ($30); if you join WebGuild there's a discount.

If you're in the area, stop by and say hello. Hope to see some ADN members there!

Take a look at the new features in the Summer ’07 release of the salesforce.com platform.  This screencast, for ADN members only, covers the top features in the release, including  live demonstrations of summary roll-up fields, flexible approvals, custom report types, the new meta-data API and the AJAX proxy. Take an advance peek at all the new features for database services, the application framework, Apex code and the Apex API.

Many of you have shown interest and requested for some training on the free new Adobe Flex Toolkit for Apex, announced at the Web 2.0 Expoo event few weeks ago. The toolkit lets you use Adobe Flex to easily add "Rich Internet Application" functionality and highly dynamic UI elements to your Apex apps. Based on popular demand, you're invited to our upcoming free live webinar on Wednesday, June 27, 20007 (10:00am - 11:00am PST).

You will learn about the toolkit and what it can do for you directly from the joint Salesforce/Adobe team that built it.  Also, as a special bonus, if you attend we'll give you a special limited-time promo code that will get you 15% off of Flex Builder at the Adobe online store.

Registration is free, we look forward to seeing you there.  (ADN members, use the registration shortcut.)

-The ADN Team

 

Check out this really cool 10 minute screencast demo from Adam Gross on demonstrating the power of Salesforce SOA from yesterday’s Developer’s Conference.

Many of you have been asking about the Second Edition of the "Creating On-Demand Applications" book. Well, it is now available as a free download to ADN members. If you are not an ADN member, join for free and get access to the e-book and many moe ADN benefits.

For those who are new to the ADN community, here is a brief description:

This book is the single best way to get started building on-demand applications! It provides practical, step-by-step coverage of the Apex platform and how you can use it to build your own on-demand solutions quickly and easily. Revised and expanded, this 250-page second edition PDF is fully up-to-date, and includes new sections on reporting and dashboards, approvals, time-based workflow, custom object queues, validation rules, default field values, search layouts, and more!

If you did not get a chance to attend the Salesforce Developer Conference yesterday, you might hear about Salesforce SOA in the developer community. Briefly, Salesforce EVP Parker Harris announced a powerful new capability of the Apex programming language that will enable you to leverage Web services from anywhere and build them into your on-demand application. Also, it makes  it possible to mashup salesforce.com's multi-tenant on-demand service with enterprise workflow and business processes to enable you to build new kinds of enterprise applications on demand.

Suggest you check out new check out Salesforce SOA content and demos on the ADN wiki. Also, please post your questions and comments on the Apex Code Development board.  As always, we're interested in your thoughts.

Please find the sessions details for the Salesforce Developer Conference, Santa Clara, CA. I thought this would help you get better insight into the track and sessions that will help you the most. If you have not registered for free yet, please do so before we run out of sitting space.

In addition to the keynote by Marc Benioff and Industry Visionaries such as Guy Kawasaki in the morning, you will be able to attend 1 of the 3 tracks as well as get hands-on at the Apex Code lab session in the afternoon.

The Apex code Lab will be open from 11:30am - 5am. This will really give you the opportunity to get hands-on the Apex Platform and Apex Code with the help of key engineers from salesforce.com. At the same time, the 3 tracks will allow you to learn and watch demos on Apex Platform, Enterprise Mashups or even how you can start your own On-Demand startup.

For those of you who are attending the JavaOne Conference in San Francisco, here is a must attend session on "Business Mashups with Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) 6" by Adam Gross.

Friday, May       11
10:50 AM - 11:50 AM PST
Moscone Center - Esplanade 305

You will get an architectural and code-level view of some of the most popular business mashups and how the XML and web services APIs new in Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) 6 can be used to create integrations with the safety and performance that enterprises require.  By using APIs from salesforce.com, Google, and Yahoo, learn how Java SE 6 technologies provide coverage of key web service such as:

- Web Service Definition Language (WSDL) use and proxy generation: What configurations are necessary to get Java SE 6 to work with popular WSDLs? What interoperability issues are developers likely to encounter?
- Performance and optimization: What are the key performance tips for working with remote web services? How is HTTP compression enabled?
- Identity, authentication, and security: How can developers share identity across multiple web services, and what approaches and APIs are already in use?

Hope to see you there!

ADN just published a new whitepaper detailing how on-demand platforms are emerging as key building blocks for enterprise architectures. Contributed by author David Linthicum, who is internationally known SOA, SaaS, and Web 2.0 expert and author of the forthcoming book Enterprise Architecture Disruption, How to use SaaS, SOA, Mashups, and Web 2.0 to break down the IT Gates, as well as 5 other best selling books, and learn what Dave thinks about a no-software, no-hardware approach to application creation, customization, integration, and management.

Download Dave Linthicum's Latest Whitepaper for free.

Coding With Apex: Salesforce Toolmaker's Batch Product Goes Real-time
Apex Code is still in preview, but Glenn Wilson of Toronto's CRMfusion has already put it to work—creating a prototype application that's well on its way to becoming a product. Called DupeBlocker, the real-time deduplication tool will be ready to ship as soon as Apex Code is released.

To learn more about Apex Code and what the ADN developer community is doing with it, be sure to attend the free Salesforce Developer Conference, May 21. Register now.

This is just the beginning for the world's first on-demand programming language, but it's exciting to see that there are now over 1000+ participants in the Apex Code Developer Preview.  If you're not already part of the preview, it's not too late to check out Apex Code.  Visit this wiki page to learn how to register and self-enable your Developer Edition account for Apex Code.

We know some of you are doing or planning great things with Apex Code, and we want to tell those stories at the upcoming Salesforce Developer Conference on May 21.  If you have an app or demo, or even just some samples, let us know—we're looking to invite some of the best developers up on stage to demo their applications.  This is your chance to show off your work and the power of Apex Code! 

The deadline for submission is May 11th.  Simply email me at ntran@salesforce.com to submit your demo.

Visit us at ADN@Web 2.0 Expo, April 15-18! We'll be speaking on the business web and demoing the latest Apex platform technologies, including something entirely new for Apex developers.  Apex Developer Network will be at booth #136 with a great demo, and if you're an ADN member, pick up a free ADN t-shirt. If you want to attend, it's not too late: Attend at least some of the Expo for free using discount code webex07em.

We're trying something new to keep developers up-to-speed on the most recent Apex releases and new technologies: ADN Insider Briefings.  These are free webinar-style online events for ADN members, intended to provide an informal but practical hour of demos and presentations, with an emphasis on helping you understand how to utilize the latest Apex technologies in your development projects.  Each will be delivered by one of our Evangelists or other Salesforce.com technical insiders, and we plan on doing a few of these a year as an ADN member benefit. 

In our inaugural episode, Dave Carroll (aka DevAngel), ADN Technical Evangelist, plus probably a special guest or two, will focus on the Spring '07 release -- please join us this Friday, March 30, 2007 from 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM PDT.  If you are already an ADN member, you can sign up for the Insider Briefing via this page.  And if you're not, take a minute to join ADN for free, then sign up for the Briefing.   

As part of salesforce.com's on going effort to ensure the highest level of security at Salesforce.com, we are discontinuing support for the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocols noted below on March 31, 2007. SSL is the protocol used to secure data in transit to and from Salesforce.com.

• SSLv2 - SSLv2 has known vulnerabilities which render it insecure for all purposes. It was superceded 10 years ago by SSLv3. Implementations of SSLv3 are widely and freely available for all common development platforms.
• SSLv3 and TLSv1 with key lengths less than 128 bits - For secure ciphers, the length of the key used by the cipher is proportional to the strength of the cipher. Due to advances in cryptography and computing power, key lengths lower than 128-bits are no longer considered sufficient for long term security.

This change may affect users accessing the system both via browsers and via an API client. We have analyzed our logs; we believe only a very small percentage of users will be affected. We have contacted all customers with integrations we believe may be impacted by this change.

For more information, please see our technical note on this change.  If you have any questions or need assistance planning your response to this change, please contact Salesforce.com Support.

As many of you know, the Salesforce.com's Spring '07 Worldwide Launch Event London, Monday 19th March.   
With the Spring '07 release, it's inspiring to see how much more powerful the Apex platform is becoming, and how quickly: It was only a few weeks ago that we rolled out the Winter '07 release!  As always, we listened to your requests and have delivered many of the key features you requested.

This release brings a host of new features and technologies for developers, including time-based workflow, enhanced data model customization, email relay and email approvals, Apex Connect Outlook 3.0, apex connect Oracle for 11i, and a set of enhancemets to Apex Mobile. And we've also reved the Apex Code Preview, thanks in part ot feedback we've received from program particpants.

Here is a "Developing on Salesforce.com" blog. Enjoy!

Our Apex Seminars schedule is heating up again, with four free events scheduled for upcoming weeks!  If we'll be in a city near you (see below), I heartily recommend you register -- these are great opportunities to advance your Apex development skills and experience, as well as to network with Salesforce staffers and your local Apex developer community.  You'll get a full afternoon of sessions on the Apex platform and Apex Code, each led by an ADN Technical Evangelist, as well as plenty of chances to ask questions and learn. 

Be sure to bring your laptop computer and (if you haven't already) join ADN before the event -- you'll get the most from the afteroon if you already have a free Developer Edition account enabled.

• Washington DC • March 22, 2007 Ritz Carlton Pentagon City • 1250 South Hayes Street • Arlington
• Raleigh • April 4, 2007 Sheraton Raleigh • 421 South Salisbury Street • Raleigh
• Atlanta • April 5, 2007 Westin Buckhead Atlanta • 3391 Peachtree Road, N.E. • Atlanta
• Toronto • April 10, 2007 Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel • 123 Queen Street West • Toronto

Each developer event we do seems bigger and better than the last, with more developers, more technical content on the latest Apex technologies, and more fun and energy all around. As a proof point, we recently pulled together a new page for the ADN Wiki recapping the developer side of the Apex Day event.  While it can't replace the experience of having attended in person -- rubbing shoulders with fellow developers, getting in-person answers from Salesforce technical evangelists, and scoring yourself an Apex book and slick ADN t-shirt -- it's the next best thing.  There's a photo gallery with some nice shots of the event, as well as video captures of the technical sessions presented.  You'll need to log in to see the videos, just use your ADN username and password (same as you use for your Developer Edition account and the ADN Discussion Boards). 

The Spring '07 release is now live on Sandbox.  The what's new tech note is here:

https://wiki.apexdevnet.com/index.php/What%27s_New_in_Apex_Web_Services_API_Spring_%2707

The 9.0 docs have also been pushed:

http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/api/index.htm

There's additional information about non-api features here:

http://blogs.salesforce.com/features/spring_07_release.html

There is a great new API verb, sendEmail, that developers can use to sendEmail using the Salesforce.com mail servers, and we're looking forward to see what developers will build using this.

A quick reminder that at 10am PST on 2/14 we'll be hosting a technical webinar exclusively about Apex Code - salesforce.com's new on demand programming language.  In addition to learning about Apex Code, and seeing demos and code examples, participants will be eligible to join the Apex Code Preview Program, and start learning this key new feature.  Registration is available here - see you then!

We're seeking a few volunteers to help us improve the ADN experience by participating in usability testing for Apex developer tools, documentation, and web properties. Testing sessions usually last 1-2 hours and take place remotely—you can participate right from your own desk. Our first set of sessions is planned for February 7.  If you're interested, please send email to tester@salesforce.com -- your feedback will help shape the future of ADN!

It's a blast to be joining you here on ADN in my new job as Director of Platform Research for salesforce.com. During the last few weeks, as I've been winding up my 18 years of product and technology analysis at eWEEK, I've encountered three good omens for this being a terrific time to be here.

• When I was composing an on-line slide show of Top 10 Challenges for the Enterprise IT Professional in 2007, one of the slides that I wrote gave the challenge, "Meeting Demands: Make on-demand, software-as-a-service and other utility computing approaches the default strategy for new projects."
     I didn't mean "challenge" as in "this will be hard"; I meant "challenge" as in "this is something you should commit yourself to achieving." I meant it -- but I realized that it would look too much like grinding my new employer's axe while on my old one's payroll.  I put in something else -- something entirely valid, but not as stirring a call to arms as what I originally had in mind. Now I can say what I was really thinking then.
• When I was taking part in first-round judging for the 2007 CODiE Awards, in the categories of Software Development and Software Testing solutions, I found myself appalled by the idea of downloading hundreds of megabytes of code for even a trial-edition product that I would only be exercising with a few tens or hundreds of kBytes of data. I should have been sending the data to the code, not the other way around. The ratios were just all wrong. It was a timely reminder that developing and deploying an application in an on-demand model makes literally thousands of times more sense.
• When I had the opportunity to attend Apex Day in San Francisco on January 16, I met the salesforce.com partners who are already adding value on the platform -- and heard their enthusiasm for what they'll be able to do with what's soon to come.

But it's not my job to tell developers that what we'll have is what they'll want. It's my job to make sure that it's true. That means communicating outward about the opportunity that we want to create, and also communicating inward about the needs that developers want to see addressed by Apex.

I look forward to learning.

Updated:

The wait is over -- our Winter '07 release is live in production! 

The new version was deployed into production to the final instances during the maintenance window last night.    So far, everything has gone smoothly -- No major issues to report at this time.   We'll be posting updates in the developer forums as we have news to report.

Our product team is standing by to help with any issues.  If you're experiencing any unexpected behavior, please let us know -- open a case with support or post to the discussion forum and let us know what you're seeing.

Aloha,

-Pete

We've rolled out a whole host of improvements to the ADN website (as you've probably noticed!).  It took a ton of effort, and we're still working out a kink or two, but you can now take advantage of a much-improved ADN home page, enjoy the fresh new look of our blog and discussion boards, and most importantly, utilize the all-new Apex Wiki, powered by the ADN community.  We've migrated all of our core developer content to the wiki, as well as added a lot of new content around the Winter '07 release and Apex Code, with more on the way.  And because the Apex Wiki is, well, a wiki, any ADN member can now log in and contribute to the growing Apex Developer Network content collection. 

Take a look around, explore the wiki, and join in the fun.  And, as always, let us know what you think: email your comments to ADN@salesforce.com.

I'm looking forward to the Apex Seminar in LA next week as my chance to meet as many of Southern California's developers as we can fit into the room!  I’m working on the final bits of the content and some new demos I'll be presenting, but I'll definitely cover the developer technology features coming in Winter '07 release.  And, of course, I'm devoting a solid block of time to the new Apex language.

If you missed us at Dreamforce then the Seminar is your chance the ask questions about Winter '07, what the Apex language will enable you to do, and anythin else about apex development. I’ll even answer Excel questions if you come!  The seminar is free, and there will be refreshments and plenty of networking as well.

If you are planning to attend and would like to throw some questions my way, please post them here as comments so I can be prepared to cover them.  Thanks again, and I look forward to meeting you.

The very first Apex Seminar is coming up in Los Angeles, December 7 at the Hyatt Century Plaza in Century City.  Any of you Southern California folks who want to find out about Apex, Winter '07 features, or even just the basics of on-demand development, this event is for you.  You have to register, and space is limited, but it's a free afternoon full of technical content and opportunities to learn from and ask questions of some of our top platform experts.  We'll also be handing out copies of the new book "Creating On-Demand Applications with AppExchange", while supplies last.  This is a great book written by Salesforce insiders, and it provides hands-on instruction on the creation of a recruiting app.  With this seminar, the book, and an ADN membership, you're good to go.

Register here for L.A.  There are other Apex Seminars coming up in other cities as well, check out the current schedule to see if there's one coming to a city near you.

Just watched the Robert Scoble interview of Adam at Dreamforce '06. Scoble, formerly an evangelist at Microsoft, asks Adam some pretty good questions about the Apex platform and Apex language, and the result is a geeky but fun 20-minute conversation about on-demand development. (At one point, Scoble actually says "Emacs or die!".) There's also a video posted of Adam doing a demo, though you might find this screencast to be a little cleaner to watch.  

O'Reilly Network has posted An Introduction to Salesforce.com's AppExchange, a new article by developer author Tony Stubblebine. This is the first in a series of articles that promises to "show you how to build and distribute an application on AppExchange".  Tony's an experienced developer, but he didn't know much about Salesforce.com or the platform before he began the project, so his first article tells about what it's like getting started as a developer on this platform.  It's an interesting perspective; he lays the groundwork that developers of any level will need.  And it even includes an illustrative Perl snippet, and a mention and link to the Apex page. 

We've been working with the good folks at O'Reilly for a while now, telling them about our AppExchange developer story, and we're pleased to see the first fruits of those conversations.  But check out the article and let us know what you think. 

The developer community's interest in Ruby on Rails has been one of the major revelations of the last year. Here at Salesforce, we've responded by releasing our AppExchange Ruby on Rails Toolkit, and the interest has been tremendous. Thanks to Doug Chasman and team for their great work on the toolkit!

For those of you interested in Rails development, you might want to check out the upcoming SD Forum-sponsored "Ruby Weekend." The talks should be pretty evenly split between Rails and Ruby, with sessions tailored for anyone from the curious almost-early-adopter to the gung-ho master, covering everything from an overview of Rails 1.1 to a talk about scalability from the CTO of TextDrive. If you want to understand what the RoR phenomenon is about, here's a good place to go. Kudos to the organizers: David Black, William Grosso, Tom Hill, Mike Slinn, Ron Lichty, and Raya Fowler.