I am the subtle pen, the invisible editor. Few know me for my work but it touches many without their knowledge. I do not have the professional editorial eye of Judith or Dana and they rarely leave me anything to do. My eye is for the small modification to a sentence, the missing word that helps connect someone to what their reading. My eye is the eye of others and how to make what they are reading comfortable. My eye is unseen but watches all that we print.

Sys-Con is a printing company. They are not interested in community support. They are not interested in language advancement. They are interested in money. They are interested in enough money to print a magazine, give it away to thousands and still make a profit. Looking over the number and cost of ads in their magazine, they must want a BIG profit. And those advertising dollars are partially guaranteed by Adobe's support.

According to Sys-Con:

After ColdFusion became part of the Adobe product line Adobe recently decided to discontinue its support of the magazine.

Now from what I saw in the last issue of CFDJ from months back, there were still Adobe ads. What exactly was the support that was being cut back? One less ad? Half of the ads? All of them? Or did Adobe give them direct cash above and beyond the ads for operations? We won't know till someone from Adobe responds.

But unless Adobe was funding the ENTIRE magazine, any cut in their support should not cause it to fold. The Fusion Authority Quarterly Update isn't folding and not only don't we get direct money from Adobe, we don't even have any Adobe ads in this (and probably the next) issue.

Of course, we care about the community quite a bit more than we do money. That's why we're not a media giant like Sys-Con. But we still have our souls. In the end, I think that's what matters most.

Note one other thing missing from this press release. They are not taking any responsability for their own actions. The total lack of editorial quality, the 'borrowing' of content from other people's websites, their own website being so ad filled that nothing can be found and those freeking annoying auto-play video and popup ads. In the end many of the big names in the community had left them and moved on to other journals or websites. This is just as telling as the removal of Adobe's support.

The biggest problem here is that it looks bad for ColdFusion. The first print magazine dedicated to it has left the building. Now rather than a ColdFusion magazine and a ColdFusion journal, there's only a journal. The very fact that they're moving the magazine from ColdFusion, an Adobe product to Silverlight, a Microsoft product, can and will be used against ColdFusion.

For those who want to get some quality printed ColdFusion and want to ignore Sys-Con, the following journal and books are available:

• Fusion Authority Quarterly Update (Issue 4 at printers, all others available now)
• ColdFusion 8 Web Application Construction Kit, Volume 1: Getting Started (September 12, 2007)
• ColdFusion 8 Web Application Construction Kit, Volume 2: Application Development (October 4, 2007)
• ColdFusion 8 Web Application Construction Kit, Volume 3: Advanced Application Development (October 29, 2007)

To be totally self serving, if you want to buy an ad in the only print ColdFusion journal around, we would be happy to sell you one. :)

Sys-Con Press Release:
http://ajax.sys-con.com/read/426141.htm