Like I commented here, the root cause was java.net’s lack of support for JNLP files (the server doesn’t return the correct content-type). One reader suggested to upload an .htaccess file to the same directory where I’d put the JNLPs; I did that and then the entire blog was botched for days... francisdb, you owe me one. ;-) Just kidding, it’s a workaround that I would think myself if I had some experience with Apache HTTPD administration.

The webmasters apparently fixed the issue by just removing the offending .htaccedss files. I didn’t receive feedback of the fix, so I suppose that java.net continues to be broken in two significant ways:

• No standard support for JNLP files. C’mon, this is a Sun-sponsored site and I cannot publish a Java WebStart app easily? It’s pathetic.
• A common user like me can cause all sorts of havoc, at least to my private blog context, by uploading metadata that the server doesn’t like.

In that latest JavaFX blog the JAWS link is still broken. You can manually download it to a temp folder and launch it with JAWS, but that’s not what I call a great deployment experience. You can alternatively run JavaFX Balls 2 with the applet deployment here. Any ideas?