We asked a few questions to find out what our speakers are up to prior to their trip to CFUnited.

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Joe Gautreau

Question: What are you looking forward to?

Joe: The experience of the entire trip, also hot model-glue, and coldspring tips and tricks.

Question: Has your presentation changed?

Joe: My presentation hasn't changed, but will change a bit.

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Raymond Camden

Question: What are you looking forward to?

Raymond: Talking with others about where ColdFusion is going.

Question: A recent hot topic?

Raymond: Not sure if this is "hot", but for me, anything related to ColdSpring and Transfer is on my hot list.

Question: Beer of choice if someone wants to buy you a drink.

Raymond: Anything by Sam Adams, Newcastle, or anything I haven't tried before.

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Marc Esher

Question: What are you looking forward to?

Marc: The sessions, naturally, especially the ones on frameworks and better OO programming. I'm also looking forward to meeting Luis Majano, who writes more code in a week than most people do in a year. And I'm looking forward to smoking a good stogie with anyone who will join me!

Question: A recent hot topic?

Marc: One that doesn't get much press but which is on the minds of many is whether Adobe's going to come out with a CF IDE. It's been hinted at in blogs but in typical fashion is carried out with the same degree of teasing that 8th grade girls use. It's frustrating for some of us who would choose to contribute to CFEclipse if we thought that product had a long life. I believe Adobe's hurting the CF community by not either a) committing to building an IDE or b) stopping the chatter entirely and getting behind CFEclipse. After working with FlexBuilder and seeing the productivity gains you get from it with Flex, you can't help but feel that we're crippled, productivity-wise, by lack of an enterprise-class IDE for CF.

Question: Has your presentation changed?

Marc: As I prepared the presentation, I learned a lot more about ANT, and so I'll be peppering in more tips and tricks. In addition, I've added a new section on ScriptDef... showing how to use javascript to do CF-like programming right in your ANT files

Question: Beer of choice if someone wants to buy you a drink.

Marc: Ohhhh, so many. I'm partial lately to Belgian abbey style beers like Stoudts Abbey Triple and Weyerbacher Merry Monks. And I love a good strong IPA.

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Liz Frederick

Question: What are you looking forward to?

Liz: Seeing the Exhibit Showroom come alive. We are going to have webcams all around so people can see the crowd online. I'm also looking forward to the evening event.... I know I haven't released the location but it will be so much fun its a "crime"...

Question: A recent hot topic?

Liz: I have too many secrets that I can't tell, so when they come out at CFUnited, I'm sure they will be hot topics. Question: Beer of choice if someone wants to buy you a drink.

Liz: Well seeing how I'm the one buy you all a drink, I'd better get a corona or two. Flowers work much better in my case.

Adobe just announced to me that they are bringing two more individuals from India to present on CF8. We are so excited to give our attendees a first hand experience directly from the core team behind creating this great technology.

"Working with PDF Documents and Forms in ColdFusion 8" by Chandan Kumar
http://cfunited.com/go/topics/2008#topic-1751

Chandan is part of the core development team of ColdFusion for last two years and has been instrumental in building PDF manipulation features with cfpdf tag, server monitoring, cffeed and looks after several others including cfprint. Currently he is working on adding some very exciting features to ColdFusion language for Centaur. He is a graduate from Indian Institute of Technology.

"Taking advantage of 64-bit support in ColdFusion 8" by Manju Kiran P Pacchhipulusu
http://cfunited.com/go/topics/2008#topic-1750

With more than 6 years of experience in the Software Industry, I now work as a Lead Software Engineer in the ColdFusion Product team and am the senior-most member of the ColdFusion QE team. I am involved with ColdFusion from its 7.0 release. I have worked on various features of ColdFusion like CFThread, .Net Integration, Exchange Integration, ColdFusion Interfaces, ColdFusion Performance, etc. Before joining Adobe, I worked as Software Design Engineer for Test (SDET) at Microsoft. In Microsoft, I have worked on various teams such as Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft Pocket Word and WISP. I blog on ColdFusion at www.manjukiran.net. In my free-time, I get involved in various social activities that promote the betterment of the community.

Some people have been asking what the CFUnited bookbag is this year. We ordered this one. 100% Recycled material. It is a nice quality bag that we think everyone will enjoy.

We will let you know next week what the t-shirt will look like. Everyone will be picking up their t-shirts and bags at the conference. Nothing will be shipped prior to the event. An online version of the registration package will be sent next week as well. Thanks and hope you like all the swag this year!

Hello Attendees!

The CFUnited Wiki has some share a ride and room listings for this year's event. So if you are looking to save money, visit: http://wiki.cfunited.com/

The Grand Hyatt has a handful of rooms left that we added. Don't delay!

Also on the CFUnited Wiki you can list your favorite places to eat, or plan a party, or things to do. Enjoy and use the Wiki for whatever you think would benefit attendees!

Tom de Manincor talks about his CFUnited presentation on CFQUERY versus the DB.

Is this your first time speaking at CFUnited?

Tom: Yes, this is my first time speaking at CFUnited. It is also the first time I will be attending the event, as well. I have heard great things about the conference and I am excited to be there, and to be a part of it this year.

Why should people attend your session?

Tom: My session, CF versus the DB, covers one of the grey areas in CF development.

This grey area stems from an evolution process most CF developers go through. Being that CF is failry easy to pick up, it leaves alot of power at any level of developer's fingertips. One of the CF's strong points is its ability to interface with databases. Commonly done with CFQUERY, CF's native approach. As your application grows, and demands more, there are things to consider in order to maximize performance. Using CF to do all your database work, while possible, may not be the best approach. In this session, we will examine what CF is doing, and what the database can do. We will discover the process in depth. Analyzing scenarios where it is appropriate to use CF, and when it is not. The goal here is to gain an understanding of how to balance the power of ColdFusion and the database to benefit you as a developer, and your applications.

CF Meetup: ColdFusion and Flex, with Dale Fraser

Thursday, May 8, 2008 at 6:00 PM

Meeting URL: http://experts.acrobat.com/cfmeetup/

Organized by Charlie Arehart

Description: So how hard is it to write Flex applications that utilise ColdFusion components? It?s actually very easy, easier than you might think. One of the reasons for giving this talk is that I initially found it hard to get my head around how it would work, how to configure it all and looked at it and then put it aside a few times. >From doing this I have learnt what I think is the easiest way to get ColdFusion & Flex configured to work together, this is what I will be demonstrating.

I?ll show the basics of configuration (Flex Builder and some setup of CF), then will show and discuss several forms of integration: remote objects, remoting & binding, and using queries, arrays, structures, and objects/CFCs.

To learn more visit: http://coldfusion.meetup.com/17/calendar/7876941/

I've added some really cool topics to the Saturday Schedule.

The total list of times and topic link descriptions can be seen from http://cfunited.com/go/schedule

Raymond Camden "Ajax and CF RIA

Matthew Woodward "Real World Flex and ColdFusion Sean Corfield "Event-Driven Programming in ColdFusion

Simon Horwith "CF Software Architecture For Web 2.0

Hal Helms "OO Best Practices

Mark Drew "CFEclipse Reloaded

Robi Sen "Continuous Integration with Flex, FlexUnit, and Ant

Luis Majano "ColdBox Framework 101

Rupesh Kumar "All about CFThread

Joe Rinehart "From ColdFusion to Flex: Model-View-Controller

Mark Drew "Coldspring: Better living through configuration

Qasim Rasheed "Continuous Integration with SVN, ANT, CFUnit & Selenium

Phill Nacelli "Integrated ColdFusion Development Environment

Sandy Clark "Accessibility and Rich Internet Applications Dan Wilson "Refactoring to Object Oriented Programming in ColdFusion

We have a new topic and speaker for CFUnited. Doug Hughes is replacing Boyan Kostadinov and will be instead speaking on The "Hidden Secrets of Model-Glue" at 9:45 AM - 10:45 AM on Friday.

This class will take Model-Glue programmers deeper into the framework than, perhaps, they even knew was possible! In one short hour we'll cover a range of important and underutilized features. These include Action Packs, default events, ORM integration and scaffolding as well as ways to non-destructively extend and customize the Model-Glue framework.

Doug Hughes is a veteran programmer and the president of Alagad Inc (http://www.alagad.com), a successful small business specializing in web and application development, services and consulting. Doug also publishes a popular blog covering ColdFusion and other technical topics at http://www.doughughes.net.

HELLO Attendees! Getting excited? We are too! I've been meaning to blog lately, so I'm backed up with information.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION PLEASE READ

We are working really hard here at CFUnited headquarters. Coming up in the next couple weeks:

* Announcement of the ColdFusion celebration event is coming soon. Advisers agreed, now we are working with Adobe and Carasoft to iron out the details.

* We need everyone to fill out their SCHEDULER as soon as possible. We will make it mandatory if we don't get enough people to fill them in. This helps us determine what size room to put the sessions in. Please do this by May 10th for me.

* All TOPIC presentations that we currently have from speakers will be posted on the website beginning June 5th. Attendees can print the presentations and bring it with them to the conference. There will not be a show guide this year. All presentations will be viewable online during the conference as well. So while you are at the conference, you can download a presentation on your laptop and follow along.

* There will be wifi at the conference.

* We will not be sending snail-mail pre-conference packages this year. Instead everyone will get t-shirts, bags, and materials at the conference. You will need a photo ID if asked when you check-in to receive your name badge and goodies.

* We will send an email and post online a Registration Packet that you can print. Contains directions, maps, and information about the area and the conference.

* The conference will have to close at 1,000 attendees. We are not booked yet. I will keep people updated if we get within 100 registration spots available.

* We have new repeat topics, some new Adobe topics, and new sponsors. See details next week.

* Some cools things we will be adding to the site is a live webcam hooked into http://live.yahoo.com, possibly a mobile site for cfunited.com,

* Barnes & Nobles is running our bookstore in the expo.

* For those who are curious and familiar with the DC convention center: The Expo, General Session, and Cafeteria will be located in Hall B. The rooms we will hold the sessions are 152A/B, 140A/B, 158, 159. Registration will be on Concourse B.

* Still looking for sponsors! Only 5 silver booths left.

* We have so many places to eat downtown, list your dinner plans or favorites on the CFUnited Wiki!

* The CFUnited wiki will be updated with all the topics and you can add your notes about the session and share links.

* I have several things up my sleeve this year, so I hope everyone is ready for a crazy good time.

DON'T FORGET TO FILL OUR YOUR SCHEDULER http://scheduler.cfunited.com/

John Farrar talks about his CFUnited presentation on jQuery/CF Integration & CF Powered Traffic Optimization.

Is this your first time speaking at CFUnited?

John I have spoke at the Frameworks conference and CFU Chicago.

Why should people attend your session?

John jQ+CF: jQuery is slim and powerful. Integration with CF can make coding AJAX pages zesty when you use jQuery. During this session we will cover the benefits of jQuery, showing how to connect to both CFCs and REST based services, and showing how to wrap up jQuery features with ColdFusion for simpler and faster delivery and integration.

WSO: SEO is very important. That is how you get someone to your site. WSO is how you keep them there and get them to act on why you wanted them to come there. Tracking, testing and knowing what works will be the result of ColdFusion based web site optimization.

Will people see anything new at your session?

John jQ+CF: YES! We will show shhhh (we will be showing a NUMBER of special jQuery releases!... grid, plotting, and more... shhh, I didn't tell you. This is a secret.). WSO:

We will be releasing an Open Source library that should work with about any framework. This will be built on several other successful concepts and will make optimization just plain simple.

What is the highlight of your session?

JohnThis is like asking what the highlight of ColdFusion is! Smile emoticon

(Other points...) Can you tell us about your session?

jQ+CF: For those who missed Hal's class, this will give you an idea why you should have attended it. Prototype made JS AJAX a reality. jQuery was the first trim agile superstar. It continues to pave the way and beginners and experienced web developers will find this session inspiring. You will learn how to AJAX and interact with your pages in jaw dropping cool ways.

WSO: Learn how to be profitable or know how profitable you are rather than just being found. Web site optimization is about changing visitor bounces into visitor conversions. Reach your goals, know what will help you reach your goals, try out new ideas and rate the success. Try out several ideas at the same time and compare them.