We are excited to announce our evenings events for this year's CFUnited:

On Wednesday night, from 7-9 pm, we are hosting a networking reception event in the Ballroom Foyer. Our reception is the most opportune time to meet and greet with our wonderful speakers and sponsors and of course, our attendees. Make sure you bring plenty of business cards! And don't worry, we will have a bar and passed hors d'oeuvres such as buffalo chicken skewers, vegetable spring rolls and curried wonton shrimp! yum!!

On Thursday night, Adobe will be hosting their Pool Party from 7:30 - 10:00 pm. Take a dip in any of the three refreshing and super awesome pools at the Lansdowne Resort. You may also enjoy the scrumptious cajun seasoned french fries (yes, we're bringing them back), chicken cashew spring rolls, roasted mushroom fritters and glamorous deserts! Make sure you bring your bathing suits!!

On Friday, our last night, the Lansdowne Resort will have a fabulous concert, as part of their Sounds of Summer Concert Series. To our luck, this week's band is The Reflex, an ultimate 80s tribute band! Cara and I will be rocking out in our leg warmers and cut off t-shirts - it's going to be rad, totally.

If you are already registered, but would like your spouse to take part in these awesome fabulous events, check out our packages for a guest pass!

This entry was posted on July 15, 2010 at 1:17 PM and has received 6920 views. There are currently 36 comments. Print this entry.

Hi everyone!!

Today is the last day to register with Early Bird Pricing. Also, due to many requests from folks who have found themselves unemployed in this recession and still want to attend we have created a special discount for them. We want everyone to have an opportunity to make it out this for the last CFUnited!

As always, if you are eligible for a discount, please contact info (at) cfunited (dot) com.

Check out our Prices page for more information.

Make sure you register today!!!

This entry was posted on July 15, 2010 at 11:44 AM and has received 4193 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Who's been keeping up with their schedules lately??

Well....if you haven't noticed, some of the Saturday repeat sessions were posted some time ago, but I didn't want to announce it until it was full!

So yes, you can now see the Saturday schedule!! It consists of our most popular sessions from this year's CFUnited (yes, I can predict the future).

Also, there have been a few switches to the schedule for the week. If this has affected your scheduling, make sure you fix it so that you're all set.

So far, the most popular session has about 125 attendees, which is nowhere close to being even half of the attendees registered!! Come on people! I know you can do better than this.

Make sure you are adding your favorite topics to the scheduler. We base the room selections on attendees that schedule the topics. So make sure you save yourself a seat by adding your topics in!!

This entry was posted on July 14, 2010 at 3:30 PM and has received 4005 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

As the final CFUnited is only 15 days away I want to share some memories from the last 12 years of CFUnited and CFUN. If you have some special memories please share them here too!

The first one in 1999, DCCFUC'99 ColdFusion User Conference, I remember staying up to 2 or 3 am coding the website, emailing about the event and phoning the Dinowitzes who seemed to be up at all hours too. Come the day seeing 900 CFer filling (and overfilling) the room at NIH was amazing. I was feeling nauseous as I got on the stage to speak - I had only spoken at smaller user group meetings before - but after a few minutes I just felt the rush and excitement. Thought I do recall drinking a few beers that night to recover!

We changed the name to CFUN-2K the next year (CFUC-2K seemed a bit too naughty a name!) and that was the last year at NIH with 9/11 happening and security clamping down there. We moved to a local Holiday Inn and I remember trying to walk in the corridor at CFUN-04 in a sea of people going passed the vendor booths. It was time to find a larger location.

In '05 CFDynamics, New Atlanta and other advisory board members helped us upsize the event to be CFUnited-05 - new branding, new website, new location in Bethesda. We also opened up the speaker selection with the board too. The event was fun with Simon Horwith organizing a dunk the CF speaker for charity booth. And some local CFers who were in a band playing rock music into the night. And so many more speakers, including a memorable keynote from Joel Spolsky and a new gold sponsor Microsoft. Plus the Host My Site waiters serving bottled water in white suits.

We stayed in Bethesda for a few years before trying DC convention center - not my best idea as the event was lost in the enormous space. But the Steve Nelson cream pie fight in the hotel parking lot was a blast to watch!

Back to the suburbs, this time Virginia near Dulles airport - easier for the 50%+ of attendees who come from outside the DC metro area to get to. And what a nice location with pools, spa and golf courses. But most important finally a hotel that could deliver wifi that worked most of the time in the large rooms!

So what are your CFUN memories?

This entry was posted on July 13, 2010 at 7:34 PM and has received 3854 views. There are currently 2 comments. Print this entry.

Adobe is putting together a slide show of photos from CFUnited and CFUN events over the past 12 years. I have given them all the photos I have. If you have any memorable photos email them to me michael (at) teratech (dot) com with subject line "CFUnited Photos" and I will pass them one. The deadline is this Thursday 7/15/10.

And if you haven't checked out the Flickr collection of CFUnited photos there are some cool ones there too. (It would be cool to upload your CFUnited-10 pix during the event!) Thanks

This entry was posted on July 13, 2010 at 7:28 PM and has received 3127 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Hello everyone,

Lansdowne is officially booked solid! We would like to let you know about our overflow hotel for CFUnited. This year, the Holiday Inn Leesburg at Carradoc Hall will be able to accommodate our attendees.

The regular rates start at $109/night for advanced bookings. However, they offer discounts, depending on your affiliation. For example government rates start at $97/night.

Be careful though! The AAA discount and the state government discount have a higher nightly rate than the advanced bookings, so I suggest you book early to ensure the lowest rate!!

The Holiday Inn will also provide a shuttle service to the Lansdowne Resort, also to and from Dulles Airport.

Check out the Holiday Inn Leesburg and make your reservations!

This entry was posted on July 13, 2010 at 11:47 AM and has received 3408 views. There are currently 2 comments. Print this entry.

We have two more BOFs that have been added to the schedule!

CF911: Server Troubleshooting
Host: Charlie Arehart
Date: Friday, July 30, 2010
Time: 5:30 pm to 6:00 pm

Do you have to deal with CF server problems--whether as a developer or an admin, responsible for your own or your organization's server(s)? If so, this is the BOF for you. Led by veteran CF troubleshooter Charlie Arehart, we'll open the floor for knotty challenges you may have faced, or if there's a lull he'll lead a discussion of any of several common (yet frequently perplexing) problems.

ModelBox - Why you need to use open source frameworks and tools
Hosts: Dan Wilson and Luis Majano
Date: Friday, July 30, 2010
Time: 5:30 pm to 6:00 pm

When you build a house, do you cut down your own trees? Why would you do the same when building software? There are millions of open source projects, libraries and tools to help you with application development. In this BoF, Luis and Dan will talk about some very useful open source projects that will help you out a lot.

Be sure to add these BOFs to your schedule!!

This entry was posted on July 7, 2010 at 2:16 PM and has received 4206 views. There are currently 1 comments. Print this entry.

Our 2nd winner for our Social Media Raffle is Kris Korsmo, who is a follower of CFUnited on Twitter!

He is deciding between CS5 and Flash Builder!

We still have one more drawing coming up this Friday, July 9, 2010!!

Make sure you are keeping up with CFUnited, Stellr and the Lansdowne Resort on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook!!!

This entry was posted on July 7, 2010 at 1:46 PM and has received 3455 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Our Gold Sponsor, Intergral, has just released their topic for CFUnited 2010!

Charlie Arehart will be speaking on: Continuously Improve CF Code Quality, Server Availability & Application Stability.

When your CF servers are troubled, there are often a wide range of possible explanations, some code-oriented, some configuration, some load/traffic, and so on. To solve them, you need an equally broad range of diagnostic and analysis tools. Until recently, most CFers could turn to one or two common types of tools, but lacked coverage across the entire software solution lifecycle.

The Fusion product suite from Intergral offers just that: from improved code-level debugging tools (with features not available in CF Builder), to new and improved request/resource monitoring (with features that expand upon and go beyond the CF Server Monitor), to brand new server analytics tools, which allow you to analyze and compare server performance information across applications and over hours, days, weeks, months, and years.

Working in complement with, or instead of, built-in ColdFusion troubleshooting tools, come see how you can improve your complete CF environment across the whole software lifecycle.

This session is scheduled for Wednesday, July 28, 2010 from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM.

Make sure you reserve your spot and add this topic to your scheduler if you wish to attend!

This entry was posted on July 5, 2010 at 12:34 PM and has received 3223 views. There are currently 1 comments. Print this entry.

The word has just come down from the powers above that 2010 will in fact be the last CFUnited. I have not hesitated or procrastinated to pass this news along to you, though it is a little tough to announce. CFUnited has a special place in my heart. I have been involved over the years in some way or another as a guest, a partygoer, a volunteer, an intern, an assistant, and now as Conference Manager. I am truly blessed to have been a part of the experience. I have made so many friends at what I like to call "Summer Camp for Developers." I have learned so much from this tight knit community of uber-smart people. I can say with all honesty that I am only in this Manager position out of love for the people and the joy brought from watching such a diverse group united by a common thread. Through this past year the lyrics of NOFX have played again and again in my head... "It isn't for the money, no it isn't for the fun. It's a plan, a scam, a diagram for the benefit of everyone... The cause, we're just doing it for the cause!" I think I can speak for both Tara and myself when I say we were just doing it for the cause, and what a worthy cause it is!

I will try my best not to gush or get all "Bridges of Madison County" on you and just keep it short and simple. But I will say this, if you are not yet registered for CFUnited, you should rethink that. This is your last chance to get down with something amazing! CFUnited is like a beehive buzzing with ideas and collaboration. The developers leave with the knowledge, tactics, and connections to pollinate the community and grow their business and organizations to be strong, healthy, and successful. Furthermore, let it never be said that brilliant people don't know how to party. Aside from the rich, informative content and the invaluable networking opportunities, CFUnited is where self-proclaimed geeks party like rock stars!

With this sudden news coming so abruptly, we insist on extending the Early Bird pricing till July 15, 2010. We fully intend to go out with a bang in true Stellr style and we want everyone to be there to give CFUnited a proper farewell.

If you still have yet to register, please do so now! As always, if you are eligible for a discount code (check out our prices page), please contact info (at) cfunited (dot) com.

Thanks!

This entry was posted on June 30, 2010 at 8:56 AM and has received 11532 views. There are currently 34 comments. Print this entry.