CFUnited Blog

Lansdowne Resort 65% full

Just want to shoot a message to everyone that we have the number of rooms already booked as of last week. We are about 65% full at this point. If you plan on coming, book your hotel room before they go out. I'm not holding any extras this year so if you don't get a room you'll have to go to the overflow hotel about 3 miles down.

http://cfunited.com/2009/travel

Concert at CFUnited

We booked a band for CFUnited: BoxCar Collision

Alumni from 2005 probably remember this band. They are still in DC and really popular around the clubs. We'll have this band playing for a couple hours during one of our evening open bar events. Be ready to party!

About:
Formed in 2003, Boxcar Collision started when 4 friends started meeting weekly to jam. They were invited to play an open mic, and somewhere in-between the PJ Harvey and Gillian Welch covers, they realized they were a band.

Since then theyĆ½ve played Iota, The Velvet Lounge, DC9, and have written 15 original songs. Though not easily categorized, their sound has been compared to Rilo Kiley, The Pretenders, and The Smiths. Their debut CD was released in 2007.

Sample of their music: http://www.myspace.com/boxcarcollision

More photos:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/14878769@N02/

Liz's inside info: I hear they have a new album coming out around the time of CFUnited, maybe we'll be the first to hear some of their new stuff. ;-)

Saturday Repeats

Attention CFUnited Saturday Attendees

We will be picking the Saturday Topics Mid-June. We will be looking at the most popular sessions once more attendees pick their agenda for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday on the scheduler. This will help us determine the most popular topics to repeat on Saturday.

If you have a suggestion for a must have topic on Saturday as repeat, please email it to liz (at) cfunited.com

We will work with the community to pick those sessions. Thanks!

Speaker spotlight: Lawrence Cramer

Lawrence Cramer - Over 25 years of experience in marketing, advertising, and design. For the last decade he has focused on the web, his key interests being dynamic web design, development, and e-commerce. He has written numerous articles on these subjects for regional business publications and for the Adobe Developer Center. He speaks at web development conferences and teaches college courses on several Adobe products, and is a trainer for Lynda.com. Lawrence is an Adobe Community Expert, the CEO of Application Dynamics Inc., and the founder of Cartweaver.com. When he's not in front of a computer screen, you'll find him and his wife of 30-plus years behind the handlebars of a sport touring motorcycle seeing the sights of the Pacific Northwest.

CFUnited session: Real world ecommerce with ColdFusion

1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past?

No. I'm very excited to be speaking this year!

CFUnited is THE ColdFusion conference. It's the "must attend" best-of-breed conference because of the caliber of speakers and the no sales hype but real information focus of the event.

2. Why should people attend your session(s)?

Even in this down economy, one business sector is still experiencing growth... eCommerce. More and more developers are getting asked by their clients to develop eCommerce sites and they are finding it to be a more complex, specialized skill set than they expect. They are expected to not only develop sound eCommerce applications but know about many other things such as payment gateways, PCI compliance, security, merchant accounts and so on. My session will cover all these facets of eCommerce development.

3. Do you have any projects in the works that you will be revealing at CFUnited?

Yes. Can't say much more than that right now.

4. Besides your topic, what other sessions are you looking forward to?

I'll be like a kid in a candy store! Having difficulty narrowing down my choices so far!

5. What are some of the hot topics you'd like to see at RoundTable discussions?

Anything Bolt. (the new dedicated ColdFusion Development Application)

6. Where can people find you at CFUnited?

At my session, and on Twitter... I'll be tweeting a lot and will tweet meet-up plans: http://twitter.com/LawrenceCramer

7. What's the latest news with you? Has anything changed since last CFUnited?

A lot! The economy has presented not only challenges but huge opportunities! Whenever you shake things up, new openings emerge.

8. What is unique about CFUnited?

It's focus! It's an opportunity to learn, not be "sold". It an opportunity to learn about ColdFusion and related technologies and to meet and network with the best in the field.

9. What do you like to do in your free time?

Go sport touring around the west with my wife and friends on my 2008 Kawasaki Concourse 1400, and do a little wine tasting. I'm a bit of a wine buff and Washington has a lot of great wine!

10. Besides the sessions, what makes CFUnited worth the cost of going?

The networking! If you go DON'T be a wallflower! Get out there, meet and greet and make new friends and contacts.