My apologies to both Bob Silverberg and Aaron West!

I (Tara) was rushing and didn't realize that I forgot to change the title! So to make it clear, the newsletter's speaker spotlight is for Aaron West!

So again, my apologies!

Thanks for understanding :)

This entry was posted on March 29, 2010 at 10:49 AM and has received 2903 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Hello Everyone!

Rooms at Lansdowne are selling like hotcakes! To those of you who have already booked your room - well played. To all the rest, rooms are being reserved way faster than expected. Currently, 83% of the discounted rooms are booked!!

The discount ends March 31st, 2010; after that room rates will increase. Beginning April 1st the rate will jump to $199 per night for a single. Still, this is quite a discount from Lansdowne's regular room rates of $279 per night for a single. I mean really you just can't beat that. We love you Lansdowne!!!!!!

Keep in mind that our Early Bird pricing expires on March 31st, 2010 as well. If you are on the fence, now is the time to make your move!

Register for CFUnited and book your room now!

This entry was posted on March 24, 2010 at 4:01 PM and has received 2786 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Here are some comments from the State of the CF Union survey the other month:

• (Roy Martin Emerge Interactive) It is very exciting to see the passion and growing involvement in the ColdFusion community since I joined it in 2005. I'm looking forward to joining members outside of my immediate community events and experience the excitement from the conferences first hand.

• (Seth Aaronson sethron) ColdFusion still makes difficult stuff easy.

• (Steven Rubenstein Emaze, Inc.) CF still beats all other development languages. But it would be much easier if CF were more accepted in general. Everyone wants Ruby or PHP because they are free and there are more developers available for those languages.

• (Chuck Stazo UPS) I enjoyed attending CFUnited in 2009; I was able to meet and listen to many of the people whose blogs have helped me become a better coder. Having only been a CF developer for a few years, attending CFUnited really gave me a good sense of what people were doing with the technology and how they were pushing the boundaries of what the technology could do. At the time CF9 was only in beta and it was amazing to me how many people were out there working with the new product and how much they really knew about new features and functionality. I have worked with other development languages and have struggled in the beginning to get up to speed on syntax and best practices, resources were hard to come by and web search results were mediocre at best. With CF and CF users I have never felt that way, I was able to easily grasp the concepts and learn the language, and if I have questions or are unsure of how the best approach, I know the answers I find out on CF bloggers sites are top notch.

• (Gabriel Roffman etesters) Congratulations on having such a long running conference!

• (Mike Kelp EdomGroup, Inc.) I've worked in .Net, Java, PHP, Ruby, and Python and still find ColdFusion the absolute best tool for the web development job.

  The biggest disappointments I'm seeing in the community right now are the obsession with cfscript and the number of people getting overexcited about Ruby. There are many far better languages, but it seems people get excited about some of the utility functions that in most cases only help you out of very poor logic or Rails, which has many good ideas but falls short of being the all powerful framework it is pitched as.

  Most people also far underrate CF's capabilities in memory management and efficiency compared to others. Opening your mind a little past the general buzz of the blogosphere you can find some very unique (behavioral, dynamic) design patterns that are so easier to work with in CF than other languages.

• (Kevin Pepperman Liquid Blue LLC) CFML is my preferred language for web accessible content.

  I feel that it leverages the best ways to deliver and manage web based content, and now that there are open source alternatives to ACF, that the language will continue to be adopted.

  The CFML communitys are second to none.

• (Daniel Fredericks Alion) Now that I have started seeing CF in a whole new light, being one of the if not the most knowledgeable CF'er in terms of new stuff at my job, I've seen how CF really has advanced. I see how the community is very passionate about CF and how helpful they are as well. CF has really come a long way since I started, and well, so have I. I may not be the best developer, but I really want to learn more and more.

• (Tom Tedeschi Information, Inc.) Over the years we've found CF far and away the fastest environment to develop in, and have yet to come up against a problem we couldn't solve with it.

• (Bob Stobener Raley's) ColdFusion is the Macintosh of programming languages. Back when Apple and the Mac was on the ropes in the 90's, everyone had written the platform off. Today the industry follows their lead. I hope the same will happen with ColdFusion. Adobe and the ColdFusion community has to become more aggressive in promoting CF to consultant agencies and IT departments (the ones who make the decisions). It has to gain MindShare. Also, you have to be able to convince Java programmers that their life would be much simpler with CF as a front end, if nothing else. Adobe should be extremely thankful for open source engines like Railo as well as the CF community. They promote externally to Adobe's customer base (while Adobe seems content with it's dwindling customers). Just like Apple and the Mac reinvented itself with a determined commitment to succeed by aggressively showing the world its products, Adobe must relentlessly elevate ColdFusion to the industry and promote its tremendous value.

  This entry was posted on March 23, 2010 at 5:07 PM and has received 2778 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Aaron West - For the past nine years I have been heavily involved in the Web development space building enterprise-level, database-driven Web applications and leading technology teams. I'm incredibly passionate about what I do and attempt to inject my enthusiasm and love for technology in all those around me.

CFUnited session: New Caching Features in ColdFusion 9

1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past?

Yes! I've attended CFUnited for years but last year was my first time speaking. I did a talk on ColdFusion 9, BlazeDS, and AIR integration.

2. Why should people attend your sessions?

Because it will be the best? Ha, all kidding aside, my talk on caching should be attended by those who need to make the most out of their Web apps. It's not enough to write code and deploy it to a badass server. You need to write code a certain way to ensure it performs as expected and scales as needed. Understanding caching in ColdFusion 9 (as well as how to use it) should be a critical component in every developers toolbox.

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

Absolutely. I'm currently working on a new technology startup that's using ColdFusion (and other Adobe technology) as part of our development stack. By the time CFUnited rolls around we should have our first customers in production.

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

What interests me most are the ColdFusion integration topics. My favorites are the ones that tie Flex/AIR and ColdFusion together, but anything that involves building compelling Web applications with ColdFusion and other technologies are the most intriguing.

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

Personally, I'm interested in the role cloud technology will play in the application server space. I used to think this was cutting edge stuff until I started researching and found people deploying cloud solutions as early as 2006. From a developer perspective, it's still somewhat new and there's not a lot of exposure to folks using ColdFusion in the cloud. I think this will be changing throughout 2010 and beyond. Roundtable discussions are always fun, and one centered on the impact of cloud technology on ColdFusion would be delicious!

6. Where can people find you at CFUnited?

Simple, where the action is! During the day I'm attending sessions and hanging out in the hallways and vendor booths. I love chatting it up with other developers and enjoying hearing about other folks projects. At night, I can be found wherever the beer is located.

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

What hasn't changed? The last several months have been quite awesome. Toward the end of 2009 I made a big decision to leave my employer of 5 years. I'm now working on a new technology startup and loving every single minute of it. It's amazingly challenging work but comes with some great rewards too. I've had to break out of my shell and learn several new technologies and bone up on a few rusty ones. The experience has been positive and I hope to be sharing much more about what I'm doing at CFUnited 2010.

8. What is unique about CFUnited?

CFUnited presents the most unique opportunity to learn from other developers. Sure there are fantastic topics and speakers - all of which are extremely valuable - but CFUnited is the one spot, all year, where hundreds of ColdFusion developers get together to talk shop. If you can't engage with others and learn something from both the sessions and the unstructured time, you are simply discarding a big part of what CFUnited is all about. Forget about going to bed early; you can sleep when you get home. Attend sessions, talk to the speakers and other attendees. Learn what others are doing (and what they aren't doing) and leave the conference having capitalized on every opportunity to grow as a developer.

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

Many geeks will say they don't have free time but I'm not one of them. Having time to recharge my batteries and focus on non-technical things is very important to me. Most of my free time is spent with my wife and son who are the most important things in my life. I love coming home to them and simply hanging out and playing cars or trains. I'm also big into reading and spend a lot of time with my Kindle. I try to read at least one book a month and often get in two. I'm also an avid motorcyclist - I ride a Yamaha R6 sportbike - and scuba diver.

This entry was posted on March 22, 2010 at 9:41 AM and has received 3366 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Good News Everyone! Lansdowne Resort has decided to extend the discounted room rates until March 31, 2010. The folks at Lansdowne are our heros of hospitality!

We heard from some people who were trying to book a double (1 room with 2 beds) and getting no availability on certain dates. The hotel has fixed this issue. Currently there are both doubles and king rooms available on all dates of the event.

Rooms are going fast, they sold out last year! Avoid being stuck without the room you want AND save some money. It just so happens that our next Early Bird discount for registration is also ending on March 31, 2010. So register and book your room now to take advantage of the savings!

This entry was posted on March 15, 2010 at 2:30 PM and has received 1662 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Hello!

I know everybody has been anxious to see the rest of the topics!

Mate Flex Framework: What's in it for me? - Laura Arguello

20 Security Threats to Flex Apps and How to Avoid them - Elad Elrom

Flex Data Binding Pitfalls - 10 common misuse mistakes - Elad Elrom

Object Relational Mapping in CF on Wheels - Chris Peters

ColdBox Platform 3.0.0: Sustainable ColdFusion Applications - Luis Majano

ColdFusion Powered iPhone Applications - Luis Majano and Joshua Geise

Flash Catalyst: Design to Flex - Dee Sadler

CSS and the CMS - Dee Sadler

Beginning Flex for ColdFusion Developers - Brian Rinaldi

These will most likely be the last of the topics released, not including sponsor-speaker slots. Those will be released as they come in.

Thanks to everyone who submitted topics!!

This entry was posted on March 12, 2010 at 5:01 PM and has received 3663 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

If you are staying at the Lansdowne Hotel for CFUnited this year here are some hotel and travel tips:

• Staying a day early or late? Ask the hotel for the same rate as the conference special rate to be extended.
• Got kids? Free child day care is available 9am - 9pm.
• Like golf? There are three courses plus a putting area to play on.
• Want to relax? Visit the onsite spa for you or your spouse.
• Free shuttle to Dulles airport if you call hotel to reserve your time and give the code word "CFUnited".
• The $15 resort fee includes internet access and fitness club/pool use.
• There are 3 swimming pools, tennis courts, racket ball in addition to golf
• There are 3 restaurants and bars and the club house.
• $179 room rate special ends Monday 3/15/10 - tell your ColdFusion and Flex friends so they don't miss out! Last year the hotel sold out of rooms...

More hotel info, travel tips for plane, train and automobile and what to do in Washington DC at the CFUnited travel page.

This entry was posted on March 12, 2010 at 4:13 PM and has received 4301 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

We wanted to thank to everyone who registered during November, December and January. A dollar from each of those registrations was added on our $300 donation, which came out to be a generous gift for a worthy cause.

The Heart of Virginia Foundation is a non-profit foundation formed in response to the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech. They offer charitable and educational opportunities to promote emotional well-being through the arts and to fight the stigma of mental illness.

They are currently looking for volunteers, so if you're in the Leesburg area and want to help out, check out their site!

This entry was posted on March 10, 2010 at 3:19 PM and has received 2665 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

As we finalize topic selection for CFUnited 2010, we are lucky and proud to have had so many quality submissions from great speakers. Topic Selection at CFUnited is quite an exciting process, a real nail-biter! To pick and choose what topics make the cut we relied on guidance from our wise, and much appreciated Advisory Board, including our faithful Track Chairs who oversee each track. Using a sleek spreadsheet within the genius of Stellr Intranet containing all the topics submitted to the Call for Speakers, the board voted on the topics in each track.

The public was asked to assist the process. Given the same spreadsheet the board uses to vote, people put in their two cents. As results came in from the vote, Stellr was able to use them to run a double check on the advisory votes. Also, if there is a discrepancy amongst the advisory votes and the public votes, we would If a topic got few advisory votes but was getting a lot of public votes, we could start a discussion with the board possibly reexamining their choice and giving a topic a second chance. This worked the other way too, examining why topics that had a high number of advisory votes were not popular with the public vote. Thanks to all the public voting, we were provided important leverage among the community voice and the voice of community experts!

There are other things too that come in to play like feedback on surveys from last years' presentations, which is we why we encourage attendees to participate in those. We do read them and we even send them to every speaker. They love it - you should see them go all gaga! They are always so eager to hear attendee comments. Makes you think twice about skipping them, huh?

The submissions for each track are key. We strive for topic relevancy and diversity. We aim to create a balanced event with engaging presenters - true rock stars. The topic selection process at CFUnited is indeed supreme, intricate, thorough and glorious in action. For example, from last week's release of topic, Pete Freitag's "Writing Secure CFML," received highest number of public votes of all the topics and it received a high number of votes from the Advisory Board. (Yay for Pete Freitag!). Another example is our own Elliott Sprehn, known as a good, interesting and reliable speaker. We were able to look at the public votes to see which topics we would like him to speak on. He submitted 3 topics, and the two chosen had the highest amount of votes.

As topic selection slowly comes to its close in 2010, we are pleased with the results and grateful to all who contributed to this thrilling contest. We look forward to completing the selection process and making those announcements. Hip Hip Hooray for all of our bona fide presenters and tasty topics! Woot woot for CFUnited!

This entry was posted on March 8, 2010 at 11:52 AM and has received 3256 views. There are currently 1 comments. Print this entry.

Some more topics to look over!!

Designing Scalable and Creative Algorithms - Elliott Sprehn

HTML5: The cool, the really cool, and the "huh?" - Christian Ready

Locking Down ColdFusion - Pete Freitag

Writing Secure CFML - Pete Freitag

Excel Generation Made Easy with CF9 - Ajay Sathuluri

Accessible Javascript - Sandy Clark

How To: Data Structure Upgrade - Selene Bainum

Advanced T-SQL - Selene Bainum

Validation in ColdFusion - Dan Vega

Developing Web Applications for Mobile Devices - Dan Vega

You can check out their descriptions and read over the full list of topics!

Also, if you still haven't registered, make sure you do so before 3/31/10 when the prices go up!!

This entry was posted on March 5, 2010 at 11:58 AM and has received 2794 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.