Hello CFUnited alumni and fans! It's Fall and the leaves aren't the only thing changing this season. Big news everyone, drum roll please... Liz Frederick is joining the Developer Relations team at Adobe to become a Community Manager! APPLAUSE! Liz has helped to build CFUnited into the premiere ColdFusion conference for over the last 8 years and has done an amazing job as manager and director of CFUnited, putting place practices and procedures that have made for an excellent ColdFusion community event each year.

As Liz is joining Adobe she will be missed at the office but we will retain her guidance through the detailed procedures she leaves behind. She will also continue to be an integral part of CFUnited conferences as a member of the Advisory Board, offering guidance to the Stellr team whenever needed. The Stellr team, including myself, Elliott Sprehn, and Cara Beverage, volunteers and its newest list of advisers (Charlie Arehart , Raymond Camden, Sean Corfield, Shlomy Gantz, Adam Lehman, Liz Frederick, Chaz Chumley, Bob Flynn, Simon Free, Brian Kotek, Andy Powell, Dan Wilson, Todd Sharp, Scott Stroz, and Mark Drew) are committed to put together an amazing CFUnited event in 2010. Registration is open for business, were running an incredible deal of $499 for a 3 day package, from now until September 25th! Things went great this year and it's totally gone to our heads! I guess we're just feeling really generous, take advantage and get the BEST DEAL EVER, so far.

Please, feel free to contact any of us if you have any questions or concerns. Remember, Adobe MAX is right around the corner, Cara and I can't wait to see you there!

ColdFusion Trivia Friday

In honor of CFUnited next week, I'm running a little Friday giveaway contest.

I will be asking 1 ColdFusion trivia question every 30 minutes on Twitter (@tpryan) starting Friday August 7th from 12:00PM to 2:00PM EDT. Use the Twitter hash tag #CFTFri. This will total 5 questions, and therefore 5 chances at a prize. The first person who gets a particular question right, as determined by my twitter client, gets the question's prize. Prizes are limited to one prize per person. So if you win one, you cannot win another.

Prizes will be:

* 4 ColdFusion Rocks t shirts - 12:00, 12:30, 1:00, 1:30

* 1 set ColdFusion 8 Scotch Glasses (4 glasses in set) 2:00

After you win, we'll get in touch with each other via direct message. Then I'll get your shipping details (not limited to USA), and shirt size.

- Terrence Ryan

Thank you Adobe and Adam Wayne Lehman for sending the list of topics today. We look forward to meeting the CF team!!

ColdFusion 9 and ColdFusion Builder Track and Topic Descriptions

Schedule of Topics:

Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - 1:30:00 PM
"ColdFusion 9: What's New" Adam Wayne Lehman

Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - 4:15:00 PM
"ColdFusion 9 & Flex 4: Application Development" Ryan Stewart

Thursday, August 13, 2009 - 8:30:00 AM
"ColdFusion Builder: Getting Started (Bring Your Laptop)" Bhakti Pingale & Dipanwita Sarkar

Thursday, August 13, 2009 - 9:45:00 AM
"ColdFusion 9 & AIR: Developing Offline Applications" Praveen Gupta

Thursday, August 13, 2009 - 2:00:00 PM
"ColdFusion 9: An Introduction to ORM" Terry Ryan

Thursday, August 13, 2009 - 3:15:00 PM
ColdFusion 9: Advanced ORM" Manju Kiran Pacchhipulusu

Thursday, August 13, 2009 - 4:45:00 PM
"ColdFusion 9 & LiveCycle ES: SOA Development" Greg Wilson

Friday, August 14, 2009 - 9:00:00 AM
"ColdFusion 9: JavaScript & AJAX Driven User Interfaces" Bhakti Pingale

Friday, August 14, 2009 - 10:15:00 AM
"ColdFusion 9: Working w/ MS Office, Sharepoint and Exchange" Hareni Venkatramanan & Terry Ryan

Friday, August 14, 2009 11:30:00 AM
"ColdFusion Builder: Building Extensions with CFML" Adam Wayne Lehman

Friday, August 14, 2009 - 1:30:00 PM
"ColdFusion 9: An Insider's Guide" Hemant Khandelwal

Friday, August 14, 2009 - 4:15:00 PM
"ColdFusion 9: Server Administration" Mike Collins


The plan is to definitely have these topics recorded via Connect for attendees to view at a later time so that you don't miss out on all the great topics.

Thank you Adobe!!

Adobe is throwing a massive Pool Party at CFUnited.

Thursday August 13th at 7:30 pm

Slide down the twisty slide, Splash under the waterfall, or lounge around with pals and free beer.

Not to mention Sumo Wrestling!! Challenge someone to a match and be victorious! Thanks to Carahsoft.

At 9:00pm, we'll get started with the Open Mic Night, hosted by funny man, Scott Stroz. Witness our talented community.

DON'T FORGET to bring your swimming gear! and maybe some sunscreen...

Thanks Adobe!!

Take a tour http://www.lansdowneresort.com/Virtual_Tour/virtual_tour_index.asp

Come to CFUnited if you want to know the best way to Teach ColdFusion to others. Teachers, Training Managers, and Intern Managers... this is session you can't miss.

http://cfunited.com/2009/topics#topic-349

Nominate the Best in the Industry for the Adobe Community Achievement Awards. Formerly known as the CFEmmys, Todd Sharp has reintroduced to CFUnited a chance to recognize those who display excellence.

Please enter your nominations by June 8th

Everyone is eligible and feel free to nominate yourself. Todd will narrow down the results and CFUnited will provide the list to the public before the vote on winners begins.

http://cfunited.com/go/survey/172

Terrencer Ryan just announced the following news about the ColdFusion Curriculum.

"I'm pleased to announce that Adobe has released official curriculum for teaching ColdFusion today! There are two tracks:

* Introduction to ColdFusion 8 * Advanced ColdFusion 8 Development

Both courses are available for download at our education site: ColdFusion 8: Introduction and Advanced Development"

We are so excited to announce our newest sponsors.

Platinum Sponsor

Adobe Systems Inc. http://www.adobe.com/

Silver Sponsors

Integral http://www.intergral.com/

Railo http://www.railo-technologies.com/

BlueRiver http://www.blueriver.com/

On3 Solutions http://on3solutions.com/

Savvy Software http://besavvy.com/

Hello World.

This is my take on MAX so far. I was extremely pleased with the the over all feeling of MAX today. It was a great experience checking in and finding session rooms. Now granted, I heard some sessions were in another hotel that had some people confused but I didn't experience that problem yet.

Breakfast. It was actually good. I loved the little breakfast sandwiches and fruit. Nice touch. I went to look for a pleace to sit and eat but found out there wasn't any where to sit. I was pleased to find Jason Delmore and Tom Jordahl sitting on the floor in the middle of the room because I was planning to do the same. I realized early on that most developers are used to sitting on the floor for some reason. After about 5 minutes, more Adobe folks came to join us and some community members we recognized. We sat in a big circle and talked about everything we've experienced last night.

Keynote. We all got up and made our way to the keynote. Ok, correction, we litterly rushed to the entrance like a tornado was behind us. It was a race to the front. Nafisa and I sat about 15 rows back from the stage with other community leaders. I even ran up to give Ben Forta a big bear hug. I swooned when I saw Kevin Lynch on stage. (its a harry potter thing) I was well aware that no CF stuff would be talked about yet so I didn't get dissapointed. I did find a few things inspiring but nothing that had me going gaga. I was more occupied with not having Wifi access on my ipod touch. So I resorted to twittering on my cell phone. If you didn't hear about everything at the Keynote go to http://adobe.com/keynote And lastly, I realized as it was ending someone yelled out "Bingo" which was an inside joke I later found out about. (If you guys pull that while I'm on stage I'll clobber you) lol, but it was really funny. I was making my way out and got into a big crowd again so I hopped over the chairs and I got a few hoot and hollers. I'm not dancing on chairs yet guys. At least I was a little graceful (ok, but I didn't fall). My wonderful Mr. Potter was charming as usual and very classy. Although, I'm excited for tomorrow's keynote when I get to see my main squeeze, Mr. Forta. There is so much buzz and wonder about what we will find out next. I'll be twittering constantly under "cfunited" as fast as my fingers can go. (Hopefully the wifi is up then as well @adobemax)

Lunch. Very good. Very organized. I was late in line because I just had to stop by all the booths on the way. But I was pleased to still have plenty to eat. Thanks for the creme brule, it fulfilled my craving.

Sessions. A little weird. You check in with your badge. If you are not on the list, you have to wait... which is understandable. But I was on the list but my badge didn't register on the scanner. It actually said "Sorry, you are not permitted" or something like that. I wanted to tell that machine to fly a kite. I understand how it is though. Not everything works all the time. The few I've attended so far have been pretty ok. I'm actually here to network and do interviews. I've had lots of good luck so far but now my camera is dead again. I've gone through 4 batteries just today. Sorry if I didn't catch you.

Exhibits. I want more free stuff. I feel like Adobe has all the cool stuff this year. Tshirts, stickers, etc. They know what we really want. BTW, the CF tshirt rocks. It has a guy holding a bottle of beer. Awesome.

Other stuff. The game lounge is cool. The snacks rock. The support is excellent. AV is good.

Generally great as expected. Again, I'm looking forward to tomorrow. The night is still young though! See you pals later.

Last note. I had to share this point. Everyone who knows me, the first thing they say is "I love the new venue for CFUnited"! Sweet. Exactly what I was hoping for. Its all for you folks. And if you tell me I'm doing something right I'm encouraged to keep going. Thanks for the support.

Until tomorrow. -Liz

PS- Sorry about putting this under Admin, I forgot my personal password. I'll change it when I get back to the hotel.

The Software & Information Industry Association has announced the 2008 Codie Awards. Cold Fusion 8 was the winner of the "Best Web Services Solution" caergory.

Initial press coverage is here: http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/05/20/Codie-awards-go-to-Red-Hat-Adobe-Salesforce_1.html

And the Codie site is here: http://www.siia.net/codies/2008/default.asp