CFUnited Blog

Golf Contest

Hello everyone,

As I have mentioned before, we weren't able to snag the free golf for everybody; however, the Lansdowne Resort was kind enough to let us raffle off a free round of golf! So here's the deal:

Send us a picture, video, or really anything of you related to golf to: newsletter(at)cfunited(dot) com, in addition to your registered name (so we know who you are!), with a subject line of: Golf Contest Submission.

Yes, it's that easy.

Only one (1) entry allowed per person. Those who would like to participate must be registered; this may be as an attendee, speaker or sponsor. Either way, the winner has to be registered for CFUnited. Please only submit if you plan to use the free round of golf! The coolest/most creative/most awesome/best submission decided by me will be chosen as the winner! All entries must be submitted by June 30, 2010 to be eligible.

The winner will receive a round of golf for a total of 4 players. The winner will be responsible for selecting the other 3 players. This prize is transferable, so if the winner changes his/her mind, they can pass it on to whomever they choose.

If you would like to be eligible for this prize, but have yet to register, please do so now!

Also, take advantage of Lansdowne Resort's very own Spa Minérale, where attendees get a 10 percent discount.

Good luck to all!

BOF on Mach II

Hello everyone,

We have another BOF posted on the schedule!

BOF: Mach II - We are Community Driven

Whether or not you are a user of Mach II consider attending this discussion about Mach II and building object-orientated applications. We will chat about the news on the latest features in 1.8 and 1.9 releases, how to get started learning the framework and OO programming, and where Mach II is headed in the future. We will also share tips, tricks and resources for using Mach II to build powerful CF applications. We would love to hear how you have used the framework to build cool applications. We value the community's feedback about Mach II and look forward to seeing you there.

This BOF will be hosted by Kurt Wiersma on Thursday, July 29th at 6:30 pm. Make sure to add this in to your schedule!

Kurt will also be presenting on Real World ColdSpring and Setting up a Solid Local Development Environment.

Happy scheduling!

SciFi BOF

Hello everyone,

For all those who want to spend your post-session time in an un-CFUnited related BOF, I've got the perfect solution!

Ray Camden would like to host a SciFi BOF! Yay!

SciFi BOF: Join Ray and other SciFi fans for a get together about your favorite Shows, Movies, Games and more.

And yes, to those who are wondering, we had the same BOF last year, and it was a great hit! The SciFi BOF will be on Wednesday, July 28th at 9:30 P.M.

Make sure you schedule BOFs as you see them come in!

And we, of course, have more on the way!

Happy scheduling!

Speaker Spotlight - John Paul Ashenfelter

John Paul Ashenfelter - With over 15 years experience in web application development, John Paul provides broad ranging analysis and development skills focusing on the rapid development of web-based business applications. His particular technical expertise lies in Ruby, Rails, ColdFusion, and database design and development with a strong focus on open-source software. John Paul is a frequent speaker at conferences and a contributor to online resources such as the O'Reilly Network and the (now defunct) WebReview site. He has written three books on web databases and ColdFusion and has contributed or been a technical editor on a number of other books on the web, databases, and development.
CFUnited session: ColdFusion with noSQL

1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past?

Every one except 2001.

2. Why should people attend your sessions?

A conference should expand your mind and challenge your assumptions. I'm talking about building CF applications that don't use a relational database. This is some *seriously* cool stuff.

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

Probably -- the NoSQL community is growing quickly and there's a lot of work to do on the CF side to make it easier to integrate with these new tools.

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

I really like FW/1 and look forward to seeing what open source projects are working their way into the ColdFusion world. I'm also always interested in seeing what folks are doing as far as testing and agile development.

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

Growing the open source community with ColdFusion. We've started to get pretty good about having projects run by a single person, but we're still not there as far as larger collaborative projects that involve many different people. This probably relates to 4CFF.

6. Where can people find you at CFUnited?

In the bar, coding.

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

I've started another company. Oh, and I'll be flying into the conference straight from two months of living in Mexico.

8. What is unique about CFUnited?

There's not a lot of places large numbers of CF folks gather -- CFUnited is unique in both the breadth of experience in attendees (n00b to guru). CFUnited also has some of the best-looking conference staff of any major conference I've ever attended.

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

Be outside, do thing with my boys. Travel.

BOF on Mango Blog

Hello everyone,

We have another BOF posted on the schedule!

BOF: Mango Blog Tips and Tricks

Mango Blog is a popular ColdFusion blog engine. If you are using Mango Blog or curious about it, this is your opportunity to get together with other users to share experiences, tips and tricks. Laura Arguello, the creator of Mango Blog, will moderate this session and you'll be able to ask any beginner or advanced question.

This BOF will be on Wednesday, July 28th at 9:30 pm. Make sure to add this in to your schedule!

Laura Arguello will also be presenting on Mate Flex Framework: What's in it for me?

Happy scheduling!

Adobe releases some sessions for CFUnited

Hi everyone,

I'm here to inform you of some of our much-anticipated TBA topics!!

Adobe has let us in on a few of their topics!!

Check them out...

Building multi-player games on the Flash Platform with ColdFusion, Flex and Data Services - Greg Wilson: Learn how to build scalable, interactive, multiplayer games using the Flex, AIR, ColdFusion and BlazeDS/LCDS. Employ publish/subscribe messaging, CF remoting and other tricks to build something far cooler than just another multi-user chat application. Synchronize graphics across players, learn how to handle player disconnect, reconnects, tolerate poor networking conditions, latency, etc.

Adding Real-Time Data Visualization to your Application or Website - Greg Wilson: Every time your application accesses the server, data is available to do many more things than simple logging. Learn how to take this data and create valuable visualizations to show usage trends in real-time. Then with some simple IP to Geo techniques, the data can be visualized with maps to show visitor locations. Learn to use ColdFusion's event gateway to publish the data and use Flex to consume the data and visualize it with various mapping APIs from Google, ESRI, Mapquest and others to build compelling, animated application dashboards.

Check back in with us, as there will be more to come from Adobe!

Enjoy!

Speaker Spotlight - Chaz Chumley

Chaz Chumley - Consultant, Instructor, Author, Husband and Father. Chaz has been specializing in web development and database design since 1995. He currently resides as a Web Developer for the Smithsonian. Chaz is also CIO for w3Consultants, an Internet Application Development & Hosting company. Consultant services include XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, Fireworks, Photoshop, Drupal and ColdFusion. Chaz is also a contributing author and partner at CommunityMX and a guest speaker at such conferences as Todcon and CFUnited.

CFUnited session: ColdFusion Report Builder

1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past?

I have spoken at CFUnited for the past 4 years, including CFUnited Europe, and every year is better than the last.

2. Why should people attend your sessions?

Often people overlook the importance of good report writing tools that ColdFusion provide you. They lean toward building queries and outputting the data in a table and that's their idea of reporting. A lot of the work is done for you in ColdFusion Report Builder. Stop by and find out just how easy.

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

Actually. I have 2 projects that we will be showcasing at CFUnited this year - one for the Smithsonian and one for CommunityMX. Both utilize the CFWheels framework and will be awesome. Stop by and check them out.

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

Being a Government employee I just blogged about the Top 10 topics you don't want to miss out on. Make sure to check it out, as there are too many great topics and too little time for one person.

5. What are some of the hot topics you'd like to see at RoundTable discussions? Frameworks - There are so many to choose from that it's often a hard decision for people to make. Mike Henke, Chris Peters and myself will actually be doing a Birds of a Feather on CFWheels so stop by to hear more.

6. Where can people find you at CFUnited?

When I am not taking in a presentation, chatting with attendees in the hallway then you can find me in the bar socializing.

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

I actually went over to the darkside. I am now a Government employee and work for the Smithsonian. Moved from the desert of Las Vegas to the Capital City of D.C. and participated in my first 10K. Does that count?

8. What is unique about CFUnited?

Where else could you sit and talk to such great people with such great backgrounds and never mention the word - ColdFusion.

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

Free time - is that what they call it?

First BOF Session

Did I forget to mention that our first BOF session is already posted?????

Apparently I did! My bad!

Our first BOF is:

CFWheels - Finally, a framework for the rest of us

A discussion on ColdFusion on Wheels and how it provides fast application development, a great organization system for your code, and is just plain fun to use. From Convention over Configuration to an ORM that can be used with ColdFusion 8 and Railo, join Chris Peters, Mike Heinke and Chaz Chumley as they answer your questions and demonstrate some great sites builds on CFWheels.

This BOF will be on Thursday, July 29th at 7:00 pm. Make sure to schedule this BOF if you're interested!!

Also, for all you CFWheels junkies, there are two sessions with CF on Wheels!

ColdFusion on Wheels - Convention over Configuration - (Mike Henke) - Thursday, July 29 from 1:30 PM to 2:30 PM

Object Relational Mapping in CF on Wheels - (Chris Peters) - Thursday, July 29 from 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM

Happy scheduling!

Friends of Aaron West

Speaker Aaron West has been affected by the flooding in Nashville. Lets get the community together to see if we can help.

"Aaron West's home is currently underwater in the Nashville floods. He and his family had about an hour to pack as much as they could before they needed to evacuate. Aaron West's home is currently underwater in the Nashville floods. He and his family had about an hour to pack as much as they could before they needed to evacuate."

A blog has been created on Aaron's behalf that gives images, video blogs, and other updates regarding his current situation. The blog site has a "Donation" area, which already has shown some tremendous love.

It's quite hard to imagine what he's going through, so any support and help is much appreciated.

Keynote Speakers for CFUnited 2010

We are excited to officially introduce our CFUnited 2010 Keynote Speakers: Adam Lehman, Terry Ryan and Charlie Arehart. Yes, you read correctly, Lehman, Ryan, and Arehart! Adam and Terry will double up for our opening Keynote on Wednesday! Make sure you get to there early to get the perfect seat! Charlie will be our keynote speaker on Thursday! You all are in for a real treat.

Adam Lehman is the Product Manager for ColdFusion at Adobe Systems based out of Washington, DC. Prior to joining Adobe, Adam developed enterprise applications for the US Department of State and Johns Hopkins University. Adam has spoken at over 100 events on topics ranging from web development to application security.

Terry Ryan is currently an Adobe Platform Evangelist for ColdFusion. He has been working with ColdFusion for 10 years. He's presented at various Adobe ColdFusion events including cf.Objective(), webDU, and Adobe Max. Prior to joining Adobe, Terry worked for the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania in various roles around ColdFusion from Application Developer to System Administrator.

Charlie Arehart is a veteran ColdFusion developer and troubleshooter since 1997 with over 25 years in IT. He's a longtime contributor to the community and a recognized Adobe Community Professional. As an independent consultant, he provides short-term troubleshooting/tuning assistance and training/mentoring for organizations of all sizes and CF experience levels (carehart.org/consulting).

Besides running the 2000-member Online ColdFusion Meetup (coldfusionmeetup.com, an online CF user group), he also hosts the UGTV repository of recorded presentations from hundreds of speakers (carehart.org/ugtv) and the CF411 site of over 1000 tools/resources for CFers (cf411.com). A certified Advanced CF Developer and Instructor for each version since CF 4, Charlie's spoken at each of the major CF conferences worldwide and is a contributor to all three volumes of Ben Forta's ColdFusion 8 and 9 WACK books.

There will be more details to come about Charlie's keynote speech, so stay tuned!

Join us at CFUnited 2010 to hear from our rock-star keynote speakers, as well as our other fabulous speakers!

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