Hello Atlanta! We are coming back to your home town.

Only $149

Register now! http://express.cfunited.com/go/atlanta/2009/

It will be held at the RoundBox offices on April 15th.

We will have coffee, snacks, lunch, and lots of free stuff. Including a CF8 tag poster for each person. Lots of prizes and software to give away. Even a free ticket to CFUnited. More speakers will be announced soon. So far we have Charlie Arehart, Josh Adams, Douglas Knudsen, and Andrew Powell. Stay tuned!

REMEMBER, when you register at an express event you can use 100% of your registration as a discount towards CFUnited's main event in August.

This entry was posted on March 12, 2009 at 2:42 PM and has received 3562 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Hello Ladies!

A recent conversation has been sparked by Raymond Camden with someone who recently asked why conferences can't find that many women speakers. I think lots of conferences would like to see more women participate as a speaker.

See blog entry here: http://www.coldfusionjedi.com/index.cfm/2009/3/5/Open-Question-Women-speakers-at-conferences

CFUnited has seen increased numbers in women attending over the years and I think it adds a nice balance to the event overall. However, we don't see that many women submitting topics in the call for speakers.

Because of this recent discussion I have decided to open the call for speakers again for women only. I've open up 5 more topic slots starting today. Submit on the call for speakers until March 20th. http://callforspeakers.cfconf.org/ I'll post all the choices in a survey on March 23rd and let the community vote again for two weeks. And to further my support I'm going to submit a topic as well.

I'm glad to announce that Selene Bainum will be added as a speaker soon to a Database Track. And of course Dee Sadler is currently accepted as a speaker.

Thanks Ladies and I'm excited to see ideas for new topics.

Note: I will post on this blog what topics have been submitted from women already so that they get a chance too. And as they come in, I'll try to update this entry as well in the comments section.

This entry was posted on March 9, 2009 at 2:15 PM and has received 3727 views. There are currently 3 comments. Print this entry.

Spreading the News: Brian Kai, a 2008 CFUnited Alumni, developed an iPhone/iPod Touch application available for free on the iTunes AppStore. The app is called CF_REF and is simply a CF tag reference application that allows one to browse CF tag syntax without being online or carrying around a large reference manual. It?s his very first iPhone application but I plan on updating it the more I learn about Objective-C and Xcode. He initially designed this app for his own benefit but after a couple coworkers expressed interest in it, he decided to submit it on the AppStore so others can benefit as well.

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=305364536

We love to share what the CFUnited Alumni community has learned and developed. If you have a cool application you'd like to share, let us know and we'd be happy to spread the word. :-)

This entry was posted on February 20, 2009 at 5:23 PM and has received 5503 views. There are currently 3 comments. Print this entry.

You can now register for Pre-Conference Classes!!

Location: Lansdowne Resort and Conference Center.

Date: August 11, 2009

Hours: 9:00am - 5:30pm

Food: Breakfast, Lunch, and fully replenished snacks and beverages are provided throughout the day.

Cost: $549

Seats per class: 20

Extras
* Free wireless Internet
* Includes all materials and Certificate of Completion

Click on a class for more details

CU241 - CBOX-100 : Intro To ColdBox - Luis Majano

CU242 - Building Desktop Applications with AIR - Rob Rusher

CU243 - Flex Boot Camp - Dan Blackman

CU244 - Building Better Applications - Simon Free

CU245 - Hitchikers Guide to ColdFusion - Chaz Chumley

CU246 - Setting up Internal Hosting - TBA

CU247 - Project Management Seminar - Shlomy Gantz

Custom Classes

If you're interested in having CFUnited provide a customized class for your company of 5 or more students, please Contact Us.

This entry was posted on February 12, 2009 at 5:22 PM and has received 3666 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Congratulations to Clark and Hal, Brian, Andrew, Jeff, and Sean!

Here are the next round of topics announced for CFUnited 2009. Next month we will announce 5 more.

Clark Valberg and Hal Helms "Dancing with the Devil: Dealing With Difficult Customers"

Ah, customers: business would be great if we could just get rid of them! The humor in this statement is the absurdity of it, yet it's easy to understand the feelings that prompt it. In this session, Hal and Clark (who believe they've had MORE than their share of difficult customers) explain how the term "difficult customer" often is often misapplied; more often the problem is that a bad dynamic has been established between developer and client. Using real-life case studies, we'll share specific techniques we've found to be successful in both (a) avoiding problems in the first place and (b) turning "difficult customers" into enthusiastic fans.

********************

Brian Rinaldi "A CF Developer's Guide to the Mate Flex Framework"

Learn how to use the Mate framework when building a Flex application that connects to ColdFusion. Mate was developed by Nahuel Foronda of ASFusion and is an easy-to-use and powerful framework for Flex development. It will feel comfortable to many ColdFusion developers who use common MVC frameworks. This session will show you the basics of using Mate in a Flex/AIR application.

*********************

Andrew Schwabe "Flex and Google App Engine"

This is a presentation on how to build a simple application with flex on top of google app engine (GAE) which uses python and python AMF.

*********************

Jeff Tapper "How not to code flex applications"

Having worked on hundreds of various flex applications, I've had a chance to see all sorts of bad practices in use. In this session, we will look at several mistakes: common ones, amusing ones, ones which got someone fired, and talk through ways of making you a better coder, or at least one who makes a better caliber of mistakes.

*********************

Sean Moore "Flex Best Practices"

This presentation is based on my experience developing internet based applications. I wrote two articles on Best Practices for the Adobe Flex Developer Center on the Adobe.com website last year. This presentation cover many of the topics and bullet points from my articles. The presentation is meant to help developers write more maintainable, scalable, clean, organized code and develop Flex projects in the same manner.

This entry was posted on February 4, 2009 at 2:48 PM and has received 2597 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

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/

This entry was posted on January 21, 2009 at 3:28 PM and has received 3422 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Dates: August 12th-15th 2009

Pre Conference Classes: August 11th 2009

Location: Lansdowne Resort and Conference Center

If you've attended any CFUnited event in the past you can get the Alumni discount,$100 off the current price. Therefore, now through December 31st, the cost for 3 day registration is only $599!!!

Check out our new registration system. Now you can edit your personal information and even register multiple attendees.

http://register.cfunited.com

Prices are at http://cfunited.com/go/prices

The hotel and location of the event is the Lansdowne Resort. See more details here. http://cfunited.com/go/travel

Stay tuned to the CFUnited.com/blog and check out all the new announcements about CFUnited 2009! We are making some outstanding changes.

also check out photos from flickr! http://www.flickr.com/photos/stellr_photos/sets/72157608251436415/

Also, feel free to ask our Advisory Board what they think.

This entry was posted on November 12, 2008 at 5:02 PM and has received 7012 views. There are currently 5 comments. Print this entry.

The survey feedback about the CFUnited 2009 event was extremely helpful. We realize that attendees want something reasonably priced and near city atmosphere. Having a venue that is easy to get to and metro accessible was important to travelers. We also saw that at the top of the list were Wireless Internet, Newer sessions, Good food, and Free Stuff.

Some of the great feedback we heard:

"Better learning opportunities. Maybe longer sessions, or more in-depth sessions."

"Content that can not be had anywhere else but CFUnited, but with so many other events, I am not sure that is possible."

"Having it spaced out a little in time from [other events]...I like the idea of going in July or early August"

"Having the convention at the hotel we are staying at"

"I have enjoyed the conferences but maybe a few more hands on sessions would be beneficial."

"Lower overall cost, the hotels in DC were really expensive and were too far away from the conference center itself which made networking hard"

Thanks Everyone! Either way attendees want a newer venue and newer sessions. Everything else is being considered highly. The decision on venue is going to be very rough, and we will cater to everyone's preferences as much as possible. I hope you like our decision, which will be announced in next week's newsletter.

Sean Corfield mentioned on his blog recently "it looks like CFUNITED 2009 will be significantly improved over CFUNITED 2008 and very focused on "the preferences and the needs of the attendees". I shared one of the potential venues with him. It is a possibility that I just can't pass up this deal because of all the free stuff and amenities they are offering and at that price! Even though not all the preferences are being accomplished. I hope everyone feels the same way and likes the new venue!!!

This entry was posted on October 15, 2008 at 3:22 PM and has received 3016 views. There are currently 1 comments. Print this entry.

Announcing Stellr

For the past ten years TeraTech has been the official presenter of CFUnited. My team and I have been organizing CFUnited for over 7 years and have been helping others in the community get connected. Now we want to expand with a separate brand to highlight our vision and exciting future for technology events. Michael Smith (CEO of TeraTech) is supporting a new division called Stellr (www.stellr.com) that my team and I are starting today. Stellr will run CFUnited, training, and assist with other events all over the world. I am now the COO of Stellr and officially the primary face of CFUnited and I am taking this new role very seriously to improve these events and how the community stays connected.

FAQ:

Q: Does this mean CFUnited is changing?

A: It is changing for the better and the experience will be catered more towards the attendee's needs and how technology is evolving. The first step was the attendee survey we did earlier this month. If you have suggestions for CFUnited let me know, we are listening!

Q: Will Stellr grow?

A: For now we are working with our current staff. As we gain more business, our team may indeed grow.

Q: Who will handle billing?

A: TeraTech will continue to handle billing, however, the execution of how registration and vendors are handled is being improved on by Stellr.

Q: How can I reach you?

A: Our url and contact information will be displayed online soon. You can still reach me at my TeraTech and CFUnited email addresses and my phone numbers remain the same.

Q: How did you come up with the name?

A: Stellr comes from the Italian word Stella which means star in English. We added an "r" instead of "a" because it gives a modern Web 2.0 feel to what we do (like Flickr). Part of our vision is that our events have an elevated experience.

Q: What does Stellr do?

A: We create a clear brand for each event that's easy to understand and we work to unite the community around its purpose. Also, lets say you want to organize a class. The easy part is organizing and what our group can do is marketing the event to follow your brand and create the type of experience you want your students to remember. We have lots of new ideas and fun activities to share. Or, if your company would like to have a customized class with your own needs, we can put together a program that is focused on where your training dollars need to be spent. So please spread the word and tell others what its like to work with my group.

Of course CFUnited is still our top priority and I believe 2009 is going to reflect the preferences and the needs of the attendees like never before.

ps- This was also sent via our conference newsletter list

This entry was posted on October 10, 2008 at 3:10 PM and has received 6080 views. There are currently 13 comments. Print this entry.