Gert Franz - One of the founders of Railo Technologies GmbH and accompanied the development from when it started back in 2001. Next to the development of Railo he worked as a system engineer and database administrator, where one of his favorite web projects was and is for instance www.zinodavidoff.com. He's addicted to problem solving, performance and database tuning (especially SQL Server). Gert is a father of three and boyfriend of one. As far as he can remember, he has studied astrophysics in Munich some (many :-) years ago.

CFUnited session: Railo Open Source

1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past?

No I haven't. I have attended but haven't spoken yet. It is definitely theCFML conference with the most attendees and you get a chance to meet and greet the who's who in the CFML world. So just go and attend!

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

Because they are learning about a CFML engine free of costs that might be the alternative in the times of the credit crunch. It's highly compatible to the current standard and allows you to take your code and execute it with almost no changes. High performance and innovative security features as well as settings that help you code more effective allow you to get the most out of your apps.

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

Yes, we are constantly working on our engine and always introduce new extensions and features.

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

I look forward to the Intergral and Blueriver sessions. Of course some ofthe sessions the Railo guys give are interesting as well.

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

Open Source, what does the community want from the vendors, CFML Advisory Committee questions etc.

6. Where can people find you at CFUnited?

Look for an orange or violet TShirt with the GotRailo Logo on it :-) I will be everywhere mentioned in this order: working - networking - at the bar - in my room

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

Yes, we're open source with Railo 3.1. And we have some of the best minds in our company.

8. What is unique about CFUnited?

The name :-) No... I guess the ability to meet so many different people and since all of the top speakers will attend, I am looking forward to meeting many of them!

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

Walking my dog, going to the movies, spend time with friends, travel, and of course my family!

10. What the best thing about your job?

Well it's my hobby!

This entry was posted on May 20, 2009 at 1:46 PM and has received 2295 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Jun Heider - Sr. Developer and Technical Trainer with RealEyes Media, an Adobe partner company based in Denver, Colorado with a focus in Rich Internet Applications. Jun graduated from Regis University with a BS in Computer Networking and has a number of technical certifications. Jun has worked with ColdFusion since 4.5, Flex since Flex 2 beta, and AIR since it was first available in pre-release. In addition, Jun loves to speak at conferences such as Adobe MAX, 360|Flex, and Flexmaniacs. Jun also loves to write, he is an active blogger on O'Reilly Inside RIA and has written articles for Fusion Authority and Flex Authority. Jun is also co-authoring the upcoming Professional Flex 3 by Wrox. In his free time, Jun loves to play music, his Xbox 360, snowboard, and hang out with his son Kobi, daughter Mia, and wife Michelle in Colorful Colorado.

CFUnited session: Intro to Flex Debugging and Profiling

1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past?

I've never spoken at CFUnited before, but the reason I decided to was because I had heard so many good things about it in the past through the ColdFusion community. I usually spend my time at Flex/AIR centric conferences, but it was good to find out that although ColdFusion is still a majority of what CFUnited is about, it definitely isn't the only thing.

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

If you're getting started with Flex and pull out your hair while trying to resolve issues in your code on a frequent basis, this will be a very good session for you to attend. During the session I will be covering many aspects of debugging and profiling your Flex applications. By the end of the session you should walk away with a good idea of the tools available to you and how to get started with using them.

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

Not personally, but hopefully Flex Builder 4 beta will be out by the conference. If it is, the fancy new debugging and profiling features will definitely be covered.

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

Just to name a few:

- AIR Messaging: Integrating AIR, BlazeDS, and ColdFusion

- Design Diagrams for CFC's and Databases

- Subversion for Smarties - Do More With Subversion

- Practical Refactoring: Making Bad Code Good

- Advanced SQL for ColdFusion

- Flex and Google App Engine

- Using Design Patterns in Flex

- How not to code flex applications

- Blowing Your Mind With Merapi

- Busy Programers Guide to Java part 1

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

Hmm... maybe a good talk about Battlestar or one on the latest Star Trek movie and predictions on what the next Star Trek TV series will be about.

6. Where can people find you at CFUnited?

At the bar or in a session, or in a session at the bar.

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

Yes, the change since the last CFUnited is that I actually get to come to CFUnited this time. :)

8. What is unique about CFUnited?

I think the room names at CFUnited are really unique. I mean, a room called Galactica?? That's just rad!

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

When I'm not working and/or taking care of my children I enjoy jamming and making music. I also love my Xbox 360, Fallout 3 and the combat shotgun I get to use in it at point blank during VATS, oh yeah!

10. What's your favorite CFML tag of all time?

That would be < cfdump > baby ...yeah!

This entry was posted on May 18, 2009 at 4:12 PM and has received 2522 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Lance Smith - Has several years of experience in IT/Web Development. He has been working with computers for over 20 years, programming for about 12, and doing Web development for 8. He is a Certified Adobe Expert (ACE) for ColdFusion 8 and senior application engineer at O'Neil & Associates, where he does Web development with Adobe ColdFusion. He is also a part-time instructor at Sinclair Community College, where he teaches Web development and design.

CFUnited session: Handling Errors with Error Handling

1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past?

I've attended for the past three years and would tell anyone who is in any way a CF developer to get themselves here! This is by far the best CF conference around.

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

Most developers understand the importance of error handling in an application, but many don't utilize it to its full potential. Error management is critical in site development and having the right information at the right time can save you and your customer a lot of headaches.

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

CFUnited? Unfortunately, all my projects are top secret. Ok--not really, but still can't show them ;-)

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

I'd like to see Ben Nadel's presentation and some of the more advanced topics as well as John Paul Ashenfelter's bleeding edge technology presentation.

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

Nerd talk--Star Wars, Transformers, G.I. Joe/80's toys...stuff like that.

6. Where can people find you at CFUnited?

I will be everywhere this year except the room! I hope to get some networking in with the greatest minds in the biz! Oh, and I'll be in that Thinkgeek room for sure...

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

The biggest change since last year is that I'm now the father of twin boys! After Ray Camden, I feel like the busiest man on earth.

8. What is unique about CFUnited?

I personally enjoy CFUnited more than conferences like MAX because it's a little smaller and more intimate, and you can really get to know some people here. The CF community is full of such great people--it's unlike any other dev community in my opinion.

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

I enjoy spending time with my two boys, digital photography, travel, hiking and camping, general computing, and in my spare time rebuilding my collection of 80's G.I. Joe's.

This entry was posted on May 14, 2009 at 1:38 PM and has received 2934 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

You can now make comments about topics on CFUnited.com!

If you see a topic you would like more information about, go to that topic link and write your comment to the speaker. You will get an email and the speaker will get an email. Also check back often to see what others are saying about all the topics.

Here's a demo to see how to do this. There's no sound (couldn't find my microphone) but you can get the idea. :-)

http://tinyurl.com/cfunitedcomments

Happy Q&A everyone!

This entry was posted on May 14, 2009 at 12:16 PM and has received 2758 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

We noticed over some time that Scott Stroz and Shlomy Gantz had similar topics. So Scott has agreed to speak on a new topic which also belongs in the Best Practices Track.

"ColdFusion and jQuery: Perfect Together"

jQuery has been defined (by me) as the 'ColdFusion of JavaScript libraries' because you can do some very cool stuff with very little code. In this session we will compare ColdFusion's AJAX functionality and jQuery (including jQueryUI) to show when you might chose one over the other. We will also discuss how you can integrate both to make your applications that much better.

If you would like to comment on his topic, go here: http://cfunited.com/2009/topics/286

This entry was posted on May 14, 2009 at 12:10 PM and has received 2697 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Dee Sadler - A typical Adobe geek girl. She runs a User Group (KCWebCore), co-manager of another (KCDesignCore) and helps with KCDevCore. She is an Adobe Community Expert in Dreamweaver and InDesign, and loves everything CSS. She is also an Adobe Certified Instructor in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver and Flash, with a passion for Fireworks and also teaches Acrobat. I am also an Adobe Freelance Professional. Some of you might also know me in the CF community as the person who puts together Fusion Authority Quarterly Update. I want to bring designers and developers closer together and hope to bridge that gap with some new apps this year like Flash Catalyst.

CFUnited sessions: Designer and developers working together BOF, Flash Catalyst round trip wireframe, Hands-on CSS - Part I , Hands-on CSS - Part II

1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past?

This will be my... 3rd CFUnited I believe. I've never spoken at one before, but have helped with a BOF last year. I'd tell them there isn't a better place for a beginner, intermediate or advanced CF developer to learn something new, and more importantly talk to and network with others in the community.

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

My sessions span that range as well. In the all day class, we'll take someone new to CSS and give them the knowledge to grasp the concepts and apply them. In the regular session we'll spend 2 hours learning how to do some dynamic CSS with CF, make clean CSS navigation and how to style data tables and forms.

In the Flash Catalyst session, they'll learn how to do roundtrip with Illustrator, and hopefully by then, Fireworks.

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

For me, anything that involves CF n00b stuff and jQuery and databases. Any new frameworks stuff is great too. Maybe some AIR.. Oh heck, everything. I am a social person, so my favorite part is always the great networking.

4. Where can people find you at CFUnited?

Always visible. Can easily be found wherever the crowd is.

5. What is unique about CFUnited?

CFUnited is the only really comprehensive conference about ColdFusion and Flex. Not just Enterprise, and not just advanced. Anyone can learn at CFUnited.

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

Free time? What's that. There is always sites to design and CSS to be made.

This entry was posted on May 13, 2009 at 5:20 PM and has received 4758 views. There are currently 1 comments. Print this entry.

Sean Corfield - Chief Technical Officer for Railo US. He has worked in IT for over twenty five years, starting out writing database systems and compilers then moving into mobile telecoms and finally into web development in 1997. Along the way, he worked on the ISO and ANSI C++ Standards committees for eight years and is a staunch advocate of software standards and best practice. Sean has championed and contributed to a number of CFML frameworks and was lead developer on Fusebox for two years.

CFUnited sessions: Living in the Cloud , CFML Discussion BOF

1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past?

Yes, this is my sixth time as a speaker I believe. CFUnited is the biggest CF-focused event in the world. No matter what your skill level, you'll find something to suit you. The networking opportunities - being able to discuss issues with your peers - is extremely valuable at a big event like this!

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

A lot of people are curious about "cloud computing" but not many people in the CF community have tried to run their production systems on it. At Broadchoice, we developed one application specifically for Amazon's EC2 and S3 services and migrated another application from a traditional data center to Amazon's EC2. I'll be talking about the benefits and pitfalls - as well as looking at design considerations that make it easier to run applications in "the cloud". If you're thinking about "cloud computing" on any level, come and learn from our experiences!

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

Yes, a couple of projects. But they'll be revealed at CFUnited so I can't talk about them yet. Another couple of reasons to attend!

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

August is a long way off so I haven't even thought about which sessions I'm attending yet.

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

Open source development is one of my passions so I'd like to see that topic represented. I'd also like to hear people's experiences, good and bad, with unit testing, test-driven development and behavior- driven development.

6. Where can people find you at CFUnited?

I expect I'll be hanging out in the bar with the rest of the Railo team so folks can find us easily.

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

The big news is that I joined Railo Technologies US as their CTO in April and, along with Peter Bell (and others), we're offering support and professional services for companies - and individuals - using the open source Railo CFML server.

8. What is unique about CFUnited?

Apart from being the biggest CF-focused event in the world, it's the only place where you can meet CFers of all levels, from all industries. Did I mention the networking opportunities are extremely valuable?

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

Ballroom and Latin dancing. My wife & I started lessons at the beginning of 2009 and we're having a great time!

This entry was posted on May 13, 2009 at 3:49 PM and has received 2938 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Hello Community!

We've posted the schedule.

http://cfunited.com/2009/schedule

We have some new topics on the way as well. The Scheduler Software will be coming May 22nd.

Each topic has an assigned room with the number of seats available. If you plan on attending, you will have to add your favorite topics to your personal schedule to reserve a seat.

Keep subscribed to this blog for the announcement when the time comes to fill out your personal schedule.

Adobe topics are TBA at the moment.

Thanks for registering for CFUnited!

This entry was posted on May 11, 2009 at 2:13 PM and has received 2819 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

We've accepted a few more new topics.

Sean Moore had to cancel and we've chosen Javier Julio as his replacement. Digging Through the Flex Framework

Aaron West is a wild card speaker. His topic is AIR Messaging: Integrating AIR, BlazeDS, and ColdFusion

Charlie Arehart has another new topic Using Apache Derby, the Open Source Database Embedded in ColdFusion 8

This entry was posted on May 9, 2009 at 12:30 PM and has received 2204 views. There are currently 1 comments. Print this entry.

Here are the list of women speakers that have been chosen to present their topic at CFUnited!

Dee Sadler - "Flash Catalyst round trip wireframe"

Lisa Heselton - "Rapid Application Prototyping w/Captivate"

Rachel Lehman - "Keeping Front End Dependencies Under Control"

Huyen Dao - "Divide and Conquer: Greenthreading in Flex/AIR"

Gail Shoffey - "Payment Processing Paradigm"

Selene Bainum - "eCommerce: Build or Buy"

These topics will be listed on the main site momentarily. Help me publicly congratulate all the ladies for submitting topics. I'm very excited to have them speaking at our conference.

STATISTIC: 14% of the current registrations for CFUnited are Women!

This entry was posted on April 28, 2009 at 11:52 AM and has received 2067 views. There are currently 3 comments. Print this entry.