CFUnited Blog

Speaker Spotlight: Oguz Demirkapi

Oguz Demirkapi - Code poet and lover of all things related to intelligent web technologies. He started developing CGI web applications in 1994 and has developed cutting edge ColdFusion applications since 1997. Serving as Chief Technological Officer or Senior Developer for many well known commercial and Blue Chip companies in Turkey, Germany and the U.S., O?uz has been a fixture in the ever evolving realm of computer science and a selfless mentor to aspiring developers. He remains active in various user groups such as Linux, ColdFusion, Flex etc. and was the founder and leader of CFTR - ColdFusion Turkey User Group, an emerging hub of ColdFusion development.
CFUnited sessions: Building Scalable Web Applications with ColdFusion , Geolocation with ColdFusion

1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past?

Yes, I have spoken on i18N (Internationalization) on ColdFusion which was probably one of the first talks given on this topic in the US. CFUnited is the premier ColdFusion conference that every CFML developer should experience in order to feel the power and excitement of such a vibrant community. I used to work for TeraTech at two consecutive CFUnited events (2006, 2007) and as an insider I consider it to be the most enjoyable and beneficial part of my time in the D.C. area. My simple advice, just go for it!

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

I will be covering 2 different topics this year. The first topic will cover some of the aspects of creating scalable CFML applications. Having worked on and architected many diverse projects, from simple to complex, across various platforms including Perl, C/C++, and PHP, I'd like to synthesize these perspectives in order to bring solutions to the CFML platform. Currently we are rewriting our main application and my daily routine revolves around thinking about and implementing powerful, scalable, and maintainable applications/platforms. The second topic, geolocation, is not so well known in the ColdFusion community. I'd like to showcase the beauty of some of the new application ideas to geolocation. This should be a lot of fun and perhaps in return, will inspire new visions for your own applications.

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

I look forward to sharing with the CFUnited community, the i18N translation manager tool I've developed. What this tool provides is a management platform for multilingual application implementation that you can embed to your admin or just use as a standalone application to manage your translation needs with versioning and import/export features for ColdFusion or Flex properties files.

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

I really would like to see topics discussing cloud computing power, CFML & Flex & BlazeDS integrations and of course Railo and open source world opportunities. I think the most important step will be the new ColdBox version which introduces many new features.

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

I think new opportunities with the open source Railo platform will be the most interesting talk. Questions such as the future of the ColdFusion and OOP implementations in CFML world will still be the popular topics.

6. Where can people find you at CFUnited?

I will be everywhere. If you see somebody taking strange photos in strange locations, that's me! :)

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

I've moved to California just after the last CFUnited. I came to CA by way of a week long, adventurous cross country drive. It was an interesting experience for me and my family. We are now in sunny southern California; one of the best locations in the U.S.--Orange County. I have also created a new user group in my area and I am the founder/manager for OCDev - Orange County Adobe Developers User Group (http://ocdev.org)

8. What is unique about CFUnited?

CFUnited is a focal point and unifying presence in the ColdFusion world. ColdFusion developers, Unite! :)

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

Mainly I play chess and Go. For sporting activities, I enjoy table tennis and surfing. Reading/writing on philosophy and especially epistemology have been long time interests. Life is good!

CFUnited Class: jQuery and ColdFusion - Jeff Peters

Jeff Peters

CFUnited Class: CU248 - jQuery and ColdFusion August 11, 2009 9:00am - 5:30pm


1. Why did you create this class?

Well, I started out teaching jQuery as a separate class about a year ago. It was a fun class, but I met an increasing number of CF developers who hadn't investigated jQuery because they felt that it just duplicates features that are available in ColdFusion, especially CF8. While it's true that many of the tasks that jQuery handles well are also addressed by features in CF, I find that it's very beneficial to be able to take advantage of both technologies.

2. Are you going to cover jQuery first, or ColdFusion?

The focus of the class is really on how jQuery and ColdFusion can work and play well together. We'll spend a bit of time discussing each side of the house, but most of the time will be spent on combining the two.

3. Aren't jQuery and ColdFusion mutually exclusive?

Not at all. As I already mentioned, this is the misconception that originally prompted me to design the class. It's important to understand that CF is a tool that generates code to run on the browser, and jQuery is code that runs on the browser as well. If we understand both technologies from the browser's context, we can make use of them together in very interesting and useful ways.

4. Do attendees need to know jQuery and ColdFusion in order to take the class?

I'm expecting students to know ColdFusion, but not necessarily jQuery. This seems to be the typical scenario, especially in the context of a conference like CFUnited, where attendees are typically familiar with CF. We'll be spending some time in the first part of the class talking about the fundamentals of jQuery, so if you don't know any jQuery, you'll be raring to go by the end of the day.

5. What will attendees know at the end of the day?

Beats me--I don't know if you'll pay attention. Seriously, though, the class is designed to open up a whole box of fun stuff for creating great user experiences with good ol' HTML.

6. How will this class benefit an attendees career?

If your career has anything to do with building front-ends for web applications (or HTML-based desktop applications), you'll find something useful in this class. My intent is to fuel students' imaginations so that they'll feel enabled to explore their own ideas.

7. What should attendees bring to the class?

The biggest thing that will help is your imagination, and perhaps some ideas for an application you're currently developing. You should bring your laptop, with CF installed. I'll provide jQuery and instructions on how to install it, use it, and extend it. Of course, if you're already tinkering with jQuery and have it, that's even better. I look forward to seeing you there!

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 CIO for w3Consultants, an Internet Application Development & Hosting company as well as an Instructor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas teaching XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, Fireworks, Photoshop and ColdFusion. Chaz is also a contributing author and partner at CommunityMX as well as a User Group Manager for the Las Vegas Adobe User Group and a guest speaker at such conferences as Todcon and CFUnited.

CFUnited session: Building Desktop applications with Coldfusion 8 and AIR

1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past?

I have spoken the past 3 years as well as CFUnited Europe. If you had a choice between conferences, CFUnited is defintiely the best for networking, learning and sharing information with your peers and experts in the industry.

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

Web designers and developers who are interested in AIR and not the type you breath then feel free to stop by my session. We have lots of fun and being from Las Vegas, end the session rolling a little dice for prizes.

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

If having fun is a project then...YES.

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

Simon Free is always a blast to listen to. Even if you get nothing out of his sessions you will be leaving in tears. He's is so funny and a great presenter.

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

Frameworks, Refactoring and the best one of all... How the hell do I make money doing this?

6. Where can people find you at CFUnited?

All of the above... Regardless of what time it is I am always open to people dragging me out for a drink.

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

What hasn't changed. I have been doing a lot of Open Source development (Drupal, PHP). Wait did I say that

8. What is unique about CFUnited?

Networking. Unlike other conferences where there are too many people. CFUnited always has just the right amount and if you dont leave without having met someone new then you were sleeping the whole time.

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

I coach youth sports. I am coaching my daughters fastpitch softball Allstar team and Pop Warner football.

10. Who are the best conference organizers in the business?

Stellr - Liz and Nafisa and of course Elliott.

Speaker Spotlight: RJ Owen

RJ Owen - Senior Developer at Effective UI. RJ was the lead developer on projects for Dow Jones, Random House and the Discovery Channel and contributed to ebay Desktop and the Adobe Video Workshop. In late 2007 RJ was featured on the Scoble show discussing RIA development and is passionate about the way that software affects and can improve people's lives. He is certified as an Adobe Community expert in Flex and co-authored the O'Reilly shortcut "Flex 3 Early Evaluator." RJ runs a flex blog called A Better Experience at rjria.blogspot.com, holds a degree in Physics and Computer Science, generally does well on standardized tests, and lives in Colorado.

CFUnited session: Flex 4 Components

1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past?

I have never, even once, spoken at CFUnited. Last year I was sworn to silence. I would tell someone, it's okay - you can get through this.

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

People should attend my session if they want to learn about what's new in Flex 4, or how they can use Flex to build some sweet UI's onto the hearty back-ends they're used to building in CF.

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

< mysterious >If I did, I most certainly wouldn't reveal them on the internet. You'll just have to come and see for yourself.< /mysterious >

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

I'm looking forward to Jun's session and David Tucker's session. They both know a lot about a lot of things, and I like learning things from people who know them.

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

I'd really enjoy listening to two gentlemen (or ladies) diplomatically argue the merits of the multi-party system of government favored in Europe compared to our rather intransigent tradition of only two.

6. Where can people find you at CFUnited?

I will most likely be in the pool, trying to see how long I can hold my breath.

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

Well, Liz, I'm glad you asked. Last week we watched our friends' dog. It's a pretty nice dog, so it went well, generally, but it yipped a lot at night, and I'm a light sleeper, so that was a little rough. You know what, why don't we just catch up at the conference?

8. What is unique about CFUnited?

It's the last great bastion of hope for a dying world in need of a hero. There are a few mediocre bastions around, but you won't find any other great ones. Especially not around WADC.

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

When I'm not working, I like reading, playing video games, and occasionally playing sports in my free time. When I'm working, I prefer to spend my free time playing scrabble over a nice glass of 2% milk.

10. How do you feel about Law and Order?

It is my firm belief that there are too many crime dramas on evening television, but of those crime dramas, Law and Order is pretty good, I guess.

Speaker Spotlight: Brian Rinaldi

Brian Rinaldi - A programmer, Adobe Community Expert, manager of the Boston ColdFusion User Group and organizer of Flex Camps in Boston and Miami. Brian is most well known for his efforts promoting open-source projects in ColdFusion, especially for maintaining the ColdFusion open-source list as well as the weekly updates, both of which you can find via his web site at http://www.remotesynthesis.com.

CFUnited Session: A CF Developer's Guide to the Mate Flex Framework

1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past?

I spoke last year on RIA security, which was a tough topic. I would tell new folks that CFUnited is the biggest and most widely known ColdFusion conference, so it is the best place to network with other ColdFusion developers. The new hotel looks pretty exciting, so I think the opportunities to socialize and network will be even better this year.

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

I am presenting the Mate framework for Flex this year. Whether you are an experienced Flex programmer who is familiar with Cairngorm or a new Flex developer looking to adopt a framework for your development, Mate is something you should definitely look at. I found that using it not only improved my overall application organization and cleaned up my code, but it improved my enjoyment of Flex coding since it offered tools that simplified development. Mate has been gaining a lot of steam lately and whether you choose to use it or not, its definitely something you should consider or at least be aware if you are doing Flex development. This session will introduce the core Mate concepts for anyone unfamiliar with the framework.

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

I won't make any promised but I recently set a goal to have a completely reworked Illudium PU-36 Code Generator ready for CFUnited. Its a big undertaking since much of the underlying code needs to be redone to accomplish what I want to do, but with the upcoming releases of Bolt and Centaur, its something that I think should happen. In particular, as was announced earlier today, Bolt plans to offer the ability to tie in custom code generation using CFML, so being able to tie Bolt to Illudium will be a priority.

4. Where can people find you at CFUnited?

I attend conferences purely for the sessions and learning. There is no way you will find me at the bar every evening drinking beer and chatting with attendees. In fact, I promise I will not be closing down the hotel bar, and, despite what you may have heard, I have never done that at any prior conference.

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

Last year I was working for Universal Mind, but was caught in the layoffs earlier this year. This year I have started with a company called Pongo Resume (www.pongoresume.com) building ColdFusion and Flex applications.

6. What is unique about CFUnited?

CFUnited draws the widest variety of ColdFusion developers from around the country. There are sessions that cater towards relative beginners and others that are very advanced. I think the Flex/AIR track is particularly exciting this year as it has brought in well known people from the Flex community and not simple ColdFusion developers doing some Flex. I am looking forward to getting a lot out of the sessions in that track.

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

I own every game system in existence (Xbox 360, Wii, Playstation 3, PSP, DS) but I rarely get to play them much unless its with my 6 year old son. Essentially, I own the systems to keep up a charade that I am an avid gamer...which I once was. I also am a big fan of sports, particularly college sports. While I am a University of Miami grad and Hurricane fan, I have season tickets to Boston College football which is walking distance from my home. I also attend many of the local college basketball and hockey games with an occassional professional game of the Celtics or Red Sox when I can afford it.

Speaker Spotlight: Andrew Schwabe

Andrew Schwabe - President of IEXP Software, LLC and is a veteran CFML developer since 1998. Prior to working with IEXP, Andrew worked for 10 years as the President and Chairman of the Board of Internet Expressions, Inc. He has been the forerunner in developing numerous applications ranging from the free - CFX_RawSocket (a Java Custom Tag for ColdFusion) - to FusionDox (enterprise-level document management). Andrew has been deeply involved in developing many of these applications from the ground up, enhancing and using the ColdFusion platform to its fullest potential. In addition to his extensive ColdFusion experience, Andrew has been recognized in the business community, receiving the coveted Dale Carnegie Highest Achievement Award.

CFUnited session: Flex and Google App Engine

1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past?

Yup. I've been speaking at CF United events for the last 4-5 years or so. Lost count. CFUN is cool because you get to hang out with all the movers and shakers in the industry.

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

Why not? I'll be showing an example of using Flex to talk to Google App Engine (GAE), so its just pretty darn cool.

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

I'm hoping to have a brand new product ready to demo called FusionDox Access, which is a way cool easy way to share large files with people, and easily integrates into your web projects. All build in Flex of course :)

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

Flexy goodness, especially looking forward to Flex 4 graphics enhancements.

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

How to beat down the industry's impression that ColdFusion is dying.

6. Where can people find you at CFUnited? (At the bar, networking, working, in your room, etc.)

Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes. Also email me. aschwabe(at)gmail(dot)com.

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

New version of FusionDox is coming out. See http://www.fusiondox.com/blog/

8. What is unique about CFUnited?

Everything is approachable at CFUN. Talk to whoever, everybody is sincere about wanting to transfer knowledge so that everybody grows.

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

Playing guitar, riding my motorcycle (bmw k100), going to the shooting range with the family, travel, eat, drink, being merry.

Speaker Spotlight: Barney Boisvert

Barney Boisvert - Sr. Application Developer at Mentor Graphics primarily using ColdFusion, Groovy, JavaScript, along with a smattering of Java and Flex. He is the author of the CFGroovy and FB3Lite frameworks, was a core contributor to Fusebox 4, and has provided accepted patches to Fusebox 5, Prototype, Groovy, Hibernate and ColdSpring, in addition to building several micro-frameworks from the ground up. He is also an active member in local and online CF, Flex, and Java communities and occasionally speaks at user groups and conferences.

CFUnited session: CFGroovy - Groovy for the CFML Developer

1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past?

Nope, sure haven't.

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

CFML is a great templating language, but it falls rather short in other areas (verbosity, java integration, collections, etc.). Groovy has the "inverse" feature set (concise, tight with java, rich APIs, but bad at templating). Leveraging Groovy within your CFML applications can provide a significant reduction in complexity and verbosity, and it's ridiculously simple to do.

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

CFGroovy will have a couple releases this summer. Not sure if they will coincide with CFUnited or not.

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

Multiple CFML runtimes, Java library integration

5. Where can people find you at CFUnited?

In the common area(s), chatting with whomever.

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

Ride my bicycle and my motorcycle, cook (and eat), play with new technologies and methodologies.

Speaker Spotlight: Doug Hughes

Doug Hughes - Doug Hughes is a veteran programmer and the president of Alagad Inc (http://www.alagad.com), a successful small business specializing in web and application development, services and consulting. Doug also publishes a popular blog covering ColdFusion and other technical topics at http://www.doughughes.net.

CFUnited session: Using Ant to Deploy ColdFusion Application

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

I'm talking about Ant this year and how it can be used to deploy ColdFusion projects. As a part of that, I plan to cover a little project I've been working on currently called CFant. I may also sneak in some discussion about other related technologies such as Maven.

In my opinion, this is an important topic. No application is ever used without being deployed. Furthermore, most non-trivial application tend to require configuration changes, server settings to be set, files to put somewhere, and much, much more. Performing this by hand can be tedious and error prone. Instead, I recommend using Ant to automate as much of this process as possible. Here at Alagad we use Ant for this purpose. A typical build will usually check the latest code out of subversion, update various XML configuration files, put the files where they belong on the server, insure the datasource exists, insure mappings for frameworks exists, clear the template cache, insure trusted cache is enabled, and reload the application. Because our builds are automated we can insure they happen exactly as we need them to.

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

I've been working on creating some Maven archetypes for ColdFusion development. I'm not sure what the status of this will be by CFUnited, but I'm hopeful to have some fun stuff to demonstrate. As a part of this, I also plan to make some important changes to how CFant works and that will be released somewhere around the time of CFUnited.

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

These days I'm really interested in management-focused topics. I plan to see what people have to say about managing teams and projects. Furthermore, I plan to check out anything that relates to new and advanced ways of developing ColdFusion, Flex and Air applications.

4. Where can people find you at CFUnited?

During the day I expect I could be found networking. I want to try to find as many people to talk to as I can. I want to hear what people are up to at their companies and I'd hope to find ways that Alagad can work with them. In fact, as a part of that, Alagad will be holding a raffle to give away a Mac Mini, a Wii, an iPod Touch, and several Amazon.com gift certificates. See this link for more information on this: http://alagad.com/go//find-alagad-at-cf-objective--or-cfunited-and-win-big. During the evenings I'm often found at the bar ensconced in conversation with other members of the community.

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

Over the past year, I've been working very hard to grow Alagad. In fact, we grew more than 300% last year and we've been very strong. Since the beginning of the year we've hired several developers including Brian Kotek, formerly of Broadchoice fame. We now have a terrific team of at five Adobe Aces, several promenent members of the ColdFusion and Flex community, and more. We continue to be focused on helping our clients build enterprise-class ColdFusion, Flex and Air applications. Recently we've also been experimenting with Groovy, Spring and Hibernate for our application models. This has been very interesting and we're looking forward to sharing more about that as the time is right.

As always, we're looking for more great clients with interesting or particularily chalenging projects we could help out. If you're moving into OO with ColdFusion or Flex contact us to see how we can help you out.

Speaker Spotlight: Raymond Camden

Raymond Camden - A long time ColdFusion user, Raymond has worked on numerous ColdFusion books including the ColdFusion Web Application Construction Kit and has contributed to the Fusion Authority Quarterly Update and the ColdFusion Developers Journal. He also presents at conferences and contributes to online webzines. He founded many community web sites including CFLib.org, ColdFusionPortal.org, ColdFusionCookbook.org and is the author of open source applications, including the popular BlogCFC blogging application.

CFUnited sessions: Ajax/ColdFusion 911, Charting and ColdFusion, Introduction to jQuery with ColdFusion, SciFi BOF

1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past?

Yes, many times.

I'd tell people that CFUnited is a great conference for people of all skill levels. From beginners to advanced developers.

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

I think I have some great sessions this year, and all of them are brand new!

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

Nope. Sorry to disappoint. :)

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

I'm curious to see what Adobe shows off in regards to ColdFusion 9.

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

I'd like to hear some discussion about frameworks. I'm kinda focused on Model-Glue, so I wouldn't mind hearing wha'ts up with the other frameworks.

6. Where can people find you at CFUnited?

Most likely all over the place. :)

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

I'm now an independent contractor, which is new, and not so great, but, change happens. :)

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

Video games and reading. Oh, and writing code for fun. :)

9. Which was the best Star Wars film?

Empire Strikes Back.

Speaker spotlight: Lawrence Cramer

Lawrence Cramer - Over 25 years of experience in marketing, advertising, and design. For the last decade he has focused on the web, his key interests being dynamic web design, development, and e-commerce. He has written numerous articles on these subjects for regional business publications and for the Adobe Developer Center. He speaks at web development conferences and teaches college courses on several Adobe products, and is a trainer for Lynda.com. Lawrence is an Adobe Community Expert, the CEO of Application Dynamics Inc., and the founder of Cartweaver.com. When he's not in front of a computer screen, you'll find him and his wife of 30-plus years behind the handlebars of a sport touring motorcycle seeing the sights of the Pacific Northwest.

CFUnited session: Real world ecommerce with ColdFusion

1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past?

No. I'm very excited to be speaking this year!

CFUnited is THE ColdFusion conference. It's the "must attend" best-of-breed conference because of the caliber of speakers and the no sales hype but real information focus of the event.

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

Even in this down economy, one business sector is still experiencing growth... eCommerce. More and more developers are getting asked by their clients to develop eCommerce sites and they are finding it to be a more complex, specialized skill set than they expect. They are expected to not only develop sound eCommerce applications but know about many other things such as payment gateways, PCI compliance, security, merchant accounts and so on. My session will cover all these facets of eCommerce development.

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

Yes. Can't say much more than that right now.

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

I'll be like a kid in a candy store! Having difficulty narrowing down my choices so far!

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

Anything Bolt. (the new dedicated ColdFusion Development Application)

6. Where can people find you at CFUnited?

At my session, and on Twitter... I'll be tweeting a lot and will tweet meet-up plans: http://twitter.com/LawrenceCramer

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

A lot! The economy has presented not only challenges but huge opportunities! Whenever you shake things up, new openings emerge.

8. What is unique about CFUnited?

It's focus! It's an opportunity to learn, not be "sold". It an opportunity to learn about ColdFusion and related technologies and to meet and network with the best in the field.

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

Go sport touring around the west with my wife and friends on my 2008 Kawasaki Concourse 1400, and do a little wine tasting. I'm a bit of a wine buff and Washington has a lot of great wine!

10. Besides the sessions, what makes CFUnited worth the cost of going?

The networking! If you go DON'T be a wallflower! Get out there, meet and greet and make new friends and contacts.

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