Sean Woods - Has been developing Oracle applications for over ten years and has been integrating ColdFusion with Oracle since the first day he laid eyes on it in 2002. He has since then developed an obsession with ColdFusion and often lies awake at night wondering why anyone would want to develop their applications with anything else. In his spare time, Sean can be found chasing his two young daughters around the lovely seaside town of Pacifica, California.

CFUnited session: Advanced SQL for ColdFusion

1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past?

No, I've never spoken at or been to CFUnited but I am totally stoked to be attending and speaking this year. I've been to a lot of ColdFusion conferences and met a lot of great people. It?s an privilege to be speaking at this one and I hope that I can add some value to the experience of those attending.

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

You should attend my session because I will give you the tools necessary to turn your knowledge of SQL into entertaining cocktail conversation. You will be the life of the party - people will be lining up to hear you wax on about the virtues of query parametrization, database transactions, indexing strategies and more. I used to entertain people this way all the time but for some reason nobody comes to my house anymore.

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

Any session by Ray Camden, Sean Corfield or Ben Forta.

4. Where can people find you at CFUnited?

You will definitely find me at the bar. And, if you say nice things in public about my session I will buy you a beer.

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

I live in Pacifica, CA with my wife and two girls. Most of my free time is spent chasing my kids around but when I get a few hours to myself I usually spend it on my bike. During the summer weekends you can usually find me at a local bike race or triathlon ? I?ve been competing in both for about 10 years. I hope to one day convince my daughters that jumping in a cold lake at 8am is a good idea.

This entry was posted on May 22, 2009 at 2:43 PM and has received 2729 views. There are currently 1 comments. Print this entry.

Jake Munson - Jake has been developing ColdFusion based applications since ColdFusion 4. He is well known for building CFQuickDocs (http://cfquickdocs.com). He has given numerous presentations to various user groups, including the popular CF Meetup group. He also presented at CFUnited 2008. Jake is very passionate about the Internet, particularly about web standards and surrounding technologies.

CFUnited session: Spam, Bacon, Sausage and Spam

1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past?

Yes, I spoke at CFUnited Last year. This will be my 5th CFUnited though, and every year I really enjoy it. My biggest advice would be to take advantage of the networking opportunities. There are always a lot of top notch community memebers around, both "celebrity" types as well as lesser known (but equally important) people you can network with.

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

If you ever put user fillable forms on your sites, you should attend my session. Spammers attack all online forms these days (even when it doesn't make sense), so preventing spam is very important for us developers. If you think Spam prevention just means slapping a CAPTCHA on the form, then you have a lot to learn. I hope to see you at my session.

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

Railo Open Source

Geolocation with ColdFusion

Thinking Outside of the CF Box

Better Development Through Open Source

4. Where can people find you at CFUnited?

At my session, of course! :) I am planning on attending as many sessions as possible (I always do), but outside of that I will be at all of the breakfasts/lunches, and hanging out in the common areas between sessions. In the evening I will attend the planned events, but besides that I might be hanging out in my room. I'm thinking about bringing some games with me and inviting some friends to play games one night (board games, card games, etc.)

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

I am a computer geek at heart, so in my free time I spend a lot of time on computers. I read a LOT of news/blogs. I also play some online games. When not on the computer, I like to spend time with my wife, and I like watching the Cubs as well as the Discovery Channel. I am also very religious and spend a lot of time doing church related stuff.

This entry was posted on May 21, 2009 at 3:25 PM and has received 2750 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

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 2300 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 2527 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 2941 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 2762 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 4767 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 2943 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBocBdDw7g0

This entry was posted on March 31, 2009 at 3:11 PM and has received 4043 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Tom de Manincor talks about his CFUnited presentation on CFQUERY versus the DB.

Is this your first time speaking at CFUnited?

Tom: Yes, this is my first time speaking at CFUnited. It is also the first time I will be attending the event, as well. I have heard great things about the conference and I am excited to be there, and to be a part of it this year.

Why should people attend your session?

Tom: My session, CF versus the DB, covers one of the grey areas in CF development.

This grey area stems from an evolution process most CF developers go through. Being that CF is failry easy to pick up, it leaves alot of power at any level of developer's fingertips. One of the CF's strong points is its ability to interface with databases. Commonly done with CFQUERY, CF's native approach. As your application grows, and demands more, there are things to consider in order to maximize performance. Using CF to do all your database work, while possible, may not be the best approach. In this session, we will examine what CF is doing, and what the database can do. We will discover the process in depth. Analyzing scenarios where it is appropriate to use CF, and when it is not. The goal here is to gain an understanding of how to balance the power of ColdFusion and the database to benefit you as a developer, and your applications.

This entry was posted on May 7, 2008 at 11:31 AM and has received 2703 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.