CFUnited Blog

State of the CF Union survey ends Wed 1/27/10

The State of the CF Union survey ends Wednesday 1/27/10. If you missed the survey you can take it here. See how you compare with other CF developers.

And one lucky person will win a ticket to CFUnited. Yes it could be you, President Obama, if you are not too busy with your own State of the Union address Wednesday night that is - to spend 5 minutes answering questions on your ColdFusion development skills and challenges! :-)

 

Deadline for Topic Submissions is Fast Approaching!

Hey fellow CFUnited followers!

Call for Speakers is coming to a close. Officially, the last day to submit topics is February 5, 2010. Submit anything you want, before midnight next Friday at the Call for Speakers.

If you submit after this date, it will most likely never get looked at, and probably gather dust in a dungeon off the coast of Antarctica.

PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR TOPICS!!!!

Announcing the next set of topics!!

Lo and Behold - What You All Have Been Waiting For...

NEXT ROUND OF TOPICS!!

Building Self-Updating ColdFusion Builder Extensions- Brian Rinaldi - This will cover not just the basics of building ColdFusion Builder extensions but will also incorporate a library of components that allow you to make your extension update itself when new versions are released. The library is being built as part of a ADC article to be released in late January. It will even directly link to RIAForge to look for updates.

What Your Mother Never Told You About ColdFusion 9 ORM -Bob Silverberg - The ColdFusion engineering team have made it very easy to make use of Hibernate's ORM features out of the box, but what if you want to do something a bit more complicated? In this session we'll cover some topics that are important to understand, but that might not be that easy to pick up by reading the ColdFusion documentation. These topics will include Hibernate Session Management, Understanding Object States, Working with Detached Objects, Concurrency and Event Handling.

Real World ColdSpring - Kurt Wiersma - Have you ever wondered what ColdSpring is and why you would want to use it? If so this session is for you. We will go over the problems that ColdSpring solves and how you can use it to make your applications better.

CFWheels - Convention over Configuration - Mike Henke - Would discuss how Conventions over Configuration make life easier and use examples from CFWheels.

ColdFusion One Liners - Sam Farmer - ColdFusion is all about making the hard things easy. This topic will explore this concept by showing examples of what can be done with one line of ColdFusion to produce compelling results in AJAX, Rich Internet Applications, Converting Files, PDF and Object-Relational Mapping (ORM).

Practical Ajax Security-Jason Dean - With the introduction of Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) over the last several years, it seems that everyone is jumping on the RIA bandwagon. But is any thought being given to what might need to be done to ensure that our Web 2.0 applications are secure? Or are they are not introducing new vulnerabilities into existing applications? In this presentation, we will look at some of the security issues that can arise from introducing Ajax into your applications and about how to mitigate the risks of opening up remote services for Ajax.

How to Read a Stack Trace -Daryl Banttari - Learn how to gather, interpret, and act on Java exception and running-thread stack traces in ColdFusion.

Searching With Apache Solr - Shannon Hicks - Solr is now included with ColdFusion 9, but are you using it to it's full potential? Explore using Solr directly, instead of using CF9's built-in search tags & functions.

Testing and Debugging CF for Flex UIs - Joe Rinehart - When ColdFusion returns an error message to Flex, you're not exactly given a user-friendly error message. Instead, you often have to dig to find out just where the error occurred. Join Joe as he shares lessons learned from four years' of enterprise ColdFusion + Flex RIA development. We'll discover how to use MXUnit and ColdSpring to simulate a running Flex client, how write to automatic Flex tests for your ColdFusion services, and how to see exactly what bytes are travelling between your ColdFusion server and Flex clients. After this session, you'll be able to write ColdFusion RIAs with less bugs, and spend less time fixing problems when they do occur!

State of the CF Union survey - partial results (2010)

Below are the partial results to date for the State of the CF Union survey. See how you compare with other CF developers.

The results you can find also here

We will announce the final results on the day of President Obama's State of the Union address.

 

Survey : Results

 

State of the CF Union survey - win a ticket to CFUnited

Help us find out the State of the CF Union with this survey - what versions of ColdFusion do people use, what frameworks, tools etc. We will share the summary results with everyone so that you can see how you compare with other CF developers. Thanks for your time completing this survey!

Oh yeah I nearly forgot, we will raffle off one ticket to CFUnited (a $999 value) picked at random from everyone who completes the survey.

We will announce the final results on the day of President Obama's State of the Union address. Hey perhaps he will slip the results into his speech, might get a standing ovation!

President Obama

A new friend awaits you - Please confirm friend request

Hello wonderful world of CFUnited lovers! Allow me to introduce myself...my name is T to the A to the R to the A (Tara)! Many of you may remember my lovely face from CFUnited 2009 where I ran around doing random important things and looking important behind the registration desk.

Last year I was an intern. Now, I am officially with Stellr Team, and I am so excited to begin the journey to ColdFusion heaven at Lansdowne Resort. Mainly, I will be immersed in marketing/PR for the conference, but I will be at your service for all of your conference needs, in true Stellr style.

On the side (in my 4 spare hours of the year), I enjoy playing piano and watching movies, but mainly sleeping and eating. I am a spunky little monkey and I am ready to go bananas! Feel free to email me tara ( at ) stellr.com for a quick hello or if you have any questions. Adios CF-Amigos!

Early Bird Ends 1-8-2010

Happy New Year one and all! 2009 was packed to the gills with big news. Among the biggest were: world changing political events, earth shattering celebrity events, and the mind-blowing success of premier ColdFusion event at CFUnited 09. Yes, 2009 was in intense year. And 2010 already shows promise of knocking our socks off. CFUnited 2010 is cleared for take off. The Stellr team is in gear, once again teaming up with the lavish Lansdowne Resort, dropping topics like snowflakes, and making big plans for 2010.

As we move into the new year and advance into a new phase of the CFUnited 2010 countdown, many forward thinkers have already claimed a piece of the action. Join them, register for CFUnited 2010 before 1/8/2010 and take advantage of Early Bird prices. Then cling to CFUnited.com like static to a dryer sheet to stay on top of the latest announcements and updates about the hottest thing this summer, the event around which the yearly calendar truly revolves.

As we sit here in our chilly office at Stellr headquarters, we huddle close to the space heater. We know it is now only a matter of time until we will be feeling the warm summer sun and seeing once again the CF community come together wearing flip flops and sunglasses, high-fiving their hellos, reconnecting and making new connections. At that time, the only things frozen will be our drinks. Make the fantasy a reality, and do it at a low price.

Register before the Early Bird ends on 1/8/2010. And don't forget that we are still donating $1 from each registration to The Heart of Virginia in the month of January. www.theheartofva.org

We are back at Lansdowne for 2010!

Big Announcement! Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back...

Last year was so nice, we are going to do it twice! That's right everyone, we have been invited back to the AAA Four-Diamond Award-Winning Lansdowne Resort for CFUnited 2010 and we have RSVP-ed with a resounding, YES!

I mean really, how could we resist? We are looking forward to seeing the faces of the friendly and accommodating staff, checking in to the sumptuously appointed guest rooms and suites, learning and networking in the award-winning conference facility, and getting in some playtime on the championship golf course and sparkling aquatic complex. Only the best for us please! Stay tuned for the code to book your hotel room at a discounted rate, we will be sharing the room block information shortly. Please let us know right away if you are interested in room sharing this year so we can begin putting something in the works. We have locked down the resort for July 28th - July 31st, 2010.

But wait, there's more! There were a lot of people who contacted us because they have wanted to register but needed to have exact dates/location in order to. For those people who missed out on the last early bird because they were waiting for this announcement, we are going to be offering the 11/30/09 early bird price from now until Monday 12/21/2009 at midnight. To take advantage of this offer, use the code EBEXT50, when you register.

We are so thrilled to be back at Lansdowne! 2009 was truly special thanks to the location, but you don't have to take our word for it. Here are some comments we got after last year that really convinced us to come back for 2010...

"And the location... one word, unparalleled. I mean, this place was a gem waiting to be discovered. I'm going to reserve the majority of this blog post just to talk about the conference center / hotel. Not that the sessions don't deserve more attention (they were beyond my expectations), but after all the previous CFUnited conferences I've been to (which were great), I never realized how much better an event can be just with subtle improvements at an event location." - Jeff Coughlin

"I really can't say enough good things about the location. The Lansdowne Resort was a beautiful location, it had great rooms, amazing food - and snacks and drinks were available all day, every day! - incredibly helpful staff and a good bar." - Sean Corfield

"Comfy room, lap pool, play pools, plenty of space to hang about, etc. There are advantages to being closer in to DC, but I'd come back here again, for sure. In particular, the outdoor patio was perfect for the evenings, and it was remarkably pleasant outside after the sun went down." - Barney Boisvert

Announcing first round of CFUnited sessions

Announcing first round of CFUnited sessions:

ColdFusion and jQuery: Two Great Tastes that Go Great Together : jQuery is one of the leading technologies in the javascript framework world. See what happens when we take advantage of some of CF9's cool ajax functionalities to build an application with CF9 and jQuery. - Jeff Coughlin

Flex 4 for Flex 3 Developers : Flex 4 offers a whole new approach to development. What do those of us who already know how to build apps in Flex 3 need to know to start being productive? - Jeff Tapper

Understanding Security in Adobe AIR Applications : Wait... You mean AIR applications have different security concerns than regular web applications? Yes, they do. Since Adobe AIR applications are desktop applications we have new security considerations to think about. Come learn how to ensure that your AIR applications are secure. In this presentation we will go over the Adobe AIR security model and some security best practices in Adobe AIR for both Flex and Ajax applications. - Jason Dean

Real Life RIA Powered By The Adobe Stack : This session will include a short introduction to RIA technologies for newcomers to the full range of Adobe RIA technologies. We will take a look at how ColdFusion, Flex and AIR empower developers to easily create engaging Rich Internet Applications. We'll take a detailed look at how SlideSix.com utilizes these langauages, frameworks and tools to create a multimedia presentation sharing community. This session will include demonstrations on how to convert a presentation file to a browser based SWF using Adobe ColdFusion and Java, creating a powerful management console that allows users to record audio/video narration directly within their browser using Adobe Flex and extending the user experience to the desktop with Adobe AIR. - Todd Sharp

New Caching Features in ColdFusion 9 : In this presentation I explore new caching strategies introduced with Ehcache in ColdFusion 9. I walk through the use of new granular caching mechanisms including changes to as well as new caching functions, caching objects and data, page fragment caching, and finally disk and memory caching. - Aaron West

Making Bad Code Good- Part 2 : This talk is structured much like Part 1, examining code samples and making improvements in readability, structure and maintainability. Often, refactoring is discussed in context of patterns, but much can be gained by writing or rewriting code into easily understood forms. Since we spend a lot of time deciphering other people's code, this talk is geared to providing practical skills in interpreting code and restructuring in a way that saves time and money. This is a must see talk for those working in team environments! No powerpoints, only real ColdFusion code! - Dan Wilson

Automagic Validations for ColdFusion Objects : Are you confused about where to put the validation logic in your object oriented application? Are you tired of writing one set of validations for the server side and another set for the client side? Are you looking for a way to encapsulate your validation logic, so your business objects do not have to change each time your validation rules change? If you answered yes to any of those questions, then this is the session for you. In this session you will learn about an open source project that delivers all of the above, and is easy to integrate into any project. You define your business rules in a simple XML file and the framework will automagically perform all of your server side validations and generate all of your client side validations. What's more, the framework is flexible and extensible enough to allow you to define an unlimited number of custom validation types and messages, all without touching any of the framework's or your own code. You'll leave the session with an understanding of what the framework can do for you, as well as how to implement it into a new or existing application. This framework is meant to be used in an application that makes use of objects. This would include ones that use Transfer, Reactor, hand-coded beans/DAOs, and, of course, ColdFusion 9's ORM. - Bob Silverberg

Digging Into The Developer Toolbox : Every developer has their basic toolset - a robust IDE, source control and a good bug tracker. But what else is in your toolbox? In this presentation I'll explore some additional tools that can increase your productivity and allow you to concentrate on developing applications. Some of the tools we will explore include: Autohotkey - save time and type less! Autohotkey can do simple text replacements and well as complex GUIs! Keyboard Launchers - clean up that messy desktop and stop hunting for icons! Virtual desktops - Now that your desktop is clean - organize your applications into task focused areas. Cron - replace the unreliable Windows Scheduled task with a simple to use task scheduler. Clipboard managers - quit typing the same things over and over. A clipboard manager can keep a long running history of what you type so you don't have to. and more... All of these are free, open-source and for the most part have similar equivalents available on all three platforms - Windows, Mac and Linux. In this presentation we will focus on Windows. - Jim Priest






Thank you to all those who have submitted session topics so far. This is only the first round of session announcements, we plan to announce more topics in December and January. CFUnited call for speakers is still open so keep your submissions coming!

Here come the holidays! Time for giving thanks, giving gifts, and giving back to the community.

We know the CF community is just as warm and tightly knit as a handmade scarf. So we are pleased to announce that we have linked up with The Heart of Virginia, a non-profit 501(c)(3) foundation formed in response to the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007. The Heart of Virginia Foundation offers charitable and educational opportunities to promote emotional well-being through the arts and to fight the stigma of mental illness. Today we are proud to launch the CFUnited 2010 registration drive! Here's how it works, Stellr will donate $100 for each month in November, December, and January. Additionally, we will donate $1 for each CFUnited registration during those months. 100% of the money we donate goes directly to funding this non-profit organization! They are fairly new and they are close to home, so we wanted to shine the spotlight on them and help get their message out! Read more about The Heart of Virginia on their website www.theheartofva.org and remember the Early Bird price expires November 30th!

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