CFUnited Blog - speakers

Charlie Arehart's Day 2 Keynote

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 09:32:00 -0400

Hey everyone, The big day (or week) is almost here! We wanted to give you all a sneak preview of Charlie's Day 2 Keynote: CFCommunity: You're never alone: One of the hallmarks of the ColdFusion community has long been the way it's banded together. People helping people: sharing knowledge, solving problems, giving away code, pointing to resources, making recommendations, and so much more. Yet as powerful as that network of resources is, it's easy to presume, "well everyone knows where to turn for help". In fact, a lot of CF developers do work heads down, in their bunker, on their own, just getting their job done. They miss out on these great resources, this great community, and their work suffers for it. Things take longer to solve, when someone may have the answer. They get frustrated with problems that have been solved. In this session, veteran CFer Charlie Arehart will highlight many of the most important--and some little known--places to turn for help. An inveterate "resource librarian" himself, Charlie is known for being able to point quickly to where in the CF community a solution may exist. He's benefited from those resources over the years, and he's also paid it forward by creating more of his own. Come find out just how many resources may exist that you've not known about. Whether you're new or experienced in CF,there's a suitable resource for you. You're never alone. Charlie's Bio: A veteran ColdFusion developer and troubleshooter since 1997 with over 25 years in IT, Charlie Arehart is a longtime contributor to the community and a recognized Adobe Community Professional. As an independent consultant, he provides short-term troubleshooting/tuning assistance and training/mentoring for organizations of all sizes and CF experience levels (carehart.org/consulting). Besides running the 2000-member Online ColdFusion Meetup, an online CF user group, he also hosts the UGTV repository of recorded presentations from hundreds of speakers and the CF411 site of over 1000 tools/resources for CFers. A certified Advanced CF Developer and Instructor for each version since CF 4, Charlie's spoken at each of the major CF conferences worldwide and is a contributor to all three volumes of Ben Forta's ColdFusion 8 and 9 WACK books. Make sure you attend his keynote speech!!

Full list of Adobe sessions is now here

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 10:49:00 -0400

Hi everyone, I know you have all been drooling over these much-anticipated sessions...so I'm going to cut to the chase... 1. Easy RIA with ColdFusion 9 and Flex 4 - Josh Adams - If you're interested in getting started using ColdFusion and Flex together but aren't sure quite how, this is the session for you. In this session, you will learn about: *The various ways in which Flex applications can make calls to ColdFusion applications *Using the features of Flash Builder 4 and ColdFusion Builder to generate Flex-ColdFusion integrated applications *Calling the ColdFusion 9 Exposed Services Layer from Flex applications 2. ColdFusion Powered Offline Applications using AIR ORM - Jayesh Viradiya - ColdFusion 9 simplifies the creation of offline enabled applications with Adobe AIR. In this session learn how to utilize the client side, ActionScript ORM library available with ColdFusion 9 for client side data management and allow ColdFusion to manage data synchronization and conflict resolution with the back-end database. 3.ColdFusion 9 Deployment Best Practices - Tata Sankaram - How you configure and lay out your ColdFusion servers is critical for optimum application performance. In this session learn best practices for setting up your production environment for load balancing, clustering, and graceful server failover. 4.Task Oriented development with ColdFusion Builder - Kiran Sakhare - Discover how you can streamline your ColdFusion application development with ColdFusion Builder and Mylyn, a task and application lifecycle management plug-in for Eclipse. This session will cover installing the Mylyn plug-in and managing tasks in a ColdFusion project. 5.Getting Started with ColdFusion Builder - Sandeep Paliwal - In this session learn how to get started with your first application in ColdFusion Builder. We will cover the basics of Eclipse-based development as well as ColdFusion Builder specifics including connecting to your ColdFusion server, working with databases and debugging. 6.Extending Java Applications with ColdFusion - Rupesh Kumar - ColdFusion is designed to be used in conjunction with Java, leveraging the powerful capabilities that the Java runtime offers while providing the benefit of rapid application development. In this session learn how you can easily utilize ColdFusion 9 to quickly expand and leverage the functionality of existing Java applications. 7.Exploring LCDS3 and ColdFusion 9 Applications - Kevin Schmidt - This session will provide an overview of LCDS 3 and BlazeDS 4 and how it integrates into ColdFusion 9 applications. We'll talk about what's changed in Flash Remoting since ColdFusion 8 (it's 9x faster) and how to leverage the built-in functionality of BlazeDS. We will also cover server-side data management and how LCDS3 can simplify how Flex applications manage data through ColdFusion. 8.How Catalyst will Transform ColdFusion Development - Terry Ryan - Catalyst makes front end design easy. More importantly it makes pretty front end design easy. If there ever was a compliment for ColdFusion's ease of back end development, it's the ease of front end with Catalyst. See how this tool can be brought into your workflow and super charge your development. 9.Building multi-player games on the Flash platform with ColdFusion, Flex and Data services - Greg Wilson - Learn how to build scalable, interactive, multiplayer games using the Flex, AIR, ColdFusion and BlazeDS/LCDS. Employ publish/subscribe messaging, CF remoting and other tricks to build something far cooler than just another multi-user chat application. Synchronize graphics across players, learn how to handle player disconnect, reconnects, tolerate poor networking conditions, latency, etc. 10.Adding real-time data visualization to your application or website - Greg Wilson - Every time your application accesses the server, data is available to do many more things than simple logging. Learn how to take this data and create valuable visualizations to show usage trends in real-time. Then with some simple IP to Geo techniques, the data can be visualized with maps to show visitor locations. Learn to use ColdFusion's event gateway to publish the data and use Flex to consume the data and visualize it with various mapping APIs from Google, ESRI, Mapquest and others to build compelling, animated application dashboards. Well...there you have it! Make sure you schedule these ASAP! Also, if you have yet to register, this is the most perfect excuse :)

Speaker Spotlight - Dan Vega

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 15:53:00 -0400

Dan Vega is Web Developer for the eBusiness department of STERIS Corporation, and has been developing web applications with ColdFusion for six years. Dan has a passion for inspiring and educating others. He regularly blogs at http://www.danvega.org/blog/ about his daily findings and enjoys speaking to those willing to listen. He is also the co-manager of the Cleveland ColdFusion User Group. As co-manager, he regularly provides content to the group, answers members' questions and presents on a wide variety of topics at monthly Cleveland CFUG meetings, and has also presented to other user groups. CFUnited sessions : Developing Web Applications for Mobile Devices
Validation in ColdFusion 1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past? Yes. I gave a presentation on Transfer last year. 2. Why should people attend your sessions? I think they are both going to be fun topics to present on. I really take the time to make sure I am prepared for a session and I think my enthusiasm for the topic really comes through in the presentation. 3. Do you have any projects in the works that you will be revealing at CFUnited? I have 1 that is already out there but I plan on talking about it a little bit more during my Validation topic. 4. Besides your topic, what other sessions are you looking forward to? I always look forward to the Keynote. We get a chance to reflect on what has happened over the last year and look forward to what is to come. As far as sessions go I am really looking forward to Elliott Sprehn's session because he always has something to talk about that makes me go "wow". 5. What are some of the hot topics you'd like to see at RoundTable discussions? We are right in the middle of an exciting time in development and it all centers around the mobile platform. The two big players right now are Android and iPhone OS. I would love to see an Android related BOF because its something I am excited about. 6. Where can people find you at CFUnited? I am always around so if you see me please don't hesitate to grab me and talk shop, it's my favorite part of the conference. If you can't find me I would check the bar, good place to start! 7. What's the latest news with you? Has anything changed since last CFUnited? Not really, life is good! Wait, my foot healed and I think I am going to officially withdrawal from any sumo wrestling events this year. 8. What is unique about CFUnited? It's just the massive amount of ColdFusion developers that are there. I really enjoy networking and hanging out with friends that I only get to see a couple times a year. Also, the Lansdowne Resort is an amazing place to have a conference. I had a blast there last year and expect nothing less this year. 9. What do you like to do in your free time?

Speaker Spotlight - Luis Majano

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 13:26:00 -0400

Luis Majano is a Computer Engineer currently employed at ESRI (Environmental Systems Research Institute) in Southern California. He was born in San Salvador, El Salvador and is the president of Ortus Solutions, a consulting firm specializing in CFML, Java and web development. His background includes over 10 years of software development experience, architecture and system design. He is the creator of the ColdBox Platform (www.coldbox.org), an open source Object Oriented ColdFusion Development Platform, CodexWiki (www.codexwiki.org) an open source enterprise wiki system and is the Adobe ColdFusion user group manager for the Inland Empire. You can also read his blog at www.luismajano.com CFUnited sessions : ColdBox Platform 3.0.0: Sustainable ColdFusion Applications
ColdFusion Powered iPhone Applications 1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past? Yes, and it was a fantastic experience! 2. Why should people attend your sessions? Because ColdBox is Cool! All joking aside, ColdBox is pushing the envelope in building sustainable ColdFusion applications especially for the enterprise. My session will cover all the new standalone and internal frameworks and all the new goodies in ColdBox 3.0.0 3. Do you have any projects in the works that you will be revealing at CFUnited? Yes, ColdBox Internals, a new way to monitor and debug ColdFusion applications and Ortus DataBoss! 4. Besides your topic, what other sessions are you looking forward to? ALL OF THEM! 5. What are some of the hot topics you'd like to see at RoundTable discussions? Open source CFML 6. Where can people find you at CFUnited? I'll be the guy wearing the big ColdBox T-Shirt and talking like a real latino, LOUD! 7. What's the latest news with you? Has anything changed since last CFUnited? Yes, lots of new projects both commercial and open source, so the year has been filled with awesome work. 8. What is unique about CFUnited? The amount of amazing sessions that are available, the great people you get to network with and the amazing networking and sharing opportunities it brings. 9. What do you like to do in your free time?

Speaker Spotlight - Jim Priest

Tue, 25 May 2010 13:49:00 -0400

Jim Priest is a husband, father of two, developer, and avid motorcyclist. He currently works for SRA International as a Configuration Manager and Senior Software Development Analyst. He works primarily with ColdFusion, JIRA and Ant, but also dabbles with Powerbuilder, as well as creating handheld applications in Visual CE. Jim is an active participant in the ColdFusion community; co-managing the Triangle Area ColdFusion User Group (TACFUG) in the Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina area. In 2009 he helped organize CFinNC, the first ColdFusion conference in North Carolina. He posts regularly to his blog: The Crumb

CFUnited session: Digging into the Developer Toolbox
1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past? No. This is my first time and I am very excited to have been selected to speak (and slightly terrified!) :) 2. Why should people attend your sessions? I watch a lot of developers code and it always frustrates me that people do things 'the hard way'. Computers are supposed to make our lives easier, yet people fail to leverage available tools and techniques that can save them time and effort. 3. Do you have any projects in the works that you will be revealing at CFUnited? Hopefully I will have a new CFEclipse site up and running. We are trying to improve our communication with the CFML community and remind people of our free alternative to other CFML IDE's. :) 4. Besides your topic, what other sessions are you looking forward to? All of them? :) 5. What are some of the hot topics you'd like to see at RoundTable discussions? I'd like to see continuing discussions of CFML, how the three CFML vendors can work together to strengthen the core language and how we in the community can better spread the word about CFML. We need to end the "ColdFusion is dead" rumors but do it in a positive way - not by bashing other languages on Twitter and mailing lists. 6. Where can people find you at CFUnited? Before my presentation: Hunkered down in my room practicing my presentation. After my presentation: At the bar. 7. What's the latest news with you? Has anything changed since last CFUnited? No news is good news? 8. What is unique about CFUnited? I think it's the perfect mix between the big conferences like Max and the more technical events like cf.Objective. Last year was my first conference and I had a great time. It was great meeting so many people I've known online for years but never met in person. 9. What do you like to do in your free time? I'm a father of two so that keeps me rather busy! In my spare time I can usually be found on my motorcycle heading west to the mountains for some camping and relaxation. My other hobbies are building and flying remote control airplanes and dabbling in music.

Speaker Spotlight - Sandy Clark

Mon, 24 May 2010 20:51:00 -0400

Sandra Clark has been developing ColdFusion applications since 1997 and speaking about ColdFusion, CSS and Accessibility since 2001. She is a passionate advocate on applying accepted and proven web standards to development as a way of creating websites that are usable by all people. Sandra currently works with AboutWeb as a contractor to the National Institutes of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, MD. CFUnited session: Accessible Javascript
1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past? I've spoken at CFUNITED since it was CFUN. I think my first speaking engagement there was 2002. I've spoken at every CFUNITED with the exception of 2009. 2. Why should people attend your sessions? There are a lot of exciting updates in the world of Accessibility. The Section 508 refresh is out for public comment at this time and when that becomes law (hopefully by the end of this year), then RIA's will be able to meet the 508 criteria for the first time. 3. Do you have any projects in the works that you will be revealing at CFUnited? None at the moment. 4. Besides your topic, what other sessions are you looking forward to? I'm looking forward to Christian Ready's HTML 5 talk. I haven't done much with it yet and I'm eager to learn more. Bob Silverberg's ORM talks are always great. There are so many great talks, I can't possibly list them all. Hopefully I won't be talking at the same time as the ones I really want to see! 6. Where can people find you at CFUnited? I'm all over the place. Its hard to miss me, since I'm one of the few female speakers. Come over, introduce yourself and lets talk! 7. What's the latest news with you? Has anything changed since last CFUnited? After 7 years, I switched companies. I am now employed by About Web, which is a great company. I get to work and hang out with some really smart Programmers, which I really enjoy. I'm also back at the National Institutes of Standards and Technology which I love as well. 8. What is unique about CFUnited? The people. I think the best thing about CFUNITED is the people it attracts, both as conference goers and speakers. I always come out of the conference with new ideas and more things I want to learn. 9. What do you like to do in your free time? Anyone on my Facebook account can tell you that. I've really gotten into local and seasonal eating this past year. I've started preserving my own food (control issues, this way I know what is going into my food). I'm also trying to exercise more and spend less time on the computer.

Speaker Spotlight - John Paul Ashenfelter

Tue, 18 May 2010 13:10:00 -0400

John Paul Ashenfelter - With over 15 years experience in web application development, John Paul provides broad ranging analysis and development skills focusing on the rapid development of web-based business applications. His particular technical expertise lies in Ruby, Rails, ColdFusion, and database design and development with a strong focus on open-source software. John Paul is a frequent speaker at conferences and a contributor to online resources such as the O'Reilly Network and the (now defunct) WebReview site. He has written three books on web databases and ColdFusion and has contributed or been a technical editor on a number of other books on the web, databases, and development.
CFUnited session: ColdFusion with noSQL
1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past? Every one except 2001.
2. Why should people attend your sessions? A conference should expand your mind and challenge your assumptions. I'm talking about building CF applications that don't use a relational database. This is some *seriously* cool stuff. 3. Do you have any projects in the works that you will be revealing at CFUnited? Probably -- the NoSQL community is growing quickly and there's a lot of work to do on the CF side to make it easier to integrate with these new tools. 4. Besides your topic, what other sessions are you looking forward to? I really like FW/1 and look forward to seeing what open source projects are working their way into the ColdFusion world. I'm also always interested in seeing what folks are doing as far as testing and agile development. 5. What are some of the hot topics you'd like to see at RoundTable discussions? Growing the open source community with ColdFusion. We've started to get pretty good about having projects run by a single person, but we're still not there as far as larger collaborative projects that involve many different people. This probably relates to 4CFF. 6. Where can people find you at CFUnited? In the bar, coding. 7. What's the latest news with you? Has anything changed since last CFUnited? I've started another company. Oh, and I'll be flying into the conference straight from two months of living in Mexico. 8. What is unique about CFUnited? There's not a lot of places large numbers of CF folks gather -- CFUnited is unique in both the breadth of experience in attendees (n00b to guru). CFUnited also has some of the best-looking conference staff of any major conference I've ever attended. 9. What do you like to do in your free time? Be outside, do thing with my boys. Travel.

Speaker Spotlight - Chaz Chumley

Wed, 12 May 2010 12:25:00 -0400

Chaz Chumley - Consultant, Instructor, Author, Husband and Father. Chaz has been specializing in web development and database design since 1995. He currently resides as a Web Developer for the Smithsonian. Chaz is also CIO for w3Consultants, an Internet Application Development & Hosting company. Consultant services include XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, Fireworks, Photoshop, Drupal and ColdFusion. Chaz is also a contributing author and partner at CommunityMX and a guest speaker at such conferences as Todcon and CFUnited. CFUnited session: ColdFusion Report Builder
1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past? I have spoken at CFUnited for the past 4 years, including CFUnited Europe, and every year is better than the last. 2. Why should people attend your sessions? Often people overlook the importance of good report writing tools that ColdFusion provide you. They lean toward building queries and outputting the data in a table and that's their idea of reporting. A lot of the work is done for you in ColdFusion Report Builder. Stop by and find out just how easy. 3. Do you have any projects in the works that you will be revealing at CFUnited? Actually. I have 2 projects that we will be showcasing at CFUnited this year - one for the Smithsonian and one for CommunityMX. Both utilize the CFWheels framework and will be awesome. Stop by and check them out. 4. Besides your topic, what other sessions are you looking forward to? Being a Government employee I just blogged about the Top 10 topics you don't want to miss out on. Make sure to check it out, as there are too many great topics and too little time for one person. 5. What are some of the hot topics you'd like to see at RoundTable discussions? Frameworks - There are so many to choose from that it's often a hard decision for people to make. Mike Henke, Chris Peters and myself will actually be doing a Birds of a Feather on CFWheels so stop by to hear more. 6. Where can people find you at CFUnited? When I am not taking in a presentation, chatting with attendees in the hallway then you can find me in the bar socializing. 7. What's the latest news with you? Has anything changed since last CFUnited? I actually went over to the darkside. I am now a Government employee and work for the Smithsonian. Moved from the desert of Las Vegas to the Capital City of D.C. and participated in my first 10K. Does that count? 8. What is unique about CFUnited? Where else could you sit and talk to such great people with such great backgrounds and never mention the word - ColdFusion. 9. What do you like to do in your free time? Free time - is that what they call it?

Friends of Aaron West

Fri, 07 May 2010 13:02:00 -0400

Speaker Aaron West has been affected by the flooding in Nashville. Lets get the community together to see if we can help. "Aaron West's home is currently underwater in the Nashville floods. He and his family had about an hour to pack as much as they could before they needed to evacuate. Aaron West's home is currently underwater in the Nashville floods. He and his family had about an hour to pack as much as they could before they needed to evacuate." A blog has been created on Aaron's behalf that gives images, video blogs, and other updates regarding his current situation. The blog site has a "Donation" area, which already has shown some tremendous love. It's quite hard to imagine what he's going through, so any support and help is much appreciated.

Keynote Speakers for CFUnited 2010

Mon, 03 May 2010 16:43:00 -0400

We are excited to officially introduce our CFUnited 2010 Keynote Speakers: Adam Lehman, Terry Ryan and Charlie Arehart. Yes, you read correctly, Lehman, Ryan, and Arehart! Adam and Terry will double up for our opening Keynote on Wednesday! Make sure you get to there early to get the perfect seat! Charlie will be our keynote speaker on Thursday! You all are in for a real treat. Adam Lehman is the Product Manager for ColdFusion at Adobe Systems based out of Washington, DC. Prior to joining Adobe, Adam developed enterprise applications for the US Department of State and Johns Hopkins University. Adam has spoken at over 100 events on topics ranging from web development to application security. Terry Ryan is currently an Adobe Platform Evangelist for ColdFusion. He has been working with ColdFusion for 10 years. He's presented at various Adobe ColdFusion events including cf.Objective(), webDU, and Adobe Max. Prior to joining Adobe, Terry worked for the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania in various roles around ColdFusion from Application Developer to System Administrator. Charlie Arehart is a veteran ColdFusion developer and troubleshooter since 1997 with over 25 years in IT. He's a longtime contributor to the community and a recognized Adobe Community Professional. As an independent consultant, he provides short-term troubleshooting/tuning assistance and training/mentoring for organizations of all sizes and CF experience levels (carehart.org/consulting). Besides running the 2000-member Online ColdFusion Meetup (coldfusionmeetup.com, an online CF user group), he also hosts the UGTV repository of recorded presentations from hundreds of speakers (carehart.org/ugtv) and the CF411 site of over 1000 tools/resources for CFers (cf411.com). A certified Advanced CF Developer and Instructor for each version since CF 4, Charlie's spoken at each of the major CF conferences worldwide and is a contributor to all three volumes of Ben Forta's ColdFusion 8 and 9 WACK books. There will be more details to come about Charlie's keynote speech, so stay tuned! Join us at CFUnited 2010 to hear from our rock-star keynote speakers, as well as our other fabulous speakers!

Speaker Spotlight - Sean Corfield

Wed, 28 Apr 2010 19:33:00 -0400

Sean Corfield is currently CEO of Railo Technologies, Inc. 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. He released his own framework (FW/1) in 2009. CFUnited sessions: ColdFusion and the Open Source Landscape
FW/1 - The Invisible Framework 1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past? Every year since 2004 so this will be my seventh consecutive year as a speaker. 2. Why should people attend your sessions? I'm an advocate for several things that I think help developers improve themselves and build better applications. Two of those things are frameworks and open source software - the topics of my talks this year. My framework talk showcases FW/1 (Framework One) which is a very small, lightweight framework that should appeal to people who "don't like frameworks", whether they think frameworks are overkill for small projects or simply too much complicated third party code to learn or rely on in their applications. I call FW/1 the "invisible framework". My other talk is intended to expand developers' awareness of open source software in general, showing how the popularity of certain other technologies has arisen because of their open source communities. I also hope to answer questions such as "Why give away the source to my application?" and "Why should I contribute to someone else's free software project?". 3. Do you have any projects in the works that you will be revealing at CFUnited? I'm currently planning the next release of FW/1 and expect that to be released around CFUnited. I'm also thinking about creating a ColdFusion Builder Extension for FW/1. 4. Besides your topic, what other sessions are you looking forward to? When I looked through the list of topics the other day, there were about 30 that I'm interested in attending! Three that really caught my eye are Christian Ready's HTML5 talk and the two talks by Elliott Sprehn - because he always has some fascinating insights! 5. What are some of the hot topics you'd like to see at RoundTable discussions? Cloud computing is one - since I've worked on systems deployed entirely on the cloud for a couple of years now - and Agile Software Development is the other. A lot of the ideas from the agile community are very interesting and a refreshing approach to many of the common problems we tend to encounter with projects. 6. Where can people find you at CFUnited? When I'm not in sessions, I'll be at the Railo Consulting sponsor booth during the day. In the evening? Most likely the bar... 7. What's the latest news with you? Has anything changed since last CFUnited? Apart from 2009 being a horrible year for me personally and 2010 being a great improvement so far, not much has changed. That's quite a contrast to the last few years where I'd had a new employer each year! (Adobe in 2006, self-employed in 2007, Broadchoice in 2008, Railo in 2009 and Railo in 2010) 8. What is unique about CFUnited? CFUnited is the biggest event of the year for CF developers - it offers the best networking, the broadest selection of topics, and access to more of our peers than any other event. I really enjoy the opportunity to connect with so many CF developers in one place! 9. What do you like to do in your free time? Last year I would have said dancing but since my wife broke her ankle we haven't done much of that. To be honest, what I mostly do in my free time is work on open source software projects - and I really enjoy that!

Speaker Spotlight - Brian Rinaldi

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 12:48:00 -0400

Brian Rinaldi is an Applications Developer at Pongo Resume where he does Adobe ColdFusion and Adobe Flex development. Brian is an Adobe Community Expert and runs the Boston ColdFusion User Group. He also organizes the RIA Unleashed conference in Boston. Brian blogs regularly about ColdFusion, Flex and Ajax on his blog at remotesynthesis.com. CFUnited session: Beginning Flex for ColdFusion Developers
Building Self-Updating ColdFusion Builder Extensions
1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past? Yes, I spoke at both of the past two years - two years ago on RIA security and last year on the Mate Flex framework. This year I will be speaking on ColdFusion Builder extensions, which are, in my opinion, the most exciting feature in ColdFusion Builder. 2. Why should people attend your sessions? Like I said, ColdFusion Builder extensions are the most exciting feature of ColdFusion Builder, allowing you to extend the Eclipse IDE using the CFML programming skills you already have. This opens up a world of possibilities in creating tools and customizing your IDE to meet your specific needs and/or the needs of your organization. This session will cover all the basics of building your own extensions and will add in the ability to auto-update those extensions using my Acme Boomerang project. 3. Do you have any projects in the works that you will be revealing at CFUnited? Well, the Acme Boomerang for ColdFusion Builder project is already out but considering it plays a significant part in my presentation, I would expect some updates along the way. 4. Besides your topic, what other sessions are you looking forward to? Well, I am hoping that we can keep the Flex track as top-notch as it was last year (especially considering I am track chair on that). 5. What are some of the hot topics you'd like to see at RoundTable discussions? Hmmm...Well, we never seem short on items to debate. I thought last years CFML committee discussion was enlightening. I'd like to see a discussion on open source in CFML - like, for instance, get the leads of many of the open-source frameworks or professional open-source projects to discuss the challenges and benefits of open-source. 6. Where can people find you at CFUnited? The first night, I will probably be at the bar until midnight - convincing myself that this time I will get some sleep rather than staying out far too late. Each night after that, you'll likely find me out at the bar progressively later. 7. What's the latest news with you? Has anything changed since last CFUnited? Not much...thanks for asking! :) 8. What is unique about CFUnited? It's still the single best opportunity to network within the ColdFusion developer community. I've been attending conferences for years but I never fail to meet many new people every time I go to this conference. The venue was outstanding with plenty of amenities and good food. The alcohol flowed well into the night - often out by bonfire. Oh yeah, and the sessions are great - last year was by far the best sessions I attended at a CFUnited. 9. What do you like to do in your free time? Well, I own a lot of video games (with every system available on the market). Notice I said own and not play. I don't get to play them too much - between kids and work. I also listen to a lot of music.

Speaker Spotlight - Jason Dean

Fri, 02 Apr 2010 11:34:00 -0400

Jason Dean - Currently employed by the Minnesota Department of Health, in St. Paul, MN, Jason Dean he has been working in Information Technology for 12 years, focusing on application security for the past 3. A veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard trained in both physical and information security, he held a secret security clearance and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Technology Management from American Military University. He keeps himself busy managing a ColdFusion User Group at the Department of Health, sitting on the board of the Twin Cities ColdFusion User Group, speaking at conferences and user groups, training, writing, and blogging at http://www.12robots.com. CFUnited session: Practical Ajax Security
Understanding Security in Adobe AIR Applications
1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past? I have not. This will be my first time. I am very excited about it. 2. Why should people attend your sessions? Security is an important topic, and, all too often, it is considered as an afterthought in the development process. My goal is to help people think about how security affects their applications and how it should be built in from the very beginning. I will be talking about Ajax security and AIR security. Both Ajax and AIR are relatively new in the Web 2.0 (bleh) world and there are security considerations that developers may not even know exist. 3. Do you have any projects in the works that you will be revealing at CFUnited? Maybe. Too early to be certain. 4. Besides your topic, what other sessions are you looking forward to? The topics I am most interested in are: Mike Henke's "ColdFusion on Wheels" (I want to see what all the hype is about), Jeff Tapper's "Flex 4 for Flex 3 Developers", and Jim Priest's "Digging into the Developer Toolbox". That said, I have actually seen several of the other presentations and I can say that Bob Silverberg's "What Your Mother Never Told You About ColdFusion 9 ORM", Daryl Banttari's "How to Read a Stack Trace", Kurt Wiersma's "Real World ColdSpring" and Shannon Hick's "Searching with Apache Solr" are all fantastic presentations and are sure to delight the audience. 5. What are some of the hot topics you'd like to see at RoundTable discussions? Of course I always love to talk about security, but I would also like to see topics on OO, input validation, TDD, and accessibility. 6. Where can people find you at CFUnited? Anywhere but in my room. I will be at sessions and BoFs, and I am usually in the bar well past midnight. I love to talk, so no one should hesitate to say "Hi". 7. What's the latest news with you? Has anything changed since last CFUnited? I started grad school this year, so I have been very busy with that. I am working toward an M.S. in Information Assurance and Security. Also, I am writing a column for the Fusion Authority Quarterly Update called "Let's Talk Security" where I discuss different application security topics in greater detail than what I have in my blog posts or presentations. 8. What is unique about CFUnited? CFUnited is HUGE! Last year was the first time I attended, and I could not believe how many people were there. I have only attended smaller conferences in the past, so it was really great to meet so many people and to see so many old friends. It was hard to make time for everyone I wanted to see, but it was also nice that there was never a lack of good company. 9. What do you like to do in your free time? In my what? With work, school, training, presentations, blogging, and writing, I find very little extra time for anything other than my wife (who is a full-time culinary arts student) and my two children, Elizabeth (7) and James (3).

Speaker Spotlight - Aaron West

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 11:41:00 -0400

Aaron West - For the past nine years I have been heavily involved in the Web development space building enterprise-level, database-driven Web applications and leading technology teams. I'm incredibly passionate about what I do and attempt to inject my enthusiasm and love for technology in all those around me. CFUnited session: New Caching Features in ColdFusion 9
1. Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past? Yes! I've attended CFUnited for years but last year was my first time speaking. I did a talk on ColdFusion 9, BlazeDS, and AIR integration. 2. Why should people attend your sessions? Because it will be the best? Ha, all kidding aside, my talk on caching should be attended by those who need to make the most out of their Web apps. It's not enough to write code and deploy it to a badass server. You need to write code a certain way to ensure it performs as expected and scales as needed. Understanding caching in ColdFusion 9 (as well as how to use it) should be a critical component in every developers toolbox. 3. Do you have any projects in the works that you will be revealing at CFUnited? Absolutely. I'm currently working on a new technology startup that's using ColdFusion (and other Adobe technology) as part of our development stack. By the time CFUnited rolls around we should have our first customers in production. 4. Besides your topic, what other sessions are you looking forward to? What interests me most are the ColdFusion integration topics. My favorites are the ones that tie Flex/AIR and ColdFusion together, but anything that involves building compelling Web applications with ColdFusion and other technologies are the most intriguing. 5. What are some of the hot topics you'd like to see at RoundTable discussions? Personally, I'm interested in the role cloud technology will play in the application server space. I used to think this was cutting edge stuff until I started researching and found people deploying cloud solutions as early as 2006. From a developer perspective, it's still somewhat new and there's not a lot of exposure to folks using ColdFusion in the cloud. I think this will be changing throughout 2010 and beyond. Roundtable discussions are always fun, and one centered on the impact of cloud technology on ColdFusion would be delicious! 6. Where can people find you at CFUnited? Simple, where the action is! During the day I'm attending sessions and hanging out in the hallways and vendor booths. I love chatting it up with other developers and enjoying hearing about other folks projects. At night, I can be found wherever the beer is located. 7. What's the latest news with you? Has anything changed since last CFUnited? What hasn't changed? The last several months have been quite awesome. Toward the end of 2009 I made a big decision to leave my employer of 5 years. I'm now working on a new technology startup and loving every single minute of it. It's amazingly challenging work but comes with some great rewards too. I've had to break out of my shell and learn several new technologies and bone up on a few rusty ones. The experience has been positive and I hope to be sharing much more about what I'm doing at CFUnited 2010. 8. What is unique about CFUnited? CFUnited presents the most unique opportunity to learn from other developers. Sure there are fantastic topics and speakers - all of which are extremely valuable - but CFUnited is the one spot, all year, where hundreds of ColdFusion developers get together to talk shop. If you can't engage with others and learn something from both the sessions and the unstructured time, you are simply discarding a big part of what CFUnited is all about. Forget about going to bed early; you can sleep when you get home. Attend sessions, talk to the speakers and other attendees. Learn what others are doing (and what they aren't doing) and leave the conference having capitalized on every opportunity to grow as a developer. 9. What do you like to do in your free time? Many geeks will say they don't have free time but I'm not one of them. Having time to recharge my batteries and focus on non-technical things is very important to me. Most of my free time is spent with my wife and son who are the most important things in my life. I love coming home to them and simply hanging out and playing cars or trains. I'm also big into reading and spend a lot of time with my Kindle. I try to read at least one book a month and often get in two. I'm also an avid motorcyclist - I ride a Yamaha R6 sportbike - and scuba diver.

Last bit of topics!

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:01:00 -0400

Hello! I know everybody has been anxious to see the rest of the topics! Mate Flex Framework: What's in it for me? - Laura Arguello 20 Security Threats to Flex Apps and How to Avoid them - Elad Elrom Flex Data Binding Pitfalls - 10 common misuse mistakes - Elad Elrom Object Relational Mapping in CF on Wheels - Chris Peters ColdBox Platform 3.0.0: Sustainable ColdFusion Applications - Luis Majano ColdFusion Powered iPhone Applications - Luis Majano and Joshua Geise Flash Catalyst: Design to Flex - Dee Sadler CSS and the CMS - Dee Sadler Beginning Flex for ColdFusion Developers - Brian Rinaldi These will most likely be the last of the topics released, not including sponsor-speaker slots. Those will be released as they come in. Thanks to everyone who submitted topics!!