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Presenting Getting Started with ColdFusion 9's ORM Integration to the Online ColdFusion Meetup

Just a quick note to announce that I'm going to be presenting my session, Getting Started with ColdFusion 9's ORM Integration from the CFinNC Conference to the Online ColdFusion Meetup next Thursday, November 19th, at 6:00pm EDT. Details can be found at the Meetup site. You can attend the presentation via Connect on Thursday, but if you can't make it the session will also be recorded and made available.

Here's a description of the session:

We've all heard the buzz about CF9's ORM integration, but exactly what is it, and how can I use it? This session will demystify the idea of ORM by introducing the concepts that you need to know to get started using it right away. Not an object oriented developer? No problem! As long as you know what an object is, and a little bit about cfcs, this session will help you get past the buzzwords and be productive with ORM on your next project.

Hope to see some of you there.

CFinNC Rocked the Casbah

I'm on the plane on the way home from CFinNC, a ColdFusion / Flex / AIR conference organized by Jim Priest, Dan Wilson, and the entire Triangle Area ColdFusion User Group. It was, quite frankly, outstanding. Everything ran smoothly, the sessions were pertinent, informative, and, dare I say, fun. I have been to a number of ColdFusion conferences in the past and CFinNC ranked right up there with them. In fact, I'd say it was far better than a few of the smaller, not-free conferences that I've attended. For a first-time, free conference it certainly exceeded my expectations. So congratulations to the whole CFinNC team for pulling off an amazing feat.

I enjoyed all of the presentations that I attended, and there were a few on my list that I didn't get a chance to see, either because I was presenting at the time, or because there were multiple simultaneous sessions that I wished to attend. That in itself is a testament to the quality of speakers and topics that the team brought together. Some of the session highlights of the conference for me included:

Andy Matthews on jQuery and AIR

I've been hearing a lot about how one can develop AIR applications using HTML and JavaScript, but never quite understood what that meant. Andy did a fantastic job of explaining how all of this works, showing us how to do it, and even managed to throw in some info on filesystem access and SQLite as a bonus. On a personal note, Andy introduced me to Whiskerino, which I plan on participating in this year. Who else is going to join us in that endeavour? <cf_beard> anyone?

Charlie Arehart on Hidden Gems in CFBuilder

I defy anyone to attend a Charlie Arehart presentation and not leave learning something. This guy is a human data warehouse (remember when that was a buzzword?) and, although I've been using CFEclipse for years and CFBuilder for months, I learned a ton of stuff.

Doug Hughes on Deploying ColdFusion Applications with Ant

Ant is one of those tools that I've known about and read about for ages, and always seems to be in the number two or three slot on my "tools to figure out how to use effectively" list. Doug showed us exactly how Ant can help us with a task that most of us have to do pretty frequently, including how to use his own Ant extension, Ant4CF, which is very, very cool. The next time I need to deploy something I'm going to take the time to write a deployment script using Ant, after which I'll be able to thank myself time and time again.

Jason Dean on Securing CFML Applications

When you want to know about web application security, who you gonna call? Jason Dean! He is the man to listen to when it comes to web application security in general, and ColdFusion in particular. This was an intro-level session, and I think Jason did a outstanding job of explaining some pretty high level concepts in an understandable way. Even as a (somewhat) seasoned web developer, I learned a lot during Jason's session, including what the military do to secure their data.

Shannon Hicks on Searching Using Apache Solr

What did Shannon teach us? Verity sucks! No, I'm just kidding. Actually, I believe there was a slide (or two) with that sentiment on them, but the slideshow quickly turned into an interactive demo of how to use Apache Solr to create search experiences way beyond what could be done with ColdFusion and Verity. He took us through the configuration and showed us how to use an open source component that he has developed to make working with Solr even easier. And the best part? No need to wait for CF9. All of this will work on existing CF8 (and I assume 7, 6, 5, etc.) servers. I'm going to look into implementing a greatly enhanced search feature into one of my client's web sites using this stuff right away.

Dan Wilson on Model-Glue 3

You know what? I don't really give a sh!t what Dan's talking about - I just like listening to him. I reckon it's impossible to be in the same room as Dan for more than 5 minutes without cracking a smile. Oh yeah, Model-Glue's not bad either.

Bob Silverberg on ColdFusion 9's ORM Integration

I know, I know, that's pretty lame, right? Saying that my own presentations were a highlight. But in fact they were a highlight for me. I really enjoyed delivering these presentations, seeing the look on people's faces that told me "I'm getting it", and also receiving personal feedback from people who enjoyed my presos and benefitted from them. That is the most rewarding part of presenting. So I'd like to thank, once again, Dan, Jim and the team for inviting me to present, and also to thank everyone who attended my sessions, and especially those people who took the time to give me feedback on them.

Looking back at that list, one thing that really jumps out at me is the fact that not only did I get something out of each and every one of those sessions, but I learned something that I am going to use right away. That's pretty cool, and means that this conference has really helped me to improve as a ColdFusion developer.

There were non-session related highlights as well:

The Speaker's Dinner

The team organized a dinner that included not only all of the speakers, but all of the volunteers as well. I think this was a great idea, as it gave me a chance to meet a lot of the folks who made this conference possible, and whom I may not have had a chance to meet otherwise. Of course the dinner was fun and it was also nice to see old friends and meet a bunch of folks who I only knew virtually prior to that.

The Networking Event

After dinner we all headed to the networking event, at a local nightclub, where all of the attendees had gathered. Again, it was a great chance to catch up with folks that I haven't seen since cf.Objective() in May, and to meet many new people. The atmosphere of the club was cool, but the music was a bit too loud for my liking. Perhaps it's my age showing, but I would have preferred to not have to yell just to have a conversation with the person next to me. Dan himself can attest to the fact that I started to lose my voice towards the end of the evening. I'm glad I had already delivered my presentations that day. Oh, and I shouldn't forget to mention that there were plentiful and delicious snacks available at the event, which I really appreciated (and consumed).

Hanging Out with Folks

The dinner and networking event were, as with everything else, well organized and lots of fun, but I also spent a number of hours in the hotel bar, socializing with friends new and old. This is always a highlight of any conference for me, and often the only chance you get to have real conversations with people.

Oreo Cookies

Who doesn't love an oreo?

Authentic Whole-hog, Pit-cooked Barbecue

My flight home was on Monday morning, so I had Sunday night to fill up after the conference had ended. Dan Wilson was kind enough to arrange an outing to The Pit, for some authentic Barbecue. Mmm, mmm, good. I got a chance to meet the woman foolish enough to marry him, and to chat with a few more developers that I hadn't met during the conference. Thanks Dan for arranging that.

Well, I think that about covers it. I wonder how close to Toronto I am now? (Remember, I'm in the plane flying home as I write this). I sure hope that I'm invited back to speak next year, but even if I'm not speaking there's no way I'm going to miss this conference next year. Maybe I'll see y'all there?

Advanced Techniques with ColdFusion 9 ORM Integration - Slides Available

The slides, which include all of the sample code from my CFinNC presentation, Advanced Techniques with ColdFusion 9 ORM Integration, are now available. Click on the link below to download them. I developed these slides using Keynote, and attempted to save them as a PowerPoint presentation, but ended up with slides that looked like crap, so I saved them as a PDF for the download. The slides look good, but the file is big. Sorry about that.

If anyone is interested in having me deliver this presentation to a ColdFusion User Group via connect please feel free to leave me a comment, or send me an email.

Attachments:

Here is the description of the presentation:

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 items that will be of interest to those wanting to take CF and Hibernate to the next level. Topics will include Hibernate session management, Working with detached objects, Concurrency, Event handling, and Creating a base persistent object.

Getting Started with ColdFusion 9 ORM Integration - Slides Available

The slides, which include all of the sample code from my CFinNC presentation, Getting Started with ColdFusion 9 ORM Integration, are now available. Click on the link below to download them. I developed these slides using Keynote, and attempted to save them as a PowerPoint presentation, but ended up with slides that looked like crap, so I saved them as a PDF for the download. The slides look good, but the file is big. Sorry about that.

If anyone is interested in having me deliver this presentation to a ColdFusion User Group via connect please feel free to leave me a comment, or send me an email.

Attachments:

Here is the description of the presentation:

We've all heard the buzz about CF9 ORM integration, but exactly what is it, and how can I use it? This session will demystify the idea of ORM by introducing the concepts that you need to know to get started using it right away. Not an object oriented developer? No problem! As long as you know what an object is, and a little bit about cfcs, this session will help you get past the buzzwords and be productive with Hibernate on your next project. Use Hibernate currently, but not CF? Great! Come and see how the ColdFusion engineering team have made it super simple to use Hibernate, without losing any of the flexibility you're accustomed to.

Come to North Carolina for a Free Dose of CF Greatness

I've mentioned before on this blog that I'll be speaking at the CFinNC conference in October. As the details of the conference have been finalized, I wanted to post an update with more info.

When and where is it?

The conference will be held during the weekend of October 17th and 18th in Raleigh, North Carolina on the Centennial Campus, College of Textiles at NC State University.

How much does it cost?

The cost to attend this CF (and AIR, Flex and Flash) extravaganza is a whopping zero dollars. The planning committee have done an extraordinary job of bringing in some top notch speakers, as well as a whole batch of first-timers, to provide all who attend with timely and relevant presentations on topics spanning the Adobe RIA toolset. Thanks to the generosity of the sponsors and the creativity of the planning committee, registration for the event will be free and includes entry to the weekend event and to all presentations.

How do I register?

Registration for the conference is open right now, so hurry up and register before it sells out!

What else do I need to know?

In order to keep the event free the organizers have removed some hard costs and some benefits you normally get from paid-registration events. You should be aware of the following:

  1. You are responsible for paying for lunch for both days. The organizers have enlisted the services of a local caterer and will be providing lunch each day for $10/day. This includes a sandwich, chips and drink. Please bring cash the day of the event! They will not be able to process credit cards!
  2. Limited Edition, Collectible CFinNC conference t-shirts will be available for purchase for $15 with any proceeds going to offset costs and possibly sponsor a planning committee dinner (if they sell them all).
  3. Lunch and shirt purchase is completely optional. You may indicate if you would like to purchase lunch and/or a t-shirt on the registration form.

Even more information about the conference is available at the CFinNC website.

I encourage any who can attend to do so to support this new initiative and to undoubtedly pick up some great development tips.

I'll Be Presenting at CFinNC in October

I'm pleased as punch to announce that I will be presenting a couple of sessions at the upcoming CFinNC conference, which is being held in beautiful Raleigh, North Carolina on October 17th and 18th. More details will be available soon, and I'll share them via this blog. For now I can reveal that I'll be presenting the following sessions:

  • Intoduction to CF9's Hibernate (ORM) Integration
  • Advanced CF9 ORM Techniques

I'm really looking forward to this conference. Not only is it being organized by some of the best minds in the world of CF, but it's also free!

Stay tuned for more info, and I hope to meet some of you there.