In this issue of ColdFusion conference and training news: 1. CFUNITED News - Microsoft Gold sponsor, pre-conf classes, hotel info, United Airlines 2. New Hal Helms Fusebox 4.1 5-day class 4/11 - 4/15/05 3. CF and CMS interview with Kelly Tetterton
Happy coding - Michael Smith, TeraTech, Inc http://www.teratech.com/ 1. CFUNITED News **************** * Microsoft evangelist Geoff Snowman interview video released at http://www.cfunited.com/index.cfm * Microsoft is new Gold level sponsor and will be giving one of the keynotes at CFUNITED-05 * The CFUNITED Sneak Peek was a great success. CFDJ editor Simon Horwith was there and said "the hotel looks really nice Much larger and also more professional than past venues. It's all new, has large rooms for sessions, the guest rooms and suites are nice, it has a hip bar/lounge, and that it's in a very convenient location, too. I think it's going to be a terrific event." * Only 111 days until CFUNITED-05. Timely bird price $549 expires 4/30/05 * Over 270 people have already registered for CFUNITED-05 - that is 470% more than the same time last year for CFUN-04! * The CFUNITED hotel has limited rooms available and is filling up fast. Accommodations for the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel can be made at http://www.bethesdanorthmarriott.com/ and use the promo code: CFCCFCA Code must be entered under "Group Rate". A discounted price has been arranged for attendees. Room rate is $159.00 until April 15th, 2005. Reservations made after that date will cost $179.00 For Guests that desire to stay through the holiday weekend July 2nd-July 4th, rooms are available at a rate of $104 which includes breakfast for two. * United Airlines is offering 10% discounts to all attendees for their travel to the Washington DC area. Servicing Dulles, BWI, and Reagan National airports. If you would like to make reservations, call: 1 (800) 521 - 4041 Use Meeting ID: 531CD 10% off tickets purchased before May 29th 5% off tickets purchased after May 29th * Pre conference special classes are being planned for CFUNITED-05 on Monday 6/27, Tuesday 6/28/05. Possible speakers and topics are: - Charlie Arehart - Leveraging .Net strengths from CFML. - Robi Sen - Use CFMX 7 gateways. - Simon Horwith - Roll Your Own API - Maximizing Code ReUse with CFCs and Custom Tags. - Geoff Snowman - Intro to .NET for CFers. - Lizmi, Melissa - Intro to ColdFusion. - Hal Helms - Designing and Developing OO Applications with CFCs. - Sandra Clark - CSS for better websites. - Matt Liota - Algorithms and Data Structures. If you have any other suggestions for classes please email me! Class registration coming soon * MMUG manager/Team Macromedia conference will be Tuesday 6/28/05. Registration coming soon 2. Hal Helms 5-day Fusebox class 4/11-4/15/05 ********************************************* http://www.teratech.com/training/FB_classes.cfm#FB301H Fusebox 4.1 is the latest version of the widely popular Fusebox software application framework. Version 4 includes several new capabilities to Fusebox. The course is intended for students who want to quickly learn how to make the best use of Fusebox. Students need no prior knowledge of Fusebox, but should have a basic familiarity with ColdFusion. This 5-day handson class is taught by Hal Helms himself! Previous attendees of a TeraTech class can discount the cost of their class from the FB201H class (up to $349 discount). Email me for details. The last Hal class filled up fast, so don't delay if you want a place! 3. CMS interview with Kelly Tetterton ************************************* Michael Smith: This time we are talking with Kelly Tetterton about his CFUNITED- 05 talk "Content Management: Why It Matters, and How ColdFusion Helps". So why should a developer come to your session Kelly ? Kelly Tetterton: There are many reasons for a developer to come to this session, not the least of which is a chance to be a hero! Let me explain: for many companies (both big and small), managing the company's content is an immense headache -- but it's often the kind of headache that's not even expressed as a problem that can be solved. For example, if Joe is the designated content person, and everything has to go through Joe, and Joe is manually creating html pages and putting them up on the website when he has time away from whatever his main job duties are, then Joe is a bottleneck for that company. But that almost never gets expressed as, "we need a data-driven content management system!" -- instead, it's usually expressed as, "our content is completely out of date. I wish Joe were better at his job." MS: That doesn't sound fun for Joe! KT: Yes and this session can help Joe. This session is going to explore how developers can solve this problem very quickly, not by tackling Joe, but by taking advantage of ColdFusion's built-in RAD capabilities to create something that really fills a company's needs for content management. We're also going to explore how to ramp up from a small, stop-gap content management system to something much more robust. We will be talking about code, of course, but we'll be focusing a lot on the *process* that businesses (and the developers who love them) need to go through to achieve that. MS: That is great for Joe - but what about his boss? KT: Good question - it's not just developers who can learn from this session -- management types who already know (or even suspect) that they need a content management system will get a lot out of this as well. So if you're either a developer or a manager, you'll leave with some definite ideas about how to solve a problem back at the home office -- and if you can do that quickly, effectively, and cheaply, you'll be a hero in your company. MS: So what exactly does "content management" mean? KT: "Content management" is actually a very difficult term to pin down -- does it encompass raw data, documents, digital image assets, workflow? There's an entire industry devoted to content management, and a good portion of those industry resources are devoted to merely nailing down standard vocabulary and definitions. MS: Wow - how will you deal with this at your talk? KT: We'll talk about what some of those definitions are (and provide some CM industry references), but primarily we'll be focusing on the data that you might want to manage (not Word documents or PDFs or source image files), and some of the strategies available to manage it as your circumstances change. MS: Can you give an example? KT: Sure. For instance, you may want to come up with a better way to publish a company's press releases to the web -- other than going through good 'ole Joe. For now, you really just want to create or find a mechanism to publish the title, its date of publication, and the body of the press release. There are lots of ways to do this, and most of them are as simple as this scenario sounds -- construct some tables, a few simple forms and queries, and you're ready to go. Most of the time, this will be your first step. MS: Isn't that just a means to content *publishing*, not management? KT: Yes, content publishing is just a first step. Management comes into play when you start addressing larger business process questions: should only certain users have access to these tools? should there be multiple levels of access? will the content be re-used or re-purposed in some way? If you solve the "Joe problem" with your content publishing tools, success will inevitably spawn these questions. MS: So what else will you cover in your talk? KT: This session will focus on the best ways to plan for growth and change in your content management system without inducing such project paralysis that you never get started in the first place. MS: And how does ColdFusion fit into the CMS? KT: Because ColdFusion allows developers to create working applications so rapidly, it's very easy to get to that first publishing step -- most developers will be able to create a simple version of the press release system we just described in a matter of hours. But probably more importantly, ColdFusion has built-in tools to allow a company to really scale its CMS as its needs change. To take just one small example: it's very easy for the volume of a site's content to get out of control quite quickly. Once everyone can publish press releases as often as they'd like, they'll usually take full advantage of that. Within a matter of months, you may have hundreds of articles swamping your site. How do you deal with that load on your site without being forced into another round of code re-writes? ColdFusion already has functions specifically designed to increase performance. For instance, you can cache the queries that pull those articles in several different ways -- using the cachedwithin attribute, or even caching the entire query in the application scope. These are changes that can be made in just a couple of minutes, and yet they can have a profound effect on site performance. This is just one aspect of what ColdFusion can do for you, but I think it gives a sense of the power and flexibility that you have when you're developing a CMS with CF. MS: Are there many CMS packages available that work with CF and how are they priced? KT: You have lots of options to review if you're looking for an established CMS product that works with CF -- it all depends on what your particular organization needs. One of the most popular off-the-shelf products is PaperThin's CommonSpot; it's been around for years now, so there's a solid track record to look at. The price for CommonSpot varies depending on the licensing model you choose, but it's generally in the $20,000-$50,000 range. If you're interested in Open Source projects, FarCry is a good FREE bet -- and Steve Rittler will be talking about it right here at the conference. If you feel like you need more guidance and/or help, however, there are plenty of companies like my own, Duo Consulting, that can provide customized ColdFusion solutions engineered specifically for your needs -- and the pricing for that can range from $10,000 to $100,000. There's really a full range of packages out there, and one of them is bound to match whatever it is that you're looking for. MS: Thanks for talking with me - see you at your talk! You can see more interviews at http://www.cfunited.com/interviews.cfm CFUNITED- 05 is Wed 6/29/05 - Fri 7/1/05 in Bethesda MD, just outside Washington DC. It costs $549 until 4/30/05 then $649. For more information on CFUNITED see http://www.cfunited.com/ --- Content Management: Why It Matters, and How ColdFusion Helps ************************* Content Management Systems, also known as CMS, may seem very 5 years ago. But to people and businesses who need them, they can transform a business operation. Learn who needs them and why, and how ColdFusion fits into the CMS picture. Speaker Bio: Kelly Tetterton is the Technical Lead at Duo Consulting (www.duoconsulting.com) in Chicago and has been designing and programming for the Web since 1993. She has spoken at two past Fusebox Conferences and written for ColdFusion Developer's Journal, and she is a Certified Advanced ColdFusion MX Developer with expertise in content management systems and Fusebox methodology. 3. CFMX certification study group - new Thursday 4 space left ************************************************************ The Wednesday group filled up with in 4 hours - so we are running a THursday group in Rockville too. Also we may run a group in California MD - email me if you are interested in that. There are only 4 spots left ... - register online at http://www.teratech.com/training/CF_classes.cfm#CFCERT [ CF Help ] Need expert ColdFusion, SQL, VB and Access Programming? Project stuck and need one-on-one help? Looking for onsite training? Call TeraTech 800-447-9120 or email mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] We get you moving fast Tell your friends about CFUNITED-05 - pass this email on ---- Check more about CFUNITED at: http://www.cfunited.com/ We have: * 3 days * 7 tracks * 20 sponsors * 64 sessions * 1000+ attendees * 100% nicer hotel * Includes lunch each day and open bar reception We have seven tracks this year: * Bootcamp - Basic ColdFusion and Flash topics * Advanced - Advanced ColdFusion topics (Blackstone included!) * Manager/Empowered - Fusebox and Project management topics * Integration - Flash, Flex and other technologies integrated with CF topics * Accessibility / usability - section 508, CSS and disabled access * Deployment/Platform - tuning, install issues, OS, picking a database * Life Cycle - software development The timely bird price of $549 for CFUNITED-05 ends 4/30/05. Save upto $400 by registering now! * Early Bird $449 til 2/25/05 * Timely Bird $549 til 4/30/05 * Regular $649 til 6/10/05 * Late $749 til 6/28/04 * At the door $849 Register today at http://www.cfunited.com/ -- Michael Smith, TeraTech Inc - Tools for Programmers(tm) TeraTech voted Best Consulting Service by CFDJ readers! CF/ASP Web, VB, Math, Access programming tools and consulting 405 E Gude Dr Ste 207, Rockville MD 20850 USA Please check out http://www.teratech.com/ - email mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED], or call us for more information; in the USA at 1-800-447-9120, +1-301-424-3903 International, Fax 301-762-8185 Thanks! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Logware (www.logware.us): a new and convenient web-based time tracking application. Start tracking and documenting hours spent on a project or with a client with Logware today. 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