In this issue of ColdFusion conference and training news: 1. CFUNITED News - extra premium bags, CF Survivor 2. ColdFusion Live! Every Thursday 12:30pm 3. How to convince your boss to send you to CFUNITED 4. "Usability Testing, The Basics and Beyond" interview with Douglas Ward 5. "Using Event Gateways with CFMX7" interview with Jeff Tapper
Happy coding - Michael Smith, TeraTech, Inc http://www.teratech.com/ "Creating excellent custom software since 1989" Due to TeraTech's growth we are seeking developers and sales people http://www.teratech.com/index.cfm?go=About.Jobs Whether you're just starting to learn the basics about ColdFusion or you're an old hand who knows all the tricks, [CFUNITED] has something to offer. With tracks for beginners and experts, amateurs and pros, developers and managers, [CFUNITED] delivers everything the serious ColdFusion aficionado needs to know to get the job done. Meet other people, like you, who care about ColdFusion -- and get a chance to hear what the experts are thinking. [CFUNITED] is FUN! - Adam Dray 1. CFUNITED News **************** * There were 70 entries for the CFUNITED class gigabyte memory stick raffle. The winner was picked at random and is: Aaron Schroeder of Blacksburg VA Enjoye the stick Aaron! More class info and registration at http://www.cfunited.com/classes.cfm Classes are filling up fast, so register today to guarantee your place. * Upcoming classes: CU201 - Hal Helms - Designing and Developing OO Applications with CFCs Jun 27 2005 CU202 - Simon Horwith - Roll Your Own API - Max Code ReUse CFCs and Custom Tags Jun 27 2005 CU203 - Dwight Barbour - Intro to .NET for CFers Jun 27 2005 CU204 - Nate Nelson - Beyond Basic SQL for CF Jun 27 2005 CU205 - Charlie Arehart - CFML Leveraging .NET Strengths Jun 28 2005 CU206 - Sandra Clark - Advanced Cascading Stylesheets Jun 28 2005 CU207 - Joe Rinehart - Forms and Beans: Refactoring existing ColdFusion using Objects Jun 28 2005 CU208 - Jeff Peters - FLiP and Fusebox walkthrough Jun 28 2005 Location is lower level of Conference center. Follow signs throughout hotel. Class begins at 10am, registration starts at 9am Please bring your own laptop if you want to participate with code. Be prepared to download from a memory stick. Be sure to pick up materials at check-in. If you need more information the day of event, call the hotel at 301-822-9200 and ask them to page Liz of CFUNITED. The center is metro accessible or parking is $5 per day. * Macromedia Press bookstore will be at CFUNITED with a 25% discount for attendees. You chance to save $ and get your book signed by the author! * Purchase CFMX Exam Buster by June 20th, 2005, get $100 off the CFUNITED admission price. Be sure to ask for the discount code when making your purchase. http://centrasoft.com/ * Want to meet other attendees on Tuesday evening? Come to the attendee dinner just before MiniMAX at Dave and Busters which is 4 blocks from the CFUNITED hotel. See http://www.cfunited.com/attendee_dinner.cfm This event is being organized by Jason Egan of CFDynamics, please email him if you want to come [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Chat with other attendees on the CFUNITED Fusetalk forum. Find room shares, rides and more http://www.cfunited.com/fusetalk/forum/join.cfm * Only 2 weeks until CFUNITED-05. Late price $749 expires 6/28/05 * We have a limited number of partial scolarships to CFUNITED for unemployed programmers and students Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] with your situation if you want to apply with "CFUNITED scholarship" in the title. * CF Survivor game at the Community Pit - can you survive the code challenges and be the last one on the "island"? * User group manager conference is Tuesday June 28th. Learn how to run your group better and get great speakers and more members. Just $29 http://www.cfconf.org/mmug_managers_2005/ * 750 people have already registered for CFUNITED-05. We have got a 100 more premium backpacks cutesy of sponsor New Atlanta, so register today! https://secure.teratech.com/cfunited/images/backpack-flyer2.pdf * MiniMAX 2 presenters are Adam Bell, Simon Horwith, Lisa Heselton, Bill Wade, Charlie Arehart and Adam Wayne Lehman the prelude to the CFUnited conference on Tuesday Night, June 28th at 7PM EST http://www.minimaxconference.com/ It is FREE! (but must register online) * The final session schedule is up at http://www.cfunited.com/schedule.cfm * Geoff Snowman is going into hospital for a minor operation and won't be at CFUNITED. Another topic Microsoft speaker will take his place and his sessions and class will go on as usual. Get well soon Geoff! 2. ColdFusion Live! Every Thursday 12:30pm ******************************************** ColdFusion Live! A CFUNITED preview every Thursday Two 15 minute "preview" talks from CFUNITED speakers. They will provide an brief introduction to their topic during these sessions. Plus you can ask questions via Breeze chat. This week's speakers: 6/16 Jeffry Houser - Creating Sound for Flash Movies David Epler - LAMBDA Boxes: ColdFusion Apps on the Cheap 12:30 - 1:00 US/Eastern Time Meeting: http://macromedia.breezecentra l.com/cfliveno8/ (Breeze v.5) RSVP: http://coldfusion.meetup.com/17/events/4718195/ 3. How to convince your boss to send you to CFUNITED **************************************************** I have received some feedback from some people having difficulty convincing their boss to send them to CFUNITED Here are ten reasons for going that you can tell them: 1. Three full days of training usually costs $1200, CFUNITED is only $649 - about a half of the cost! 2. To buy books on the 18 talks you can attend at CFUNITED could cost $50 each or $900. Again CFUNITED is cheaper and you get both a printed handbook and a CD-ROM of the talks, plus you can ask the authors questions too! 3. You will learn so much at CFUNITED that when you come back you will be much more efficient at programming . If you are even 5% more efficient then CFUNITED will pay for itself ten times over! 4. You can take any existing programming problems you have to the CF Doctor and CFDJ Panel at CFUNITED for a quick answer and save yourself time when you get back to the office. 5. Half the battle in programming can be knowing that a solution exists at all. By seeing and hearing about a wide range of techniques you will be prepared for future problems and be able to solve them in less time! 6. The people you meet at CFUNITED can help you by bouncing ideas with you and for you to compare how your organization does programming vs other organizations. 7. You can pick the brains of the 50 nationally know speakers and ColdFusion authors who are speaking at the conference. 8. You can get live in person demos of your favorite ColdFusion add on vendor's software and ask their staff questions. 9. You can hear about the latest news on yet to be released Macromedia products that might affect your business in 2005. 10. You can save $100 by registering before 6/10/05 when the late registration price of $749 goes into effect. 4. "Usability Testing, The Basics and Beyond" interview with Douglas Ward ************************************************************************* Michael Smith: This time we are talking with Douglas Ward about his CFUNITED-05 talk "Usability Testing, The Basics and Beyond". So why should a developer come to your session Douglas? Douglas Ward: Because the payoff of learning how to effectively conduct usability tests is tremendous. Too many web sites are frustrating - they don't work as expected, they are hard to figure out, and they leave you feeling aggravated. Those rare sites that are easy to use, that make obvious sense, and quickly solve problems are memorable. If you can deliver those kinds of web sites, you will be highly valued in the marketplace. MS: Is there any payoff for the website owner? DW: Absolutely. If you are a website owner, you want the most effective site possible, be it a site that sells something, a site that provides information, or a site that provides some sort of service. With all of these kinds of sites, there are certain metrics that can be used to determine just how effective the site is. One aspect of usability testing includes establishing these metrics and systematically evaluating what those metrics indicate. MS: Why are these kinds of metrics important? DW: Well, because without them you really have no idea whether your website is any good - you're really just shooting in the dark. I think of usability testing as analogous to unit testing. You don't really know if the code you write is any good unless you correctly unit test it. And you don't really know if your site is any good unless you correctly usability test it. MS: So what kind of things cause poor usability? DW: Well, the primary cause of poor usability is that developers don't account for, or even understand, usability. Fundamentally, developers need to understand that web sites are INTERACTIVE. A web site is something that users manipulate in certain ways to accomplish certain goals. You could say a web site is like a TV remote control. The remote control helps you accomplish your goal - which is finding the show you want to watch. Or, conversely, the remote control is so confusing that it actually impedes the accomplishment of your goal, and you just turn the dang TV off. A web site is a tool that helps users find content, or buy tennis balls, or reserve movie tickets. Or the web site is so confusing that they try a different site. MS: What kind of improvements have you seen after a site is made usable? DW: One immediate improvement is that users are more likely to stay on a web site and browse. A lot of time is spent by developers trying to figure out how to get all of the most important information they want to communicate up front and immediately apparent to a user. But that is usually impossible and often leads to cluttered front pages that communicate nothing because they communicate everything. A better approach is to develop an interactive web site that users immediately understand how to use. If they can navigate your site without getting lost, if the controls are intuitive, and you don't throw them lots of curve balls, they'll stay and poke around. If you don't do that, they'll leave your site in the click of a mouse. MS: Can you give an example? DW: I find examples every day. I recently moved and had to choose between various cable companies. I was going to go with one company till I started the online ordering process. Within a couple of minutes my head was almost ready to pop off I was so confused. I ended up with cable from a different company. MS: So usability is a competitive advantage for a business owner? DW: Absolutely. Here's a good analogy. I worked at a restaurant in Los Angeles for about two years. During the entire time I worked there, there wasn't one night that the restaurant wasn't completely packed. The reason was that the owner had caught on to a very simple idea. In going to other restaurants in the city, he realized that the vast majority of restaurants provide terrible service. He thought, "Well, all I have to do is deliver service that is 5% better than the average restaurant in town and I'll stick out like a sore thumb." That simple idea resulted in his restaurant being full for the two years straight that I worked there. If you are a web site owner, there is a similar opportunity for you. Most web sites are not user friendly, are not intuitive, are not designed with usability in mind. If you incorporate usability design and testing in the development of your site, your site will be easier to use, more intuitive, and you'll end up with higher site traffic, greater conversion rates, higher sales, and more satisfied customers. MS: So will you show us how to do a useablity test on our own sites at your talk? DW: Yes. I want those who come to my presentation to walk out with specific ideas and tools that they can begin implementing right away. I know you, Michael, have focused a lot this year on providing the attendees of CFUNITED with valuable, real world knowledge.That is my goal, as well. Usability and usability testing can make a great impact on the quality of the sites being built. Come to my presentation and I'll show you how to do it! MS: ok, I am looking forward to seeing you at CFUNITED 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 $749 until 6/28/05 then $849. For more information on CFUNITED see http://www.cfunited.com/ --- Usability Testing, The Basics and Beyond ************************* How many millions of dollars have Google, Yahoo, and Amazon spent on user testing? Do you think that has SOMETHING to do with how successful those web sites are? The fact is, your web site will never be successful unless you make it easy and intuitive. And your web site will never be easy and intuitive unless you do sufficient usability testing. Come learn how to conduct usability tests, and how to use the information you learn from those tests, to build web sites that users actually like to use. Speaker Bio: Doug Ward is a Certified Advanced ColdFusion Developer for The Centech Group, a leading worldwide provider of government Information Technology solutions. Doug has developed large scale, data collection applications for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Doug is an advocate of user-centered, standards-based design, and an enthusiastic practitioner of best-of-breed development methodologies, including Fusebox, and the Agile programming methods. Doug studied English at the University of Pittsburgh and earned an Interactive Multimedia & Website Design Certificate from the George Washington University. 5. "Using Event Gateways with CFMX7" interview with Jeff Tapper *************************************************************** Michael Smith: This time we are talking with Jeff Tapper about his CFUNITED-05 talk "Using Event Gateways with CFMX7". So why should a developer come to your session Jeff ? Jeff Tapper: One of the most exciting new features of CFMX7 is event gateways. With these, we suddenly have the ability to run ColdFusion code without the need for a web request first. This opens up the world of possibilities in ways not previously considered. For instance, we can now trigger a CFC based on an SMS message, or on a new file being added to the file system. MS: What is an SMS message and why would I want to use one with my CF app? JT: SMS is the Short Message Service, the protocol behind text messages sent between cell phones. Using CFMX7 and SMS together we can do things like notify a site administrator of errors and warnings, or as we saw at MAX this year, a survey application can accept votes from SMS messages on cell phones anywhere. MS: That is cool! What is the CF code to do this like? JT: Its actually a pretty simple CFC. Something like this: [cfcomponent displayname="makeRequest" hint="Handles SMS based song requests for Radio Free Astoria"] [cffunction name="onIncomingMessage" output="no"] [cfargument name="CFEvent" type="struct" required="yes"] [!--- Get the message ---] [cfset data=cfevent.DATA] [cfset message=data.message] [cfobject component="rfa.artist" name="artist"] [cfset success = artist.makeRequest(message)] [!--- where did it come from? ---] [cfset orig=CFEvent.originatorID] [cfset retValue = structNew()] [cfset retValue.command = "submit"] [cfset retValue.sourceAddress = arguments.CFEVENT.gatewayid] [cfset retValue.destAddress = arguments.CFEVENT.originatorid] [cfif success] [cfset retValue.shortMessage = "Your Request of: " & message & " has been submitted"] [cfelse] [cfset retValue.shortMessage = "There was a problem submitting your request. Please try again later"] [/cfif] [!--- send the return message back ---] [cfreturn retValue] [/cffunction] [/cfcomponent] MS: So it is just a regular CFC? JT: It is, the only thing special about it is that its methods are automatically passed the CFEVENT argument, which describes the incoming event. MS: So can one CF gateway message trigger another one? JT: Absolutely, since its possible to both send and receive gateway events, we can fire any event we like, any time CFML is executed. This can allow for clever applications like a IM to SMS gateway, where an incoming Instant Message can be broadcast back out to a phone via SMS. In my session, I'll be demonstrating a feature I'm building for Radio Free Astoria, to allow users to request a song via Instant Messenger. Traditionally, song requests were simply triggering an email to me, but the new version can also trigger an SMS or IM message to me, depending on my settings. MS: Cool. Sounds like it opens up a whole new way for async programming events for CF that was previous only available to Java programmers! Is this as powerful as JMS (Java Messaging Services)? JT: You will have to come to my talk to find out! MS: ok, I am looking forward to seeing you at CFUNITED 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 $749 until 6/28/05 then $849. For more information on CFUNITED see http://www.cfunited.com/ Using Event Gateways with CFMX7 ************************* Using Event Gateways with CFMX7 Speaker Bio: Jeff Tapper is the Chief Technologist for Tapper.net Consulting. He has been developing internet based applications since 1995, for a myriad of clients including Toys R Us, IBM, Allaire, Dow Jones, American Express, M&T Bank, Verizon, and Allied Office Supplies, among others. As a Macromedia Instructor, he is currently certified to teach all of Macromedia's courses on Flex, ColdFusion and Flash development. Jeff has worked as author and technical editor for several books on technologies including Flash and ColdFusion, including "Object Oriented Programming with ActionScript 2.0", and the upcoming "Advanced ColdFusion MX 7 Development". He is also a frequent speaker at Macromedia Development Conferences and user groups. Jeff formed Tapper.net Consulting to focus on developing Rich Internet Applications and empowering clients through mentoring. 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 - tuning, install issues, OS, picking a database * CF Platform Integration - interop with Microsoft and other technologies The regular price of $649 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 6/28/05 * 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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