Note: This blog post is from 2007. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

Like others, I could go on and on about the great food. Man, that really was awesome. And of course the great people you got to meet. I met a lot of new and old faces who I just hadn't run into before, and of course I reconnected with lots of old friends. Then there are the awesome talks. And Jared and Steven (and Jim and others) all did a great job organizing things.

Some News Items (You Won't Hear Elsewhere)

While you'll find plenty of folks sharing their positive sentiments like the above, let me take the chance to offer a couple of comments that I doubt you'll see elsewhere. :-)

First, I'll say that the only negative of the event was that I still had to explain to some that I no longer work for New Atlanta! It's been over a year now (left at end of March 2006). Oh well, time heals all wounds, right?

Indeed, if my carrying around an Adobe bag and even wearing an "Adobe Community Summit '06" shirt one day wasn't enough to show that I was "back in good graces", I also led a "birds of a feather" session on "hidden gems in Scorpio" (joined by the fearless leader himself, Jared). Of course, I had cleared them all with CF Product Manager Jason Delmore first. Though we often only spoke for a minute on each item, and were just talking (not showing slides or doing demos), we were able to speak for over an hour, and by the time we were done it was about 25 people attending.

I also presented a talk on understanding what happens under the covers in the database when you do or don't use CFQueryParam. Both days it was against other strong presenters, but the second day the room was nearly full, which I can hope was because there was good buzz about the talk. The evals will tell for sure, though your comments here are welcome also.

I want to say, too, that I hope folks took advantage of the chance to talk with the guys from Intergral, makers of FusionDebug and FusionReactor. Darren Pywell, CTO, and John Hawksley, one of several engineers, flew over from Germany for the event. They knew that people would have questions regarding the Scorpio Debugger if it was announced (Darren's on the Scorpio beta so has known about it). Sadly, it wasn't announced till after they left Sunday morning (just bad timing: Ben couldn't get in till then, and Adobe was saving the big announcement for his talk.) Even so, they got to talk about their plans for enhancements and indeed new products. I'll have more to say on my favorable opinion about the future for these tools, and SeeFusion as well, in a later blog entry.

Finally, I want to also put in a plug for the Sofitel itself. My goodness, what great service, on every level.

So now, about those tips I promised.

First, if we are back in the Sofitel next year, or indeed if you have any occasion to visit them in the US or abroad, do be sure to join their "privileges card" program. There's no fee, and from your first signup you get benefits, including a room upgrade and more. See their web site for more details.

Second, if we are back at that hotel next year, and you find the bite of a cab from the airport a bit high ($25-30), check this out: you can take public transport quite easily for just $1.50 ($2 during rush hour). From the airport, you'd take the light rail just 10 minutes to the Mall of America, and from that, just steps away you'd catch the 540b bus (free on a transfer) which terminates (in about 25 minutes) behind the Sofitel, at 78th St W and Picture Dr. Same in the reverse, of course. More at http://www.metrotransit.org/.

Indeed, if you want to visit the Mall while at the hotel, you can catch that bus (again, just $1.50/$2). But note that a transfer permits travel anywhere for 2 hours, including back in the other direction, so you could see a good bit of the mall and hop back on the bus for free (the terminal is in the basement of the mall). Even if you'll be longer, it's cheaper than the $20 cab ride.

Of course, in all these cases, if you can share a cab, it makes the cost less significant.

In that regard, my last tip is that if you do share a ride to the airport, be aware that there are two terminals, and they're not as close to each other as you'd expect. I was invited to join Mark Mandel, Mark Drew, and Derek Perez to share their cab. As we approached, the cabbie asked and the 3 of them were going to Northwest. I was going to Airtran. We dropped them off and it was another 10 minutes (and literally another 10 dollars) to the other terminal. As I always say, "forewarned is forearmed".

Even so, it was a delight to share the cab with those blokes. Like so many at the conference, they were just a great bunch of guys and it was a ball to spend even a few more minutes with them.

So I'm looking forward to next year, but in the meantime, I'll see you at CFUnited, and indeed I hope Max as well. I was there last year--again, fending off the cold stares of some who asked others, "why did Adobe let him come?"

I'll have plenty more announcements of things I'm doing to show the community that I'm back in the saddle and on their side, including being picked to present two Scorpio talks at CFUnited as well as contributing to Ben's upcoming Scorpio rewrite of the Web Application Construction Kit books. I'm not knocking BD or turning my back on it. It's not like I was in a dream or a long sleep.

I'm just glad to be able to as boldly and confidently proclaim the benefits of Scorpio and other Adobe products, like I equally support it and the products from Intergral and WebApper. Like all of you, I'm just a fan of the various technologies we've all come to know and love, and I look forward to sharing that with those who it would help.

Note: This blog post is from 2007. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

I've been asked to step up to the plate first. While I'm doing a few sessions at the conference (including two on Scorpio, more about those later), Michael Smith has asked me to preview my day-long class, "New in CFMX 6&7: What Did You Miss?"

Now, I'm sure some are thinking, "you're kidding? We're on the verge of CF8, and you want to talk about CF 6 and 7?" But hear me out. Actually, I'll let my description do the talking:

Planning to move to CF8? Did you skip either 6 or 7? Or have you perhaps installed and been running on them but doing little or no new development? Were you paying attention as all the new features (and folks' experiences using them) were being shared? There may be a lot you've missed. Veteran CFML developer Charlie Arehart will introduce both the key features introduced in those releases as well as many hidden gems. It's surprising how many little things get slipped into releases, and point releases, and sometimes it's those which can be as important to you as any prominent feature.

In his typical encyclopedic but pragmatic style, Charlie will help you make the most out of features you may have missed. Of course, this is just a 20- minute preview of what is in fact a day-long course. But it will give a taste of what's to expect and will provide value in and of itself.

The URL for RSVP'ing via the meetup site is http://coldfusion.meetup.com/17/calendar/5756012/. There you can RSVP for the meeting as well as sign up to get notifications about future Online ColdFusion Meetups.

The URL for the Acrobat Connect session itself will be http://experts.acrobat.com/cfmeetup/, and indeed that will be the URL for all future Online ColdFusion Meetup sessions.

Note: This blog post is from 2007. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

Michael Smith asked me to do the first preview, for my day-long class on "New in CFMX 6&7: What Did You Miss?". I'll have more about that in the next entry.

As before, these previews are just a 20-30 minute introduction to the topic at hand, with Q&A (thus the name, "previews"). The goal is indeed to offer great information and value, just as in the real talk, but they're not going to be the entire talk, so expect to be left looking forward to hearing more. :-)

Also, something new for the meetups is that from now on we will just use one Acrobat Connect meeting URL for all the meetings, both previews and otherwise. This will make it easier both for presenters to post the URL when they promote their own meetings, and also to help attendees make sure they don't end up visiting the wrong URL (only to find no one there, which has happened a couple of times.)

The new Acrobat Connect URL for the meetup meetings going forward will be http://experts.acrobat.com/cfmeetup/. As before, we do appreciate folks using the meetup system's interface to RSVP, as well as to be able to share thoughts before and feedback after the meeting. RSVPs are preferred but not necessary. Again, the meetup site is at http://coldfusion.meetup.com/17.

Note: This blog post is from 2007. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

The docs contain far more than just the 1100+ page CFML reference. Most important is the often-missed 1100+ page "Developers Guide", which explains and introduces both beginner and advanced techniques. Damon Cooper offers still more details on the offer.

Note: This blog post is from 2007. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

First, at the Twin Cities CFUG talk, when I discuss caching in CF, I'll be able to show off some new Scorpio enhancements related to this. Don't ask me to say what they are now. I'm still working out details about which of a few features I can discuss. I've got the green light on some. Waiting on the others.

Second, at cf.Objective(), Jared and I will be leading a "birds of a feather" talk on "hidden gems in scorpio". We all know that with each new release, there are lots of "star" new features, but there are also often lots of "small supporting role" new features which are often as important to some as the big ones. We will pow-wow with the powers that be to confirm which ones will be ok to talk about as of that date. We hope to be able to share a few that will surprise some.

So there are two more reasons to get to Minneapolis next week. (I don't know if the Twin Cities CFUG meeting will be recorded, but if not, I plan to make a recording of it on my own eventually, or offer it on the Meetup soon.)

Note: This blog post is from 2007. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

As I first discussed a couple weeks ago, I'm set to speak at the cf.Objective conference on the topic of 'Understanding, Improving and Resolving Issues with Database Procedure Caches, or "What really happens when we use/don't use cfqueryparam?"'. This the first time I'll present the talk, and indeed it's the first time I've seen a talk on this topic offered, at least to the depth I plan to cover, about what really goes on inside the database with this feature.

And while I'm there, Troy Pullis at the Twin Cities CFUG has invited me to return to speak at their user group meeting, which happens to be the night before the conference. I've spoken there a few times in the past and always enjoy that group. I'll be presenting my '"Caching In" on CF Performance' talk, which I've presented previously at the Atlanta CFUG and WebDU. You can find out more about the topic at http://carehart.org/presentations/#caching.

Note: This blog post is from 2007. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

First, Thursday at 6, see Steve Bryant on "DataMgr Component Set: Easy Data Access without an ORM". Get more info and/or RSVP, as well as get the online meeting URL at http://coldfusion.meetup.com/17/calendar/5667225/. This should last about an hour.

Then on Friday, we'll have two half-hour talks which are previews of the same talks being given by the speakers at next week's cf.Objective() conference in Minneapolis, MN, May 3-6.

At 10:30 on Friday, we'll have Dean Saxe, on "Security and the SDLC: Threat Modeling". Get more info and/or RSVP, as well as get the online meeting URL at http://coldfusion.meetup.com/17/calendar/5708602/. This should last about 30 minutes.

Finally, at 3pm, we'll have Mark Mandel on "Developing Applicatons With Transfer ORM". Again, get more info and/or RSVP, as well as get the online meeting URL at http://coldfusion.meetup.com/17/calendar/5708652/. This should also last about 30 minutes.

Yes, they will also all be recorded. For more on the Online CF Meetup and more about my and Ray's taking it on recently, see the links to previous blog entries below.

Note: This blog post is from 2007. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

Restlets are an implementation of RESTful applications atop the Java framework. If your brain thinks "applets", think instead "servlets". Though even that's not quite right, since it's specifically NOT about implementing REST in servlets, as mentioned in the 'restlet inception' section of the intro page. The goal is "supporting the concepts of REST and facilitating the handling of calls for both client-side and server-side applications". I have to admit, I'm not entirely clear on what it can do and what it may do for CF folks.

Note that there is both a restlet API and a restlet engine (NRE), and it can be embedded within another servlet engine (like Tomcat--or in CF's case, JRun).

To their credit, there's plenty of friendly documentation (well, friendly for a Java project) at the site, including intros, tutorials, faq (general and developer), sample code, and more.

The project clearly has a java feel and focus, so if it can be useful to CFers, it will be up to someone to either show how it will be useful, or perhaps even implement some demo atop or in conjunction with it, for most CFers to "get it" I think.

I'm not sure I do, myself, so I'm more just throwing this out there to see if anyone gets interested. (Didn't do much good with my reference to the Ibatis framework. :-) But you never know.) If it helps you or looks interesting, share a comment or link to your blog in the comments here.

Note: This blog post is from 2007. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

Thanks to one of the animators, Steve Piscopo, who dropped me a note to tell me about these.

Note: This blog post is from 2007. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

I mentioned in an entry a couple weeks ago that Ray Camden and I are reviving the Meetup which Steven Erat had started and had to step down from due to time constraints.

It's an online ColdFusion user group, where you can watch and participate via Acrobat Connect. The meeting will also be recorded and the URL for that will be posted to meetup members as well as in my UGTV repository of recorded presentations, which now has over 100 from over 80 speakers.