I was going to post this tomorrow to try and space out blog posts to at most once a day, but the lead time before the event is pretty short, and twitter, facebook, etc. are all abuzz about it, so I figure it's better to get the information in your hands and apologize for flooding your inbox. I'm sure things will slow down at some point, but for now I'm sorry!

Have you been wanting to learn Flex but don't have the time to figure it out yourself or the budget for training? Likewise, are you already familiar with Flex 2 or 3 but interested in learning what's new in Flash Builder 4 and Flex 4 in a hands-on full day of training with Adobe staff like ColdFusion product manager Adam Lehman?

Well then today is your lucky day! Adobe is providing a free full-day, hands-on Flex training course specifically designed with ColdFusion developers in mind.

Unfortunately there's no Philly date, but you can attend in Washington DC on November 20th, and as luck would have it, this is the session that Adam Lehman will be at. I apologize for not giving more notice, but I just got notification myself last night.

Sign up before all of the seats are taken!

Well hello there. Due to Chris' growing obligation to the Swiz framework (which I highly recommend!), among many other things, he has decided to step down as manager of our CFUG, and hand the reigns over to me. Who am I? Well, I'm Adam Tuttle. I work at UPenn's Wharton school, I blog at FusionGrokker, and I've lived in the area for the last 5 years and been lucky enough to be developing with ColdFusion professionally for a bit longer than that.

What I hope to bring to the CFUG is renewed interest in the local ColdFusion and Adobe developer community at large, not just our user group. I want the CFUG to be everything you want it to be, and I'm going to do my best to cater it to the people that attend meetings. I believe it can be just as much a social group as it is an opportunity to learn something. That's why I've put together a very brief survey – just 5 questions – to gauge interest in what you want and need from the group.

So if you wouldn't mind, could you take a couple of minutes to fill out the – again, very brief! – survey? I would really appreciate it! Click Here to take our survey

Visit the event site: http://flashcamp.pfpaug.org/

Have you ever wanted to know more about Flash but just didn't have the time to start on your own? Maybe you are an advanced Flash user and are looking to pick up some great tips. Flash Camp Philadelphia is the place to be then! Great training at a great price. Be sure to head on over to the site and check it out. It's going to be awesome!

Keep an eye on the site and on their twitter account: @flashcampphilly for more news and updates!

Mark your calendars, we've got two awesome meeting scheduled within the next month!

First up, Thursday May 26th we have Mark Drew of CFEclipse, Reactor and ColdSpring fame all the way from London! Mark will be giving his awesome Better Living through ColdSpring talk, with some extra tidbits thrown in along the way. This is a amazing opportunity to spend a evening with one of the biggest names in our community, so don't miss it! We'll be meeting at 5:45 at Huntsman Hall at Wharton, Room F90, 3730 Walnut St. Philadelphia, PA 19104.

Next up we have a special event with the always exciting Adam Lehman, Adobe's ColdFusion Product Manager, bringing us the 2009 Adobe Flex/Flash Catalyst and ColdFusion 9/Bolt tour. Come out and see the exciting new features of the CF Server and IDE, as well as brand the new versions of Flex and Flash.

This is a combined meeting with the Philly Flash and Flex User Groups at Philadelphia University, 4201 Henry Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19144

See you there!

Don't miss it! This Thursday we are holding a joint meeting with the Philadelphia Flash User Group, and the Philadelphia Flex User Group to celebrate Adobe Creative Suite (CS4)! It's Going To Be Brilliant!

Be one of the first to see the next big thing from Adobe (Adobe Creative Suite 4) on September 25th, 2008. Join in to see and hear first hand how something very special will help you get to brilliant faster. Save the date and get a good look at what's to come.

Also – as a fun experiment, got something cool you've built recently in Flash, Flex or AIR? Let us know, and well set aside 5-10 minutes per person (depending on the # of respondents) to show off your app and answer questions. The best app/demo wins a bonus prize!

Date: Thursday, September 25th
Time: 7pm-9pm
Location: Philadelphia University, Main Campus, Kanbar Campus Center Performance Space
School House Lane and Henry Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19144-5497
Tel: 215.951.2700
For directions/location info visit: http://www.philau.edu/directions/
An interactive map of the campus highlighting the Kanbar Campus Center can be found here: http://www.philau.edu/UniMap/index.htm

Are you ready for something brilliant? Adobe has once again raised the bar with their new suite of tools, Adobe CS4. This is the latest and greatest release of Adobe's creative tools for developers, designers, and photographers. The official launch is on September 23rd. If you would like to participate in the live "webcast" launch, you can sign up here.

The Philly CFUG, in association with the Philly Flex User Group and the Philly Flash User Group will be holding our own party on Thursday, September 25th. Location is TBD, but will most likely be in Philadelphia.

Come and see how the Adobe Creative Suite 4 can help you get to brilliant faster!

I want to get the word out as early as possible, because we've got a great one lined up for August 8th at 5:30. I am pleased to welcome Gert Franz, CEO of Railo and member of the new CFML advisory board. If you have not yet had a chance to take a look at Railo, I would strongly suggest coming, August 8th is a Friday, so plan early! Here's a little background about Gert and Railo.

Railo (www.railo-technologies.com) is a CFML engine that runs on a wide variety of Java servlet engines, and provides a cost-effective, high performance alternative to using Adobe's ColdFusion engine. As you may have heard, at the Scotch on the Rocks ColdFusion conference in Scotland in June, Railo announced that they are partnering with JBoss to convert their software to a completely free, open-source offering.

Ben Forta (Adobe) had some very nice things to say about it on his blog recently: http://www.forta.com/blog/index.cfm/2008/6/8/An-Open-Message-To-Gert-Franz-and-Railo. Gert Franz, CEO of Railo and member of the recently founded CFML advisory committee, will be visiting to present an overview of Railo, and what the advantages of using Railo are for CFML developers. He'll also be talking about the upcoming open-source conversion of Railo, and what that means for the community and the developers. Of course, Gert will have some free versions of the Railo software to hand out, and some other goodies as well.

Gert Franz was born in 1967 and lives in Switzerland since 1998, somewhere next to Zurich. He's one of the founders of Railo Technologies GmbH and accompanied the development from when it started back in 2001. Next to the development of Railo he worked as a system architect, engineer and DBA where one of his favorite web projects was for instance www.zinodavidoff.com. He's addicted to problem solving, performance and database tuning (especially SQL Server). Gert is a father of three and boyfriend of one. He studied Physics in Munich some (many :-)) years ago.

We'll be meeting at Huntsman Hall, 3730 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, Room JMHH G50.

See you there!

Sorry for the delayed post, but our next meeting will be THIS thursday, July 10th at Huntsman Hall at Wharton. This week I will be presenting on the Swiz Framework for Flex development. Swiz was built out of my own experiences with many large scale Flex projects and what I have felt to be a laking in other major Flex frameworks. Swiz aims to be simple and effecting, offering developers tools to build Flex applications in a true MVC paradigm. You can read more about Swiz at http://code.google.com/p/swizframework/.

This weeks meeting will also be a joint meeting with the Philadelphia Flex user's group. I look forward to seeing everyone there!

Meeting: May 29!

Building Live Chat with BlazeDS

The free and open source BlazeDS project from Adobe brings a powerful new paradigm to web development. In addition to the high performance AMF protocol, BlazeDS also provides the ability to push data to rich clients like the Flash Player. With very little code, we will build several different chat applications that can be added to any website.

The presenter will be Adam Lehman, ColdFusion Platform Evangelist for Adobe.

Time/Date/Location:
Thursday May 29, 5:30PM, Huntsman Hall @ Wharton, room G55

Now Under New Management!

It is my privilege to announce that Chris Scott, a dedicated user group member (and speaker) will be the new manager of the Philadelphia ColdFusion User Group, effective May 29.

The Philadelphia ColdFusion User Group has been in existence for about ten years and in that time has had only two managers. Chris Swanson lead the original effort until handing over the reins to me in late 2000. At the time I had only been doing ColdFusion for a year, but had the folks at the Baltimore and DC CFUGs to thank for most of my knowledge. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to organize a group of like-minded developers.

The last eight years have been amazing times for the CF community: the Macromedia acquisition, the Adobe acquisition, six releases of CF (6, 6.1, 7, 7.0.2, 8, and 8.0.1), CFCs redefined the language and rich internet applications are the new hotness. Those who have stuck with CF have witnessed the amazing evolution of the application server and the community around it. A tremendous number of learning opportunities have emerged as a result, opportunities that have been great for developers who have taken the time to take advantage of them.

I hope you've found value in your relationship with the user group. I certainly have enjoyed getting to know many of you and learned a lot in the process. My favorite activity was the series of certification study group meetings held at the Great American Pub. Everybody in that group passed on their first attempt; I can't definitively say whether it was the Bubba Burgers or the discussion that helped more!

It's now time for a new person with time, energy and fresh ideas to step in and re-invigorate and re-energize the group. Chris is the right guy to do it. Please join me in welcoming Chris to the role of Manager of the CFUG – he's going to do an amazing job.

Adobe Developer Week is next week. Lots of topics including Flex, AIR, ColdFusion and BlazeDS. Free!