Adam Howitt (a certified ColdFusion developer) is giving an online presentation this Thursday at noon on how to Build a scalable architecture with Amazon's EC2. Amazon is providing developers some pretty awesome functionality for grid computing ~ allowing you to push load to them during times of peak traffic. If you're remotely interested in how this might be useful to you as a CF developer, you should definitely tune in. Attendance is free, but RSVPs are appreciated.

Another group that you might want to keep an eye on (or at least join electronically) is the Philly Computer Human Interaction group. They're focused on usability and interface design - topics that ALL of us should have at least a passing interest in.

PhillyCHI meets monthly, usually in downtown Philadelphia.

Just an FYI...the AIR event on 8/22 is now starting at 7PM. The doors open at 6:30 p.m.

For the full schedule, please visit: http://onair.adobe.com/schedule/cities/philadelphia.php

The Franklin Institute Science Museum
222 North 20th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103
August 22nd
7:00 p.m. – 10:30 p.m. (doors open at 6:30 p.m.)

Don't forget to sign up to attend the AIR bus tour - they're stopping in Philly on August 22. The venue: the Franklin Institute! I don't know anyone who would pass on an excuse opportunity to go there. All of the information is on the onAIR website, including registration details. I'll be there...won't you? Your attendance benefits the Adobe user groups of the greater Philadelphia Area...and you!

A Contest! A Contest!

The Philly Flash Platform User Group and Adobe are co-sponsoring a CONTEST for the best AIR application! The prizes are awesome - Copy of Flex Builder 2, a Nintendo DS Lite with a copy of Super Mario World and an O'Reilly "Ultimate AIR Developer" book bundle are all up for grabs.

To participate, register for the event, then if you are not already a member of the Flash user group, sign up as a member, download a copy of AIR and get to work on your best application. Then submit a link to your .air file no later than midnight August 20th, 2007 to be eligible for the contest.

Links you want to visit:

1. onAIR Tour Registration
2. General Tour Info
3. Contest Information
4. Adobe Developer Derby Prizes

Stay tuned for more news as the event draws near. Get started building your own AIR app today and we'll see you at the Franklin Institute in a few weeks!

The ColdFusion Developer Center has a new design, updated subcategory pages, and many new and updated articles. Here is a list of the new content:

• Introducing ColdFusion 8 Ben Forta takes a look at Ajax and PDF integration, new monitoring features, better CFML and security, and much more in the new version.
• Designing and developing with Ajax features in ColdFusion 8 - Create application layouts and work with data using the new Ajax features in ColdFusion.
• ColdFusion 8 server monitoring, Part 1: Using the Server Monitor in development - Charlie Arehart explains how you can use the Server Monitor to make better informed decisions about coding practices.
• Image manipulation capabilities in ColdFusion 8 - Build an image gallery example app with the new cfimage tag and automatically resize uploaded images into thumbnails, add watermarks, and more.
• Developer Spotlight: Focus on ColdFusion - Meet Ray Camden, picked by the community for his knowledge of ColdFusion = and involvement in several collaborative projects.
• Flash Media Server event gateway example application - Get the code for this sample app that uses the Flash Media Server event gateway to manipulate Flash Media Server shared objects.
• Using the ColdFusion 8 step-through debugger for Eclipse - Step through your code with breakpoints and more with the new ColdFusion 8 step-through debugger for Eclipse.
• Connecting to a database in ColdFusion - Master the basics of working with databases in ColdFusion and Dreamweaver. (Updated July 30, 2007)
• Displaying database data on a web page - Use ColdFusion to display custom data in your web pages. (Updated July 30, 2007)

As blogged by Rob Hall this morning, the Adobe AIR bus tour is coming to the Franklin Institute!

AIR is the official name for the platform formerly known as Apollo, the cross platform desktop runtime for rich internet applications built in HTML or Flex/Flash. It's awesome that we warranted a stop - so now all you need to do is show up!

A free event - at the Franklin Institute - with snacks and drinks on Adobe. Who wouldn't want to go?

Sign up here...you better do it soon as it's likely to fill up pretty fast! See you there!

Hello friends of the Philadelphia Flash Platform Adobe User Group!

Just a quick reminder that our next meeting is this Thursday evening!

You do not want to miss this meeting, thanks to Comcast Interactive Media, we are giving away 4 iPods, and courtesy of Adobe, a copy of one of the Adobe CS3 Premium Software bundles (your choice if you win), along with some other goodies!

Comcast Interactive Media is also sponsoring the event and providing pizza/salad/sodas

More importantly you do not want to miss our speaker for this event:
Arpit Mathur: , Lead Software Engineer for Comcast Interactive Media: http://www.cimlabs.com/
Arpit will be discussing Flex/Flash Large Scale Applications, we might even be able to talk him into showing off his DiggGraphr, Digg Flash API contest entry which has made it into the top 10 Finalists: http://digg.com/contest

More info about the event can be found here:
http://www.pfpaug.org/

If you plan on attending, please RSVP by dropping us a note via this link:
http://www.impossi bilities.com/contact.php

Event Summary:

Speaker:
Arpit Mathur – Lead Software Engineer for Comcast Interactive Med= ia

Topic:
Flex/Flash Large Scale Applications

Date/Time:
Thursday May 31st – 6:30pm-9:30pm

Location:
Comcast Interactive Media Headquarters in Center City
1500 Market Street - Philadelphia, PA 19102
Google Map: http://tinyurl.com/2o5v4w

Hope to see you there!

Regards,
Rob

The May 31 meeting of the Flash user group looks Comcastic!: Arpit Mathur on building large-scale Flex/Flash web applications. Arpit works for Comcast and will be talking about some of the incredible work they've done with Flex and Flash. Well worth your time if you plan on doing any serious Flex development in the near future. The meeting will be at Comcast HQ at 15th and Market (just about dead Center City!). All the details and registration info are on the Philly Flash Platform User Group site. I'll see you there!

Our next meetings: June 5 and July 10, 4-6PM (yes, for sure this time!). June: Spry and Unit Testing, July: Blue Dragon and FusionDebug. Subject to change, but that's what I'm trying to stick with. Mark them down now!

We have a Flex user group in Philadelphia! http://www.paflex.org/ is being managed by Mark Belsterling, who hopes to have a meeting again very soon. This group is in its infancy and would greatly appreciate your membership.

Conferences: CFUNITED June 27-30.