Date: Tuesday, March 30th
Time: 6:00pm — 7:00pm
Location: Wharton's Jon M. Huntsman Hall, Room G55 (3730 Walnut Street)
Speaker: Terry Ryan of Adobe
Happy Hour: TBD

Terry will be in town to present a ColdFusion Builder Special Event to our group. Unfortunately, that's all I'm at liberty to say at this point, due to NDA. Once the NDA is lifted, I can provide more details. Suffice it to say, this should be an exciting meeting — it's not often that we get Adobe reps in to speak to us.

Please RSVP so that we know how much food to order.

Please note that this meeting is on a Tuesday! Normally we try to meet on Thursdays, but this is the date that Adobe made Terry available to us.

I just spoke with Simon (our speaker for tonight's meeting), and as of now he's still planning on making the trip down from New York City; so I'm still planning on holding the meeting. If that changes, I will update this post, post about it on twitter, and if there's something big that everyone needs to be notified of (what that might be, I'm not sure), I'll send out a mass-email to the group.

Don't forget that we're not in the usual building. We're still on Penn's campus, but instead of Jon M. Huntsman Hall we're in Steinberg-Dietrich Hall, room 211. In case you're not familiar with the location, here's a map. Click for a larger version.

Lastly, we're still planning to head to the American Pub for Happy Hour afterward.

Recent meetings have been held in Wharton's Jon M. Huntsman Hall, but unfortunately we weren't able to get a room there this month. Fortunately, we are still on UPenn's campus, and not far away from JMHH. We will be meeting in Steinberg Dietrich Hall, Room 211. See the meeting announcement for all of the details.

As of right now, registrations for our next meeting are pretty low. Given the speaker and the topic, I thought there would be more interest in this meeting, so I figure it's worth reminding you — both of the meeting (2/25, 6:00, Penn Campus), and that we would appreciate it if you would register. As always, the event is free and there will be pizza and soda provided — registration is just to get a head-count for food.

And of course, don't forget about happy hour afterwards!

We'll be going back to the American Pub for another happy hour after this month's meeting. This is the same place we went last month, and it was a good time. I suppose they enjoyed having us, because they called and asked me if we would be interested in coming back. How could I say no?

Who: You
What: Happy Hour
When: 2/25, 7:00pm – 9:00pm (Immediately following our meeting)
Where: 1500 Market St. (The Clothespin Building, across from Suburban Station)
Why: Why not?

So come enjoy some good suds and good conversation.

Date: Thursday, February 25th
Time: 6:00pm – 7:00pm EST
Location: UPenn, Jon M. Huntsman Steinberg Dietrich Hall. 3730 Walnut Street, near 37th st Trolley
Room: 211
Speaker: Simon Free, E-Bim

With the introduction of ColdFusion builder, more control of the IDE is being given to the developers. No longer are we tied down to pre packaged functionality but with the use of ColdFusion Builder Extensions we can now expand our IDE to do what we need it to do. In this session we will review everything you need to know about extensions and will go through the process of creating and packaging one. By the end of the session you will no longer be grumbling about the lack of functionality you have access to, instead you will be adding everything you need.

Simon is currently working with E-Bim, and is a regular attendee at the NYCFUG and NYFLEX meetings and will be attending some of the conferences held throughout the year. His hope is that once he has gained a good understanding of Flex and AIR that he will be able to help others to develop their skills and help them see the endless possibilities that these technologies have to offer them. "I am on my journey to gain more knowledge, a journey that will never end. I just hope I brought enough snacks."

Simon can also be found at simonfree.com and on twitter as @simonfree.

Please register for this meeting so that we know how much food to order. If you or your organization would like to sponsor a meeting please get in touch with me. It's very inexpensive and we can offer you face time to make your sales pitch or recruit for open positions in return.

Just a quick reminder that this month's meeting is tomorrow, Thursday January 14th, at 6:00. We will be meeting in the same room as last time: Room F90, in the "Forum" / Basement level of Jon M. Hunstman Hall at UPenn. If you're planning to attend, please register so we can get an accurate head count for food.

Also, don't forget that afterwards we have a happy hour at the American Pub. Free knowledge at the meeting, and cheap booze at happy hour. What more can you ask for? See you there!

Myself and a few others from Philly CFUG attended the PANMA holiday party back in December, and (along with everyone else on the PANMA mailing list) we "won" a happy hour at the American Pub, in Center City (the clothespin building, across the street from Suburban Station).  The only catch is that we have to hold it by the 28th of January.

Since we'll be meeting on the 14th, I figured we could head over afterwards for a few drinks.  The regular meeting is from 6:00 to 7:00, and our happy hour will officially be from 7:00 to 9:00, so even if you can't make it to the meeting, it would be great to see you at the bar afterwards. Drink specials include "Select $3 Drafts, $4 Imported bottles, $5 Call Mixed Drinks and $6 Premium cocktails and $6 Specialty Drinks (such as Martini's, Cosmos, Long Island Iced Teas, etc);" and I have it on good authority that the food there is excellent too.

Also, just a quick reminder that you can — and I would very much appreciate it if you did — register for next Thursday's meeting.  As always, attendance costs you nothing; but registering will help us determine how much pizza and soda we need.

Date: Thursday, January 14th
Time: 6:00pm – 7:30pm EST
Location: UPenn, Jon M. Huntsman Hall. 3730 Walnut Street, or near 36th/37th st Trolleys
Room: F90 (Basement/"Forum" Level)
Speaker: Steve Rittler, CounterMarch Systems

We all know that no matter how awesomely relational your database is, all they ever want from us is one spreadsheet after another. ColdFusion 9 has a new tag and a whole boatload of functions to make reading and writing fully Microsoft Office— and Open Office—compatible spreadsheets a piece of cake. It's now simple to take the data directly from their "too big to fail, yet too complex to understand" spreadsheet and use it in your applications — and likewise to build a stylish, functional (formulas too!) and up-to-date spreadsheet directly from ColdFusion. Come out and learn how to make use of this awesome new functionality!

Steve Rittler is an unabashed Adobe fanboy primarily dedicated to the promotion of ColdFusion as one of the most productive web application development tools ever made. His company, CounterMarch Systems, specializes in ColdFusion and Flex consulting for a variety of industries, but primarily higher education.  He's been developing with ColdFusion for 10 years and served as the manager of the Philadelphia CFUG for about 7 years.  He's also an Adobe Community Expert for ColdFusion, so feel free to send questions, trick questions or fun challenges his way at srittler@countermarch.com or on Twitter: @scrittler.

So that we can get an accurate head-count for food, please register for this meeting. As always, there is no charge.

Just a quick reminder that our next meeting will be TOMORROW. It's our 10-year anniversary! Pizza, cake, and soda will be provided courtesy of Automated Financial Systems, and hopefully you'll be joining us afterwards at the PANMA holiday party for some adult beverages?