The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania seeks an experienced Systems Programmer to provide system and application administration for Wharton Computing's Web infrastructure. You will work with world-renowned faculty, students, staff and professional organizations in an innovative, team-oriented and cutting-edge environment. We offer excellent benefits, competitive salaries, professional development opportunities, and a dynamic environment that supports diversity.

Duties:
This position will provide system and application administration for Wharton Computing's Web infrastructure, including Adobe ColdFusion and Flex as well as Microsoft SQL Server, all running on Windows servers. Responsibilities also include the security, maintenance, installation and optimization of services provided on Wharton servers; creation and maintenance of systems tools and applications utilizing a variety of programming languages. This position will work with developer groups to meet technology needs and ensure code and security standards are met; it will provide direct and second-tier Windows application system support for the Wharton School. Rotational on-call duty.

Qualifications:
BA/BS in Computer Science or related field, with 2 years experience developing and maintaining complex web-based applications; strong technology skills. Experience with Windows Administration, Microsoft SQL Server, ColdFusion, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Web 2.0 technologies strongly preferred. Experience with other web development platforms also considered. Experience with system security is required. Knowledge of networking concepts and server hardware is strongly preferred. Excellent organizational and analytical skills and recent demonstrated experience in needs assessment and requirements gathering; strong knowledge of database design and relational technology. Demonstrated ability to multi-task and work effectively within tight turnaround schedules. Excellent verbal and written communication skills and interpersonal skills. Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail are important.

To apply to this position please submit resumes online at the University of Pennsylvania's website:

http:// jobs.hr.upenn.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=186291

Leap Day Discount! Register for the March 12-14 or April 14-16 Flash CS3 training course and receive 30% off. You must register February 29th to qualify. Only 6 seats available per class! Previous registrations do not qualify for discount.

Enter Promotion Code: FlashCS3-LeapDay in the designated box during checkout to receive your discount.

Please visit: http://www.brookwood.com/training/FlashCS3Training/FlashCS3Training.cfm for more info or to register.

Happy Leap Day from Brookwood Media Arts!

Got an email today from a CFUG member inquiring about what you really need to get started with Flex. He kindly included a list of items that are very unclear on the Adobe site, so I figured I'd summarize here.

Starting, unfortunately, with the download page.

What you should download: Flex Builder 3 Professional. It'll clock in at over 400MB, not the advertised 169. Don't have a clue where they got that number from.

What you don't need to download: anything else, INCLUDING the Flex 3 SDK. That's for folks who don't need the development environment or the charting tools. In all likelihood, that's not you (today).

On the system requirements page, I've crossed off the stuff you don't need to trouble yourself with on day 1, using the standalone version of Flex Builder:

FLEX BUILDER 3 FOR WINDOWS (STANDARD AND PROFESSIONAL)

• Intel® Pentium® 4 processor
• Microsoft® Windows® XP with Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista® Home Premium
• 1GB of RAM (2GB recommended)
• 500MB of available hard-disk space (additional 500MB required for plug-in configuration)
• Java™ Virtual Machine: Sun™ JRE 1.4.2, Sun JRE 1.5 (included), IBM® JRE 1.5, or Sun JRE 1.6
• Eclipse™ 3.2.2 for plug-in configuration (Eclipse 3.3 recommended for Windows Vista)
• Adobe® Flash® Player 9 software*
• BEA Workshop 10.1
• IBM Rational Software Architect 7.0.0.3 (Eclipse 3.3 plug-in configuration only)

Odds are you already have a decent JVM if you've been doing CF development already. Flash Player will be installed by the FB installer, so scratch that too.

Eclipse is not the easiest thing to get used to if you're accustomed to Dreamweaver or HomeSite (that's putting it mildly!). Hope this helps! Feel free to ping manager@phillycfug or drop a comment if you have any other questions.

A HUGE thank-you to Alex and Bart for hosting the Flex 3/AIR 1 party last night! IndyHall is available to anybody looking for a refreshing day (or a bunch of them!) working away from your cubicle/pen/corner office, surrounded by creative and entrepreneurial minds. I plan on dropping in every few weeks just for the change of scenery – maybe I'll see you there too!

As you might have guessed, we had a fantastic social event last night that just happened to coincide with the release of Flex 3 and AIR 1. We watched an intro from the Adobe folks, socialized a bit, got a firsthand demo of Wii and Flash playing together (which was awesome) and then a boatload of socializing and giveaways. Even after all the stuff we gave out we STILL took home a ton of additional schwag. Expect to see more of these shirts until we give them all away!

If you're looking for more resources on Flex and AIR, you can't do much better than Rob Hall's links at the bottom of this post on the PFPAUG site

Many thanks to all of you who attended ~ we hope to see you at upcoming Flash, Flex and of course ColdFusion user group meetings!

My friend Brian Szoszorek has a new article on the Adobe Developer Center on building your first Flex 3/ColdFusion 8/LCDS app. LCDS is an awesome technology that most CF folks don't understand and wouldn't know how to get started with. Think "real time synchronous data exchange." Read this article and get yourself over the first-time hurdle – from there I'm sure you'll start to see lots of applications you could use this technology for!

Anyone interested in putting together a presentation on this topic?

ColdFusion is doing exceptionally well in the marketplace, has strong support from upper levels of Adobe management and is still as easy and powerful as ever. Yet one nagging question remains: where does it fit in to the new/fresh/exciting world of Flex and AIR or rich internet applications in general?

The CF community does tend to get a little too much like Chicken Little when we see Adobe give a Flex demo using a PHP or (forbid the thought) .NET back end; at times is a little embarrassing. CF is not the only app server on the market and there are lots of people who could use an introduction to Adobe "stuff" on their own terms, using tools they're already comfortable with. Once we've hooked them with that, then we can show them how stupid simple it is to use CF instead.

Jared Rypka-Hauer interviewed Bruce Chizen, then-CEO of Adobe and this is what he had to say:

"From our perspective, there is no other platform in existence that can be used to build powerful, flexible backends for Rich Internet Applications as quickly and competently as can be done with ColdFusion. It will support any RIA technology, be it Flex, Flash, AJAX or AIR. It's really, from our perspective, the glue that holds everything else together."

The rest of the interview is here, which I found to be a fascinating read. Adobe is strongly backing CF (best sales growth ever tends to capture executive eyeballs), which is even further reinforced if you consider the investment it must have taken to make ColdFusion 8 as feature-packed as it is. As Adam and Tim told us when they visited last summer, they raided the pantry of Adobe technologies (the expensive ones) and tossed them in to the CF8 feature set. Try doing that if your product isn't valued and respected! Not entirely coincidentally, these same technologies are what makes using CF as a backend for RIAs so darn effective and powerful. Image functionality, PDF generation and manipulation, Exchange integration, LiveCycle integration – doing all of that any other way would cost far more than the $1100 cost of entry. By "cost" I not only mean real products to do each of those but also the billable time lost creating it yourself.

ColdFusion has a fantastic ROI. Those of us who have been working with it for any length of time know how much faster we can get things done in CF. That's even more important now – Flex/AIR applications simply take more time to build. We've been doing Flex development for about a year and a half now. That pales in comparison to the time we've put in with ColdFusion, but it's enough to get a good feel for what a full development cycle takes.

Think about it this way: at the end of the day, your clients/customers/coworkers see your application's interface, not your Reactor/ColdSpring/Mach-ii/Fusebox/roll-your-own-framework service tier. Build that robust and efficient backend in little time with CF (don't forget your unit tests!) and then focus on the user experience. Add those UI widgets that make life easier for the end user. Spend extra time with your designer to make it look and behave better than any HTML webapp you've ever created. If you're writing backend services on a platform that doesn't simplify this task as much as CF does, you're wasting precious time and shortchanging the folks who will have to live with your application. ROI is not only financial, but personal.

Anyway, this started off as a "ColdFusion is the keystone in Adobe's RIA strategy" post and veered off into developer land. Point is, ColdFusion makes it easy build software to drive Flex applications ( – is that easy enough?) in a logical, orderly and efficient fashion. Without CF, Flex development gets harder. Now if only we could bring more CF-like syntax and structure to Flex development, then we'd be cookin'…

See you all tonight!
Steve

One of the things we'll be doing tonight is getting video feedback from attendees, hopefully finding some content either a) good enough or b) funny enough to post here: http://30onair.com/.

Watch some now and start thinking creatively!

As you may have heard, Adobe has announced the release of Adobe Flex 3 and Adobe AIR 1.0. Now that the cat is out of the bag, this will be the focus of tonight's special meeting! Adobe is sponsoring this meeting with food, giveaways and a raffle copy of Adobe Flex Builder 3 Professional.

Flex 3 is a feature-packed release, adding new UI components like the advanced datagrid and improved CSS capabilities; powerful tooling additions like refactoring; and extensive testing tools including memory and performance profiling, plus support for automated functional testing in Flex Builder 3.

Adobe AIR is game-changing in so many ways, delivering rich Internet applications (RIA) on the desktop, enabling access to the local file system, system tray, notifications and much more. Now you can write RIAs on the desktop using the same skills that you've been already using to create great web apps including both Flex and AJAX.

Don't miss out on this opportunity to see and hear about this highly anticipated release of Flex 3 and AIR at this meeting!

More Info:

• Flex 3
• AIR 1
• ColdFusion 8
• Adobe's Technology Platform
• Adobe Open Source

Join the Adobe user group community (Flash, Flex and ColdFusion) for this "can't miss" meeting Monday night at 7PM!

Adobe's RIA technologies enable you to rapidly build and deploy the most engaging applications across browsers and on the desktop. The Philadelphia user groups are hosting a special live event to share exciting new information on Adobe's platform tools and technologies for building RIAs. You'll see an exclusive user group video presentation by Adobe Chief Software Architect, Kevin Lynch, hear some important product news, plus get your hands on some exclusive schwag and other giveaways.

Be part of the fun and excitement and join the rest of the Adobe developer community by participating in this very special event.

Basics:

Date: Monday, February 25
Time: 7PM – whenever
Loc: Independents Hall
Directions: 32 Strawberry Street, Philadelphia, PA

Park on the street if you're lucky, otherwise there are several garages in the immediate area that you can easily use.

We are seeking a ColdFusion developer to join our team for development of our flagship product.

Rapidly growing, well-established, unique financial services company in suburban Philadelphia seeks intelligent, energetic, personable individual with ability to provide high level programming skills, particularly cold fusion structured program web development. Limited telecommuting possible. Very friendly, casual atmosphere, extensive benefits package available including health coverage, sick, personal, vacation, bonuses & 401K.

Job Description:
The developer will work as part of new internal software development team. The position requires strong organizational, development and interpersonal skills. Must be able to develop applications under set deadlines and communicate well with others in the team. The position will largely require coding in ColdFusion and may require some java and .net development.

Responsibilities include:

• Develop applications and code in ColdFusion and MS-SQL according to documented specifications and within documented timelines
• Work closely with the development team, communicating progress and suggestions/recommendations where appropriate
• Write and review technical specifical documentation, as well as other forms of documentation

Qualifications and Experience:

• BA/BS Computer Science or MIS Degree (or documented work experience equivalent)
• ColdFusion MX including experience with CFCs and custom tags
• Microsoft SQL server, or MySQL with good ability for Normalization
• HTML and CSS
• XML or WDDX
• Experience working with Subversion or CVS a plus
• Excellent problem-solving skills, written, verbal and interpersonal skills
• High motivation and self-directed

Contact Chris Salica for more information.