Sorry we didn't have a January meeting. My wife just had our second child and I won't be back in downtown Philadelphia until the last few days of January. We'll just be skipping it and moving on to February.

This time around, Daria will be presenting the MVC framework called FW/1 ("framework one"), a simple yet powerful, convention-over-configuration framework for ColdFusion applications.

We hear a lot about Model View Controller (MVC) and how we should use it in our applications, but how do you apply this practically in your code?  Framework One provides a simple way to use MVC without overwhelming you with features you might not need or want. This presentation will show how you can take your existing spaghetti code and turn it into a robust MVC application.

Daria will cover the basics of MVC and why FW/1 is a great implementation of it. She'll then provide demo code showing how to convert a simple CRUD spaghetti-code app into MVC with FW/1.

Adobe has extended the deadline for the contest I previously wrote about, where writing an AIR app for the Blackberry Playbook could get some cool bonuses for our CFUG. All of the details from the original post are still the same, only the deadline has changed. It used to be Feb 1, now it's Feb 28th. Get those apps in and then fill out this form.

The odds of winning cool stuff are pretty good and just for participating we'll get an extra software raffle ($2,100 value) for this year.

Don't forget that submitting your app and having it accepted to the Blackberry AppWorld will also score you a free Playbook, too!

• The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) is seeking a full-time ColdFusion developer to "create, enhance, and maintain web-based applications that facilitate in-Hospital workflows as well as those between Hospital staff and current and prospective patients and their families in support of the Hospital’s mission of superior patient care."  More information.
• The Free Library of Philadelphia has a new full-time CF developer position open to work on both their intranet and public-facing websites. More information.
• Tek Systems is recruiting for a contract positon in Newtown, PA to "work with the product development group to develop web applications utilizing ColdFusion 8 and MS SQL 2008 for Talent Lifecycle Management. Design User Interface using CFML, AJAX (dojo 2.0) and JavaScript." Contact Herb at hcourtne@teksystems.com or 610-832-3104.

Happy new year!

With the new year, I'm introducing a small policy change to encourage meeting attendance. Unless and until otherwise noted, the following will hold true for all future raffles (not for smaller swag given away, as we tend to have enough to go around):

We will no longer simply give away the semiannual software raffle gift (up to $2,100) to a raffle winner who happens to show up on the right night. Instead, raffle tickets will be cumulative over the course of 6 months, and a winner will be drawn at the June meeting and the November/December meeting. You must be present to collect raffle tickets. We are occasionally able to stream presentations live via Adobe Connect, but in order to be eligible for raffle tickets for that meeting, you must be physically present. You do not have to be present at the time of the drawing to win (I will contact you). The purpose of these changes is to encourage as much participation as possible, not participation at specific times of the year. You can earn multiple chances to win by doing any or all of the following:

• 1 ticket:
  • Come to a meeting
  • Review a relevant book on this blog

• 2 tickets:
  • Bring someone new to a meeting
  • Present something
    • A development topic (30-60 minutes)
    • A book review (5-10 minutes)
    • A post-conference review, or something along those lines
    • Anything else that you and I agree on (contact me and we can discuss it)

What's this about book reviews? Well, several publishing companies are willing to send us "review copies" of books in exchange for reviews. We get the books for free, and in return they expect a brief, fair review to be posted online or shared with the group. What publishers and what books? Check out the sponsors page. (They all also offer discounts if you just want to buy, but not review.) As an added benefit, if you like, you can either keep or raffle off the book after your review. If you would like to get a review copy of a book, please contact me.

I hope you'll agree that these changes should encourage and reward attendance and participation. If you have any other ideas to accomplish these same goals, I would love to hear them.