One of our members, Nathan Mische will be presenting as part of Wharton's Higher Education Web Symposium, and asked me to pass the word along. He will be presenting as part of a session on web frameworks.
If you work as a developer in the Higher Education space, you might want to consider attending this conference. It's local, inexpensive, and looks like it will be providing a wealth of information.
For lack of a better term, we're "sold out" for tonight's joint meeting of all of the Philadelphia Adobe User Groups for the Flex 4 & Flash Builder 4 tour. That's awesome news, and I can't wait to see you all there.
That said, I wanted to point out one thing. The room holds 80 people, and I made 80 tickets available, so that I could get an idea of how much food to order. If you weren't able to register, we would still welcome you to attend. I expect that some people who registered won't make it, so there should be some seats available.
Recently we've been approached by some sponsors that, while appropriate to our industry, want something I'm not entirely comfortable giving them without your consent: your email address.
Although I have access to the information: Over 300 people subscribe to this blog, and almost 50 people have registered for next week's meeting; I can't in good conscience hand over your email address without at least letting you know before you give it to me. I would feel differently if in the past I had said that subscriber or event registration email addresses could be shared with sponsors in exchange for their sponsorship (which is something I will consider for the signup page for future events). But in all likelihood I've already said the exact opposite; that I would never share it with anyone, for any reason. That sounds like something I would say.
I should be clear, I have no intention of working with any unrelated or creepy organizations. The sponsors in question are local, reputable organizations, with appropriate content and services for our audience. But that still doesn't take away the pit I get in my stomach when I think about giving them your email addresses. If I were in your shoes, I might get offended at that.
So I am asking you for a favor, now. Would you mind opting-in to potential sponsor contact? In exchange, we would have more sponsorship money that we can spend on better food and more, bigger raffle prizes.
If you would like to opt-in, please fill out this form. I promise to keep a safe guard over your information, and only give it to relevant, non-creepy sponsors.
Just a quick reminder that our next meeting is fast approaching — next Wednesday!
We're holding a joint meeting with just about every other Adobe User Group in Philly, and hosting the Flex 4 tour. This includes both version 4 of the Flex framework, and version 4 of the IDE, now known as Flash Builder.
| Meeting Details: | |
| When: | Wednesday, April 28th @ 6:30pm |
| Where: | Wharton's Jon M. Huntsman Hall, Room G65 3730 Walnut St. |
| SEPTA: | Trolley to 36th or 37th street stations |
| Parking: | Closest: 38th & Walnut |
Please RSVP below if you plan to attend. Seating is limited.
Along with the ColdFusion Builder Tour at our CFUG meeting tonight, Adobe is also running a tour to promote the newly released Flex 4 framework and Flash Builder 4 products.
We'll be holding a joint meeting of Philly CFUG with the Philly Flex, Philly Flash Platform, Philly Illy, and Photoshop Philadelphia groups, to kill 5 birds with 1 stone.
Terry Ryan, a Flash Platform Evangelist for Adobe (and Philadelphian), will be presenting all of the latest and greatest developments in the Flex world.
| Meeting Details: | |
| When: | Wednesday, April 28th @ 6:30pm |
| Where: | Wharton's Jon M. Huntsman Hall, Room G65 3730 Walnut St. |
| SEPTA: | Trolley to 36th or 37th street stations |
| Parking: | Closest: 38th & Walnut |
Please RSVP below if you plan to attend. Seating is limited.
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WRDS is currently accepting applications for a Programmer/Analyst:
Requirements:
Desired skills:
I saw this posting on the CF-Jobs mailing list this morning:
This work is for an online dating website. We have been online for several years and looking for a complete fix up and overhaul/additions. We are on a ColdFusion 8 box with Windows Server 2003 running SQL Server 2008.
One owner is CF certified and the other is SQL Server certified. What we are looking for is someone that can do the grunt work and write code quickly and efficiently.
All applicants will be required to take a phone interview with technical questions.
We are looking for someone with CSS/DHTML skill sets in addition to ColdFusion 8, TSQL, and javascript. Bonus if you live in or near Pennsylvania. Please send resumes and rate to dijanad81@hotmail.com.
So with today's release of ColdFusion Builder it's no longer a secret why my original announcement for our upcoming meeting was somewhat restricted by NDA. Now that CFBuilder has been released, I can officially say that a few members of Adobe's evangelism team are touring some of the CFUGs and demoing the end result of the engineering team's hard work, as part of the launch. Terry Ryan (not only an Adobe evangelist, but also a Philly local) will be stopping by our CFUG to share the love.
I can personally vouch for CFBuilder as a solid product, worth your consideration. I have been testing it and working with it every day since early on in the private beta process, and it has definitely improved my coding productivity. It isn't free, but it does have some very worthwhile benefits, and anyone doing both ColdFusion and Flex development should be very pleased with the new pricing model: Buy both Flash Builder 4 and ColdFusion Builder for $299!
There are a lot of compelling reasons to buy ColdFusion Builder, and Terry is well qualified to demo them all for you and answer your questions. Heck, bring your boss if you think it will help make a case for the purchase.
Along with the ColdFusion Builder Launch Tour, Adobe is also allowing Ray Camden to run another "Best of" contest, similar to the Best of CF9 contest around the launch of ColdFusion 9 last year. This time, it's the ColdFusion Builder: Educate and Expand contest. If you've had an idea for something that might be useful as a CFB Extension, now is the time to make it happen.
See you at the meeting a week from tomorrow!
NCDevCon is a web development conference held in late May at North Carolina State University, in Raleigh, NC. Oh, and it's free for anyone to attend. Planned topics include ColdFusion, Flex, AIR, Web Design, JavaScript, CSS, and Ajax. The organizers say that they have figured out how to reach an audience of people who are interested in learning ColdFusion, Flex, and-or AIR, but have little to no experience with those languages yet — a feat few have been able to accomplish to date.
I spoke with Daria, a Philadelphia local, PhillyCFUG member, and a past presenter at PhillyCFUG, about the conference because she went last year and is planning to attend again this year. Read on for the full interview.
Adam: Last year was the first year that NCDevCon took place, and it was called CFinNC. What was the single biggest reason you chose to attend?
Daria: It was, and still is, FREE!
A: That's always a plus, and even more so these days with the economy in such bad shape. Any way to get free training is definitely worth considering. You're attending again this year; what is it that's bringing you back?
D: Well, free is still a motivating factor, but it's also to catch up with all the friends I made there last year. As an out of town attendee, I ended up hanging out with all the speakers at the conference hotel.
A: So everyone there must be pretty approachable?
D: Very much so. The CF community is very open to newcomers, and that's what this conference is about! Their goal is to get attendees that haven't worked with CF or Flex and want an introduction into those technologies.
A: And I believe you said that you're also planning on volunteering a topic. Is that correct?
D: After last year's conference, I came back enthusiastic and encouraged to follow through on my goal of doing presentations. I volunteered to present at my local CFUG and made a goal to present at a conference in 2011. When they announced that they were looking for presenters willing to give beginner or intermediate presentations for NCDevCon I decided that now might be the time.
A: I know you also attended CFUnited for the last few years. Have you attended any other conferences? How would you describe NCDevCon to someone who has attended CFUnited or other conferences and is considering attending NCDevCon? What are the biggest differences, and what good things do they have in common?
D: I haven't been to any other conferences besides CFUnited and NCDevCon, but can say that the quality of the sessions from both conferences is the same. One thing that NCDevCon has over CFUnited is the morning long hands-on "getting started" sessions that cover the basics of ColdFusion or Flex. [ The tentative schedule is available online ] Even though NCDevCon is focused on beginners, there will also be intermediate and advanced topics for the people who are more familiar with the technologies. I think the biggest difference between this conference and CFUnited is the number of advanced sessions. CFUnited is also a bigger conference and will have more international attendees.
A: I had heard that NCDevCon had a bit of a slant toward introductory and basic topics. How do you think that affects the overall atmosphere of the event, and your experience there as an established ColdFusion developer?
D: There were plenty of topics that interested me, even though I've been developing ColdFusion for a while. There were several sessions on the new features of CF9, object oriented programming, ORM, and so on. [ Last year's topics are available online ]
A: Was there anything that you were not expecting from the conference but that you ended up really liking?
D: I guess the thing that surprised me the most isn't something about this conference in particular. I didn't realize how much my involvement in the ColdFusion Twitter community would enhance my conference experience, but it did. Not only did it inform me on the after-hours activities, but it also made me more familiar to the other attendees and made me more approachable. I definitely recommend getting involved with the CF Twitter community in general.
A: That is a really great tip. I'm pretty certain I would not have my current job, or the accomplishments it's helped me make, without the networking I've done on Twitter — specifically in the ColdFusion community — over the last year or two. It's really shown me how important relationship building is when you want to advance your career.
Aside from the fact that the conference is free — so the only costs are travel, food, and lodging — do you have any advice for someone looking to sell their boss on the idea of sending them?
D: The quality of the speakers was superb. Where else are you going to get to hear from the gurus for free?
A: Indeed. Do you have any final thoughts that you would like to add?
D: If you know of someone that is interested in CF or Flex and would be interested in free training, encourage them to come along! Be an ambassador and help spread the CF love!
A: Excellent advice. And hey, you could even share a room to push the cost even lower than it already is. Thanks for taking the time to tell us about NCDevCon, Daria.
D: No problem!
An Atlanta-based firm working with a client in Atlanta that also has an office in Newtown, PA is looking for a Web Developer for a 6 month contract (not a full-time position). Their main responsibilities will include:
Ideally, this person will have the following:
Contact:
Kelley Hafer
Anteo Group
404-897-5152
khafer@anteogroup.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/kelleyhafer
