nil desperandum - Conference

I'm speaking at Scotch on the Rocks!

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:03:00 -0700

Today the Scotch on the Rocks Speakers list was release by Andy Allan and his motley crew . [More]

Blog Roundup 30 April 2010

Sat, 01 May 2010 00:13:00 -0700

I'm rubbish! I really am... I promise and I promise to keep on top of Blog Round-ups, but I never seem to quite manage it. I would really like to keep writing this round-ups ever week, but its quite an effort. Can I persuade anyone to co-author these posts with me? Leave me a comment. Drop me an email. Shout me on Twitter. Anyway, on with the round-up. [More]

Blog Round up 20 September 2009

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:49:00 -0700

This blog round up is somewhat later than I had intended, but for good reason. I've been waiting for a couple of blog posts to emerge into the public domain, so that I could include them in the round up. I can't impress upon you how important it is to read these posts.

[More]

Blog Round up 3 Feb 2009

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 06:08:00 -0700

Errrmmm... Happy New Year! :D Sorry for not keeping up with my blog round-ups.

I've been looking at my HUGE back log of blog entries and thinking I should do a round-up and then being too daunted by the task. So finally last week I decided to go back to the 26th of January and only read those blog entries and round-up from there and then mark everything as read!

Now that have a sensible number of blog entries in Google Reader I'm finally starting to read them again, so here goes nothing!! ;)

New Blog in Google Reader

Not sure how Terry Ryan wasn't already in my blog list, but it came to my attention when I noticed various tweets about Terry being in his first staff meeting at Adobe as an Evangelist. Congrats to Terry on his appointment. I hope his passion to see ColdFusion in Higher Education reaches us here in the UK.

ColdFusion Conference Stuff

Close to home Andy and Kev have been busy promoting Scotch on the Road (if you missed the news, there won't be a Scotch on the Rocks this year!) and asking would you attend SotR in Manchester, announcing the Edinburgh venue and the ticket price! Its been a busy few days for SotR. ;)

If you want to learn a bit more about a small percentage of what ColdFusion can help you develop from your desk, I noticed that a bit further back than the 26th Kristen Scofield announcing ColdFusion eSeminars. At this point you will have missed most of the live performances, but Kristen provides a link to view the recordings.

On other conference new Andy Allan, Peter Bell and Bob Silverberg announced that they would be speaking at cfObjective and Sean Corfield notes that cfObjective have posted the schedule for their May conference.

HTML, CSS and Design

All of the blogs I read tend to be from ColdFusion developers of all flavours, but every one of us has a variety of tasks that we undertake on a daily basis, so they also post articles on these aspects as well.

Dan Wilson posted an interesting article on compressing your CSS to speed up your website.

Semantic HTML seems to have come up in my work day conversations a few times over the last couple of months, so this article on Semantics in HTML5 on alistapart was of interest to me, as well as Beta New's post on the beta release of semantic search engine Sagoon. Personally, the jury is out on Sagoon at the moment.... Perhaps I'm just too used to google...

Ray Camden has posting a couple of interesting articles on jQuery and ColdFusion.

Its alway interesting to read articles on how to do things better and alistapart always seems to deliver - Here's a nice article on advanced javascript debugging.

ColdFusion Techie Stuff

On to the ColdFusion posts I found interesting.

Andy Allan posted an article on bypassing the web server configuration tool. Its something I seem to do all the time, other than to generate the appropriate mod file Apache, but its nice to have a good write up to remind yourself of what to do.

Its stuff I've seen previously in the past, but you never remember and can never seem to find again. Mark Kruger has been writing up all his problems and resolutions whilst using cfhttp. Here are those posts.

Kevin Roche has written a couple of articles on using onMissingMethod() to generate generate getters/setters for an object based on the cfproperty tag. This is actually something that farcry has been doing for a long long time now, but its always interesting to see how new(ish) CF features are being used to implement fun tricks like this.

There's also been a flurry of blog post on how to install the various ColdFusion engines on a variety of environments.

Sean Corfield has posted an article for Railo/CF/BD on Jrun. Matt Woodward and Dave Shuck have posted articles on using Tomcat as the underlying java server. These articles should help you to install any of these java application on to most java servers. (I wish I could find the blog post that reminded its readers that ColdFusion is a Java application!)

Application Updates

A few application updates for you :

Mark Mandel has released an update to ColdDoc

Nathan Mische notes briefly that ColdFire is now listed on the Firebug extensions page

Matt Woodward has posted that Open BlueDragon 1.0.1 has been released.

Podcasts

Not exactly a podcast but Brian Rinaldi and Peter Bell have been continuing their CFArguments. The latest ones being Hibernate or HiberNOT (ColdFusion and ORM) and http://www.remotesynthesis.com/post.cfm/cfargument-state-of-the-fusion.

Kev McCabe has posted the latest in the CFDoc podcasts from the UKCFUG. Andy Allan talks about conferences and Gert Franz talks about Railo.

Other

A couple of other bits and pieces of worth noting:

Kevin Roche posted that his colleague Roger Panton has started a London Adobe Business User Group. Speakers at the first meeting on the 11th will be Claude Englebert from Adobe EMEA, David McLean of PJ Media and Roger himself.

Sargeway has highlighted the online Flash Media Server user group. Given some of the work I've been involved in recently I've just joined myself and now I need to have a read through the various discussions.

A blast from the past dropped into my email from Joost the other - the cartoon TrapDoor. There are 10 episodes on Joost for you to watch. It really is as good as I remember it being!

Scotch on the Rocks : Session Notes

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 06:50:42 -0700

I mentioned previously in my Scotch on the Rocks Reviews post that two of my colleagues did write-ups of their days and sessions at Scotch.

Well, here are those write-ups.

Both of these guys are Senior Developers in the company with very different backgrounds and projects.
James' has been involved in projects like KPM Music's PLAY Production Music site. Andy's been working on Enigma's SiteBuilder product and the impending version 2 release. Their projects have had very different problems to solve and different technologies to solve those problems, giving them very different views of ColdFusion and CFML.

So anyway - enough waffle from me here are their write-ups. Enjoy.

James' summary:

Following my excursion to the Coldfusion conference in Edinburgh last Thursday, I have put together some notes that some of you may / may not be interested in.

The topics covered in this document are :

Modularizing your Flex Application with Cairngorm and Modules
Top level discussion on the best practices for the structure of medium to large Flex applications using design patterns such as MVC, Singletons and Observer. A basic understanding of Flash and Flex is required.

Document Driven Coldfusion 8
Dynamic data input and output using CF8 with PDF's. Using PDF's as an Offline data storage and form submission interface with CF8.

Getting to grips with Air and Aptana
AIR is the Adobe desktop application API. AIR applications are built using simple HTML, CSS, graphics and JavaScript. The AIR API also provides network access, client file system access, drag and drop style functionality and runs both on PC and Mac OS from the same executable file. Any JavaScript libraries including jQuery may be used to provide AJAX style web call functionality.

Coldfusion 8 Performance Monitoring & Alerts
Previously, CF7 servers could only be monitored using a third party monitor such as Coldfusion Reactor. CF8 now comes with a built in monitor and alerts system which can be launched through the CFIDE Server Monitoring tab

Also announced at the conference was the merge of JBoss and Railo and that Railo is to become open source. Everybody got very excited and clapped at this news but I didn't really understand! I am hoping Stephen is going to elaborate on this for me!

Download the notes

Andy's summary:

Event Driven Programming
A very nice paradigm for structuring applications The Modern Way - some excellent stuff here that we could all learn a lot from.

Keeping your Apps and Servers Healthy
A nice introduction to a variety of useful monitoring tools, some nice tips, and a preview of fusionAnalytics, which will be a must-have when it comes out.

Architecting Apps for Multiple UI Technologies
Harder to summarise, but some nice ideas for better designing one's application architecture to suit multiple UIs. Also some good general purpose programming guidelines

Advanced Model Glue
Some features of the Model Glue framework that many people (apparently) don't know exists. As I didn't know anything about Model Glue at all, I found this one very enlightening, and made me want to try a lot of the stuff mentioned.

Complementing CFML with Open Source Java.
The least useful of the lot, but still interesting. There's a lot of Java frameworks out there which can be used out-of-the-box with Coldfusion, and they're usually a lot more capable and fully featured than their CF equivalents (if such exist). They're also way more complex and a right pig to install.

Download the notes

I also wanted to mention a couple of people that didn't get the recognition that they deserved for their work and assistance at Scotch. In no particular order, a big thank you to Leanne, Andy's better half, and Jatin Nanda (manager of the forthcoming UK RIA User Group) for all the work that they put into making Scotch a success behind the scenes before and during the conference.

Scotch on the Rocks: Railo joins JBoss!

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 21:44:29 -0700

Amazing news heard first at Scotch on the Rocks!
Railo has joined the jboss community! What does this mean?

Railo will be going to two versions. Railo Community, which will be Open Source under the lGPL licence and Railo Enterprise, which will include the likes of their new CFVideo tag and CFDocument tag.

Becoming part of the JBoss community opens up CFML to a huge new community of application developers with the possibility of integration with the likes of Hibernate and JBoss Cache with takes like cfdata and cfcache

Whether these tags see the light of day will be down to the Railo Community.

Why JBoss? Its a big Java community that can help much more with development of the application server. There are so many possibilities and to be honest some of it is a bit above my head, but be sure I will be reading up on it and watching what happens!

There's not much there at the minute, but you will be able to find Railo Community here : http://www.jboss.org/railo/ and I'll leave any more commentary to people more knowledgeable than myself.

Scotch on the Rocks : Day One

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 20:16:55 -0700

Scotch has begun! The turn out is superb and despite a few minor problems everything seems to be going great!

I've just done a quick head count and it looks like we have about 130 delegates here at the minute. There are a bunch of unclaimed passes and a bunch of people that will be here on other days, so I think we're probably looking at more as the day goes by and on the other days.

I'm currently sitting in Matt Woodward's session on General OO, enjoying a little bit of a sit down after running around with Kev, Jatin, Andy and his better half, Leanne, making sure everything was ok for speakers in the first sessions.

We've had a couple of hiccups, but I think a lot of the lessons we learnt from last year's Scotch on the Rocks are coming in to play and definitely feels to be running smoother than last year.

Well, best sign off, soon be time for the next session... Who to look in on?? Peter Bell - requirements and Estimating or Nicolas Lieman - Web Analytics for the developer? I'll probably just float.

Hope everyone is enjoying the conference so far! Tonight's BOF on Open Bluedragon should be interesting!! Hope to see you there and catch up with as many of you as possible.

SOTR 2008: Early Bird - The end is nigh!

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:21:06 -0700

Last chance to get your early bird prices for Scotch on the Rocks!! Last chance to get £100 off the price of your ticket!
Do it now! Tomorrow will be too late!

Find out about the speakers and topics that will be being discussed : http://www.scotch-on-the-rocks.co.uk/
There might even be some Open Bluedragon discussions that aren't on the agenda... Given that 4 of the committee members will be at the conference... ;)

Scotch on the Rocks : Early Bird coming to the end

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 07:25:31 -0700

Seven days left! Thats all there is before the early bird discount ends.

We're into April now, so your boss should be now have budgets opened up for the new financial year. Make him really happy by persuading him to buy your tickets to Scotch on the Rocks (probably the best conference you'll attend in the UK this year) NOW! Right now!! Before the end of the month, while the ticket prices are still at the early bird price.

Here's what you'll be missing out on if you don't get your tickets now.

Ticket Type	Before	After	Saving
1 Day Conference Ticket	£99 + VAT	£149 + VAT	£50 + VAT
2 Day Conference Ticket	£149 + VAT	£199 + VAT	£50 + VAT
3 Day Conference Ticket	£199 + VAT	£299 + VAT	£100 + VAT
FlexiPass	£299 + VAT	£399 + VAT	£100 + VAT

That's right! If you're coming to the full conference, paying for your ticket now will save your boss (or you) £100! (£117.50 if you can't claim the VAT back)

You know you want to! You really don't want to miss out on a 3 day conference with a speaker list like this at these incredible prices!

Adobe Consulting EMEA
Charlie Arehart (Everyone's favourite CF expert)
Sanjeev Kumar (From the ColdFusion Engineering team)
Jason Delmore (ColdFusion Product Manager)
Amir Shoval (From RADView)
Nick Watson (Adobe's EuropeanTechnical Account Manager for ColdFusion, Flex and LiveCycle Data Services ES)
Luca Mezzalira (Italian Flash Platform Developer)
Neil Webb (Flash platform developer / flower arranger / erotic dance)
Toby Tremayne (CF and Flex Developer based in Melbourne Australia)
Andrew Shorten (Adobe Platform Evangalist)
Adam Lehman (Adobe CF Specialist)
Kai Koenig (Adobe Certified Master Instructor based in New Zealand)
Ben Forta (No idea who this guy is)
Peter Elst (ACE, Flash Instructor, Belgium AUG Manager)
David Rutter (CTO Tag Worldwide)
Duncan Jack (Openworld)
Ian Bale (Celtic Internet)
Simon Gladman (Development Director, Tag Worldwide)
Neil Middleton (The man behind Feed-Squirrel)
Gert Franz (Railo)
Matt Woodward (ColdFusion Weekly Podcast)
Sean Corfield
Peter Bell (Application Generation)
Scott Stroz (Alagad, CFSilence, CFSnippets)
Joe Rhinehart (Model-Glue)
Mark Drew (CFEclipse)

I'm absolutely sure I've missed some! And of course there's Jatin Nanda, Big Mad Kev, myself and, the man in the skirt, Andy Allan, who will be working working hard to make sure that this conference is everything you want it to be and more!

Visit the website to find out more about the speaker, the agenda, location and to BUY YOUR TICKETS while they are still cheap as chips! ;)

Scotch on the Rocks : Speaker Schedule

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 04:38:00 -0700

There's been a couple of updates on the Scotch website today.First of all there is a first draft of the schedule for the three days of the conference. Download the pdf that will show you all the speakers and their topics, the days that they will be speaking on. This is only the first draft and if you think that there are topics that clash in the tracks, then please don't hesitate to let us know. After all, as we've always said, this is a conference for developers by developers. Something that we haven't mentioned before, but I think has the potential to be really exciting. This year we have the facility and the speaker-base to be able to offer ad hoc sessions.
What does this mean for you as a delegate? We spend a lot of our time talking to the speakers and the delegates through out the conference. If we find that there is interest in a particular topic that we don't already have on the agenda, we will do our best to set up a session to cover this topic. How's that for a dynamic conference about dynamic technologies? ;) If you're looking for accommodation for the conference, we can help with that too now. Kev, has got us set up an affiliate with HostelBookers.com Use this search to help find a room. If you want to share a twin room with someone put a shout on the Scottish CFUG Google Group or give me a shout and I'll do it for you! Last but not least... See an interview with Mr T. Dare you invoke the wrath of Mr T and not come to Scotch? Take advantage of the last day of early bird discount!

Scotch on the Rocks 2008 - Early bird ends Friday

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 04:32:00 -0700

Just wanted to quickly remind everyone that the Scotch on the Rock early bird discount ends this Friday!! That's Friday 29th February. After this the price for a standard ticket will rise from £199+VAT for the three days to £299+VAT. So still an excellent deal, but just not quite as good as 3 days of conference with a ton of superb speakers and topics for only £199. If you don't already know, there will be some "CF9 Specials" at Scotch on the Rocks! We've got Ben Forta, Adam Lehman, Jason Delmore, Kristen Schofield plus some of the engineering team coming to Scotch and yes, they will be talking about CF9. Better hurry up and get your tickets. ;)

Scotch on the Rocks - Tickets on Sale!

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:10:00 -0700

Tickets for Scotch on the Rocks have gone on sale this morning! If you buy your ticket before 1st March you can get get £100 off the price of the ticket!That's right! £100 saving! There are two types of ticket available this year; Your standard delegate pass, which is available for £199 and a company flexipass for £299 for the three days. So what's the difference? Why does the company Flexipass cost more?
The standard ticket is for one named delegate only, so only one person can use that pass to attend all three days of the conference.
The Flexipass can be used by one delegate per day. Its often difficult for any of us to justify being away from our desk for one day, let alone 3 days. What the Flexipass allows a company to do is send a different member of your development team each day. So why should you attend Scotch on the Rock 2008?

Take a look at the agenda and the speaker list!! There are some amazing speakers and topics at the conference this year! International speakers such as Matt Woodward, Peter Bell, Ben Forta, Toby Tremayne (coming all the way from Australia). European speakers such as Peter Elst (from Belgium) and local speakers such as Mark Drew and Neil Middleton, plus many many more! The topics at the conference cover anything from CF/Flex and ColdFusion and PDF, Railo, AIR APIs through to LiveCycle Data Services and Blaze! Why wouldn't you attend this conference!?! Why are you reading my blog still and not buying your tickets and booking your hotel room! ;)

SOTR 2008 : Speaker Announcements

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 21:59:00 -0700

If you haven't already seen, Andy Allan has been busy peppering the week with announcements of new speakers that we have confirmed for Scotch on the Rocks 2008.The latest speaker set of speakers are all web application developers from across the UK. So far we have:

Neil Middleton, the man behind Feed Squirrel
Simon Gladman, Development Director at Tag Worldwide
Ian Bale, co-director of Celtic Internet
Duncan Jack of Open Word, a speaker at both Scotch 05 and Scotch 07

I'm sure that there will be at least one more speaker to come this week. To find out more about Scotch on the Rocks and all of our speaker, both International and National, visit the website. http://www.scotch-on-the-rocks.co.uk

Scotch 007 Photos.

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 21:50:00 -0700

The photos I took at Scotch this year have been up on Flickr since the conference, but a certain Cybersonic has just been adding some notes and comments! Thanks to Oguz Demirkapı for all the other notes. Here's looking forward to Scotch on the Rocks 2008

Scottish CFUG Upcoming Meetings

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 17:38:00 -0700

Just a quick post to point out the two upcoming Scottish ColdFusion User Group events.The two events are on Thursday 25th October and Wednesday 31st October.The first of these on Thursday this week is Andy Allan giving a presentation on ColdFusion 8 at Tidalfire in Edinburgh - for more information and how to register to attend, please see the Scottish CFUG site meeting entry here : http://snipurl.com/scfugcf8tidalfire.

The second is a combined online and live event with the UKCFUG. This will be a MAX Debrief session, as well as UKCFUG Halloween party. For those of you that can attend the meeting in London there will be a copy of CF8 Standard to win. So if you weren't able to attend MAX Europe come along to the meeting either in London or via Adobe Connect and ask your questions! For more information times, the Connect URL and details of how to register for the London meeting take a look at the Scottish CFUG Events page : http://snipurl.com/scfugmaxdebrief. As ever - everyone is welcome to attend the Connect meeting where ever you may be. ;)