Posted By : Dan Wilson     August 18, 2008 9:43 AM

I don't know what they put in the water in Bloomington, Indiana, but the people there are CRAZY. The excellent leadership over at the Bloomington Flex User Group, the Indiana University Flash User Group, and the Indiana University Multimedia User Group have put together a 2 day training/conference event on Flex and ColdFusion for free. That's right, 200 lucky people will get their skills expanded on the hottest technology powering the web today, and won't pay a dime for it.

The event organizers booked leading experts in Flex and ColdFusion to run the sessions. And when they ran out of leading experts, they send me an email asking if I'd help out. I'll present 2 CF sessions and assist in the Flex Hands On. Here are the descriptions:

Refactoring In Coldfusion - From Procedural to OO

If you would like to know how to migrate an existing procedurally programmed application into an object oriented one, grab a chair and sit for a while. We'll discuss some sensible guidelines designed to help you make incremental changes towards OO nirvana.
We'll also look at lots of code samples, we all like code samples, right?

Fun With ColdSpring

The secret ingredient to modular and maintainable OO applications in ColdFusion is the ColdSpring framework. Efficient and practical use of ColdSpring is easy. In this source code based presentation, we'll cover installation, Dependency Injection, Factories, Configuration, Dynamic Properties, Complex DI Strategies and also look at practical usage inside of production applications.

So if you can make it to Bloomington, IN, Sept 6-7, and want targeted training on Flex and ColdFusion, Sign Up for BFusion/BFlex today!

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     August 6, 2008 8:36 AM

I read a lot of technical blogs because I benefit in knowing more about the thoughts and positions of others. Whether I agree with them, or disagree, the thought process is something that helps me sharpen my technical skills.

So it is of great anticipation that a new blog, The Argument Collection, just had her maiden voyage.

Consisting of some of the more thought provoking minds on the CF landscape, this blog promises to deliver timely information on how to solve problems. Sean, Ray, Joe, Brian and Nicolas all are accomplished programmers, thinkers and have great ability to convey highly technical matters in ways that simple minds like me can grasp the concepts.

I've added The Argument Collection blog to my feed reader, you should as well.

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     July 24, 2008 9:06 AM

Just a friendly reminder, tonight I am giving a presentation on ColdSpring to the Best Darned ColdFusion User Group out there!

We'll cover installation, Dependency Injection, Factories, Configuration, Dynamic Properties, Complex DI Strategies and also look at some practical usage.

As usual, Pizza and refreshments for all. We're going to have a good time tonight.

More info on the July Meeting Page at TACFUG.org

The zip containing the code files reviewed in the application is attached to this post. Click the download link for Fun With ColdSpring Files.

Download

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     July 9, 2008 11:53 AM

I am going to be giving a presentation to The Triangle Area ColdFusion User Group entitled Fun with ColdSpring.

This is the description I am shopping around:

This month Dan Wilson presents on Fun with ColdSpring. ColdSpring is a wonderful framework used when working with CFC based applications. Using ColdSpring effectively reduces the complexity of CC based applications, saves time, makes applications easier to understand and adds a nice tool to the Rapid Development toolkit. Come see what all the fuss is about.

My plan is to show practical examples of how to use ColdSpring in OO applications. I would like some ideas on the sort of stuff I should cover.

So, if you haven't used ColdSpring before and you have questions, please leave a comment and tell me what you would like covered.

If you use ColdSpring some, and you want to know about certain features, please add them in the comments below.

If you are an expert ColdSpring user and you have something fancy that you feel should be definitely covered, please leave a comment.

ColdSpring is a wonderful framework and the topic area is quite broad. I'd like to talk about the things people are most curious about..... your input is appreciated.

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     July 9, 2008 8:26 AM

I am on-site this week in NYC. As luck would have it, the NYCFUG met with Michael Dinowitz (a.k.a. Papa Dinnie) presenting on the Google Webmaster Tools.

The majority of my IT experience has been in building enterprise class applications. I do not build websites (DO YOU HEAR THAT, FAMILY?), though I occasionally take on a client that needs help raising visibility for a product or a service so I was excited to hear Michael present on the Google webmaster tools.

If you have never been to an NYCFUG meeting, you should go. Skip the Empire State Building, forget a Broadway show, just go to CFUG. It was probably the most active CFUG meeting I had been to. There were lots of questions from the audience and some heated debates over some of the answers. I laughed, I cried and I thought there might be a stabbing at one point (Editors Note: Remove Gratuitious Exaggeration before publishing). It was a really good time.

So on to the talk. Michael spent an hour going over the Google Webmaster Tools and various strategies to arrange the facets of a website to improve ranking by Google. For example, See those fancy links to content inside the filezilla website?

Have you ever wondered where those come from? Michael covers it in his presentation. He also covers content optimization, site maps, external link management, proper redirects and other important topics.

After listening to Michael talk about this for an hour, I feel much more informed about the tools, tips and tricks I can use to help search engines interpret my site better. I also have a much greater awareness of the tools available that help manage websites. A big thanks to Michael for giving this excellent presentation.

Michael will make his presentation materials available soon. Check the NYCFUG site for more information.

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     June 10, 2008 12:19 PM

June 12th, at 6:00 PM EST, I present Refactoring in ColdFusion to the ColdFusion meetup. This presentation helps to show how to move a procedural code base from a procedural architecture to an Object Oriented Architecture. Through the presentation, we look at some procedural code and then look at an object oriented representation. By comparing and contrasting the two code samples, the audience will get a better idea how to use Object Oriented structures and how to migrate an existing code base.

I am excited to give this presentation to the ColdFusion MeetUp. I also am excited because I have some special news to share. I'll let the proverbial feline out of the proverbial containment device during the presentation.

The website for this presentation is http://coldfusion.meetup.com/17/calendar/8088894/. We begin at 6:00 EST. (http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/)

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     May 27, 2008 7:46 AM

I've been asked to make a feature that works with one of the popular map APIs. This feature would take a Start Point, End Point and a distance value and would generate a map showing the progress from the Start Point to the End Point.

For example, if the Start Point was Seattle, the End Point was Chicago and the distance value was 1000 miles, the map API would be used to create a map showing both Seattle and Chicago, with a line about 1/3rd of the way there.

Ideally, the mapping API used would be a publically available API available without cost. Seems easy, right? I'm not sure where to start. I would appreciate all input at this stage.

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     May 14, 2008 9:39 PM

I presented twice at the CFObjective() conference on Refactoring in ColdFusion from Procedural to OO. I love giving this presentation because it is the culmination of many many hours of practice and research expended when I made the transition from procedural programmer to OO programmer.

The basic premise of the presentation is how to take a pragmatic approach to refactoring. Rather than feeling the need to completely rewrite your application to achieve a good OO architecture ( Managers never like this idea), I offer a reasonable, incremental approach on moving pieces and part of your application at a time.

In the presentation, there are a handful of slides with guidelines and high-level talking points about migrating to OO and move right into the code samples. The code samples show common procedural structures and then a comparible Object Oriented structure. This compare/contract method helps programmers understand how to move toward common software patterns in their applications.

If you missed the presentation, and were not at one of the user group presentations I gave last month, you can still get in on the action by showing up at CFUnited. I've also included the slides and code samples in a zip. You can download it from the Features Pod on the right hand side of the page, or better yet, from the Flagrantly Cool SlideSix.com

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     April 14, 2008 7:33 PM

The word on the street is Transfer 1.0 will be in release candidate status at CF.Objective 2008. I've actually overheard that the Transfer code in SVN ( http://svn.riaforge.org/transfer ) is complete and ready for the 1.0 release, all that remains is documentation. Mark Mandel has been quite specific that the 1.0 release will be properly documented. It appears as if he has been quite busy. I just stumbled upon the new Transfer documentation and MAN is it looking sweet!

[More]

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Posted By : Dan Wilson     March 26, 2008 7:42 AM

I just finished giving my presentation on Refactoring in ColdFusion to the Triangle Area ColdFusion User Group. This was the first time I've given the presentation to a live audience and it went rather well. All the slides were in order and all the code samples were in place. We had a fun time, thanks to all who came out. I'd like to present this talk at least once more before May 1. If your CFUG is short a speaker and can host a Connect, let me know.

This presentation timed at 1:15. This is fine for a CFUG but a little over time for CF.Objective(), where the sessions are 60 minutes. To shorten it for the big show, I've whacked two of the 18 slides and have my eye on a third. Most people would rather see code samples than slides anyways, the slides are really to keep some structure in the presentation.

I could talk on this topic all day long but I'm definitely going to stick to the alloted 60 minutes at CF.Objective(). I'll save my pontificating for afterwards at the get togethers.

In other news, Phill Nacelli and I are having our sessions repeated on Sunday at CF.Objective(). Phill is talking about Leveraging Basic Design Pattern in ColdFusion and his session is the most popular of all sessions at CF.Objective() so far. Congrats Phill! We are both pretty stoked to be on the list of repeats.

If you haven't yet signed up for CF.Objective(), what are you waiting for? The Schedule is jam packed with awesome training from luminaries and experts in ColdFusion/RIA. Reading blogs can only get you so far. Come get trained by the best in the business. I plan on walking out of the conference 72% smarter, myself.

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