Mark Drew (Redux)- cf_etc...

Ok, you might have *other* reasons for going to CFUnited this year apart from wanting to hear me talk about Advanced CFEclipse, although I cannot imagine them (joking!). If you want a free (yes siree, FREE as in nada, nothing, zero, zip) ticket to CFUnited you have to listen to the most excellent ColdFusion Weekly podcast, which I presume you are already doing for goodness sakes! There is NO excuse not to! At the end of every episode from now to May they will be giving a valid entry code. Use your iTunes for something actually interesting and get listening! Note: You could be saving up to $849!!! You can spend it on buying me drinks!!!

Well, looks like MAX will be happening soon, and Jared has just announced that cf.Objective 2007 is a go! All very exciting!!! I would have loved to make it to MAX but I live in London, and Vegas is a tad far away (two trips to the US in one year is far to expensive!) but I am really looking forward to next year, hopefully I shall be able to make it to a couple of conferences out there. But lets not forget that in November we have CFDevCon happening here in the UK! Finally a conference here in the UK, alebeit a small one but its a start at least! Let me know if you are coming to CFDevCon, I shall be speaking (just for an hour, not my usual marathon 2 hours) showing some features of CFEclipse that people might not know. On that note, tonight I shall be speaking at the Thames Valley CFUG and showing some of the new features of CFEclipse, come along!

Ray Camden, Ryan Stewart and myself sat down and did a skype roundtable to roundup CFUnited last week. It was interesting to talk to these guys about their experiences of CFUnited. I shall be listening to this today on my way to work and you should too! Check it out over at the Coldfusion Podcast

Just thought I would let people know that I am back in the UK again, I had a fantastic trip in the US, first at CFunited in Rockville, Maryland and then a great week in San Francisco (all the usual you know? Golden Gate Bridge, Cable Cars, Tea Rooms etc). I just got back home to Greenwich and due to some problems on the freeway we managed to miss our flight so we got another day in San Francisco. So, tired and jet-lagged I am celebrating my 32nd birthday! Yep! I made it to 32, only 10 more years until I get to the magic number of 42! On another note, ColdFusion also has a celebration, it is 11 years old (as of yesterday so Ben Forta tells me in his blog) I shall be posting soon some more ideas I have had about CFEclipse and I shall get back to reading the issues people have been putting into the bug tracker. (so sorry for any delays getting back to everyone about the bugs they have been putting in!)

Here are some of the few photos I took over at CFUnited, enjoy!

...or a final wrap up of CFUnited 2006 by a conference first timer. I have to say that coming to CFUnited has been an amazing experience for me, I got to meet all the people that are involved in the tools I use every day and found out that this is an event not to be missed again (I am starting to save now for next year's CFUnited!) Over the last four days I have attended presentations that have given me a more rounded view on programming, met people that I had only known through email or their blogs and drank a boat load of beer (Go Sam Adams!!) I have also managed to get a bundle of feedback for CFEclipse, so many ideas from so many people (yep, I have been taking notice and I did write down at least 90% of them!) so for the next major version expect to see many new features that will help developers do their job right. The conference was fantastic, and very well set up, I hear there will be a DVD available so if you didnt make it you can catch up with all the presentations by the speakers, which I very strongly suggest! Only a couple of niggles which I hope are resolved by next time:

• better internet connection: maybe because there were so many people connecting it was hard to get a connection, hence the few posts about the conference
• more power points: I was running around in the afternoons trying to find a power point, there were tables for people to sit round and do some coding, just add a multi socket power point so we are not all dying of power thirst!

Now, to start saving for MAX!

Well, I am finally online and really looking forward to the second day at CFUnited. Yesterday was a long and thoroughly enjoyable day, it was great to finally meet up with a lot of the people I have been talking to for the last year or two and talk to them in the flesh (and drink and smoke with them too!) Apart from a number of fantastic presentations I attended , the most notable was the announcement that Tim Buntel is back at Adobe! He had left earlier this year but now he is back as the Product Marketing Manager for the ColdFusion team! This is an awesome turn up for the books! Keep your eyes peeled for a lot more ColdFusion action over the next few months! I shall be posting photos, once I remember to bring the dammed cable :) by the way, if anyone is looking for me... I am usually outside smoking... (the one in the CFEclipse t-shirt)

I realised this weekend after watching the bloody and dirty game between Portugal and Holland that England will be playing (football/soccer) Portugal on the saturday (at about 11am I think, needs to be confirmed, thats 4pm UK time at any rate) nearly straight after Sean Corfield's Objects and Persistance talk. So, here is the deal, anybody else want to join me into pressuring some bar to show the game? Its on ESPN and ABC (but what do I know of your channels eh?) so it IS available! This is going to be a crazy match as far as I can see from Portugal's previous behaviour against Holland, so its a definate must-see.