Mark Drew (Redux)- cf_etc...

Just updated on the SOTR Blog is the ticket pricing for next year's conference. It seems that it is an intelligent pricing model, which apart from the early bird at £199 + VAT till end of Feb, also has the idea of a Company Flexi Pass, which means that a different person from the same company can attend the conference on different days, very handy to spread the knowledge to your team without loosing the productivity for the whole conference. Check out the posting at http://www.scotch-on-the-rocks.co.uk/blog/index.cfm/2007/11/2/Ticket-Pricing-Announced

So its the saturday after the conference and I am sitting here in Starbucks in the Haymarket in Edinburgh mulling over what an excellent conference this was (and nursing a cold. Now I know why I lost my voice on the last day!). Lots of cool people turned up and Andy Allan, Stephen Moretti andKev McCabe did a most excellent job at sorting this out (and a big thank you to Stephen for letting me share a hotel room!) Overall I think this conference was a coming out parade for ColdFusion 8, which is now on Adobe Labs and both of the keynotes and one of my presentations had to do with the new features in the "Highly Anticipated Upcoming Version of ColdFusion" as Tim Buntel put it! Pros of the conference:

• It was a nice and intimate conference, it felt that you could get to talk to everyone there
• Speaker's VIP room. An excellent idea, since it gives speakers a chance to finish off their presentation etc, in peace
• The goodie bags! I love those Fuzzy Oranges!
• The venue (and the garden for us smokers) was excellent, and as a note, did you know that the "European in Scotland" Building used to be Adobe's headquarters in Scotland, and they put the lift in?
• Great to see the Railo guys next to the Adobe guys!

and actually, overall this was a superbly organized conference, I cant complain about much, but some constructive criticism I am sure can be welcomed... Cons:

• Name badges! I am terrible at remembering names (including my own some mornings) so it would have been great to have the delegate/speaker's names on the badges
• Aircon: now, I cant really be nasty about this, since the temperature in Edinburgh went from pretty damn warm to cold, but in one of my sessions (the AJAX one I think) the room got really hot, but they did sort this out the following day

And that is about it!, Well done guys! Presentations that I gave in the end: When I was asked to speak at Scotch, I was going to do my "usual" CFEclipse presentation and that was it, but with a couple of weeks to go I was asked to also do a CF8 AJAX presentation, which went well considering and even I learned a fair amount as I was giving it! Despite some of the changes in the language with the latest release! After talking to a few of the delegates, I asked Andy and Kev if they minded swapping one of the sessions out on the last day so that I could do (not prepared!) session on Coldspring as I thought this would give a lot of benefit to the delegates. Thankfully this went down fairly well (I think!) despite the fact that I was loosing my voice! And I hope people got a lot out of it! So, another great conference done and dusted. Andy can now have a very well earned rest!

Its nearly the end of the day here at Design UK Headquarters in Central London, and on this VERY exciting day I am heading off to Edinburgh to enjoy two days of awesome lectures at Scotch on the Rocks. I am really looking forward to this conference, as apart from myself doing TWO (yep, you heard right) different presentations, it is also the day that Coldfusion 8 finally went public! Mine's a large one!

How is that for a mouthful of a title? I shall be speaking tonight at 7pm GMT (2pm EST) with Nick Tong from cfframeworks.com about the newly released CF Frameworks Explorer for CFEclipse. Its one of these new fangled Adobe Connect rooms, you can join in by going here: http://adobechats.adobe.acrobat.com/frameworksexplorer/ (hopefully it will be recorded so if you cant make it tonight, you can watch it in your own time)

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I have just booked my flights (is it really worth it to go from London to Edinburgh?) to Scotch! I shall be getting there on Wednesday night and leaving on Saturday, so its a pretty brief time away, in a way, that is good, allows me to get everything ready for my CFEclipse presentation (more software than presentation) as well as the CF8 AJAX presentation later on in the day. Now that is 2 reasons you should go to Scotch, nevermind the free beer in the ColdFusion Celebration! Now to find a hotel (the conference is not in a hotel for a change!)...

I have been back from the cfObjective conference in Minnesota for a few days and it has allowed me to reflect a bit on how awesome a conference it was. Everything was spot on, the speakers, the venue, the food, the Jack Daniels (thanks to the ColdFusion Weekly guys for the bottle of Gentleman Jack!)! The CFEclipse presentation had a great turn out too, so much so that Jared had to move us into the main presentation room. I was astounded when I asked how many people used CFEclipse and nearly everyone put up their hands! Finally being able to show the world the CF Frameworks Explorer was the highlight of my presentation. I am over the moon with the positive feedback, and for those that are experiencing bugs with it, don't worry, its in VERY active development! You can download it from the CFEclipse Update Site (http://www.cfeclipse.org/update) but also remember that you need to update your copy of CFEclipse too. If you are just getting started with it, I have updated the CFEclipse TV section of the CFEclipse website with a quick introduction to the frameworks explorer. With Scotch on the Rocks round the corner, I wanted to announce that Project:X will be demonstrated at Scotch on the Rocks. This is the only place that you will be able to see the unveiling of what I must say is going to be a fantastic addition to the CFEclipse project. It will REALLY speed up your development and is a perfect companion to the CF Frameworks Explorer. If that wasn't enough, I have just been informed by Andy Allan that there will be FREE Beer ("free as in beer" beer) at a conference that is a must if you are anywhere near Europe. It is very inexpensive for a conference with the quality of speakers that you would get at something double the size. If you haven't booked a place yet, get to it! I cannot stress enough about how much a conference of this quality goes to make you a better developer. If you think a couple of days away from work is too much to gain this kind of knowledge, then you don't deserve a pay raise.

Now, here is an offer you can't refuse! Kev is going to give away 25 british pounds (that is like $5000 or something) to tickets number 75 and 100 for Scotch on the Rocks! This is a great conference, and you should tell everyone you work with and other ColdFusion developers that are not in the community about this. Scotch will be a great conference, here in our UK backyard of Scotland, cheap as chips too at only ?80 odd quid to attend two jam packed days of conference! No excuses now, and you can even get yourself a few drinks thanks to Kev! What other conference gives you money eh?

Finally the sessions are up for all the conferences, which for me, gives me an idea of when I shall be presenting, and more importantly who I shall be following onto the stage, which having looked at this years conferences, is a very scary proposition! Firstly at cfObjective I am following Mark Mandel, another Mark, and I am sure everyone is going to confuse his Australian accent for my London accent and thing we are either both from the same country, or the same person (just notice the difference in space I take up compared to him, that will let you know who-is-who), but at least I shall be pulling Project:U out of the bag then! What I feared the most come true, I am following Ben Forta onto the stage on the first day of Scotch on the Rocks. How can I follow that? Project:X is going to have to be really damned amazing to follow Ben "The Force" Forta! Then at CFUnited I seem to be presenting on the last day. The issue will be not so much following someone onto the stage but who else is presenting at the same time, and I have devastating opposition, Joe Rinehart doing a great AJAX presentation and John Paul Ashenfelter talking about Build, Test, Deploy, I doubt I will get anyone coming over to see what is happening with CFEclipse and Project:C !!! Nonetheless, I am really looking forward to the summer!

Before I forget, Andy Allan is back down in town, the man behind the upcoming Scotch on the Rocks! We are meeting up for a few drinkies over in Waterloo station, so come on over and join us! More info at the UKCFUG website

Jared has finally announced some of the speakers for the cfObjective conference, and amongst many of the luminaries such as Sean, Ray and Joe you will find me presenting on CFEclipse! This is going to be one hot conference so book your tickets early I say! If you don't you are going to miss the announcement of a new project I have been working on. This *top secret* project is so amazing, I am asking Jared to fit seat-belts to each of the seats as I am sure when I show this off, people *WILL* fall off their chairs. I am REALLY excited about this project, the few people I have shown it to have been very impressed and I know when I show it live and working, jaws will drop. So what are you waiting for? Go register now! Also, if you cant make it to cfObjective, there is also Scotch on the Rocks a month later, where we shall also be unveiling another feature that is going to make you so excited your socks will have to be stapled to your feet. This will be the year of massive announcements from me by the way :) Oh... and I am working on *ANOTHER* top secret project, which I hope to announce in the next few weeks. In the meantime, I am trying to fit something called *life* and *sleep* in somewhere but I can do those in the winter. P.s. Don't even ask me what I am announcing at CFUnited, I know that will also make people do a little wiggle too!