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Next Meeting August 12 - Mark Piller: Building Flex Applications with ColdFusion

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 13:36:00 GMT

Make sure to join us August 12 for our regular monthly meeting. We will be starting off the evening as usual by covering some basic ColdFusion training topics during the first hour. August training topics will be:

Getting started with CFCOMPONENT
Working with XML in ColdFusion
JQuery and ColdFusion

In the second hour, Mark Piller will present on the subject of building Flex applications with ColdFusion. He is going to describe integrating an alternative approach to LiveCycle and demonstrate the benefits of the integration. The group will learn about developer productivity tools, remoting and data management concepts. Mark has been working on some exciting stuff in this space, and we are fortunate to get this opportunity!

About Mark Piller: Mark Piller is the founder and Chief Architect of Midnight Coders, an innovative and forward-thinking company specializing in RIA integration technologies, professional services and training. Mark has over 15 years of software development experience. For the past five years he has been specializing in building software infrastructure products designed to integrate Flex, Flash, and AJAX applications with a variety of backend systems, including .NET, Java, PHP, and Ruby on Rails. Mark is very passionate about ease-of-use of software and prides himself in creating technologies that clearly demonstrate that quality.

Next meeting - May 13, 2008 - Document Generation in CF8 and Big Announcement!

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:38:00 GMT

All, here is a reminder to put the next meeting on your calendars for May 13. Here is our current agenda:

Training Time:
6:30-6:45 SQL Tips, Tricks and Best Practices - Robert Froehling
6:45-7:00 Structures and Arrays - TBD
7:00-7:15 CFQUERY - TBD

10 minutes on.... (Dave)
5:00-10:00 General Introductions/News

CF In depth:
Document Generation in CF8 - Conrad Davis

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As you can see, we are looking for volunteers to cover the two intro topics: Structures and Arrays and CFQUERY. Let this serve as an invitation for you to give it a shot! Keep in mind that these are entry level training topics, and you do *not* need to be an expert to fill that spot. Just know your topic and share what you know.

Oh.... and what about that "Big Announcement" in the title? We have some big news to share that will have a large impact on our group. Make sure to join us so you can find out what it is!

Monthly Meeting - Tuesday April 8 - New meeting format!

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 13:52:00 GMT

The DFW ColdFusion User Group will be altering the meeting format a bit, based on member feedback from the last meeting. For more information on this please read this post. Based on this new format, below you will find the schedule for the April monthly meeting. Please note the CF In Depth topic is CFIMAGE which will kick off a 3 meeting series where we will explore CF8 specific features of ColdFusion.

Training:
15:00 SQL tricks and best practices - Robert Froehling
15:00 CFOUTPUT - Joe Kelly
15:00 Application.cfc - Tom Woestman

10 minutes on.... - Dave Shuck (topic pending)

5:00-10:00 General Introductions/News

CF In Depth:
1:00:00 CFIMAGE - Steve Good

Make sure to join us at our regular meeting time of 6:30. Check here for directions and more information. See you there!

Next meeting: Tuesday March 11 - Flex 3 and Group Planning meeting - and pizza!

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 06:12:00 GMT

All, make sure to join us on Tuesday March 11 for our monthly meeting.

This meeting will be a slightly different format from our traditional presentation style meetings. We will begin the evening with short discussion about the Flex 3 release, and what that means to us as ColdFusion developers. As of the time of this posting, we plan on covering some of the key topics that were presented at the Flex 3 lauch events.

After that, we will be talking a bit about the direction of our User Group. We would like to have spend some time with some of our regular attendees and talk about the things you would like to see our group doing. We plan on talking about meeting ideas, presentation topics, meeting location, and more. Come with lots of ideas. What's in it for you? Well in addition to helping to custom tailor your User Group, we are going to buy pizza!

Dave Shuck will be out of the country until March 9, so if you have any questions, please contact Joe Kelly or Tom Woestman. Their contact information can be found here.

See you there!

Next meeting: Tuesday, Jan 8, 2008 - Dave Shuck on Mach-II User Authentication

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 13:10:43 GMT

Make sure to join us for our first meeting of the year this coming Tuesday, January 8, 2008 as we kick off the new year. Dave Shuck will be doing a presentation on implementing Use Authentication in a Mach-II application. If time permits, Dave will also be covering the new features in the soon-to-be released Mach-II 1.6 and ... possibly some insight into 2.0?

In addition to Dave's presentation, we will be discussing the upcoming Flex 3 pre-release party in Dallas, be giving away lots of Adobe goodies and more.

For Meeting location, directions and time, check out our Meetings Page.

See you then!

Link to last night's presentation and wrap-up

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 15:27:35 GMT

All, here is the link to last night's presentation by Luis Mujano on his Coldbox framework presentation:

http://adobechats.adobe.acrobat.com/p38197000/

More information can be found at:
http://www.coldboxframework.com/

If you missed this presentation I urge you to take a look. It is no secret that I am a big fan of the Mach-II framework, however, I must say that I was pretty blown away by the magnitude of work that has been put in on that framework and how feature rich it is.

Thanks to Mike Kelp for offering another presentation on his continuing series of CFEclipse features. I think it is safe to say that everyone in the room walks away with something they didn't know before each time he presents.

After the meeting we discussed some ideas about the CFUG, including an idea that I have been kicking around now for the better part of a year about our group trying to host a small conference here in this area. I have some general thoughts and ideas, but would like to bounce them off of some of our members who might be interested in exploring this idea further. I have created s Google group specific to that discussion, so you you are interested, please contact me.

Final Monthly meeting of 2007! December 11 - 6:30pm

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 00:49:54 GMT

This is a last minute reminder of our monthly meeting Tuesday night December 11 at 6:30.

We will begin the meeting at 6:30 with a short presentation by Mike Kelp continuing his series of CFEclipse features.

Immediately following we will have a live presentation via Adobe Connect from Luis Mujano about his ColdFusion application framework Coldbox.

After the presentations wrap up we will be doing our semi-annual software giveaway in which we will give away any Adobe product up to $2000 in value! In addition we will be giving away some Adobe swag items and I will be announcing some new ideas for 2008. Be sure to join us. For meeting location/directions, make sure to check the meetings page.

Next meeting: Tuesday November 13 - The next step in OO development

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 19:14:01 GMT

Make sure to join us Tuesday night, November 13, 2007 at 6:30 for our monthly meeting.

This month we will start off with a short presentation by Mike Kelp covering CFEclipse as part of an ongoing series talking about features and benefits of using CFE for ColdFusion development.

Following Mike, Adrian Moreno will be doing a presentation covering "The next step in OO development", covering real world usage of object oriented principles in ColdFusion development.

For meeting information and directions, be sure to check out Meeting page. See you there!

Next meeting: Tuesday October 9 - ColdFusion and Ajax by Chris Jordan

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 17:40:37 GMT

Make sure to join us Tuesday, October 9 for our monthly Dallas/Ft. Worth ColdFusion User Group meeting!

Dave Shuck will be starting the meeting with a brief demonstration of using Subversion to manage source control using Subclipse and CFEclipse. The topic will cover general concepts, checking out projects, managing/merging conflicts and a brief question and answer session.

Immediately following, Chris Jordan will be taking the floor to give a presentation on working with Ajax in ColdFusion. With Christopher's extensive work with JQuery, this should be a great topic, so make sure to be there!

Please check the Meetings page for more information about location and times. See you there!

About Chris - Chris is a 32 year old computer programmer from Mansfield Texas working for Planet Access. He's been programming for the web using ColdFusion since 2003, and has written code in versions 4.5, 5, 6.1 and 8 (yep skipped version 7 completely!) Other languages he's used include: JavaScript, PHP, Pearl, and C. He also wrote a few scripts for the Korn and Bash shells back in the late '90s. He is the primary author/maintainer of the open source project: CFJS.

Next meeting: Tuesday September 11 - Intro to CFCs and Object Oriented Programming in ColdFusion

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 17:10:22 GMT

Make sure to join us Tuesday for a night full of ColdFusion components. Our meeting will begin with a 30 minute presentation by Tom Woestman which is an introduction to using ColdFusion Components (CFCs) in your code.

After this presentation, Dave Shuck will be doing a presentation in which we will take a small procedural application and refactor it to use CFCs. After replacing all in-line queries with component method calls, we will then take the next step and move the application into the Mach-II 1.5 framework and introduce dependency injection with ColdSpring. If you are new to some of these concepts, this is not a meeting you will want to miss!

As a side note, we are still looking for a new meeting location, so the meeting place is still at TEKSystems as is listed on the meeting page.

See you there!

ColdFusion 8 Launch Meeting August 14!

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 16:44:15 GMT

Some of you might have noticed the somewhat cryptic announcement on the DFWCFUG blog last week.

Now that CF8 is officially released, we can be a little more forthcoming with the meeting info, so here goes.

As we had discussed on the list and in the last meeting, the August meeting was going to consist of an "into to CFCs" short presentation by Tom Woestman, followed by a presentation by me in which I take an existing procedural application and converting it first to using objects, then secondly putting it into a framework. Due to the big Adobe news this morning, this meeting will be postponed until September. With that said, our August 14th meeting is slated to be a ColdFusion 8 Launch meeting. We have some giveaways... including...... one free copy of ColdFusion 8 Standard Edition!!!!! In addition, we are going to have a Connect presentation by none other than Ben Forta, which is recording exclusively for the Adobe CFUGs. As a word of warning, I am told that this presentation may include much of what he showed on his Scorpio Tour, however, since Dallas was in the first week of presentations the content was added to significantly by the end of the tour.

In addition, we will have free pizza that night, so come hungry!

We are still actively trying to find a new meeting location, but for the August meeting, we will still be in the TekSystems office. Hopefully we will be in a new home by September, so stay tuned.

NOTE Topic change for August 14 meeting - Presentation on CF8

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 17:37:57 GMT

As discussed in the last meeting and on the email list, the topic for the August 14 meeting was going to be converting legacy applications to OO, and taking an existing small application and convert it to a Mach-II application in order to demonstrate how all these pieces fit together.

However, due to some behind the scenes details, we now have a big ColdFusion 8 meeting in the works, with a presentation by a super-secret special guest.

More details will follow in the coming week. Stay tuned!

Code from last night's Flex presentation by Clint Tredway

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 19:34:18 GMT

Clint Tredway offered the DFWCFUG members an *excellent* presentation on Flex 2 last night. As he mentioned during his presentation, he has posted the code so that we can all go play with it ourselves!

Make sure to visit his blog and download the code from the presentation.

Open call: DFWCFUG is looking for a new meeting location

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 12:14:59 GMT

The good news? We have grown!

The bad news? We no longer fit in our meeting location!

This is an open call to the members of the DFWCFUG. If you know of a place that would be conducive to holding our user group meetings the 2nd Tuesday of every month, please contact us. Our attendance is currently hovering around 20-25 people, but it would be nice to have a place that not only support growth but additionally support occasional spikes due to high-interest events. The location should have a projector that we could have access to, and internet access would be a big plus.

Considering the fact that we have members that travel from Garland, Ft. Worth, Denton, and McKinney and other metroplex extremities, we would ideally like to keep the meetings somewhere close to where we are currently meeting, as the 635/35 area is fairly central to our membership. However, even if you are outside that area feel free to submit the idea!

Next meeting: Tuesday July 10 - Clint Tredway on Flex

Fri, 06 Jul 2007 21:14:12 GMT

Make sure to join us on Tuesday July 10, 2007 as Clint Tredway gives the group a presentation on Flex. With the growing demand for Flex development, this is a meeting that you don't want to miss.

In addition, and prior to his presentation, Joe Kelly will be giving a wrap up of his and Tom Woestman's experience at CFUnited 2007 and speak about some of the topics and events that went on this year at the conference.

Also, this month will be the first month that we begin our 6-month raffle which will culminate in December. As was mentioned to the group recently, each 6 months Adobe allows us to raffle off one piece of software valued up to $2000 to one of our members. Each of the next 6 meetings, anyone attending will receive an entry into the raffle, and a winner will be selected from all entries at that meeting. The more meetings that you attend, the greater your chances are, but you must be present at last meeting to win the raffle.

See you Tuesday!

Next meeting: June 12, 2007 - Mark Drew on CFEclipse

Sat, 02 Jun 2007 02:10:35 GMT

Greetings all! We have a big meeting scheduled for June 12.

Tom Woestman will be kicking off the meeting with a short "Intro to OO" presentation that will run 15-20 minutes. Then at 7PM, Mark Drew will be joining us live from the UK via an Adobe Connect presentation to show us the latest and greatest going on with the CFEclipse project. Also, Adobe has sent as a box of goodies including some Apollo and Flex goodies, some t-shirts, Adobe coffee cups and more.... and then....... we raffle off any Adobe software package (limit $2000) to one very lucky attendee. Don't miss this!

Dave Shuck will be unavailable through the 10th, but Aaron Lynch has offered to be a contact point until he returns from vacation on June 10. If you have questions, he can be contacted through his Spot at http://ajlcom.instantspot.com/index.cfm/show/Contact-Me

See you on the 12th!

Presentation Materials and sample code from Transfer ORM presentation

Wed, 09 May 2007 02:30:36 GMT

For the May 8 DFWCFUG meeting, Dave Shuck gave a presention on Transfer ORM. It was mentioned during the meeting that the sample code would be available after the meeting so that you can jump right in. The presentation materials compliments of Mark Mandel (slightly altered by Dave), the sample code, and the SQL backup script are available for download here.

There were several projects and sites that were mentioned tonight. Check the links below:

Meeting Tuesday May 8, 2007 - Dave Shuck on Transfer ORM

Mon, 07 May 2007 14:37:38 GMT

All, we will return to our regularly monthly meeting schedule tomorrow night returning to our normal meeting location at TEKSystems tomorrow night. Fresh of his return from the cf.Objective() conference, Dave Shuck will give a recap of the highlights of the cf.Objective() conference, in addition to presenting an Introduction to Transfer ORM, in addition to a recap of the highlights of the cf.Objective() conference.

Check the Meetings page for details on location and time.

See you there!

Link to recording of Steve Bryant's DataMgr presentation

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 18:54:57 GMT

Steve was unable to record Tuesday night's presentation of DataMgr. However, he did the same presentation the following evening for another CFUG and was kind enough to pass along a link to the recording of that one for our users.

Check out the Acrobat Connect recording of DataMgr

Great presentation from Steve Bryant on DataMgr!

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 09:57:55 GMT

Last night Steve Bryant offered the DFW CFUG a great presentation live from Tulsa, OK via Acrobat Connect covering his free and open source DataMgr project. Rather than some abstraction tools that are intended to basically be your data model, DataMgr seems to take more of the roll of the interaction with the database itself, whether you want to use it within the DAO/Gateway of an OO system or whether you just use it as your database layer on action pages of procedural code.

Some of the features that Steve presented include:

Full dynamic querying capability, including the ability to call a "save" method and let DataMgr determine whether a row should be created or updated.
It can perform "Active Schema" work - the ability to generate tables that don't yet exists on a system, including the ability to have "seed" data that will be inserted into a table as it is created. This would be a very cool feature when it comes to either deploying an application or moving an application from development to production.
DataMgr has many cool features such as "Special" functionality on existing columns and "Relation Fields" which make fake columns with aggregate data and such.
You can flip DataMgr into "sim" mode which basically creates fake databases including generated data that makes prototyping a breeze without the need for a database to actually exists.
Very cool feature that actually scrubs for special characters such as MS Word's "smart quotes" an turns them into their standard equivalents.
Other notable features include the ability to throw special error messages for data that is too long for columns. It also has a setting that allows you DataMgr to truncate strings to make them fit.
The ability to add and maintain "sort" columns in tables.
The ability to turn on verbose logging of each data transaction, returning not only the exact SQL that was run, but a dump of the structure of data that was passed to DataMgr.
much more...

I strongly urge you to go check out Steve's product. Here are several urls to get you going:

Main Project Page on RIAForge
DataMgr demo - NOTE: at the bottom of every page, you will see the actual CFML that was used to generate the page
Additional project information

RSS feed for InstantSpot site DFWCFUG

Next Meeting August 12 - Mark Piller: Building Flex Applications with ColdFusion

Next meeting - May 13, 2008 - Document Generation in CF8 and Big Announcement!

Monthly Meeting - Tuesday April 8 - New meeting format!

Next meeting: Tuesday March 11 - Flex 3 and Group Planning meeting - and pizza!

Next meeting: Tuesday, Jan 8, 2008 - Dave Shuck on Mach-II User Authentication

Link to last night's presentation and wrap-up

Final Monthly meeting of 2007! December 11 - 6:30pm

Next meeting: Tuesday November 13 - The next step in OO development

Next meeting: Tuesday October 9 - ColdFusion and Ajax by Chris Jordan

Next meeting: Tuesday September 11 - Intro to CFCs and Object Oriented Programming in ColdFusion

ColdFusion 8 Launch Meeting August 14!

*NOTE* Topic change for August 14 meeting - Presentation on CF8

Code from last night's Flex presentation by Clint Tredway

Open call: DFWCFUG is looking for a new meeting location

Next meeting: Tuesday July 10 - Clint Tredway on Flex

Next meeting: June 12, 2007 - Mark Drew on CFEclipse

Presentation Materials and sample code from Transfer ORM presentation

Meeting Tuesday May 8, 2007 - Dave Shuck on Transfer ORM

Link to recording of Steve Bryant's DataMgr presentation

Great presentation from Steve Bryant on DataMgr!

NOTE Topic change for August 14 meeting - Presentation on CF8