It was unfortunate. I was supposed to be speaking with Aaron Wolfe at CFUnited this year--one of the first presentations right after the keynote, to be exact. So, let me tell you how incredibly hard it was when Wednesday came and gone and the closest I could get to the conference was my Twitter feed. Of course, everyone has been saying this has been one of the best years so far, and I missed it. What does that mean? No teaching. No learning. No networking. No peer interaction. No socializing. No fun. No free drinks. No stay at a resort. No cool swag. No inspiration!!!

It's been a rough year for conferences for me. First, I missed Spring Break in Athens, OH. Then, it was the Centaur User Group Tour event here in Dayton. Then, CFUnited! Arrgghh!! For someone trying to stay active in the community (and a UG manager), I have failed miserably. Fortunately (or unfortunately), all of these instances have been out of my hands. Luckily, I might still get the chance to get some CF event love in before the end of the year. If any of you are in the same boat, you might get your chance as well.

There are two more events that I know of coming up in the next couple of months. The first is the first-ever FREE "CF in NC" cfinnc.com, a ColdFusion event in Raleigh, North Carolina. The event is being put on by the Triangle CFUG in Raleigh and spearheaded by Dan Wilson of nodans.com fame (and an accomplished developer and speaker). The event is October 17-18th over a weekend and is just getting off the ground. I am going to try to make this event as I have a sister-in-law who lives an hour away from Raleigh. Hopefully the drive won't be too daunting.

Another event closer to me personally is BFusion/BFlex in Bloomington, Indiana the following weekend, October 24-25th. This hybrid CF/Flex event is also over a weekend and has taken place the last few years. I attended last year and it was very well put together. There is a slight fee this year but it is miniscule and definitely shouldn't deter anyone from going. If anyone is within any reachable distance from Bloomington, they should be attending this conference.

While these are much smaller venues and not nearly as high-profile as CFUnited or MAX, they are also more intimate and often times a much better way to get to network and meet other developers. There is usually still some good swag from Adobe/sponsors at events like this, and the community interaction is always great.

If you're in the same position I've been in this year as far as conferences go, try to make one of the aforementioned events, or start your own! Talk to your local user group manager(s) about putting together a local event in your area. If there are other CF events you are aware of that I've not listed here, please leave a comment for all to see.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention one other small conference--MAX. I think I excluded MAX from being a CF conference despite the fact it is put on by Adobe mainly for two reasons: 1) I never get to go to MAX anymore because it is WAY too expensive and my company will never foot the bill 2) MAX is really an "Adobe" conference as opposed to a "ColdFusion" conference. Yes, there are quite a few CF tracks, but not the high concentration of CF-related presentation that comes with a CF only conference such as CFUnited or CfObjective(). There is a lot of concentration on other Adobe products I frankly never, ever use, like InDesign, After Effects, Soundbooth, etc.

MAX is a great conference, if one can afford it. But you know it's expensive when there is a "convince your boss" page on the site! I was lucky enough to get to go in '05 when it was in Anaheim, CA, the year before when it was in New Orleans, and the year before that in Salt Lake but haven't been back since. I don't know if I'd go back anytime soon. I'd rather attend a smaller, more intimate conference that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Yes, I enjoy traveling to locations like California, but it's just not cost-effective and honestly I'd rather go to California to play rather than to work. Just being honest!

MAX takes place October 4th-7th in L.A.

How can I say this without shedding some tears? It turns out Aaron Wolfe and I won't be speaking at CFUnited this year. Let's just say it's due to issues out of our control. We'd like to apologize to everyone who was looking forward to our session on error handling best practices. We know a lot of people were really looking forward to it. It breaks our hearts to not be able to go this year after all the preparation and planning.

This will be the first time in five years I personally won't be attending a major ColdFusion conference, and it's very, very disappointing. Aaron and I have been preparing for this talk for almost a year, and to drop out at practically the last minute, well, sucks.

On the bright side, for those of you fortunate enough to be able to attend the conference this year, there are some absolutely fantastic sessions at CFUnited '09. Check them all out here. I highly recommend anything by Ben Nadel--he is a major contributor to the community and one heck of a nice guy, so be sure to introduce yourself to him. I also recommend any sessions by Hal Helms, Ray Camden, Dee Sadler, Adam Lehman, and Elliott Sprehn, to name just a few.

I'm hoping we have another shot at speaking next year--right now we'll just have to wait and see.

The countdown is on! CFUnited is just a mere 49 days away, and the excitement is building. I think everyone has great anticipation for Centaur this year--I know I do! I think the sessions are going to be absolutely great as well. I've never seen a lineup this good.

I'm also looking forward to speaking for the first time at a major ColdFusion conference. It's a little nerve-wracking, but I'm glad to not be alone. Aaron and I make a great team, and our presentation is going to be awesome! If you haven't checked it out, see all about it at CFUnited's site:

http://cfunited.com/2009/topics/237

We're covering error handling with ColdFusion--a very hot topic and a highly popular request by the community. We're looking forward to sharing our experiences and knowledge gained through the years on this important subject. Hope to see you there!

Liz over at Teratech asked us speakers to answer a few questions for our profiles for CFUnited. This has been posted over at the CFUnited blog, but I thought I'd blog them again myself here.

With less than 90 days to go, the countdown is on! Enjoy!

Have you spoken at CFUnited in the past? This is my first time speaking at CFUnited.

What would you tell someone who hasn't been to CFUnited before?
I've attended for the past three years and would tell anyone who is in any way a CF developer to get themselves here! This is by far the best CF conference around.

Why should people attend your session(s)?
Most developers understand the importance of error handling in an application, but many don't utilize it to its full potential. Error management is critical in site development and having the right information at the right time can save you and your customer a lot of headaches.

Do you have any projects in the works that you will be revealing at CFUnited?
Unfortunately, all my projects are top secret. Ok--not really, but still can't show them ;-)

Besides your topic, what other sessions are you looking forward to?
I'd like to see Ben Nadel's presentation and some of the more advanced topics as well as John Paul Ashenfelter's bleeding edge technology presentation.

What are some of the hot topics you'd like to see at RoundTable discussions?
Nerd talk--Star Wars, Transformers, G.I. Joe/80's toys...stuff like that.

Where can people find you at CFUnited? (At the bar, networking, working, in your room, etc.)
I will be everywhere this year except the room! I hope to get some networking in with the greatest minds in the biz! Oh, and I'll be in that Thinkgeek room for sure...

What's the latest news with you? Has anything changed since last CFUnited?
The biggest change since last year is that I'm now the father of twin boys! After Ray Camden, I feel like the busiest man on earth.

What is unique about CFUnited?
I personally enjoy CFUnited more than conferences like MAX because it's a little smaller and more intimate, and you can really get to know some people here. The CF community is full of such great people--it's unlike any other dev community in my opinion.

When you are not working what do you like to do in your free time?
I enjoy spending time with my two boys, digital photography, travel, hiking and camping, general computing, and in my spare time rebuilding my collection of 80's G.I. Joe's.

Aaron and I are presenting at CFUnited this year--"Handling Errors with Error Handling". Check out our short vid!

http://www.youtube.com/v/XvjMPNKLMcg&hl=en&fs=1

If you haven't registered for CFUnited 2009 yet, you'll want to be sure to do so TODAY to take advantage of the early bird pricing option. CFUnited, now in its fifth year, is the #1 ColdFusion developer conference in the world. This year, it will be bigger than ever with more speakers and topics than ever before. If you're a CF developer, do whatever you have to do to get to Washington, DC this August for the CFUnited ColdFusion conference!

Also, don't forget that Aaron Wolfe and yours truly will be presenting the topic "Handling Errors with Error Handling". A funny topic name, perhaps, but definitely one of the most important and informative sessions at the conference this year. We'll be covering the importance of error handling in a site and the potential consequences developers face with little or no error handling in place. It's definitely going to be a worthwhile session.

Managers, if you're still not convinced about sending your team members away for a week, follow this link for an informative manager's guide: http://cfunited.com/images/CFUnited2009_managerguide.pdf.

See you at CFUnited!

For 2009, Liz Frederick at CFUnited is doing a call for topics and speakers, and Aaron Wolfe, Mike Harman, and I are going to put in some topics we'd like to present at the conference this year. We will be entering six topics, listed below. You can vote for one or all of the topics you think would be a good presentation.

"Have a Site that Forgets Users More than the Stock Market Changes? - Cookie/Session Problems Solved" – Aaron Wolfe and Lance Smith Is your site getting lots of timeouts or are users complaining they are continuously logging in? Are you ready to learn how sessions, cookies, and different browsers really work in an application? Look no further. In this track, we'll start with the basics of sessions and cookies and go all the way through to more advanced session management techniques. We'll demonstrate how to deal with pesky persistence problems, debug those problems, and ultimately prevent unwanted session timeouts. We'll also show how session management can make or break an application and detail how to prevent major headaches by using server logs and other tools to your advantage.

"Got an SLA problem? ColdFusion Enterprise's Load Balancing has the Solution so You Can Get Some Sleep at Night" – Aaron Wolfe and Lance Smith Tired of emails/phone calls at 3 a.m. on Sunday morning telling you the server is down? Rest easy, ColdFusion Enterprise's load balancing, sticky sessions, and session replication features will come to the rescue. In this session, we'll show you the advantages and pitfalls of using these features without any expensive network hardware. We'll also show you how to properly load balance multiple ColdFusion instances while getting the best performance you possibly can by using web server stress testing tools. If you ever need to admin a ColdFusion server and like your personal life, you won't want to miss this session!

"Inheriting Legacy Applications – Dealing with That Application from 1999" – Aaron Wolfe, Lance Smith, and Mike Harman Just about every developer has had to deal with that "10 year old site" that's been online since the dawn of the Internet (or at least your company's Internet department). We've all been there. Many of us deal with legacy applications in our every day job--full of spaghetti code, no code formatting, no cfc's, bad or no security, or all of the above. In this session you will learn how to stop wrestling with those old sites and get them under control. Not all of us have the budget, time, or luxury of building sites from scratch in a fancy new framework, and we'll provide the knowledge to make old applications better.

"Not Just Another Security Presentation" – Aaron Wolfe, Lance Smith, and Mike Harman A lot of talk has been going around lately about site security, yet many developers don't feel they have the time or ability to add the necessary extra security to their sites. Yet, every day sites fall victim to SQL injection, cross-site scripting and other common and not-so-common hacks and attacks. With each passing day, hackers find new ways to bring even the biggest and best sites to their knees. In this session, we'll cover some simple yet effective methods of using ColdFusion to your advantage to make your site more secure in an increasingly more dangerous Web.

"Handling Errors with Error Handling" – Aaron Wolfe and Lance Smith Most developers know the importance of having error handling on their site. But, many do not know how extensible error handling can be and the control they have over it with the power and ease of ColdFusion. In this presentation, we'll show you how to use Application.cfc and custom error pages to their full potential to handle custom errors, missing pages, and other common site errors without using that cause massive emails in your Inbox.

"CF User Groups – Worth the Investment" – Lance Smith and Aaron Wolfe Have you thought about starting a CF user group in your area, but aren't sure how? The benefits of managing a user group are numerous. User groups receive many opportunities single individuals normally don't, including access to training, materials, software, and reduced conference rates. While it might seem like too much work for some, it is well worth the effort. We'll show you how to go about starting a user group in your area, what is involved once you start a group, and how to attract and keep members. We'll also cover how to avoid common pitfalls that many failed user groups tend to fall into.

We will post a link to where to vote as soon as it's available. Remember, the speaker(s) who get the most votes will win something extra special--possibly another free CFUnited ticket. If you're interested in attending the conference for free this year, be sure and vote for us!

Today has been an interesting day...we woke up to a phone call from our boss about an application issue. Apparently, one of our sites was having _major_ issues, and no one knew what the problem was. We finally realized it was a bad index on a table, and after re-indexing the problem was immediately fixed.

The sessions for today were great--learned a lot and got lots of notes. I'm anxious to try out some of the stuff I learned.

We attended the special event at the Crime & Punishment Museum tonight. It was a good time. The place is a little weird, or morbid, I guess I'd say. It almost seems to "celebrate" crime. But, I still ended up buying some goofy souvenirs including a refrigerator magnet which is a must have.

Well, the first day of CFUnited is over...I can say it was a good one. I honestly wasn't impressed with this morning's keynote, and the venue hasn't been that great for me, so CFUnited was starting out a little frustrating today. I was starting out with mixed emotions.

But, I must say my sessions were wonderful today. I've already learned a heck of a lot, and I'm really looking forward to some of the sessions coming up. The classes and instructors are great. Thanks to all of you instructors out there--you guys (and ladies) are doing an awesome job! Keep up the good work.

I also attended a great BOF session about extending beyond the CF Community. I met Dee Sadler and Ben Nadel tonight--both great people. I am so glad to be making so many connections this year.

I'm looking forward to what the rest of the week has to offer.

Oh yeah--just found out I'm going to Oshkosh, Wisconsin next month for work. Never been there, so it should be interesting!

In less than 24 hours I'll be on a plane to DC for CFUnited '08. I'm very excited to be able to attend again this year. This is by far one of the most relevant conferences in regard to what I do, and I love the CF community. I'm looking forward to meeting up with some old friends and meeting new people for the very first time. I've met a lot of very cool developers via Twitter and Brightkite and can't wait to see them in person.

The keynotes and sessions are always great, and the social events before/after are fun, too. I always find myself wanting more and more knowledge with each session. I never get tired of the shop talk. Call me a nerd.

If you're a CF developer in any way, shape, or form and can afford it (or get your company to pay for it), go! Don't walk--run and sign up now!

In response to this blog post on the CFUnited blog, I am answering some questions about the upcoming CFUnited conference.

What are you looking forward to most?
The chance to learn some new things, meet new people, and visit a far away land.

Which speaker will most likely end up on your camera?
Ray Camden/Ben Forta

What do you plan to do outside conference time? (Clubbing/Bar Hopping, DC Tour, DC dinner cruise, Museum, Fine dining, Live Band shows, etc.)
I have no idea. I'd like to do some sightseeing and see some places I haven't been to before. I'd like to find some quaint local establishments--those are always the hidden gems.

Fill in the blank: I will mainly be around the ______ booth.
ThinkGeek. Definitely.

Do you have a new project you are working on and will reveal it at CFUnited?
Though it's not _extremely_ exciting, my new personal site is up! If you're reading this, you're on it!

CFUnited 2008 is rapidly approaching. I have finally nailed down my schedule, which I've made available for download. If you're cool enough to be going, you might want to be cool enough to hang out with me in the same sessions I'm in ;-) This is still slightly tentative at this time.

My main focus will be (obviously) CF-oriented tracks, with an emphasis on more advanced tracks this go round. I was a little disappointed at the lack of Flex/AIR tracks this year, but I'm still not doing much with that technology yet, so an emphasis in ColdFusion works for me.

Stay tuned for more CFUnited news to come. I'm going to try to blog about the things to see and do in DC, and the joy of attending CFUnited--the best ColdFusion conference in the world!