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!
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.