If you're still on the fence about whether you are going to CFUnited 2009 now would be a good time to make up your mind. Early bird pricing ends today after which the 3 and 4 day package prices will go up by $100 and the Saturday only package price will go up by $50. Register now to lock in the better deal!

If for some reason you aren't sure if CFUnited is for you I recommend checking out the schedule which lists all the topics and speakers. I'd be willing to bet there are lots of ColdFusion, Flex, and AIR sessions you would enjoy.

Comment spam on my blog has increased immensely over the last four to six weeks. I'm getting, on average, 150 spam comments per week. In order to help combat the scum of the earth I have implemented both Akismet and Project Honeypot by way of activating these two features in CFFormProtect (which ships with BlogCFC).

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Tomorrow morning the 615Flex group (Nashville Flex User Group) is hosting a Flex/Flash Camp with six speakers giving one hour talks. I'll be giving a presentation on integrating BlazeDS, Flex/AIR, with a little ColdFusion mixed in for fun. After giving an overview of the technology behind BlazeDS and how BlazeDS messaging works I'll dive into the construction of an application in real-time. The app will demonstrate the use of BlazeDS messaging from a browser application to remote AIR clients. Registration for the event is closed but given its a free event I'd be willing to bet we'd find a place for you if you want to come out. More info is here.

Just a quick reminder to anyone in the Tennessee, Alabama, or Kentucky area... the Nashville stop on the 2009 Adobe ColdFusion User Group tour is tomorrow. That's about 26 hours from now. So, stop what you are doing make plans to attend the event and head over to the NCFUG site to RSVP for the event. Everyone that RSVPs (and shows up of course) will be entered into the drawings for a copy of the next version of ColdFusion, a TimBuk2 laptop bag, Amazon gift cards, and more! Plus, each person that shows up will get stickers, a ColdFusion tour shirt and (yes there's more) an audio CD copy of Dave Ramsey's High Performance Achievement! Wow, how could you not come?

I hope to see you there! More info and RSVP details are here.

This is just a quick post to remind everyone of the user group tour showcasing the next release of ColdFusion. The Nashville ColdFusion User Group is proud to host this event again and we're planning on a great turn out. Greg Wilson from Adobe will be speaking on Thursday, June 18 at 7:00pm (next week!). We're going to have food/drink and a few thousand dollars worth of awesome giveaways!

So, if you love ColdFusion or you're just interested in what Adobe has created in the next version of ColdFusion, please head over to the Nashville CF User Group Web site and register for this special event. Only registered attendees will be eligible for the giveaways. I, and the rest of the user group hope to see YOU there!!

Andy Matthews delivered a nice presentation last night on integrating jQuery and HTML to create Adobe AIR applications. He showed several examples including how to use AIR's file system API, how to create and deploy SQLite databases, what a .air file is and what's inside them, how to access remote resources such as ColdFusion components, and how to use Aptana to create, build, and deploy a complete HTML-based AIR application. Oh, and did I mention he built an entire AIR photo slideshow app, start to finish, in 8 minutes?

If you are at all interested in HTML-based AIR applications you should check out this hour and fourteen minute presentation.

View the Adobe Connect presentation now!
http://mmusergroup.adobe.acrobat.com/p99669686/

Tonight, the Nashville ColdFusion User Group is having our May meeting and the topic is jQuery and AIR: Desktop Development for the Front End Designer. Nashville's own Andy Matthews is giving this presentation which is the same one he gave recently at the cf.Objective() conference. If you missed the conference, you have a second chance to hear Andy's talk.

Folks local to Nashville are encouraged to attend in person (and RSVP here) while remote attendees can join via Adobe Connect (http://mmusergroup.adobe.acrobat.com/ncfug/). Full details of this meeting are on the NCFUG site.

I've been adding photographs and screenshots to my blog posts for years using simply image tags. I've grown tired of the lack of full screen images and always worrying if the 520px images are even useful. And I've seen all the snazzy imaging tools out there giving users a better interaction with photos on Web sites. This weekend I decided to look into adding Lightbox to BlogCFC and wound up with Slimbox, a visual clone of Lightbox. The major difference between the two is Slimbox is super lightweight and very customizable.

To see Slimbox in action click the photo of my son below. If you want to add Slimbox to your installation of BlogCFC here's how to do it.

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Did you know any member of an Adobe user group can get 20% off all products sold in the Adobe store? This promotion has been running for a little while and has been extended through May 31, 2009. If you are a member of a user group and want to make use of this offer simply contact your user group manager for details. Or, you can also contact me using the Contact Blog Owner link in the footer. The 20% discount will be applied to one online order and can only be used one time per member. Thanks to Adobe for making this offer available!

Several weeks ago I was talking with Liz Frederick on Twitter about an extended CFUnited call for women speakers. I had missed the original call for speakers so I made a comment about dressing up as a woman and giving a talk on integrating AIR, BlazeDS, and ColdFusion. Liz asked me to submit my topic but I didn't hold my breath it'd be chosen given how last minute it was. Needless to say I was a little surprised today when I received a DM from Liz stating my talk had been chosen.

My session, AIR Messaging: Integrating AIR, BlazeDS, and ColdFusion, might not be as entertaining without me dressed up as a woman, but I promise you'll have a stellar time if you come. You'll learn about BlazeDS and why you should consider using it in your projects. I'll demonstrate the integration of ColdFusion and BlazeDS and I'll build an application, start to finish, that utilizes the BlazeDS messaging service for real-time business communication.

On a slightly off topic note, I might bring along my sticks and hit the links. If you're into golf and you want to play while at CFUnited, hit the Contact Blog Owner link in the footer and send me a message.

I manage a lot of ColdFusion Enterprise application servers. When I'm working on new server deployments, accessing the various ColdFusion Administrator's, or troubleshooting issues, I often have ideas about ways Adobe can improve enterprise server management. Here are three of the ideas I've had recently.

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Yesterday I posted about upgrading my blog to BlogCFC 5.9.3. How I went about the upgrade process is probably just as important as getting on the latest version. What follows is a run-down of how I upgraded, what tools I used to make it painless, and the SQL scripts I wrote you can use to get your own blog upgraded. Hit the more link for all the goodness.

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I haven't upgraded my blog software (BlogCFC) since 2006. I've written several customizations that until recently have made it a huge burden to migrate to Ray's latest enhancements without losing my own additions and changes. Last weekend I decided enough was enough and I made a personal goal to get everything running on 5.9.3 before Monday. It wasn't easy but with the help of some nice tools I was able to reach my goal.

I'll post a later entry on the tools I used that made the upgrade process painless. I'll also provide custom MySQL scripts I wrote to upgrade the database architecture, just like I did before. In the meantime, here's a short list of what has been added and changed:

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Todd Sharp has put together a very short slide deck (12 slides) detailing reasons why you should attend CFUnited 2009 in Leesburg, Virginia. The deck has information about where and when the conference will take place, video of the conference venue, what valuable content you can expect, and more. If you're on the fence about attending I recommend taking 3 minutes to view Todd's slide deck.