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.

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!!

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.

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.

RIAdventure 2009 has been over for a few weeks now and I'm missing the sun and relaxation already. It was great to get away from the office and shut off the phone and laptops for a full five days. I enjoyed hanging out with those that came along and I want to give HUGE props to Joshua Cyr for arranging the trip. He was like a travel guide making sure everyone knew what was going on, where we were supposed to meet to not miss the shuttle ride to the ship and as always was a joy to hang out with. I'm definitely looking forward to the possibility of a second RIAdventure in 2010 but in the meantime I have some photos to help make the weight a little more bearable.

For those curious what RIAdventure was all about you can view all the Flickr group photos here. I've also posted my photos to Flickr as well as three videos (of a super awesome Segway tour!) in my RIAdventure Cruise 2009 set.

Here's a slideshow for those that don't want to manually click through photos on Flickr.

I've blogged before about embedding fonts in Flex applications by first creating an embedded font in a Flash movie. The process is pretty simple and works well with one large caveat, your final SWF is larger based on the file size of any embedded fonts. Why is this bad? If you've embedded four of your favorite fonts and your app is one big Flash movie or Flex application your overall app size is increased to include the font resources.

Wouldn't it be better if you could load the fonts at runtime only when they're needed? Well, you can! Lee Brimelow recorded a fifteen minute tutorial showing you how to use Flash CS4 and Flex SDK metadata to create runtime loaded fonts. He walks through the entire process including selecting a font, writing the ActionScript 3 code to embed a font, restricting the font to certain glyphs, and then embedding the external font movie into a new, separate movie at runtime.

As Lee points out towards the end of the tutorial, using runtime loaded fonts should be considered a best practice if you're using Flash CS4. You can do what we've always been able to do and embed a font directly in the Flash CS4 library, but why tax your entire application this way and why include all the glyphs if you don't need them?

Flex Authority has officially announced Leif Wells as the new Editor-in-Chief. I've known Leif for several years and have gotten to know him through the Adobe User Group program. He's a super passionate guy with a lot to offer the Flex community. To learn more about Leif's background and his plans for Flex Authority read his blog post announcing his new role in the magazine.

I'm sitting in the Miami International airport with my wife, relaxing a bit after a fantastic RIAdventure cruise and waiting on our flight back to Nashville. I've also started the process of wading through nearly 1,000 e-mails and one in particular jumped out at me, a "welcome back" e-mail regarding the Adobe Community Experts program.

I'm really excited to begin my seventh year in this program (formerly Team Macromedia) and I want to thank Adobe, Rachel Luxemburg, Stacy Sisson, Ted Patrick, John Koch, and John Dowdell for allowing me to continue serving the community. The last six years have been amazing and I firmly believe this year will be no exception!

For more information on the Adobe Community Experts program click here. Or, if you want more info on the Adobe User Group program, click here.

This time next week my wife and I will be somewhere in the North Atlantic on our way to the Bahamas. It's been a couple of years since our last cruise so we're pretty excited for the chance to hit the seas again. The particular cruise we're going on is part of the RIAdventure social/tech gathering. I've always enjoyed hanging out with other programmers and tech folks at conferences, but the conference always occupies most of our time. This cruise is all about the social aspects but I'm sure there will be loads of conversations on ColdFusion, Flex, AIR, and rich Internet applications in general. When you get a bunch of geeks together you can be there will be lots of tech talk.

I believe there are upwards of 30 people going including Joshua Cyr, Dan Skaggs, Dan Wilson, Yancy Wharton, Jared Rypka-Hauer, and Todd Sharp. Since I'll be arriving a day before the ship sets sail, I thought it'd be nice to have dinner with anyone else that's already in Miami. If you're going to be in Miami on Sunday the 8th and you want to have dinner, give me a ring (just press the "Call Me" button in the right margin). Or, you can always leave a comment on this post or e-mail me.

Mike Chambers has created his first iPhone application and it's been approved by Apple. If you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch and you write ActionScript 3 for Flash CS3 or Flex 3, you need to cruise on over to iTunes and download (iTunes link) his ActionScript 3 API reference guide!! It includes documentation on AS3 for Flash Player 10, Flex 3.2 and AIR 1.5.

Thanks for putting this together Mike.

A few days ago the latest issue of Flex Authority was released. I wrote an article for the issue (Vol 1 Issue 2) on BlazeDS, Flex/AIR, and ColdFusion integration but it had to be removed due to space issues (yea, it's long). Fortunately, my article fits well with the theme of Vol 2 Issue 1 and it'll be included in both the print and PDF versions when released.

Until then, Judith Dinowitz was kind enough to provide me with a sneak peak of my article that you can download right now. Why wait, click right here to download it. Enjoy!