For the last ColdFusion Conversations podcast of 2008 (you might see me refer to it as such from time to time), we finally have the long awaited podcast of the ColdFusion Uber Panel from the Day 3 ColdFusion unconference at MAX 2008 North America in San Francisco, recorded on November 19, 2008.

As previously mentioned in CFConversations episode 25, the quality of the raw audio recording for the uber panel was pretty bad, but, somehow, through several false starts, I think I've finally made the audio listenable, even fairly good in some spots, although the quality does vary with the speaker. It's as good as I can get it, although it's still not as good as other roundtables.

The Uber panel features Ray Camden, Sean Corfield, Charlie Arehart, Jason Delmore and Joe Reinhart, with me as the host and moderator. You'll also hear Kristen Schofield, the ColdFusion Marketing manager in the second half of the recording (although she wasn't a panelist, you do hear from her several times).

Unfortunately, you probably already know that Jason Delmore was among the 600 laid off at Adobe earlier this month. Jason was speaking as the ColdFusion product manager at the time this was recorded. A replacement has not been named, but I just wanted to extend a holiday well wishes to Jason, Steven Erat, and to all of you former ADobe employees affected by this untimely layoff.

Speaking of the holiday season, I wanted to let listeners know that my Christmas gift was a new computer, and many of you donated funds and gift cards that were used in part to fund the purchase of a new computer, along with some of my own funds. Many thanks to those of you that helped me out with this, and it's very much appreciated. I didn't get everything I need, but it's a start. Unfortunately, I'm still not using that computer, as it has a bad memory stick. Once the replacement RAM comes in, I'll be using that machine for CFConversations editing and producing for the foreseeable future.

In case you're curious, I got this refurb from Tiger Direct, via Amazon. Yeah, you Mac guys will say why not a Mac? Well, I couldn't afford one, so I got the best computer I could for the money I had. Once it's fully up and running, it should make podcast editing a lot faster. I'm still saving up for a monitor.

After a long layoff, longer than I had hoped, we're back with episode 25. I was delayed in putting out this episode. I had hoped to get this episode out during MAX, but there were some difficulties in both scheduling and audio quality that delayed this recording.

We were unable to record a regular day 2 roundtable as we had hoped, due to ColdFusion's placement in the Sneak Peeks at the end of that demonstration. We were prepared to leave the hall to do the roundtable after the ColdFusion sneak, but with it being the last shown, that meant there was no time, since people going to the event had to get right on the bus after the sneak (I skipped it this year - it would have costed us $100 for my wife to attend). Thankfully, I recorded Ram Kulkarni's sneak peek of ActionScript3 in ColdFusion from the sneak peek, and the audio recorded is the first part of this episode and I think the quality is pretty good.

Here is the recording on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uImhKFhwAu0

With the lack of a day 2 roundtable, I tried to record an impromptu day 2 roundtable on day 3, which is the second part of this episode, just before recording the Day 3 uber panel, which will come out in the next episode.

Immediately after MAX ended, I went on vacation with my wife for a week and a half, visiting with family and getting some much needed rest, which delayed the release of further episodes until December.

We didn't fare as well with CFConversations recordings at MAX as I had hoped. We did get some good content, but not nearly as many interviews as expected, and several of the recordings came out REALLY bad. With the exception of an interview I did with Charlie Arehart, all of the recordings have flaws, and this impromptu day 2 roundtable and the day 3 uber panel, recorded directly after, are the worst of the lot. We had some problems with the amplification causing reverb and echo, and the microphone setup just didn't work. I've spent days trying to fix the next two episodes, and I'm still going to try to fix up the uber panel, but I'm done working on this one... It sucks, my desktop wants to crash every time I try to fix it... four times today! and if this gets out, you'll know I'm washing my hands of it (it sounds OK if you aren't listening with headphones). The content of this and ESPECIALLY the uber panel in the next episode are worth listening to... but the quality degrades beyond the sneak peek. Hopefully, I will have learned something from the 40+ hours I've spent trying to fix this episode, and I'll definitely be experimenting with audio setup of a venue with an audience and amplification for next time.

Thanks to Doug Laakso for his recent Amazon.com gift card and Felix Tjandrawibawa for his recent Paypal donation. After creating this MP3, I was able to purchase a new desktop computer through Amazon with the gift cards received plus some of my own money, which should make it to me as an early Christmas present, and I hope to use Paypal to bump up the memory on the desktop.

Enough of me apologizing! Here is episode 25!

Run time: 17:48

I had hoped to have delivered at least three of the episodes we recorded from MAX 2008 San Francisco by now, since episode 24 was released. Unfortunately, a few things have delayed the release.

After MAX, I went on a week and a half vacation. When I got back, I discovered that many of the recordings taken from MAX were of VERY poor audio quality (one exception is an interview with Charlie Arehart). What's worse is that, since back from vacation, my six year-old desktop that I'm using to edit the podcasts has been giving me some instability problems, crashing, while editing the recordings, and I'm yet to have a fully edited episode. It's been very frustrating, as these recordings need a lot of work before they can be published, and my current computer isn't up to the task. Although I am really trying to get a new computer, the reality is that I don't have enough money yet to buy a replacement. You could help me out a lot by donating to my Amazon wish list, and buy an Amazon gift card of any dollar amount you feel comfortable with. Specifically, I'm looking for gift cards, not anything else (unless you want to buy me a computer). I'm sorry to ask, but I don't know what else to do except ask for donations.

I'm hoping to get out the next few episodes out soon. Stay tuned.

This roundtable features talk Day 1 coverage of MAX 2008, from Moscone West in San Francisco.

Panelists:

• Brian Meloche (moderator)
• Adrian Moreno
• Judith Dinowitz
• Michael Dinowitz
• Jeffry Houser

We cover, in no particular order, CFUnderground, the MAX Day 1 Keynote, some info from Judith shared at a press conference by Kevin Lynch, sessions, food, the unconferences, festivities, how it compares to MAX 2007, and, especially, a look to tomorrow. ColdFusion wasn't covered at all, but the buzz is that ColdFusion will get a LOT of coverage during the day 2 keynote.

I've rushed this one out to you, so it may be a little rough in some spots, but I think I was able to clean it up quite a bit.

Run time: 40:57

For our final podcast before MAX, we have a very special interview with Michael & Judith Dinowitz, of the House of Fusion, Fusion Authority and Flex Authority.

Michael and Judith announce that they are giving away CDs with all issues of Fusion Authority Quarterly Update and Flex Authority at the MAX 2008 ColdFusion Unconference and Flex unconference. Of course, you'll be able to purchase subscriptions, too!

Of course, we don't stop there!

Michael & Judith go back to the beginning of ColdFusion, so Adam (who came in as an emergency interviewer, when my Skype recorder would only record my voice) and I ask about the early days of ColdFusion, the start of House of Fusion and the CF-Talk list, how Fusebox started with the help of CF-Talk, the technical side of the House of Fusion, other lists on House of Fusion, how Fusion Authority got started, then Flex Authority, the difficulties editing and publishing two journals, and family life.

Since we didn't have enough time to do a pre-MAX roundtable, we end the episode in a mini-roundtable fashion, speculating on what Adobe will announce at MAX next week.

You may hear a few weird things in the recording. It couldn't be helped, given the recording on Skype.

Run time: 1:21:15

In this episode, Jeff Coughlin interviews Geoff Bowers of Daemon Internet Consultants (pronounced demon). In North America, many developers may not know Geoff, but he's well known in his native Australia. Daemon organizes the WebDU conference, hosts the popular web aggregator Full as a Goog and are stewards of FarCry.

One of the frameworks that wasn't featured in our recent part 1 and 2 controller framework roundtables, but is an important framework, is FarCry Core.

Many ColdFusion developers only know FarCry for its CMS, and only think of FarCry as a CMS, but the FarCry CMS is written on top of a very powerful framework in and of itself, the FarCry core, that is used around many web applications, the CMS only being one of them.

In this interview, Geoff talks about his personal relationships with his employees at Daemon, what makes WebDU different from other developer conferences, the FarCry CMS, and explains the differences between FarCry Core and other ColdFusion frameworks. Namely, FarCry Core is completely object oriented from the ground up, where everything in it is an object, and has a built-in ORM.

This interview's a little long, but it's packed with content. I thought about splitting into two episodes, but we've got more coming before MAX 2008 San Francisco, so I'm releasing it as a single episode. Thanks to Jeff Coughlin for doing the interview and doing a fantastic job with the editing (I only had to tweak one thing, plus the intro/outro).

Show links:

• Fullasagoog.com
• WebDU Conference
• FarCryCore.org
• FarCryCMS.org
• FarCry 5.0 Jump Start Course
• Daemon Internet Consultants
• Some example sites using FarCry
• Mayo Clinic
• BlueScope Steel
• SelecTV
• Daemon Blog
• FarCry Twitter
• Fullasagoog Twitter

Run time: 1:24:48

This episode has been sponsored by Quality Logo Products, Inc.. Kurt Bonnet was kind enough to sponsor the podcast in exchange for this job posting:

Chicagoland Web / ColdFusion Developer (60k-80k) Quality Logo Products, Inc.

Quality Logo Products, Inc., located in Chicagoland, is a fast-growing company looking for a full-time experienced web developer to join our team. You'll have the opportunity to work directly with the business owners to design and implement new web sites, new features to existing sites, and digital marketing strategies. We offer an aggressive salary (60k-80k), $2500 per year allowance (in addition to the annual salary) for conferences/further education, annual performance bonus, retirement savings matching up to 3% of the employee's gross salary, 3 weeks vacation, telecommute/remote working opportunities, and more. Learn more at: http://www.qualitylogoproducts.com/jobs/ and apply at jobs@qualitylogoproducts.com.

This is direct hire by a fellow CFer, not a recruiter.

If you are interested in sponsoring an episode, you can do so with a PayPal or Amazon wish list donation. Email me at podcast at cfconversations dot com if you're interested.

You heard him on episode 19, and now, Adam Haskell and I interview Isaac Dealey, creator and lead developer of the onTap and DataFaucet frameworks.

In this interview, we discuss onTap and DataFaucet in more detail, and we also get to know Isaac in a very candid and personal way. We discuss Isaac's struggles with Asperger Syndrome, an Autism Spectrum Disorder, his diagnosis two years ago and his decision to go public about it. When you hear Isaac's story, you may realize that you might know or work with someone who has Asperger, but doesn't know it, or you might even have it yourself. I know I have worked with a few people who are definitely candidates for it. Regardless, Isaac's a brilliant guy, and you'll hear that in this episode. We also discuss Isaac's artistic side, with his Woohooligan site.

This interview's a bit long (for an interview), but we think you won't get bored and you'll enjoy every minute of this episode.

Run time 1:10:55

Following up on last week's Part 1 on controller frameworks, we now bring you Part 2, in what will be a continuing series on frameworks used in the ColdFusion/CFML developer community.

Part 2 features other viewpoints not represented in Part 1. For this episode, which was recorded on Wednesday, October 15th (technically, Thursday, 16 October 02:00 UTC time), we have:

• Brian Meloche (moderator)
• Adam Haskell (representing Fusebox)
• Ray Camden (representing Model-Glue)
• Chris Peters (representing ColdFusion on Wheels)
• Mark Mandel, of Transfer fame, but Transfer is an ORM framework, not a controller framework, so he wasn't representing it. On controller frameworks, Mark is framework agnostic.
• Nick Kwiatkowski, who is anti-framework.

The plan is to do more roundtables on other kinds of frameworks, such as ORM/Data, dependency injection, and unit testing frameworks, after the MAX North America conference some time in December or January. We're also interviewing some of the framework authors and lead developers in other episodes (we have two of those already done, and more scheduled).

The feedback on Part 1 so far has been overwhelmingly positive, and I believe part 2 is more of the same. This one was a little more contentious than part 1, and that leads to good podcasting! I personally think this episode is one of our best to date.

Enjoy!

Run time: 1:03:04

This roundtable is different than the previous five roundtables on CFConversations.

Inspired by the ColdFusion Weekly roundtable on Flex frameworks, and by popular demand, this episode is part one of a two part series on ColdFusion controller-based frameworks, and the first part of an ongoing series on ColdFusion frameworks in general. Although people were asking for it, this series is something I intended to do from the very early on in this podcast's development, and it was about time to start them.

For this episode, which was recorded on Friday, October 10th, we have:

• Brian Meloche (moderator)
• Kurt Wiersma (representing Mach-ii)
• Russ Johnson (representing ColdBox)
• John Farrar (representing SOS and Co-op)
• Isaac Dealey (representing onTap)
• Rick Mason (uses a simpler, homegrown framework)

Now... are you reading this, and are saying, "Hey!!! Where's Fusebox?? Where's Model-Glue?" Well, those frameworks, as well as ColdFusion on Wheels, a framework agnostic and an anti-framework person, are represented in part two of this series, which was recorded on October 15th and is still being edited at the time of writing this post. We had to plan for two sessions, and with scheduling conflicts, this is the alignment we got. Some had advocated doing all of the major frameworks together, but that wasn't possible with scheduling. Considering how well both episodes came out, I wouldn't change a thing! :-)

We're planning to do a series of frameworks roundtables over the next few months. We'll do roundtables that discuss Dependency Injection/Inversion of Control frameworks, database/ORM frameworks, and unit testing frameworks. Those episodes have not been recorded at this time, but we're planning to do those episodes after MAX in December and into 2009.

I think you'll really enjoy this episode! It was fun to do, and we got into a lot of interesting points. What you won't hear is the 4 1/2 hour discussion most of us continued after the podcast recording was done... but, you know what they say... What happens on Skype STAYS ON Skype! :-)

Run time: 1:12:37

This episode's a little different than what we've had in the past.

bFusion & bFlex was a two day event held last month at Indiana University, organized by Bob Flynn and the Indiana Multimedia User Group.

I missed the event, due to a scheduling conflict, but thanks to Bob, this episode features selected "Man on the Street" interviews from the event. I also want to give thanks to Heather Warnsman, a member of Bob's user group, and Keith Danielson, manager of the Indiana University Flash User Group, who conducted these interviews.

Run time: 20:25