Brian Meloche's Blog - Cleveland CFUG

The ColdFusion and Flex Tours come to Cleveland this Wednesday!

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 03:56:00 -0400

On Wednesday, June 17th, join us for what will be the biggest Adobe user group event in Cleveland history! All of the official Adobe groups: The Cleveland ColdFusion User Group, the Cleveland Flex User Group, the Cleveland Adobe User Group and the Cleveland InDesign User Group join forces for this big, big, BIG... SOOOOO BIGGG event that you'll want to be there! The ColdFusion 9 and Flex 4 tours are here! Adam Lehman of Adobe, who was featured on CFConversations this week, will be our speaker for this event. If you're in or near the Cleveland area, join us! It's at 6pm, and at the offices of: Dealer Tire, LLC 3711 Chester Avenue Cleveland, OH 44114 There will be food, beverages, and prizes, along with swag! If you are planning to attend, it's imperative that you RSVP on the Cleveland CFUG website. If you're not in the area, check out your user group website for more information about a tour date in your area.

A new Cleveland CFUG and AUG site is underway...

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 21:18:00 -0400

I'm finally taking some time to work on the Cleveland CFUG website, so we can finally make some needed changes. I'm working on an all new site... and I'll blog more about that in upcoming posts, but I'm also doing something I haven't done much of in the last two years: Design work. It turns out, I can STILL design! I was a developer, back in the day, but I went back to school in the mid nineties to learn design, and started my web career as a designer, before I eventually gravitated to my developer tendancies. Back then, when I had a little one-man shop, I'd subcontract development to other guys, and it turned out I was a lot better at it than they were. Anyway, showing some of my design skills, here is the header for the site... I am working on a design that's going to be a significantly modified version of the Vertigo Wordpress theme, with several changes I've thrown in. More on the new site to come.

Cleveland CFUG Meeting Thursday...

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 08:10:00 -0400

For those of you in the Cleveland area, we're doing a combined Cleveland CFUG/AUG meeting Thursday night at 6:30pm. It's our semi-annual software giveaway! More details can be found at http://www.clevelandcfug.org.

Flex/AIR pre-release tour event in Cleveland Tuesday 1:00pm

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 21:17:00 -0400

We'll be having our big Flex/AIR user group meeting in Cleveland Tuesday, February 5th at 1pm. The location details can be found at http://www.clevelandcfug.org. Kevin Hoyt, Platform Evangelist with Adobe Systems, Inc., is tomorrow's speaker. This is part of the big Flex/AIR pre-release tour going on right now, and you can see us shown at http://flex.org/tour/. If you are planning to attend, PLEASE RSVP. Our RSVP count MUST BE ACCURATE. If you have RSVP'd and are still planning to attend... there's no need to do it again. But, if you have not RSVP'd, and ARE planning to attend, or have RSVP'd but are NOT planning to attend, please add/update your RSVP here: http://www.clevelandmmug.org/index.cfm?group=mmug&dsp=RSVPSpecial&date=2008-02-05%2013:00:00 As previously stated, this will be the biggest giveaway we've ever had for a single meeting. We have Flex Builder, CS3, books, magazines, shirts galore, and assorted schwag. Everyone who attends will get at LEAST one thing, perhaps more. Snacks will be provided at tomorrow's meeting: We'll have a Decorated Cheese Tray (includes imported cheeses, fresh fruits, vegetables, dips and crackers) with a cookie tray and an assortment of chips, pretzels, and of course an assortment of drinks.. There won't be any wraps this time around, as not very many people went for those for the Forta/Lehman meeting last month. Snacks are courtesy of Adobe and our host (details on the website). Also, there will be a second February user group meeting of our three groups. This will be a special RIA meeting event on Monday, Feb 25th back at Lodestone. If you are planning to attend that event, please RSVP here: http://www.clevelandmmug.org/index.cfm?group=mmug&dsp=RSVPSpecial&date=2008-02-25%2018:30:00 If you have any questions, please email me at brianmeloche (at) gmail (dot) com. See you tomorrow afternoon!

Thanks to Ben and Adam for coming to Cleveland...

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 08:18:00 -0400

If you didn't see it, Ben Forta and Adam Wayne Lehman presented "Lesser Known ColdFusion 8 Goodies" to a combined audience of the Cleveland CFUG, AUG and the new Flex User's Group last Thursday. It was a big success! We had good weather for the winter meeting, and had a good turnout for the afternoon meeting. And Ben and Adam did not disappoint. They talked about some new features that weren't talked about much in Ben's Scorpio tour, like CFTHREAD, attribute collections and results attributes, to name a few. They also asked us for feedback on what we'd like to see for the next version of ColdFusion. This brought a lively discussion on new features, what we'd want in an IDE (if they developed one) and things that would help increase the market, including education and training. My CFUG co-manager, Dan Vega, already blogged about winning a pass to CFUNITED, thanks to the nice gesture of fellow user group member Kelly Green. Thanks to Nafisa, Liz and Michael at Teratech for donating the pass for this meeting, as well as a lot of other swag! Matt Hintze of Universal Mind, who was visiting Cleveland on business last week and came out to the meeting, won the entire CF 8 WACK book collection. Thanks to Jackie at Peachpit for donating the books. Last but not least, Joe Winans won a copy of CF8, and I'd like to thank Ed Sullivan from Adobe for making that happen. Lastly, I'd like to thank Pam, Dave and Jessica for being such gracious hosts! They provided the venue, as well as food, drink and USB thumb drives for the event! We'll be doing it all over again on February 5th! Kevin Hoyt of Adobe will be presenting to us as part of the Adobe Flex and Adobe AIR Pre-Release Tour. If you are planning to attend, please RSVP here.

Great turnout at last Cleveland CFUG meeting

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 11:31:00 -0400

It's a little late in blogging about it, but I wanted to mention it anyway. We had our annual social last week at the Winking Lizard in Independence, and had a great turnout. Every year, the CFUG and AUG have a combined meeting. Everyone went home with something, and a couple of people went home with software. James Heath on the AUG side, and Chris Lucas on the CFUG. This brings up the momentum as we prepare for the next two big CFUG meetings. We have Ben Forta presenting to us IN PERSON January 10th, and Kevin Hoyt presenting to us IN PERSON on February 5th. More information can be found at www.clevelandcfug.org. I am a little late saying it, but Happy Holidays!

Two BIG Meeting Announcements - Forta in January (ColdFusion), Kevin Hoyt in February (Flex/AIR)!

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 05:37:00 -0400

This morning, I would like to announce two BIG meetings we have coming up in 2008! First, on Thursday, January 10th, Adobe's Senior Product Evangelist, Ben Forta, has agreed to return to Cleveland to do a special meeting for Cleveland attendees only! He's not on a tour or anything... he just wants to come and present to us after our last meeting went so well! He'll be presenting on ColdFusion, although the particulars are not known yet... nevertheless, it should be a great presentation as always. Second, on Tuesday, February 5th, Adobe's Evangelist Kevin Hoyt will be returning to Cleveland to present to us as part of the next leg of the Flex 3 and AIR tour! Both meetings are joint meetings with the Cleveland CFUG, Cleveland AUG AND the Cleveland Flex User's Group! Both meetings are at a special time and location. They will be daytime meetings... 1:00pm - and will be located at a new location, Dealer Tire, LLC, which is located at 3711 Chester Avenue, Cleveland, OH, 44114. Seating is limited at both events, so Mike, JD, Dealer Tire and I kindly ask for you to RSVP to both meetings if you plan to attend... and to update your RSVP if it changes. To RSVP for Ben Forta, go here: http://www.clevelandmmug.org/index.cfm?group=cfug&dsp=RSVPSpecial&date=2008-01-10%2013:00:00 To RSVP for Kevin Hoyt, go here: http://www.clevelandmmug.org/index.cfm?group=aug&dsp=RSVPSpecial&date=2008-02-05%2013:00:00 These meetings are not limited to user group members, so PLEASE pass this onto anyone you might know that would be interested in either of these events! Blog about it, and let's make these events BIG!!! See you then... and at our social meeting on December 20th at Winking Lizard!

Cleveland CFUG Meeting Thursday night... Mark Mandel on Transfer ORM!

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 22:42:00 -0400

We should have a good CFUG meeting later this week. Thursday night at 6:30pm Eastern, Mark Mandel will be presenting to us on Transfer ORM, the ColdFusion Object Relational Mapping Library. For more details, go to www.clevelandcfug.org. We'll be recording the presentation, so I'll post the recording URL when it's available. Update! The recording was split into two, due to both Mark and the CFUG losing connection about an hour into the presentation. Here are the URLs: http://adobechats.adobe.acrobat.com/p25924495/ http://adobechats.adobe.acrobat.com/p22834186/

Mark Drew presenting CFEclipse to Cleveland CFUG Recording...

Sun, 19 Aug 2007 20:29:00 -0400

I hadn't posted this yet... Mark Drew did an Adobe Connecto to the Cleveland CFUG earlier this month, talking about CFEclipse. You can watch the presentation here: https://admin.adobe.acrobat.com/_a200985228/p51917266/

I've stepped down as manager of the Cleveland AUG

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 21:38:00 -0400

At tonight's Cleveland Adobe Users Group meeting, I announced that I am stepping down as manager of the group. Mike Cooper, who's been my co-manager since last year, has officially taken over as the group's manager. If you go to adobe.com's user group listing, you will notice he is now listed as the manager of the Cleveland AUG. http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/usergroups/search_results.cfm?findType=1&country_id=D6D8274E-1954-4FEA-87FD8F85B651B29A&state_id=3C393EF7-9B3B-43A1-B8456A862C39B70B I started the Cleveland Macromedia Users Group in May, 2004 and have served as its manager throughout its history. Since then, we've gone from 12 members the first meeting, to 191 members today. We've seen the Macromedia acquisition by Adobe, the branching off of the ColdFusion and RIA User Groups, a few website catastrophes, a name change, and several location changes. We've had some great meetings and great speakers. It's been a blast!!! And now, it's time for me to step down. Over the last several months, I have been managing both the Cleveland AUG and the Cleveland CFUG. It's too much, and both groups are suffering. The AUG needs someone who can focus more time on it, and so does the CFUG. Three years+ is a long time to run a group voluntarily, and I have been doing less and less design work and more development and supervisory work at the office. As the new manager, Mike will invigorate the group and help it continue to grow. He's got some great ideas, and I think he's going to be an awesome manager. I will stay on as Mike's co-manager, help him get up to speed with everything that goes into running an Adobe Users Group, advise and help as needed. I hope to be able to present to the group once in a while, too. I'll still be attending meetings most months, too. I will also continue on as the Cleveland CFUG manager for the foreseeable future. This change allows me to focus more of my time on the CFUG. Anyone that knows me knows that ColdFusion is my passion, and I intend on continuing to instill that passion into the Cleveland ColdFusion Users Group. Dan Vega, my co-manager, and I will continue to work on making the Cleveland CFUG everything it can be.

Open Source ColdFusion: Google Doc

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 06:15:00 -0400

For the July Cleveland CFUG meeting, rather than creating a PowerPoint presentation on ColdFusion Open Source, I decided to create a Google Doc instead. You can view that doc at the following: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcdhg6m6_3hbs6mt This document was not intended to replace RIAForge or Brian Rinaldi's ColdFusion Open-Source Project List, but was intended to be a summary of what's out there and highlight popular projects. Comments and suggestions are welcome. If you would like to edit the document, and you have a Gmail account, email me at brianmeloche at gmail dot com, and I can give you access.

New CFUG in Columbus

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 05:38:00 -0400

Andy Large, a Cleveland CFUG member, has restarted the Columbus CFUG. http://www.columbuscfug.org Their first meeting is tomorrow night at 5:30. If you are in the Columbus (OH) area, I encourage you to join this new group! Congrats to Andy to taking the initiative to get the CFUG off the ground.

Open Source ColdFusion at tomorrow's Cleveland CFUG meeting

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 05:33:00 -0400

July, 2007 Meeting: The July meeting of the Cleveland CFUG will be held on Thursday, July 12, 2007, from 6:30PM - 8:30PM, at the Cleveland offices of Lodestone Digital LLC, located at 4500 Rockside Rd., Suite 150, Independence, OH 44131. This is the new location for Cleveland CFUG meetings. Please RSVP for this event. To RSVP, you must be a CFUG member and be logged in to the Cleveland CFUG website. Speaker: Brian Meloche (and other attendees) Topic: Open Source ColdFusion Our previous speaker was unable to present this month, so I am going to do a quick and dirty presentation on open source ColdFusion. This will include editors and other tools, ColdFusion engines, applications, custom tags and CFCs. This won't be a structured presentation, so bring your favorite open source CF resource of your own to share!

Ben Forta at Cleveland CFUG Thursday night!!!!

Wed, 09 May 2007 20:44:00 -0400

Well, the event we've been waiting for has finally come! This is a reminder that the very special Cleveland CFUG/AUG meeting with Ben Forta of Adobe is scheduled for Thursday at 6:30pm at the offices of Lodestone Digital, LLC, located at 4500 Rockside Road, Suite 150, in Independence (zip 44131). Learn all about ColdFusion 8 at this meeting!!! Ben is the man in ColdFusion land... and see why we've wanted him to come to Cleveland for years!!! Earlier today, our RSVPs reached the 100 mark!!! If you cannot attend, PLEASE update your RSVP at the following link: http://www.clevelandmmug.org/index.cfm?group=cfug&dsp=RSVPSpecial We have BIG giveaways... ColdFusion... and Ben!!! What more could you ask for??? Seating IS limited in the main training room where Ben will be presenting. Show up EARLY to make sure you get a seat. If needed, we'll be having a second room where you can watch the presentation... but I am hoping we'll be able to fit everyone in the main room. If someone you know is coming but has not RSVP'd, either get them to RSVP, or add them to your RSVP by adding to the "number of attending" field. See you Thursday night!!! Brian Manager, Cleveland CFUG and AUG

Not too long before Forta!

Fri, 20 Apr 2007 15:11:00 -0400

The Scorpio tour is getting underway, and I wanted to remind Northeast Ohio and surrounding area people that the Cleveland CFUG (and AUG) will be hosting Ben Forta on Thursday, May 10th at 6:30pm at the Cleveland offices of Lodestone Digital. For details and RSVP info, go to www.clevelandcfug.org. For a CFUG near you hosting a Scorpio event, go to: http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/events/.