March 26 2008 4:26 AM by Adam
filed under ColdFusion | Flex | AIR

After much delay, I've finally got a hold on the sessions we'll be presenting at cf.objective() 2008. It was a bit harder to plan for this conference since the team behind cf.obj() is really focused on enterprise development. This meant I couldn't offer the same old 'ColdFusion 8 Feature X' type of presentation and instead had to come up with some higher-level ideas.

Here is what we've got lined up:

• Adding Live Chat with ColdFusion and BlazeDS (Me)
  In this session we'll take a look at how ColdFusion integrates with LiveCycle Data Services (and the open source BlazeDS project). Leveraging the power of BlazeDS, we'll create a simple chat application that can be added to a ColdFusion powered site or application. For those who can't make it to cf.objective() this year, I'll be covering this topic online during Adobe Developer Week (this Thursday) and at Scotch on the Rocks.
• Deploying into Large Scale ColdFusion Environments (Michael Collins)
  In this session we will look at all aspects around deploying ColdFusion in a large scale environment.  We will look at building a corporate level ColdFusion EAR where you can have projects share features like alerts, and security settings.  We will look at ways to use shared network storage when deploying projects and also cover items like sourceless deployment, precompiled deployment, important XML files you need to be aware of, and also cover some production performance settings.
• Integrating ColdFusion with .NET (Josh Adams)
  ColdFusion 8 introduced the ability to leverage .NET natively in CFML. This session will take a closer look at how to call .NET assemblies to integrate with applications like Sharepoint and Microsoft Office.
• Building Hybrid Applications with ColdFusion and Java (Jason Delmore)
  The session will explore the relationship between ColdFusion and Java and how to build truly hybrid applications that take advantage of both. More information coming soon.
• Document Driven Applications with PDF (Sanjeev Kumar)
  This session will dive deep into the internals of ColdFusion 8's new PDF functionality. We'll discuss the architecture of PDF forms and how to process them natively in ColdFusion. More information coming soon.

I'm pretty excited about the lineup, but I'm really interested to hear Michael Collins session on large scale ColdFusion environments. Mike is one of the top support engineers for ColdFusion and has recently taken on a new role as an Technical Account Manager (TAM). Adobe recently started the TAM program which provides some of our larger customers with a personalized support plan and dedicated guy like Mike to help out with things like upgrades, architecture planning and documentation, emergency response (24/7) and on-site visits. He's been working with some of our larger customers and this session is hopefully the first in many where he'll relay what's he learned from these large environments.