CFUnderground VIII

Daryl Banttari

Daryl's work in computing dates back to the late 1980's, when he began his technology career as a Programmer/Analyst for the US Army. He was named Programmer of the Year in 1990, and has been accumulating similar technical accolades ever since. In 2000, Allaire Corporation recruited Daryl as a Senior Consultant, and following Macromedia's acquisition of Allaire in 2001, Daryl became a Senior Product Support Engineer for the ColdFusion/JRun platform. In 2005, Daryl solidified Webapper's status as a premiere provider of Web application consulting expertise by joining Webapper as its Chief Architect. In this role, Daryl delivers or oversees all of Webapper's technical solutions, spanning the entire spectrum of technologies that comprise Web-based applications. In addition, Daryl is the lead designer and developer of the "See" product line, which  includes SeeFusion and SeeJava, among others. In addition to being an expert programmer and software architect, Daryl is particularly well-known for his unparalleled knowledge of Microsoft SQL Server, and of database design and tuning in general.

Topic: Understanding Database Performance.

Some estimates are that as much of 75% of Web application performance problems are database-related. Even among Database Administrators, the topics underlying database performance are typically poorly understood. Daryl will cover the key elements of database performance, from drivers to indexes to query plans and SQL coding strategies.

Jason Delmore

Jason Delmore is the Product Manager for ColdFusion at Adobe Systems Incorporated. Over the past eight years, he has worked in several roles related to ColdFusion including systems administrator, e-commerce engineer, application developer, database designer, architect, and development manager. Prior to coming to Adobe, he held the position of Director of Engineering for Deploy Solutions, a leading HR software provider. The efforts of his team earned them the prestigious award of Top HR Product of 2005 from Human Resource Executive magazine. Jason is currently working on Scorpio, the next major release of ColdFusion.

Topic: Participating in Q & A Session.

Shlomy Gantz

Shlomy Gantz is the President and founder of BlueBrick Inc. He has over a decade of management experience in the hi-tech industry, and an extensive background in application development, database integration and project management. He works with Fortune 500 companies around the world. He frequently presents in technology and management conferences and various user groups across US and Europe.

Prior to founding BlueBrick, Mr. Gantz was a Senior Consultant for Computer Horizons, working for some of the nation's major airlines. Mr. Gantz was also the co-founder and vice president of technology for CoreActive ACG, a leading provider of web based solutions.

Topic: Confessions of a CF Assassin

Lessons from the front of High-Level ColdFusion Consulting. In this session we will separate myth from reality and review case studies and examples of application failure. We will go through real world examples of applications that failed, analyze the causes as well as review the recovery process.

Touching on security, performance, maintainability and beyond you will learn how to apply techniques and methods to make our applications better, faster and more secure.

Simon Horwith

Simon Horwith is Chief Information Officer at AboutWeb, LLC., a Washington DC based company, specializes in staff augmentation, consulting, and training. He is the Editor-in-Chief of ColdFusion Developer's Journal, the only magazine in print devoted exclusively to ColdFusion. Simon has been using ColdFusion since version 1.5 and is a Macromedia Certified Master Instructor and Member of Team Macromedia. He specializes in ColdFusion application architecture, including architecting applications that integrate with Java, Flash, Flex, and a myriad of other technologies. In addition to presenting at CFUGs and conferences around the world, he has also been a contributing author of several books and technical papers. You can read his blog at http://www.horwith.com.

Topic: "Putting Bread On The Table - Improving Your Marketability"

Writing code is fun, but at the end of the day there are bills to pay. In this session, attendees will discuss the ColdFusion job market, including what makes developers more attractive to prospective employers. Other topics include what developers can do to make themselves more marketable on paper and in person, how developers can take advantage of their current qualifications and skill set, recent hiring trends for CF developers, finding that 'dream job', and how to set realistic career goals.

Michael Smith

Michael Smith is the President of TeraTech, a 17-year old Rockville, Maryland consulting company that specializes in web and database development. TeraTech has developed sophisticated data-driven web sites for a wide range of organizations, from corporations to government agencies. In addition to ColdFusion, the TeraTech staff also have extensive experience in SQL databases, ASP, HTML, Access, Foxpro, Visual Basic and more. Michael has been programming for over 25 years and has been coding in ColdFusion since version 1.5 ten years ago. He obtained his MA and BA from Cambridge University, England and graduated in the top 10 of his year. Michael runs the Maryland ColdFusion User Group and organized many very successful CF events including CFUNITED-05 with over 800 attendees. Michael volunteers at ByteBack, a non-profit organization provides computer training for unemployed and under-employed inner city residents. He also is a frequent contributor to Fusion Authority, the ColdFusion Developer Journal and the CPCUG monitor.

Topic: Top notch testing techniques

Testing is critical to delivering a quality system to users. What are the best ways to test your code? What approaches find the most bugs? We will also examine test-driven development and how it can help you write better code. Do you alpha, beta or gamma test your applications? We will share testing ideas in a round table discussion.

Grant Straker

Grant Straker is the founder and Technology Director of Straker Interactive (www.straker.co.nz), a ColdFusion house with offices in Auckland, Sydney and London. Grant is the company’s lead developer and key proponent of product design and innovation. Straker’s flagship product the Shado CMS is an Enterprise Content Management System that is used to power some of the world’s most successful websites including the Webby Award winning www.newzealand.com and www.londonmet.ac.uk, voted best UK University website. Grant recently presented his CFMX Optimization session at Sydney’s WebDu conference where it was one of the most popular and well received presentations. Grant is also the author of "The ColdFusion MX Troubleshooting and Tuning Guide". A comprehensive guide to troubleshooting and tuning ColdFusion MX servers and applications.

Topic: Troubleshooting and Optimizing CFMX Performance

Find out how to optimize and troubleshoot CFMX driven applications. You will learn how to quickly debug and identify issues such as the server CPU going to 100%, what causes out of memory errors and how to track memory leaks. The session will also cover how to optimize your application for performance and scalability as well as how to monitor what is going on in the underlying java architecture. Many of the lessons you will learn in this session have been learnt the hard way and in 50 minutes you could save yourself many hours of head scratching and frustration down the track.