Scotch on the Rocks 2008 Article - Web Designer Magazine
Issue 146 of Web Designer Mag features a review of this years Scotch on the Rocks.
Go pick up a copy!
Issue 146 of Web Designer Mag features a review of this years Scotch on the Rocks.
Go pick up a copy!
We'll be out in force at Scotch on the Rocks next week, meaning we won't be manning the phones, though calls will be forwarded to mobiles. However, as this is "our" conference, we'll be somewhat busy.
I'm really looking forward to catching up with guys like Doug Hughes, Scott Stroz and Joe Rinehart, all of whom I met a few years back at CFUnited in Washington.
It'll be nice to see the Adobe crew again, including Jason Delmore, Kristen Schofield, Adam Lehman and Ben Forta.
There's a bunch of new folk that I can't wait to meet, such as Luca Mezzalira, Peter Elst, Neil Middleton and Neil Webb.
And last but not least, Gert Franz. We took Gert and the Railo crew out for lunch last year after the conference and introduced them to Haggis so I'll need to see what I can subject them too this year.
For everyone attending, make yourself know to me - I'll be the main idiot wearing the kilt - and who knows, maybe you'll end up with some extra swag, free drink or even some free training or consultancy. I get generous around conference time, so who knows .....
Alan Williamson announced earlier today the folks who will make up the steering committee for the Open BlueDragon (OpenDB) project.
Having known Alan for 4 years now, since I first asked him to present at the ScottishCFUG, I was aware that OpenBD was on the cards.
The members of the committee should be known to most of the community, and as Sean Corfield points out, not all of them have enjoyed a "friendly" relationship with New Atlanta in the past. However, that just goes to show the level of interest and commitment to the OpenBD project, and ultimately what it could achieve.
If you want to get involved in the project, then please join the community mailing list, which can be found at http://groups.google.com/group/openbd
If you want to experience OpenBD firsthand, then the initial release of OpenBD should take place at this years cf.Objective() conference, and 6 of the Steering Committee will be at Scotch on the Rocks;Alan Williamson, Andy Wu, Sean Corfield, Matt Woodward, Mark Drew and myself
We're planning something special for Scotch, so stay tuned!
I'm heading out to Dublin on Friday for the ScotchOnAir event.
This is a half day event put together by Scotch on the Rocks and MMUG Dublin.
Dublin was originally part of the Adobe onAir tour, but due to "unforeseen circumstances", the Dublin date was cancelled and Scotch's very own Kev McCabe jumped into organise something.
Kev has managed to arrange for Adobe's Ryan Stewart and Ted Patrick to come along and give talks on Air and Flex respectively, whilst Kev will be talking about ColdFusion and Flex.
I'll be doing my damnedest to plug Scotch on the Rocks and in addition to the swag Adobe have given us to raffle off, we will also give away a full 3 day pass to Scotch, There may also be a few other Scotch bits and bobs kicking around, and maybe some Fuzzy Orange swag too.
Now, if I can just survive my flight with Ryanair!!!
I'm up in sunny Aberdeen this Friday (which is also the last day of the early bird pricing for Scotch on the Rocks), giving a presentation on ColdFusion 8.
Fuzzy Orange will also be sponsoring the event so that everyone gets some food and a few beers.
Additionally, I will also be giving away a ticket to Scotch on the Rocks.
The presentation will be aimed at both experienced and novice ColdFusion developers. Heck, if you're a PHP/.NET/Java/Ruby/etc developer and want to know what the fuss is all about, come along.
See you on Friday.
This month saw the first in a series of articles by myself, published by Web Designer Mag on ColdFusion for Novices.
Issue 141 sees me showing easily and quickly, just how we can pull data from a database and display it in an Ajax grid. I think it takes around 28 lines of code. Real basic code.
Next month (issue 142) will see a more in depth look at programming using CFML - this should be on the way to the printers - and issue (143), well, I can't tell you what's going to be in that just yet.
In addition to the tutorial, I'm quoted on what we here at Fuzzy Orange think is "Hot for 2008". Scotch on the Rocks is top of our list, and it's very encouraging to see Web Designer agree with us, as it's number 51 in their list.
A few weeks ago I got together with the CFWeekly team; Matt Woodward, and Peter Farrell to talk about Scotch on the Rocks.
Scotch will be a truly great conference, and a lot more has happened since the interview some of which we have announced, and some that is still under wraps.
I promise this will be the best £199 you ever spend!
By a twist of fate, I will now be at MAX in Barcelona.
Not only will I be attending, but I am now giving the ColdFusion 8 Server Monitoring talk at 4pm on Tuesday.
I hope to see some folks there, as it turns out that Sean Corfield, Ben Forta, Dirk Eismann and Ted Patrick are all speaking at the same time.
I'm not sure how many sessions I will attend but I'll definately be getting involved with the ColdFusion BoF that is due to run on Monday.
I've got lots of things I want to discuss with Ben Forta, and the others who attend. I may even give away a couple of Fuzzy Orange tshirts.
Also, it will be nice to meet up with some folks again, including Ben, Sean, Mark Drew, etc in addition to finally meeting up with Sumi Lim and Kristen Schofield from Adobe.
Now, if only I can find my passport ...
After the subtle hints on Friday #1, #2, #3, I'm sure there were a few folks who knew what we were up to.
Yes, Scotch on the Rocks is back for 2008. With a new website, a new venue, a new structure and some world class speakers to say the least, Scotch 2008 will be an event you will not want to miss.
You can now find the conference website at the new location of www.scotch-on-the-rocks.co.uk
In typical announcement fashion, the website is fairly bare as we are still in the process of organising and confirming things however, we will be making announcements on the conference blog, and you can sign up to the Scotch mailing list for special announcements, interviews, and competitions.
We've taken all of last years feedback on board and we've moved venue to the rather swanky 4 star George Hotel, on Edinburgh's George Street.
So what does the new venue give us in comparison to 2007?:
For 2008 we are expanding the event to 3 days, with 3 tracks per day. What does this mean for you?
We're not saying too much on this yet, but look out for announcements every day this week as we release details on just some of the folks we have already lined up for 2008.
Call for speakers: if you'd like to present at Scotch on the Rocks 2008, then please contact us.
As I said, keep an eye out for announcements this week on some big named speakers we have confirmed for 2008.
Watch out for interviews and potentially some podcasts.
Tell your boss you want to attend, and that they need to send you to Edinburgh, Scotland. We'll help you with that - watch out for our guide on just why you should attend Scotch, coming soon.
