Boyzoid's Blog & Stuff

If you are reading this and you attended my session at CFunited, I have great news: I fixed the issues with my code! If you did not attend my session, read on anyway. Here is what the problem was:

After I had done one final round of testing, I wanted to clean up the database so all the data I just entered would not be seen. Rather than going through and manually deleting the records, I decided I was gonna be smart and just replace my local database files with the ones stored in my Subversion repository. What I had neglected to remember was that I had not committed a recent copy of the database back to the repo, so I overwrote my database files with a very old version of the database - one that was not 'in synch' with the ORM code I was using.

This explains the issues I had anytime I tried to save something, but what about the Model Glue issues? Well, when I looked at my controller.cfc file for the Model Glue version of the application, it was just about empty. So this got me thinking, maybe when I pulled over the database files from the repo, that I included controller.cfc as well - which also had not been committed recently. I was able to revert back to a previous version of that file and everything now works, in all versions of the application.

I have attached a zip file if my slide deck, as well as the sample code so you guys can see that it really does work - you can get it here.

Now, what did I learn? Well, a couple things:

1. After you have verified that the code for your presentation works, don't make ANY changes...at all.
2. If you are going to go through the trouble of setting up a Subversion repository for your demo code, use it and use it correctly. i.e. - commit early and often!

I would like to thank everyone who attended my session (the room was pretty full) and I apologize again for all the issues. A lot of those in attendance have come up to me since and said that they enjoyed presentation and learned a lot even with the technical difficulties. I really hope that is true, and they were not just being nice to the stupid guy who borked most of his code.

If you are still at CFunited on Saturday, I am giving the presentation again at 2:330 PM. Stop by, if for no other reason to see if the carnage will continue.

Have you registered for CFUnited yet?  If not, why not? The 'early bird' discount ends tomorrow.  So, go register.  Go ahead...I'll wait....

OK, now that we got that out of the way, we can talk about the real important stuff. How many of you knew that one of the amenities if you stay in the hotel was that you get a free round of golf at the resort?  I am sure it will come as no surprise to anyone that I think this is way cool. I love golf, and take any opportunity to play new courses. I have heard great things about the courses at Lansdowne, but have not played there yet (even though its only about 45 minutes from home).

I was planning on getting a group of people together for a little outing. I was thinking Wednesday Tuesday would be the best day.  I would make any arrangements with the golf course and we can kind of play as one big group.  There is one caveat though, if you sign up to play in this little outing, you will be randomly placed in groups with other CFUnited attendees/speakers. I think this is a great way to get to know other people.

So, who's with me? If you are interested, please leave a comment below and I will start to make the arrangements.

*UPDATE*

Please note I got the day mixed up, I was thinking of doing the little outing on Tuesday, NOT Wednesday.

This year at CFunited, Liz is planning an 'Open Mic' night where conference attendees will be able to share some of their talents.  If you have some kind of talent, sign up to preform. Currently there are people signed up to play music, perform magic and read poetry.

Based on the fact that I spent a short period of time performing stand-up comedy, Liz, from Stellr, has asked me to be the emcee for the Open Mic. What does this mean?  Well, I will be the one introducing all the acts, and interspersing some of my old stand-up routine (and hopefully some new stuff) in between performers.

A friend told me, "if you do good, the audience will love it, and well, if you bomb, the audience will love it, but in a different kind of way. So for the audience, its a win/win". I find it hard to argue with that logic, but really hope I don't bomb. 

Oh, and hurry up and register, the early bird ends real soon. The chance to see me make a complete fool of myself might just be too good of an opportunity to pass on. You know you want to see if I will, so you better be there.

The planning of CFUnited 09 is well under way.  The folks at Stellr have put together a short survey for attendees (and perspective attendees) to be able to vote on what topics they would like to see covered at the conference this year.

So, if you are planning on attending the conference, go on over and take the survey.  It should take no more than a few minutes...go ahead..I'll wait.

Oh...one thing before you go...I hear that Stroz guy is an excellent speaker ;)

I am getting ready to make the hour or so trip down to Washington DC for Flexmaniacs. If you have not heard of it, Flexmaniacs is the first Flex-centric conference on the East Coast.  I am giving two presentation during the 2 day conference.  My session topics are 'Printing in Flex 2' and 'Sorting, Filtering and Paginating Data in Flex 2'.

After the conference ends on Tuesday, I will be heading up the road for CFUnited. As I mentioned here, there were some scheduling issues with my 'Prototyping Applications in Flex' session.  TeraTech has graciously given me a 'Birds Of a Feather' (BOF) session on Wednesday night, at 9:00 PM, to discuss the materials which would have been presented during the originally scheduled time slot.

Its going to be a busy, but fun week.  Hope to see you at one or both of the conferences!

...but here is you chance for a little revenge.

After reading Sean Corfield's recent entry about the limited seating sessions at CFunited and this recent CFUnited Blog Entry, I felt I should let people know that due to circumstances beyond my control, I will not be presenting the session titled "Prototyping Applications in Flex 2".  I am not certain at this time who will be presenting this topic.

I will, however, still be in attendance at CFunited, so I hope to see you there.

My employer, AboutWeb, has started what we hope will be a long series of podcasts. The current episode includes an interview with me, discussing Flogr, and AboutWeb's CTO, Kelly Brown, discussing Adobe's new AJAX library, Spry. The podcasts are available at http://podcast.aboutweb.com/. Upcoming episodes include interviews with Simon Horwith and Jim Collins.