Viewing by month: January 2009

Adobe vs. Microsoft RIA Debate

Come join us for "The battle for control of the future of computing" debate at  7 PM (PST/GMT +8) on Thursday, February 12 in the Bronco Student Center (Ursa Minor) at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona. Microsoft Corp. and Adobe Systems Inc. will present their contenders for whose technologies will dominate. Adobe (maker of Photoshop, Flash and Dreamweaver) is encouraging developers to create media-rich desktop computer applications that operate independently of the Internet through its Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR). Microsoft wants developers to create media-rich applications that can be used online through its Silverlight technology.

Sam Stokes, academic developer/evangelist at Microsoft Corporation and Kevin Hoyt, platform evangelist at Adobe will represent the two sides. The free event is sponsored by the Interactive Web Development Student Association, the Computer Information Systems department in the College of Business Administration and the Inland Empire ColdFusion User Group and will be streamed live over the Internet. Pizza, refreshments and a free drawing for multimedia software will be provided.

If you can't make it in person, you can watch it live or afterwards at http://video.csupomona.edu/streaming/Events/FutureOfComputing.html

RSVPs to rdwestfall@csupopmona.edu are encouraged

Parking for visitors at Cal Poly is $5.00.

Parking at Cal Poly

We have an important note regarding tomorrow's meeting, which is in regards to the parking situation at the University. We had not previously had to deal with this issue, because parking enforcement ends at 5:00 pm on Fridays. This is not the case for the rest of the week, however, and visitors who park without a permit will be issued citations up until 10:00 pm.

Although we probably should have realized this was the case and dealt with it earlier, we did manage to get in touch with the Parking Services department today, and they agreed to add a list of our members to a "gate list" of people who can obtain a permit without a fee.

We have attempted to come up with a comprehensive list of everyone who has attended meetings in the last few months (aside from active Cal Poly students, who we presume already have this covered) as well as one person that contacted us indicating that they might be able to attend. Hopefully this covers everybody, but it is possible that we missed someone, so please reply to this post if you are planning to attend and we'll see if we can add you to the list.

We really don't want this issue to limit attendance, so if anyone does have to pay for a permit, please let us know at the meeting and we'll reimburse you.

Either way, attendees will need to stop by the visitor information kiosk to obtain a permit -- we have added directions to the Meetings page of the blog for anyone who might need them.

Finally, the announcement regarding the changes to the meeting day and location could have been more clear. Just to be sure that everyone is on the same page, here are the full details:

The usual meeting day and time is going to be the second Thursday of each month at 7:00 pm, and the location will be room 5-17 in building 98C (the classroom portion of the C/L/A building). Please let us know if anyone has any questions or concerns.

Thanks, all -- we hope to see you there tomorrow night!

January Meeting Tomorrow

Happy New Year everyone! We're a bit late in posting this, but tomorrow night is our first meeting of the year, and also the first to be held on Thursday. In addition to the schedule change, we are also moving to a new room: 5-17 (in the same building, room 17 on the fifth floor). We just learned today that there is one complication with the switch to Thursday night, which is the fact that Cal Poly requires visitors to obtain parking permits. We are attempting to find out if we can be granted exemptions instead, and will post an update with the outcome...

As far as the meeting agenda is concerned, we are fortunate to have Mike Brunt as our speaker this month, presenting a talk titled "Installing, setting up and using SeeFusion, a practical workshop including load-testing and reporting-analysis". Mike is one of the world's top authorities on issues related to performance and troubleshooting with ColdFusion servers:

Mike Brunt has been coding web applications since 1993 and began using ColdFusion at version 1.54 in 1995-6. He designed and created the first on-line international industrial equipment mart in 1997 (Power Bank International) at the request of a Cummins Engine Company subsidiary. In 1998 he worked with Kodak and Lucent Technologies to create a pioneering web based TeleRadiology cross-consult portal when Radiologists and Primary Care Physicians could review patient medical images. Allaire recruited Mike in 1999 to join a ColdFusion-JRun consulting team. This team was dispatched world-wide to help Allaire then Macromedia clients design and troubleshoot ColdFusion applications. In 2001 Mike co-founded his own company -- Webapper Services LLC. He now works independently, helping ColdFusion users worldwide to create strategies which ensure Enterprise level Adobe Server applications can be scaled effectively and efficiently.

Anyone with an interest in finding out how to optimize their servers to maximize performance and eliminate bottlenecks will not want to miss this, as it is an opportunity to learn from a master of the art of server tuning. Hope to see you all there!