Until the Fusebox conference ( September 18th - September 19th), we will be talking with featured speakers at the conference.
Interviews
9. Hal Helms - Conference tracks, wikipedia, win a ticket to FBCon
In this Fusebox Conference interview I talk with Hal Helms about
the beginner and advanced tracks at the conference, the wikipedia
entry on Fusebox and a competition to win a free ticket for the conference.
Michael Smith: Hal I noticed that this year's conference has two tracks -
beginner and advanced. Can you tell me more about why you did that this year?
Hal Helms: We wanted to provide advanced topics to Fusebox gurus who have
been
to previous conferences while letting people new to Fusebox learn Fusebox
on a
fast track.
MS: Can someone totally new to Fusebox benefit from the beginner's track?
What
is in it?
HH: Absolutely Michael. Starting Thursday 16th there is the optional FB101
Intro
to Fusebox class and on Friday the FB201 Intermediate Fusebox. Then we will
be
starting off Saturday with my keynote that will talk about Fusebox 4.1 (to
be
released at the conference), the future of Fusebox, and how YOU can use Fusebox
to boost your own stock in your organization. Then the Saturday beginner track
covers the basics of Fusebox - architecting, the config files and layouts:
* Brian Kotek Fusebox Overview
* Hal Helms Architecting FB Part 1
* Hal Helms Architecting FB Part 2
* Jeff Peters XML and FB Configuration files
* Sandy Clark Layouts in FB4
MS: What about questions from attendees?
HH: Well you can ask each speaker as time allows but we will also have a
FusePanel specially for questions at the end of Saturday! I guess you can
also ask questions at the Fuseball tourney but once the beer is flowing
I can't guarantee the answers will be printable!
MS: That is cool for Saturday. What about Sunday?
HH: On Sunday we will get some tips on what to avoid in FB, then an excellent
hands on session (bring your own laptop) by Jeff Peters. Follow by how to
make a
free FB box and the use of Fusedocs and Adalon.
* Rey Muradaz How NOT to FB
* Jeff Peters Building your first FB application (Hands on) Part I
* Jeff Peters Building your first FB application (Hands on) Part II
* David Epler Lamda Boxes
* Steve Nelson Fusedocs in Real World
* Maxim Porges Strategies for Successful Development
MS: Some of those topics sound interesting for FB gurus too. Are they allowed
to attendee beginner sessions?
HH: Yes, anyone can attend any session. Just go to the ones that interest
you most.
Though I have to say that anyone who misses my sessions will be hearing from
Vinny
afterwards. :-)
MS: Ok, so what do we have for advanced folks?
HH: Glad you asked. We have a lot of exciting topics for people who are experts
in Fusebox. John will be covering in depth the new features in FB 4.1 and
Barney
will look at using CFCs. The discussion about FLiP should help people who
are
having problems using it and the FB Showcase is a chance to see what other
folks
are doing with FB in corporations and government offices across the world.
* Hal Helms Keynote
* John Q New Aspects FB 4.1 Part 1
* John Q New Aspects FB 4.1 Part 2
* Barney Boisvert Using CFCs with FB
* Michael Smith FLiP in Real World
* Various Fusebox Showcase Case Studies
Of course advanced questions are welcome at the Fusepanel too!
MS: So what is up for Sunday advanced topics?
HH: We have a cutting edge talk by Sean Corfield of Macromedia on using the
new Blackstone features in Fusebox and maybe Mach II and Ben Edwards will
lead
a discussion on Mach-II. (My Mach-II class is on Monday for those who are
staying
for that). And we have talks on Java tools, FB tools, He3 editor
* Sean Corfield Blackstone - what does it mean for Fusebox (and Mach II)?
* Ben Edwards Mach-II (Birds of Feather)
* John Paul Ashenfelter Leveraging Java Tools for FB4
* Various Fusebox Tools (Birds of Feather)
* Howard Fore He3 and FB
* Matt Liotta Selling FB (Panel)
MS: Hey what is that Selling FB talk about? I thought FB was free!
HH: Of course FB is free - but sometimes we have to convince our bosses and
clients to use FB. This panel discussion with help people out with that. In
fact
this might be useful for some newbies to Fusebox too!
MS: Any thing else on Sunday?
HH: The Wrap-Up and Raffle - over $5000 of prizes to win. (Including one
of my
Java for CFers classes, hint, hint)
MS: Wow what a weekend!
HH: That is not all - I will be teaching a Mach-II class on Monday
MS: I don't know how you do it.
HH: Years of training and my secret diet...
MS: ...Cigars and wine?
HH: Something like that. But enough about me, what have you been doing?
MS: In addition to preparing for the conference, programming, training,
mentoring people on their projects you mean? :-)
HH: Yes I heard about a wiki...
MS: Oh, yes the wikipedia. It is a free public encyclopedia project. Over
340,000 articles all written and edited by the public.
HH: Amazing what the web can do.
MS: It is. Anyway I checked out the Wikipedia entry on Fusebox and found
none
so I drafted one to start. It is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusebox
I wrote a few more articles on fuses and XFAs too. But here is my challenge
to the Fusebox community. If you have more to say on these topics or other
Fusebox or ColdFusion ones go ahead and edit the articles or add some of
your own.
HH: That sounds like it would help out people new or curious to Fusebox Michael.
But isn't it hard to do?
MS: No, the editing is easy using the wiki editor and there is a whole
community of others who help with formating and English. There is great online
help too...
HH: I will check it out.
MS: Thanks. One more thing I almost forgot. That free ticket to FB conf.
How
do people win that?
HH: I thought you would never ask. Just go to
http://www.cfconf.org/fusebox2004/survey.cfm
TeraTech will pick the winner based on the most correct answers and the best
reason for going to the Fusebox conference.
MS: Ok, great, see you in 9 days at the conference!
Previous Interviews:
Week 1: Hal Helms - Keynote Speech
Week 2: John Quarto-vonTivadar - New Aspects of Fusebox 4.1
Week 3: Michael Smith - Real World FLiP
Week 4: Rey Muradaz - How NOT to Fusebox
Week 5: Steve Nelson - Fusedocs
Week 6: Hal Helms - Bonus FLiP CD
Week 7: Sandra Clark - Layouts in Fusebox 4
Week 8: John Paul Ashenfelter - Leveraging Java Tools for
Fusebox 4 Development