Iowa Tech and Social Media Interactive Conference

In just a few short weeks, Iowa will be hosting the Iowa Tech and Social Media Interactive Conference (IOWAtasmic), one of the very fist large social media conferences to be organized in the state. On September 18-20th, 2009 in Mount Pleasant, Iowa on the Welsyan College campus, IOWAtasmic will provide a chance for businesses and individuals around Iowa and the midwest to take part in and learn about the ever growing social media revolution.

While many people think social media is just a fad, IOWAtasmic sets out to demonstrate to Iowans that it's not. The goal of the event is to bring new technology and knowledge to Iowa, as well as to showcase the existing technology and services already offered in the area.

The conference also sets out to prove that Iowa is not ten years behind the rest of the World, technologically speaking, and will attempt to highlight incentives and benefits of relocating or expanding into Iowa.

Event organizer Bradley Laborman, known as Bradman in the online world, says attendees will benefit from the knowledge of top tech and social media figures from the U.S. and Canada. The conference will consist of keynote speakers, local musicians, youtube celebrities, social media gurus and entrepreneurs from across the country.

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A bonaza of ColdFusion News

There is a lot going on right now in the World of ColdFusion. First, July marks another birthday for our dear ColdFusion. Joseph JJ Allaire and his brother Jeremy released CF in July 1995, making it 14 years old this month. Not surprising, Adobe wished ColdFusion a happy birthday by officially releasing the public beta version of ColdFusion 9 (Centaur) and ColdFusion Builder recently. Since then, the CFers have been blogging machines. Below is a good sampling of the news floating around.

Adobe releases public beta of ColdFusion 9 and ColdFusion Builder [ColdFusion Jedi]
Adobe ColdFusion CFML Reference
Adobe ColdFusion 9 Videos [Adobe]
Getting Started With The New ColdFusion Builder [Ben Forta]
Adobe wires ColdFusion into Microsoft Office and SharePoint

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Hackers causing havoc in the World of ColdFusion

Nothing like waking up on a Friday before a holiday to discover that Hackers have been causing havoc in the world of ColdFusion.  Our inbox this morning contained a message from one of our preferred ColdFusion Hosting companies Crystal Tech (now Newtek Technology Services) about the attacks and several CF sites are reporting on the coordinated efforts.

Hackers are exploiting sites running older installations of some ColdFusion applications, such as FCKEditor (a popular HTML text editor) or CKFinder (an Ajax file manager). The potential security vulnerability exists in a popular ColdFusion shopping cart application CFWebstore that allows uploading of a shell script to a vulnerable site and gain root access to the server. For less technical readers, this isn't a good thing. This allows hackers to take advantage of the vulnerabilities to plant malicious scripts onto compromised websites, as part of a drive-by download attack that ultimately aims to infect visitors to the hacked site.

Luckily, none of our CF sites are in danger, as we don't use FCKEditor for anything in our development (TinyMCE rocks!) and CFWebstore is not a product we use for our sites. Plus, Crystal Tech has assured us that that they "have already taken steps to minimize the potential for compromise".

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TechRepublic Blog puts ColdFusion on life support

Another day passes, another blog post published on a tech site about the impending death of ColdFusion. But this one comes as more of a slap in the face than previous posts, as it comes from the blog of a very reputable technology publication: TechRepublic.

TechRepublic, a site brought to you by the conglomerate known as CBS, is a reputable publication that many IT professionals go to for information.  In addition to their unique content, the site brings in articles from various feeds on the web, and is a great source of tech related news.  One of the sources of that information is a company called Global Knowledge, a "worldwide leader in business training".  They specialize in Microsoft and Cisco Training (nerd note: that was foreshadowing).

Global Knowledge is the source of a recent article titled "10 dying IT skills". Written by Linda Leung, this article is an attempt to compile a list of dying IT skills in the tech industry. The theme of the post is a popular one for tech blogs, as it requires little to no effort to construct on the quick. For the most part, the article does an adequate job of listing skills on the verge of death. COBOL, HTML, Novell NetWare, etc. COBOL only still exists because it is too expensive for some banks to switch from and HTML should be scrapped for XHTML or DHTML. But then the article jumps the shark with its inclusion of ColdFusion as a dying skill. And thus the ignorance of another tech author is exposed.

To suggest that ColdFusion belongs anywhere close to this list is insane, and proves no real research went into writing this post.  For starters, comparing ColdFusion to COBOL is irresponsible.  Spouting nonsense this ridiculous is punishable by flogging in some countries.  Then, it suggests that Adobe doesn't have the money to compete with the marketing of Microsoft and Sun.  Interesting theory.  And this says nothing of the logic in saying that ColdFusion is a dying skill simply because the job searches performed by the author for CF jobs was less than that for PHP jobs.

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Arizona Entrepreneurship Conference Wrap-up

The AZ Entrepreneurship Conference was designed to help build the entrepreneurial community in Arizona. It is a way for entrepreneurs and investors to meet each other, connect with resources, and gather information. Some of us nerds attened the event and were very impressed with the people and energy, and that's a hard thing to admit for an anti-social computer nerd.

The format was no different than any other conference, but the energy and optimism floating through the air were. The conference was a refreshing change of pace for this nerd, and for the city of Phoenix as a whole. Despite all the economic doom and gloom headlines floating around these days, it was clear that everyone understood that there was no way to jump start the economy without the people that gathered at this conference and we all accepted that responsibility with open arms.

#AZEC featured several awesome speakers who crushed it in every single way. The first stand-out presentation was by Bill Reichert from Garage Technology Ventures. Bill talked about the 10 rules for entrepreneurs and investors, and I felt compelled to write them down. 1) The point is to Create Value, 2) establish a brilliant team to work with, 3) create a Mantra instead of a mission statement, 4) Get Going; get going as soon as possible, 5) Bootstrap it, 6) have a Global Strategy from day one, 7) be a Fast Adapter, not a first mover, 8) Everyone Sells, 9) Change Takes Time, progress is slower than you think, 10) People Trump Technology. Bill was an amazing source of information, and helped to get everyone pumped early on.

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