Solr. It's like Metallica's "Battery" but without leaving you in a bloody mess on the floor

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We like donuts so much we're offering SOTR2011 goodness in return!

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Judge Jury and Executioner!!! I'm (kinda) in charge at the .net awards 2010

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Remoting issues over SSL wigth a Hardware Load Balancer? It's easy when you know how.

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Europe's longest running ColdFusion conference opens registration for 2011

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Subject says it all - we've opened the call for speakers for the 2011 conference.

http://www.sotr.eu/blog/index.cfm/2010/6/22/SOTR2011--Call-for-Speakers

Speaking at MAX. Again. The bribes are obviously working.

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SotR2011 will take place March 3-4, 2011 in Edinburgh

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As folks know, we've been doing a bit of polling for SOTR2011 and I thought I'd share some of the result based on the first 100 responses.

1. Where should SOTR2011 be held?

• Edinburgh: 59%
• London: 41%

We also had some suggestions for; Cardiff, Exeter, Glasgow, Brussels, Wroclaw, India and 'somewhere on mainland Europe'.

For those wishing somewhere other than the UK, then I'll have to disappoint. The SOTR2009 European tour was a sort of trial to see how we could cope with handling events remotely. Unfortunately there are just too many logistical nightmares involved.

2. How many days should SOTR2011 run?

• Two: 59.3%
• Three: 40.7%

We're not surprised by two days coming out on top, but we are surprised at the narrow margin.

Our own preference is 3 days, but taking into consideration the increased ticket price, another night in a hotel, and another day out of the office, we really thought the margin would be bigger.

However, the liklihood is that SOTR2011 will be a two day event (with multiple tracks).

3. Which days should SOTR2011 run?

• Mon/Tues/(Wed): 25.4%
• (Wed)/Thurs/Fri: 42.4%
• (Tues)/Wed/Thurs: 5.1%
• Thurs/Fri/(Sat): 27.1%

It's looking like a Thursday and Friday will be involved. Depending on whether we do three days or not (unlikely), Saturday has the edge over Wednesday.

4. Which speakers to you wish to see at SOTR2011?

We're not going to reveal anything here, but needless to say we'll do our best to go after the folks you want.

5. Which sessions would you like at SOTR2011?

We kept things deliberately vague here, but the top 5 voted for subjects are:

1. ColdFusion (Advanced)
2. Development Best Practices
3. Frameworks (ColdSpring, ModelGlue, etc)
4. ORM
5. Security

The 5 least voted for topics are:

1. ColdFusion (Beginner)
2. BlazeDS/LCDS
3. Accessibility
4. CSS
5. Flex

We've had a number of requests for cutting back on RIA talks and more emphasis on Advanced ColdFusion techniques and sessions to help "make us better developers".

6. What price would you pay for SOTR2011?

• Two days: 72.7% voted for £150-200
• Three days: 50.0% voted for £200-250

This is exactly what we expected.

Our pricing has alwaysbeen considerably less than our fellow CFML conferences in the US, but we typically have less overall sessions. On the flip side, we typically have higher expenses due to the need to bring in so many international speakers.

We're also a fraction of the cost of most conferences of other technologies.

And for the few who demanded the conference be free, you're probably the same ones who signed up for the free SOTR2009 European tour, and then subsequently never showed up.

7. Tell us what would make you definitely attend SOTR2011?

The overwhelmeing response here was "getting my  boss' permission". I may look at covering this "reason" in another blog post.

Anyway, that's it for now.

Help out Aaron and his family as they suffer the loss of their home and personal belongings in the Nashville flood

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