It's official, I'll be presenting two (2) hands-on classes at BFlex/BFusion 2010 in September. If you're interested in picking up some Mura skills (or Flex and/or ColdFusion too!), be sure to at least book your hotel room today! Learn more about this awesome two-day, hands-on training event at http://bflex.info.

Listed below are class descriptions for the presentions I'll be instructing. Hope to see you there!

Mura CMS for the Front-End Developer

Mura is a comprehensive web-based content management system (CMS) that allows organizations to publish and control web content quickly and easily. As an open-source ColdFusion-powered CMS, Mura is a great choice for your next web project.

Overview:

In 90-minutes we'll attempt to convert an existing HTML/CSS design into a Mura CMS site theme. Hopefully, you'll get a basic understanding of how to create and modify Mura CMS templates and CSS to create your site's layouts and design.

Pre-Requisites:

• A working installation of Mura CMS on your laptop (very important!)
• Working knowledge of CFML, CSS and HTML
• Firebug for Firefox (not necessary, but definitely handy)

Mura CMS for the Back-End Programmer

Mura is a comprehensive web-based content management system (CMS) that allows organizations to publish and control web content quickly and easily. As an open-source ColdFusion-powered CMS, Mura is a great choice for your next web project.

Overview:

In 90-minutes we'll attempt to learn some fundamental principles at work in Mura CMS and how to programmatically manipulate, extend and customize Mura CMS.

Pre-Requisites:

• A working installation of Mura CMS on your laptop (very important!)
• Understanding of CFML, and preferably some experience with object-oriented programming

In honor of Mura's new and improved App Store, I've release another plugin for Mura CMS into the wild called MuraMetaGenerator™. In a nutshell, this allows Mura CMS to auto-generate meta keywords and descriptions for your pages.

Why Should I Use This?

There could be a number of reasons why someone would want to use MuraMetaGenerator™. One of the best reasons is that most Authors and Editors either don't have the time and/or the knowledge of what information to put in these fields to begin with.

Also, since search engines change their algorithms daily and actually rely less and less on meta keywords and meta descriptions, why not spend your time going through the actual content of your pages and making sure your content contains the information you want indexed by search engines? After all, MuraMetaGenerator™ derives its information based on the actual page content which means you'll be following 'White Hat' Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques so your search engines rankings will most likely grow organically over time.

So go ahead and let MuraMetaGenerator™ do it for you! You can grab it from http://www.getmura.com/index.cfm/app-store/apps/murametagenerator/

Looking for some live, hands-on ColdFusion and/or Flex training and education? Then you'll want to attend BFusion/BFlex 2010. The event is hosted in Bloomington, Indiana at none other than the Indiana University campus! The event will be held Saturday, September 11, 2010 and Sunday, September 12, 2010. Mark your calendars now and be sure to visit their web site for additional details and registration information.

For those who might be curious, I've thrown my name in the hat to present (again) on Mura CMS. I'm not certain if I'll be speaking or not yet, but I plan on attending either way. So if you're interested in learning more about Mura CMS live, in-person and hands-on, be sure to check back here for details on that. If you have any suggestions on what you would like to know about Mura, feel free to leave your comments for me here too.

Hope to see you there! Peace.