I am excited to announce that I have formally accepted a position as an Application Engineer with Blue River Interactive Group, the creators of Mura CMS. Anyone who follows or knows me in any way should not be shocked by this announcement. I have been working with Mura CMS since cf.Objective() 2009. (Speaking of which, I am also happy to announce that I have been given the honor of serving on the cf.Objective() 2011 Steering Committee!) In addition to using Mura CMS on a vast number of projects at my day job, I have also been using it on nearly all of my freelance projects as well as providing support for a number of clients. So, needless to say, I have been active in the Mura Support Forums and worked directly with many team members from Blue River over the past year or so. Obviously, Blue River does much more than content management, and so do I. Mura has simply become one of my favorite tools in my 'software development toolbox.'

Whenever an opportunity presents itself, often difficult decisions have to be made... and trust me, this has not been as easy of a decision as one might think. Accepting this new position meant that I would be leaving my position with my current company, Ignition Studio, Inc.

I have been extremely fortunate over the past several years to have had the opportunity to work with an extraordinarily talented and fun group of people at Ignition Studio. It's so rare these days to find a job that does not feel like a job and one that you can actually look forward to doing each and every day. That is exactly how I felt working with Lee, Gordon, Jaci, Greg, Kristen and Jessica ... the people who over the years have been a part of Team Ignition. In addition, I have had the honor of working on numerous projects with some of the best clients anyone could ever hope for. I sincerely wish my former teammates and clients continued success and hope we will continue our friendships into the future.

I do not want to end on such a sad note though ... so, to all of my future teammates at Blue River, I cannot wait to begin working with you! I look forward to seeing many of you next week on my visit to Sacramento, California.

Cheers!

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/