A few months ago I wrote an editorial in CFDJ (Vol. 3, issue 1) about conferences in general, and what fantastic opportunities they were for learning and networking. I spoke with many readers after that piece (at conferences of course!) and all agreed with that sentiment. Many of our readers regularly attend i-technology conferences to stay on top of their game, but if you don't - worry not. Now is as good a time as any to start!

I've spent the past month working with a great team on a very exciting project that I want to share with you all. On September 23-26, at the Hilton in midtown Manhattan, a colocated trade show of enormous proportions will be taking place - JDJEdge 2001 and Web Services Edge 2001. ColdFusion Edge 2001 FastTrack will also be held at the same time and location.

Twenty of the supertracks highlighting key Internet technologies at JDJEdge/Web Services Edge 2001 will be intensive learning sessions for CF developers - ranging from beginner to intermediate to advanced. These learning sessions are in quite good company with the other FastTracks covering Oracle 9i, BEA WebLogic, Java FastTrack to Certification, and IBM WebSphere. All of this, in addition to an enormous conference program covering the already established world of Java and the newly emerging world of Web Services.

At the conference look for a major keynote by Kevin Lynch, Macromedia's president of products. Later, on the first day, ColdFusion Fast Track kicks off with a preview of ColdFusion 6, known affectionately as Neo, provided by Mr. ColdFusion himself - Jeremy Allaire. Following these opening keynotes will be classes taught by some of the masters of the ColdFusion industry, including many names and faces you'll recognize from the pages of this magazine.

A ColdFusion conference wouldn't be a ColdFusion conference without Ben Forta, and he'll be presenting one of our key sessions. Also CFDJ regulars Charles Arehart, Hal Helms, Steve Drucker, Michael Dinowitz, Christian Schneider, and Kevin Schmidt will be teaching on such topics as certification, FuseBox, wireless CF, Web Services, CF and JavaScript, ColdFusion 5, using ColdFusion and XML together, and more....

Daily updates on conference activities, schedules, and registration can be found at www.sys-con.com/coldfusionedge. Check it out; I hope to see you there!

Now onto this issue... We've got the fantastic final piece from Charles Arehart on error handling, Guy Rish on CF and Java, and the article by Kailasnath Awati and Mario Techera on ColdFusion and Oracle is a good introduction to using Oracle 9i with ColdFusion on your Web sites.

Due to reader demand, we have two articles this month on integrating payment systems with CF. Both cover third-party solutions, a sometimes welcome alternative to in-house processing. One is by Kelly Brown about Verisign Payflow, and the other by Dave Keenan is on using CyberCash. Both are worth a read if you aren't doing any online sales at this point - two good examples of the technology that's "out there." We've got all that plus the usual articles from Ben Forta, Bruce Van Horn, and others. Enjoy!