OT: subversion personal training?

[Sean Tierney]

hi, 
I'm new to this list and admittedly not a linux person. I develop
coldfusion apps that generally run on a windows server (i know, i
know- no tomatoe throwing please).  I recently started keeping code in
subversion and while I understand the basic concepts of source control
and specifically the copy/modify/merge model, I'm having trouble with
the more advanced stuff involving branching/tagging (namely how to
merge a branch of code from the trunk with a fresh codebase that is
imported separately).  I noticed you guys had a preso back in April on
this topic and thought there might be some subversion experts on this
list who could give me a 2hr crash course on best practices either in
person or remotely via phone/vnc. Also I have questions about my
current development setup, basically if it makes sense (i'm running a
virtual PC instance on my laptop that mimics my production server w/
SVN repository hosted on production, test the code on VPC, commit and
export to production).

I'm seeking an expert on subversion who could spend an hour or two in
the next few days to look over my setup and give me some best practice
pointers. I also don't understand the role of the subclipse plugin
when working in the Eclipse editor- it seems to negate the usefulness
of having a working copy where you test the code first and commit it
only when you know it works.

I'm halfway through the free svn redbean book and I get 90% of this
stuff but I recognize when time economics make more sense to pay
someone to train me rather than spin my wheels and wind up w/ some bad
habits from doing it a weird way. I've heard from my buddy Colin on
this list that these people would all be good teachers->
Alan Dayley and Jeff Toft (sp?)

I will gladly pay you for your time, please send your rate and
availability offlist.
thanks, and hopefully this is a kosher post as it is only
peripherally-related to linux

Sean  
-- 
blog: www.ScrollinOnDubs.com