First Snow

We had a hum dinger of a snowfall yesterday on the seacoast of New Hampshire. My 4 wheel drive Subaru outback barely made it up the 1000 ft driveway. Luckily it was the light fluffy stuff and even though the undercarriage left a nice trail all the way the car is safely in the garage waiting to be plowed out today.

Life moves too fast for me to post much here. Lisa and I have been to numerous Tai Chi weekend workshops and continuous weekend and evening hikes (I call anything over a couple miles a hike). My usual clients have kept me too busy to do some of the personal FileMaker development projects I am hoping to get too soon. I have picked up several new short term jobs this fall, but continue to spend more than half my time supporting my favorite client http:www.usfirst.org.

I have started working on a gaming idea to produce a programmable game in FileMaker for fun. But have been too pressed for time to progress very far with the idea.

I have joined a new organization which I am hoping will promote the connections I need to help "Save the World with FileMaker" custom database design, automation and support. N-TEN! The Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network. Check them out at http://www.nten.org. So far we have only attended one meeting, but are scheduled to attend another gathering next week with holiday atmosphere and the opportunity to network with others with altruistic aims.

Best wishes to all my friends and readers. Have a great holiday season.

Playing with Features of FMPro Version 8 [Saving Files with variable names and paths]

Here is a good tip from FileMaker’s Famous Andrew Lecates explaining how to save a file to a specific path.
This is one of the new features in version 8 which was previously possible only with the aid of a plug-in.

1. Set a script variable to the path as a text string.
3. Enter the variable in the path dialog to 'carry' a calculated path
there

For step 1, use a script step like this:
  Set Variable [$filePath; Value: "file:" & Get(DesktopPath) &
    customer::first & "_" & customer::last &
    ".pdf" ]

This will result in a path string that places a .pdf file on your
desktop, and names the file based on the current customer record in
the form "Fritz_Jung.pdf".

For step 2, something like:
  Save Records as PDF [Restore; "$filePath"; Automatically open;
Current record]

So in the Specify Output File dialog, you would enter "$filePath" (no
quotes) into the Output File Path List.

FWIW, when doing this with scripts, I highly recommend using local
script variables [$filePath] over global script variables [$
$filePath] unless you want to make extra work for yourself cleaning
up the global variables and testing to make sure multiple scripts
using the same $$filePath aren't clobbering (writing over) each
other's output.

Enjoy!

FileMaker 8 Rocks

I have just attended the annual FileMaker Developer Conference where FileMaker 8 was introduced. FileMaker 7 introduced some great new functionality and removed a lot of the old limits on FileMaker Database systems. Version 8 adds some great new usability features that will save time for users and developers alike, reducing the cost of development and improving responsiveness. We were told to expect speed improvements on the order of 20% for some actions. Users will love the new calendar input (without the use of an extra cost plugin) and the clairvoyance features which allows autocompleting based on a valuelist of data.

I have been tremendously busy helping my client FIRST to convert their system from FileMaker 6 to 7. We have put off completely rewriting the system from the ground up due to the magnitude of work involved. The conversion process went fairly smoothly after running the files through a utility to clean up the old file references.

Heading home now from a post conference vacation at the same Desert Ridge Marriott.

Joel

Loving MacJournal from Mariner Software

I am loving MacJournal from Mariner Software . This is a great notebook and journal keeping software which has built in capability to post directly to my Blog. I am posting this from my journal rather than going to a website and navigating to the correct page and pushing the correct series of buttons. It makes Blogging an order of magnitude more simple in my humbe opinion.

The same company also markets a great low cost word processor called Mariner Write and a spreadsheet called Mariner Calc. Their software has a Lifetime upgrade plan so you don't have to keep paying for the upgrades and these programs can replace their Microsoft alternatives at much lower cost. They may not have all the features of the Microsoft alternatives, but the result is that they are not as confusing to operate for those with modest needs and budgets.

Check them out.

Cheers,
Joel

Looking Forward to Getting in Shape

With the return of good weather to New England I am looking forward to getting into better physical shape. I took my long neglected mountain bike into the bike shop for repairs and tune up and discovered that I could replace it rather than repair it for about twice the cost of the repairs and end up with a much better bike. So I am ready to hit the road pedaling as soon as it stops raining.

Who knows, I may be able to rejuvenate some of these old muscles enough that I can do some more serious hiking this summer.

Have a great day!

Test Posting by Email

Did you know you can post a blog article by sending an email to your secret
blogger address?

This is really cool if it works.

Have a great day.
--
Joel Bowers
Certified FileMaker 7 Developer

Saving The World With FileMaker

I am still extremely busy upgrading my favorite client > from FileMaker 6 to FileMaker 7. They are the kind of client am focusing on. My efforts in some small part aid the more than 1000 teams of highschool kids (perhaps 20,000 kids) to gain an interest and have some fun with science and technology by building a robot and playing games with other robots from other teams.

Although the title of this Blog is overly ambitious I am seeking future clients whose work will leverage my productivity to help thousands or more people rather than the typical small business client where creating a system helps their small company and small customer base.

Does that sound like too much to ask?