Archive for the 'FileMaker Inc.' Category

Please Join us October 27th: Andrew LeCates and Matt O’Dell from FileMaker, Inc

Published on October 20, 2011. 1 Comment

Our next Philadelphia FileMaker Developer Group meeting has been scheduled for Thursday evening, October 27th 2011 at 6:00 PM. The meeting will be held at the IT Solutions Fort Washington Office.

This is a rare meeting with two FileMaker Inc representatives sharing the stage.  They’ll be reviewing the state of FileMaker Go and how it’s currently being used in the field, using real-world cases.

414 Commerce Dr., Suite 150, Fort Washington, PA 19034
Google Map

Please RSVP here if you are planning to attend this meeting:

http://www.fmpug.com/rsvp.php?eventID=1228

FILEMAKER GO: ONE YEAR LATER

Andrew LeCates and Matthew O’Dell of FileMaker Inc.

It was over a year ago when FileMaker Go was released to the public. Since that time many clients and developers have built wonderful solutions that extend their desktop databases and take advantage of the unique mobility and hardware that iOS devices provide.

Systems Engineer Matt O’Dell and Director of Systems Engineering Andy LeCates from FileMaker will present to us some of the lessons learned over the year in developing for this new mobile platform. Matt will present the basics of FileMaker Go, what things have changed over the past year, and how to use different features specific to this device. Andy will demonstrate some real life solutions built for FileMaker Go and how they solved unusual problems with the combination of iOS and FileMaker Go.

 

About the Presenters

 

Andrew LeCates

Andy manages the North American Systems Engineering team for FileMaker,Inc. For 20 years, he’s led FileMaker solutions deployment as a developer, teacher, evangelist, author, and consultant for customers around the world. He’s a veteran speaker and is FileMaker Pro Certified in 7,8,9,10, 11 and  an Authorized Trainer for the FileMaker Training Series track.

 


Matthew O’Dell

Matt is a systems engineer with FileMaker in the Northeast United States and Canada. Matt has been an avid FileMaker user for over 10 years now, and has been developing solutions for the past seven years. He started as an IT Manager for a small student based travel company in DeKalb, IL before moving to Soliant Consulting. While with Soliant, Matt developed applications for numerous clients, taught training courses, and participated as a member of their IT department. He has been with FileMaker, Inc. for nearly three years and works out of New York City. Certifications include FileMaker 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 Certified Developer, FileMaker Training Series Authorized Trainer, and MySQL 5.0 Developer Certified.

 About the Philadelphia FileMaker User Group

The Philadelphia FileMaker User Group was founded in 2004 as an initiative by FileMaker Business Alliance Platinum member IT Solutions Consulting.  The group’s goal is to provide an open forum for FileMaker developers and those interested in FileMaker to meet, brainstorm and network.

We hold meetings the 4th Tuesday of every month at 6PM, in the office of IT Solutions Consulting, Inc., at 414 Commerce Drive, Suite 150, Fort Washington PA.

Meetings are open to all, regardless of background and there’s no charge to attend.

Please subscribe to our Mailing List to get announcements on upcoming meetings. The list is set to Announce only, so the volume is typically between one and 2 emails a month.

http://fmpug.com/mailman/listinfo/philly_fmpug.com/

You can read our blog to get updates and meeting recaps:

http://www.phillyfilemaker.org/

Twitter here:

http://twitter.com/phillyfilemaker

We’re also an FMPug Chapter:  http://www.fmpug.com/  Consider membership today, especially if you purchase training, plugins, 3rd party products, or web/filemaker hosting – FMPug membership affords considerable discounts across a range of offerings.

Finally, The Philadelphia FileMaker User Group is hosted by

IT Solutions Consulting Inc.

IT Solutions Consulting, Inc.
Employee ownership – fueling our innovation, strengthening your business.
http://www.itsolutions-inc.com/
Learn more about us on our new Videos/Blog Page!
http://www.itsolutions-inc.com/videos_blog/index.html

 
Published in FileMaker Inc. and Meeting Announcements by Colin Keefe. Tags:

Please Join Us August 30th: FileMaker DevCon Recap

Published on August 22, 2011. 0 Comments

Greetings FileMaker Enthusiasts,

Our next Philadelphia FileMaker Developer Group meeting has been scheduled for Tuesday evening, August 30th 2011 at 6:00 PM. The meeting will be held at the IT Solutions Fort Washington Office.  (Please note: this is a schedule change.)

414 Commerce Dr., Suite 150, Fort Washington, PA 19034

Google Map: http://tinyurl.com/37mhhh

Please RSVP here if you are planning to attend this meeting:

http://www.fmpug.com/rsvp.php?eventID=1212

2011 FileMaker DevCon Recap!

2011 FileMaker Developer Conference

The sixteenth annual FileMaker Developer Convention was held in early August in San Diego CA.  We’ve just gotten back and can’t wait to share.  A record-breaking TEN Philly FileMaker User Group members attended this year, so this ought to be a very lively session.

Continue reading ‘Please Join Us August 30th: FileMaker DevCon Recap’

 
Published in DevCon, DevCon and FileMaker Inc. by Colin Keefe. Tags:

DevCon 2011 Recap

Published on August 12, 2011. 3 Comments

2011 FileMaker Developer ConferenceOver the past ten years, the annual FileMaker Developer Conference (DevCon) has been a truly enjoyable experience for me. It’s the one place on the globe that the best and brightest FileMaker talent gather for a little under a week to share ideas, learn techniques, find answers to challenges, collaborate, and get a few hints about the future of FileMaker.

This year’s conference was held at the gorgeous San Diego Hilton Bayfront where we enjoyed temperatures in the 70s with low humidity and a pleasant breeze. The accommodations and facility was top notch, with plenty of space for the conference and all of the normal hotel patrons.

Continue reading ‘DevCon 2011 Recap’

 
Published in Conferences, DevCon, DevCon, FileMaker, FileMaker Go and FileMaker Inc. by Jason Mundok. Tags: Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

Filemaker Go Update: Updated

Published on September 22, 2010. 1 Comment

Filemaker just released a new update to Filemaker Go this morning, and it’s big!

A particularly huge item that seemed to slip through the cracks of the new features list is:

iOS app developers may take advantage of the newly enhanced URL protocol from FileMaker for calling FileMaker Go. Using the URL protocol, developers can now specify a FileMaker Pro script and script parameters. This allows developers of commercial and in-house iOS applications to extend FileMaker Go databases and provide a wide spectrum of useful solutions such as bar code scanning.

Press Release

This means that you can write applications for iOS and call scripts in Filemaker using parameters. You can’t even do this in Filemaker Pro! Who needs to to use plugins on iOS, just use iOS apps, communication can go both ways by registering a url scheme for your own app that Filemaker can call to trigger actions.

Filemaker Go 1.1.1 Update Page

Filemaker Go Update

- Take photos, add them to the database, and email as an attachment
- Convert records to PDF and email file from the database
- Save a copy of a database and email it as an attachment
- Import records from FileMaker Pro databases to FileMaker Go via scripts
- Be able to require users to re-log onto FileMaker Go after iPhone hibernates
- Solves compatibility issues running on iPhone

I think these have got to be some of the biggest requests on my list. I’m downloading as we speak.

 
Published in FileMaker Go and FileMaker Inc. by Chad Sager. Tags: Tags: , , , .

Please Join us September 28: FileMaker Go! For iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch

Published on September 17, 2010. 0 Comments

Greetings FileMaker Enthusiasts,

Our next Philadelphia FileMaker User Group meeting has been scheduled for Tuesday evening, September 28th 2010 at 6:00 PM.

The meeting will be held at the IT Solutions Fort Washington Office:

+ 414 Commerce Dr., Suite 150, Fort Washington, PA 19034
+ Google Map: http://bit.ly/d7L05o

As always, pizza and soft drinks will be provided.

Please RSVP here if you are planning to attend this meeting:
http://www.fmpug.com/rsvp.php?eventID=1085

INTRODUCING FILEMAKER GO!

[late breaking: FileMaker Go 1.1 is out!  Details here; if you weren’t planning on coming before, you might want to do a rethink.]

Introducing FileMaker Go With Matt O’Dell, Systems Engineer, FileMaker Inc.

FileMaker Go allows you to view, edit, and search your FileMaker Pro records on your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad. Your existing FileMaker Pro layouts look amazing on the large iPad display screen – no modification is necessary for many solutions. FileMaker Go easily connects to databases hosted on FileMaker Server or FileMaker Pro via a local wireless network or over the Internet using Wi-Fi or 3G. Continue reading ‘Please Join us September 28: FileMaker Go! For iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch’

 
Published in FileMaker, FileMaker Go, FileMaker Inc. and Meeting Announcements by Colin Keefe. Tags: Tags: , , , , , .

FileMaker User Groups: Thoughts and resources on getting started (Post #2)

Published on September 8, 2010. 4 Comments

You might have said to yourself after reading my last cheerleading post on starting a FileMaker User Group (Why User Groups Matter), “Well, that’s all well and good, but you’re not the one trying to start a group in a virtual vacuum.  Cheerleading’s easy.”  Fine, point taken.

I realize that many of you are in regions that, on initial consideration, might not seem fertile ground for a user group.  You may feel that being located in a smaller metropolitan area or rural region is an insurmountable roadblock to getting a group started.  What’s the point of holding a first meeting if there’s no one else around?

Your first step is finding the 2 or 3 or 10 people you can connect with and agree to meet in person. We’ll get into the meat and potatoes of managing the group later; there’s no point talking about it until you’ve got enough interest to fill at least the seats around a kitchen table or bar booth. Finding people is, admittedly, hard.  Luckily, there are plenty of online resources to datamine for prospects.

I ask for forbearance from those of you for whom all of this is painfully obvious.  It’s not obvious to everybody, and this suite of blog posts is oriented to those at the beginner/intermediate stage of social networking (remember: user groups were perfecting social networking when Twitter’s founder was still in diapers). Continue reading ‘FileMaker User Groups: Thoughts and resources on getting started (Post #2)’

 
Published in FileMaker Inc., Other User Groups, Tips and tricks and Uncategorized by Colin Keefe. Tags: Tags: , , , , , , , .

Goodbye DevCon

Published on August 19, 2010. 0 Comments

Chad and I are at the airport, heading back.  We’ll have lots to talk about next Tuesday – that’s when our next meeting is, by the way.  Got too wrapped up to send out an announcement; I’ll get that out later today hopefully.

August 24th, 6 PM, DevCon Recap, at the usual location:

IT Solutions Consulting, Inc.
414 Commerce Drive
Suite 150
Fort Washington PA 19034

We’ll be recording this one this time, not streaming it, mainly because we’ll be using Jason’s fancypants camera and mike.  If you liked the quality of the latest rash of 5 Minutes with Philly FileMaker videos, you’ll like the next meeting recording.

For DevCon folks this year – safe travels and see you next year!

- Colin

 
Published in airports are boring, DevCon and FileMaker Inc. by Colin Keefe. Tags: Tags: , , .

2010 FileMaker DevCon Update

Published on August 18, 2010. 0 Comments

Well, it’s already Wednesday and all my plans for a detailed, literate, forensic analysis of the various sessions are…well, they’re a complete wash.

I will say I’ve picked up a little more information about FileMaker Go and have a better sense of how it can fit in the FileMaker ecosystem in interesting ways.  The wheels are turning.  Also enjoyed very much Michael Lee’s SQL presentations – very elegant (He’s from ProofGroup, so elegance goes without saying), and his presentation style was welcoming, lighthearted and perceptive.  Using repeating fields for cross tab reports – exploding out values using Get(CalculationRepetitionNumber) – is something I’ve had some experience with, but I’ve often had performance problems pointing those calcs against a set of related values and so on.  I have some stuff to try out at home.

This isn’t going to be a terribly informative post.  Mainly I wanted to toss up a few photos from last night’s dinner on the USS Midway.  So here they are.  Thanks to Andrew Ulane for the cockpit photo.

Hope everyone has a great final day at DevCon!

- Colin

 
Published in DevCon, DevCon and FileMaker Inc. by Colin Keefe. Tags: Tags: , .

From the City of Brotherly Love to the City of Unspeakably Nice Weather (or: how I stopped worrying and learned to love an ambient temperature of 71 degrees)

Published on August 16, 2010. 0 Comments

I stepped off the puddle jumper plane from LA to San Diego (en route from Philadelphia) and squinted into the bright light, scowling at the light breeze.  71 degrees?  Seriously?

I’m a firm believer that the West Coast was invented to mock East Coasters.  “See how happy you can be when you don’t need to sweat in 100 degree weather or shovel four feet of snow off your Subaru Forrester?  And oh, by the way, here we actually use our sunroofs.”  Uncomfortable pause.  “And, come on.  A Subaru Forrester?  Do you wear anoraks too?”

It wasn’t always this way with the FileMaker DevCon.  It used to be that you’d crawl out of your transportation device of choice into a humid steam bath and say to yourself, “yeah, okay, this sun thing is nice, but at least I don’t live 20 miles from downtown huddled in an air conditioning bubble”.

No longer.  FileMaker DevCon these days is now held in places that make me envious. Continue reading ‘From the City of Brotherly Love to the City of Unspeakably Nice Weather (or: how I stopped worrying and learned to love an ambient temperature of 71 degrees)’

 
Published in DevCon and FileMaker Inc. by Colin Keefe. Tags: Tags: , , .

FileMaker DevCon!

Published on August 6, 2010. 0 Comments

As many of you know, the 2010 FileMaker DevCon is coming up soon – August 15-18, to be exact.  We’re going to be doing a recap meeting on Tuesday August 24.  I’ll have more on that in a few weeks,but I think we can safely assume that FileMaker Go will be on the agenda!

If you’re from eastern PA, please email me at colin.keefe@itsolutions-inc.com – we’re planning a get together for Philly FileMaker folks on Monday.  I’ll reply with the details.

Some tools to keep you connected to what’s going on: Continue reading ‘FileMaker DevCon!’

 
Published in Conferences, DevCon, FileMaker Inc., FMPug and IT Solutions Consulting by Colin Keefe. Tags: Tags: , , .