On Tuesday, August 17, at the FileMaker Developer Conference I had a chance to chat with FBA Excellence Award winner Molly Connolly, Thorsen Consulting, about several panel discussions that she is moderating at this year’s DevCon. It’s always a pleasure to get a chance to chat with Molly. Hopefully we can get her out to IT Solutions sometime in the months to come for a user group meeting.
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
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- The USS Midway
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- Chad Sager and Alan Deffenderfer
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- Me in the cockpit
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- Hello Chad. Hello iPhone.
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- Dinner at sunset
Get a preview of two sessions by Don Levan, Vanguard Custom Software, that will be presented on Tuesday at the FileMaker Development Conference in San Diego, CA. Don joined us at IT Solutions in Philly to give us a sneak peek at his interface sessions in spring 2010.
Also check out www.fmcraftworkshops.com for info on a special FileMaker design seminar in NYC in October.
We’re aware there are some conflicts – notably with the Women of FileMaker luncheon – but we’re keeping this on the agenda for today, and may arrange a second meeting later this week.
Noon today, look for the bright red Phillies cap in the dining area.
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)
By: Colin Keefe
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)’
Mike Lee, Proof Group, joined me for a quick chat Sunday morning to discuss his FileMaker DevCon sessions called SQL to the Rescue about using SQL inside FileMaker solutions. Look for more video interviews and DevCon blog posts throughout the conference from all of the IT Solutions team attending this year’s conference.
We’re at the FileMaker Developer Conference 2010 in San Diego, CA getting ready for an excellent week of networking and learning about all of things FileMaker. This afternoon I dusted off the video camera and started lining up a great list of FileMaker experts to spend a few minutes chatting with to see what they have coming up at DevCon and what mind blowing tips and tricks they’re seeing out in the community. I’m kicking off a new batch of 5 Minutes with Philly FileMaker interviews with our good buddy John Sindelar, SeedCode. John is doing his annual Year in Review session Monday morning, which I already know will be a DevCon highlight.
Chad Sager and Colin Keefe are also representing IT Solutions at DevCon. If you’re at the conference, be sure to say hi!
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!’
FMPug is offering discounted memberships at a LOCKED in rate, in perpetuity. As of this moment, the rate is $50.00 US, which I believe is half the usual annual fee. There are only a limited number of discounted rates available, after which a lesser discount tier becomes available. When those get used up, it’s back to to the regular rate.
Here’s how it works:
“Your locked in rate is based on the number of COMPLETED transactions. To avoid losing the current promotional rate” (ed: currently $50), “we urge you to complete this transaction sooner rather than later. Wait too long and it could be gone! 
** YOU’RE LOCKED-IN FOR LIFE! ** Here’s where things get really exciting! By signing-up now, the promotional price is your rate for life! That’s right, providing your membership never lapses, the promotional price will be your annual FMPug renewal rate for life! Whether you’re a new member or a renewing member, you won’t pay a penny more. It’s just that simple.”
Go here:
Is it worth it? You bet. But if you need more than the product discounts, mailing lists and so on, here’s an extra perk:
The all new iPad!
Er…wait, I mean this:
I meant THIS iPad.
Yeah, that’s it.
FMPug will be giving away four iPads to FMPug members – two at the FileMaker Developer Convention in August, and two to FMPug members who couldn’t attend DevCon. I hear there’s some kind of FileMaker GO thingy that runs on iPads now too.
Speak your Mind. Using Comments, part 1.
By: Jerry Salem
Recently I was on a family trip to Pittsburgh. We were walking around the campus of Carnegie Mellon and I saw this memorial brick;
It got me to thinking about some of the monster databases that I have had to take over for clients. When I take over a project, often I am spending a great deal of time just trying to figure out what the developer was trying to do.
Our earlier posts on this blog are generally concerned with improving the user experience(better printing workflow) or getting more out of your data (One Report two sets of summarized data). Today I would like to return to that lowly person, the developer. Anything that I can do that can make my job easier will make be a better developer and ultimately make my customers happier. Or as my grandfather would say to my grandmother, “What would you do if I got hit by a bus?” Continue reading ‘Speak your Mind. Using Comments, part 1.’