FileMaker Development & Administration

 

A look at FileMaker development and project management, with a focus on vertical market solutions, and FileMaker Server administration.

 

I'm lucky to work with FileMaker and, more importantly, two incredibly talented FileMaker developers who routinely make it do things many FileMaker dev would consider impossible. Sometimes it's about optimizing native functionality. Other times it is about introducing completely new functionality.

Details on as much of that as can be written up and shared goes here.

They then call a real retail florist and try to convince them to actually fill your order, but for much less than what you paid.

If that seems weird imagine a pizza place that did the same thing. They have a fake listing in the telephone directory, or a fake website, all designed to make you believe that they really are a local pizza parlor. They might even use the name and address of a known local place.

You then order a large pizza and they charge your credit card. They then call a real pizza place and try to convince them to make and deliver that pizza for about 30% less than what you paid. The only way to make that happen is for them to order a smaller pizza, maybe with less stuff on it. The bottom line is that you don't get the pizza you ordered, and the middleman gets a big cut for just screwing things up for everyone.

Order gathering, especially deceptive order gathering, is bad for florists (who see the bulk of the profit go to the order gatherer) and the consumer (who gets less than what they paid for). It's bad for the entire floral industry because every time an order gatherer gets involved the idea of flowers as a gift are diminished for both the customer and the recipient.

It might seem like no smart person would ever fall for it. I work in the business and I've fallen for it! Deceptive order gatherers are really good at what they do – if they weren't they wouldn't be such a problem.

There are a lot of posts that get into more details about the problem of order gathering in the flower business, and also tips on how to avoid order gatherers and be sure you are dealing with a real local florist.

How To Recover/Reset Filemaker Server Admin Password

Unable to sign in to FileMaker Server admin console because of password issues? There is an easy way to reset it and get access to the FMS admin console.

Better Drag & Drop Sorting For FileMaker

Charles Delfs, who specializes in solving problems other FileMaker developers can't, has introduced the best version of FileMaker drag & drop sorting yet.

Cron Web Application/Services Development

A collaborator has founded Cron to provide web application/services & API development along with systems integration and DevOps release management.

Can't Access FMS Server Admin Console After 14v4 Upgrade

There is a known issue where upgrading from FileMaker Server 14v3 to FileMaker Server 14v4 on Mac OS X can break access to the server admin console.

Optimized FileMaker/Google Maps Integration

An optimized FileMaker/Google Maps integration with full-two way communication that also respects the performance impact and cost of page loads.

SOFA – Very Lucky To Be A Part Of It

User groups are an amazing resource and the Southern Ontario FileMaker Alliance (aka SOFA) in Toronto is one of the very best.

Recruiting at User Groups

User groups are one of the grand traditions of computing. They also provide an excellent recruiting opportunity.

Updates to the Dynamic Website Cache Primer/Loader

Four updates to the FileMaker-based dynamic website cache primer/loader project this week have made it a much more polished and useful tool.

Prime/Load Webserver Cache - FileMaker Project

A FileMaker solution designed to prime/pre-load the cache of a webserver(s) hosting a dynamic website by calling the pages in a list of xml sitemaps.

Remote Server Script Calling/Emulating Perform Script on Server in FMP12

Great solution for anyone who wants to call a script on FileMaker Server but are not able to use the Perform Script on Server command that is only available when both the client and server are running FileMaker 13.

Running Apache Alongside FileMaker Server 13

If you are interested in the tricky configuration required to run FileMaker Server 13 and the standard Apache server on OS X Mavericks server this may help.