Introducing the New FileMaker 12 Product Line

Please join us for a special meeting where Alexei Folger, Sr. Systems Engineer and Glen Suarez, Business Account Manager from FileMaker Inc. will introduce you to the new FileMaker 12 product line.

In this meeting, you will see:

• New themes architecture - Instantly change the look of layouts
• New design capabilities - Gradients, grids, guides, image slicing, borders, object states
• New quick charts - Create charts in just a few clicks
• Enhanced Container Fields - Managed storage options and drag and drop to store documents, photos, videos, music, and more
• New FileMaker Server 12 - 64-bit, progressive backups, streaming container field content, group start page
• New FileMaker Go 12 - record audio and video, capture location information, export to multiple formats, multi-tasking, etc.

Door Prize for this meeting is a copy of FileMaker Pro Advanced 12!

Alexei Folger, Sr. Systems Engineer FileMaker, Inc.
Glen Suarez, Business Account Manager FileMaker, Inc.

Date & Time:
Thursday May 31, 2012
6:00PM - 8:00PM

Location:
Courtyard by Marriott Phoenix Airport
2621 South 47th Street
Phoenix, AZ 85034

Registration:
glen_suarez@filemaker.com

Speaker bio:
Alexei Folger, Senior Systems Engineer for FileMaker, Inc., provides high-level technical guidance to customers and contributes to the development of future product direction. Previous to FileMaker, Inc., she was an Engineering Project Manager for Apple Computer, where she directed complex, cross-platform software development efforts. Earlier in her career, she worked in computing support services at MIT. She’s an experienced speaker who has made numerous technical presentations. She is a FileMaker 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 Certified Developer.

Questions? Contact:
Glen Suarez
glen_suarez@filemaker.com

Hope to see you there!

Audrey ❦

May Meeting: more “Ground Up” and FileMaker 12!

FileMaker 12 is just exciting people all over the place! The new layout features, new functions, better performance, and a new ways of putting stuff on your iOS device make for an exciting iteration of everyone’s favorite databasey productivity doohickey. And, since the Kentuckiana FileMaker Users Group is all about helping you learn how to apply all that good new stuff, you might want to stick around until the end of this message for some news about our upcoming programming.

This month we’re going a little bit geeky and a little bit easy. That means regardless of whether you’re geeky or, um, easy, you’ll have no excuse this month, because there’s going to be something for you.

Alan’s start-from-scratch exercise is really starting to flesh out. Come join in the fun and contribute your ideas and desires as we put some more meat on the bones of an original FileMaker app incarnating right before your very eyes.

Still basking in the glow of appreciation he received for the truly genius tip he presented last month (blog post coming soon about that), Brian Ginn will show you how to save space on your relationship graph, save time in your development, and, who knows, perhaps even discover a new sub-atomic particle, with FileMaker 12’s geekiest new feature.

Yes, you guessed it (you peeked didn’t you?), Brian will introduce you to FileMakers’ nod to industrial-strength databases [literally] everywhere, the new ExecuteSQL ( ) function! Can’t you just feel the power coursing through your body, emitting sparks from the tips of your fingers, powering up your apps to their next level? No? Hmmm, maybe you’re doing it wrong. Have you tried holding your tongue out the side of your mouth?

No matter. After Brian’s presentation you’ll want to go get fitted for your own new super suit! (No capes!) It’s truly THAT powerful. You really don’t want to miss it. (You may just not know it yet.)

Okay, now the future stuff: We will have a nationally recognized FileMaker design guru presenting his special “Design Smack-Down” presentation just for us (and anyone you care to bring). Albert Harum-Alvarez, founder of SmallCo, a FileMaker consultancy serving a lot of companies you’ve definitely heard of, is a renowned authority on the subject of great user interface design with FileMaker. A sought-after speaker at conferences, user groups and workshops, Albert has agreed to share his expertise with us, via the magic of the “inter-tubes.” All that remains to make that happen is to work out a date. We’ll let you know when that happens, but we’re trying for our regular June date.

Also appearing “soon, very soon” are the rhymingly-dynamic duo of Bill Kaiser and Bill Heiser, straight from the “mother-ship,” FileMaker Inc. itself, to give Kentuckiana the official intro presentation of dodeca-FileMaker! Stay tuned while we work out a date with them as well.

See you on the 22nd!

Right after you vote (well, the Kentucky people, anyway.)

–The Committee
Alan, Bill, Brian, Byron, & Jonathan

Date & Time:
Tuesday, May 22, 2012 (FOURTH Tuesday now, y’hear?)
12:00 PM - 3:30 PM (-ish)
BYOB (Bring Your Own Brown Bag)
Soft drinks provided

Location:
1234 South 3rd Street  (In the St. James area of Old Louisville)
Louisville, KY 40203

FileMaker 101 Classroom at:
http://g.co/maps/y3u77

Registration:
http://www.kyfmp.com/reg/

Official FileMaker 12 Presentation

FileMaker Inc. invites you to a FREE demonstration of the NEW FileMaker Pro 12 and FileMaker Go 12.  Hosted by Bill Kaiser, your Regional FileMaker Business Account Manager, and Bill Heizer, FileMaker Sr. Consulting Systems Engineer, you will see:

• New FileMaker Go 12

• New themes architecture - Instantly change the look of layouts

• New design capabilities - Gradients, image slicing, borders, object states

• New quick charts - Create charts in a just a few clicks

• Enhanced Container Fields - Drag and drop to store documents, photos, videos, music, and more

We will be raffling off a copy of FileMaker Pro 12 Advanced at each event! Make sure to RSVP as space is limited.

When: Thursday, May 24, 5-7pm

Where: BBB Conference Center, 7668 Kings Point Road, Toledo, Ohio 43617-1551  (conference center entrance in back.)

REGISTER TODAY!

Questions? Contact Daniel Shanahan (419) 367-5236 or daniel [at] newleafdata [dot] com

May 8 - FileMaker in the House

FileMaker presents FMP 12

Please join us Tuesday as Phil, Alexei, and Oleg from FileMaker HQ discuss the new FileMaker 12 features. Oleg designed the new containers in 12 and will be going into detail on those in his own wonderfully offbeat fashion.

12 is one of those releases where the big things are kind of hard to wrap your head around and the little things blow you away. Come join the conversation.

Pizza for those who RSVP here.

And off to Paddy Coyne’s for drinks and a bite after the meeting.

Have Something to Ask FMI?

Leave a comment below…

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May Meeting - Exploring FileMaker Pro 12

Our next meeting is Tuesday, May 1, 5-7pm at ProMedica-Flower Hospital in Conference Room A on the first floor.  We’ll discuss FileMaker Pro 12.

PLEASE NOTE: ProMedica-Flower Hospital has recently built new conference rooms.  We are no longer meeting on the 8th floor.  Easiest entrance is at the Lake Park side.  More details will be in the upcoming meeting reminder (if you are not on the mailing list, please let me know).

Thanks to Gordon Shewach of Desktop Services for his presentation in May on Shell/Batch scripting with FileMaker Server.

Finally, I am in communication with Bill Kaiser, the FileMaker Inc. Sales Rep for this region, on a date for an official presentation of FileMaker Pro 12 by FileMaker Inc.  Stay tuned!

April 10: FileMaker 12 with Adam Aronson

FileMaker 12 and Snap2FM

Please join us Tuesday as Adam Aronson from FullCity Consulting in NY leads a roundtable discussion on the new FileMaker 12 features. Adam will also be discussing how they build Snap2FM, a scanning widget for FileMaker and ScanSnap scanners: http://fullcityconsulting.com/snap2fm-app

There is a LOT of new stuff in 12. Come ask questions, give answers, and help wrap our heads around this brave new world of FM12.

RSVP here.

Off to Paddy Coyne’s for drinks and a bite after the meeting.

Have Something to Ask Adam?

Leave a comment below…

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12 Days of 12

FileMaker 12 is out and you can get a ton of documentation and tech notes on FileMaker’s site. You can also join a webcast series of 12 episodes over 6 weeks here: FM Academy.

“The Madness” has totally overtaken us!

Indiana, Louisville and Kentucky fans appear calm and collected RIGHT NOW, but underneath (aye, deep in their tormented little hearts) the beast lies in wait for its moment to rage against all who block the road to the final four. The truly mad maintain their irrational hope for the slaughter to pass them by, but alas, many will fall, the twisted emotional wreckage of the defeated. Legion, indeed, are those who will engage in mob hysteria or retreat to the debilitating solace of self-administered medicinal extracts. ‘Tis a sad tale, ’tis true.

Regardless of how YOUR compulsion survives the social mayhem, though, you’ll make some marked improvement in this month’s session as we engage in some truly insane FileMaker therapy!

We are really proud of the progress made by Byron “Baby Steps” Songer, whom we all agree (don’t we?) did such a great job last month peeling back the layers of the relational database approach from the standpoint of the recently-escaped FileMaker user. B.S. was scheduled for release into the general population this month to share his experience at modeling a “reality” with more self-confidence and less anxiety. Unfortunately, at the last minute he had a severe setback. While they tell us he is making great strides daily, they want to hold him for another few weeks–for observation (they say). Regardless, we fully expect his complete recovery and intend to welcome him back into the mainstream at our April group session, where, if we all listen very quietly (and don’t make any sudden moves), we might persuade him to share more of his story of relational redemption.

One of the more profound tragedies of our little Cuckoo’s Nest (and the just-announced 2012 Substance Abuse Awareness poster child), Jonathan “Coke Head” Fletcher, will attempt to maintain his phosphoric-acid-bathed hold on reality long enough to host a further discussion into the subject loosely known as “FileMaker Standards.” While several REALLY SMART FileMaker-types have been the authors of this online project for a few years, we all know what “genius” is only “a fine line” away from, don’t we? Yup.

They don’t let Alan “Angry” Bird out of his cage very often, but with a promise of the right meds and the watchful eye of several burly orderlies, it was decided to let him present his new project, a database of our monthly tips, tricks, techniques, and resources that he will cough up before our very eyes. You may call it mass hysteria; you may call it a sad case of group-think gone wrong, but do come see for yourself. Come back for monthly visits to the ward as we flesh-out a totally psychotic solution for all of us to use. (Catch the note below about “homework” for this segment.)

Brian “don’t laugh at him” Ginn hopes to have at least a brief moment of lucidity this month as he shares a cool trick he discovered while mesmerized by the ones and zeros that flood his vision most of the time. It sounds way better than that electro-shock therapy we had the other day. (But you may decide otherwise.)

As usual, our lunatic ravings will be preceded by that tasty brown bag repast you brought (better to bring your own because you never know what they put in the food here, shhhh!) and the free soft drinks provided by the staff (hey, wait…).

Show up at noon and you can count on being carried out kicking and screaming no later than 3:30…

…um…

-ish.

–The Committee
Alan, Bill, Brian, Byron, & Jonathan

Date & Time:
Tuesday, March 27, 2012 (FOURTH Tuesday from now on)
12:00 PM - 3:30 PM (-ish)
BYOB (Bring Your Own Brown Bag)
Soft drinks provided

Location:
1234 South 3rd Street  (In the St. James area of Old Louisville)
Louisville, KY 40203
FileMaker 101 Classroom here:
1234 S 3rd St, Louisville, KY 40203

HOMEWORK:
Due to the mob-participation nature of Mr. Bird’s presentation, he has asked that you download the Developer Storage file from Foundation Database Systems and familiarize yourself with some of its basic workings. Bring it to the meeting (so as not to tick him off) and work in your own version as Alan presents it on-screen.

Read about it here: http://www.foundationdbs.com/downloads.html

Download it here: http://www.foundationdbs.com/Downloads/DeveloperStorage_1.0v2.zip

April Meeting

Thanks to Travis Sheaffer for his presentation on using MySQL with FileMaker Pro. We had a great turnout and a lively discussion. Thanks also go out to Brad Bechstein who helped secure our new meeting location at Flower Hospital at 5200 Harroun Rd. in Sylvania, Ohio.

At our April meeting, Tuesday, April 3, 5-7pm Gordon Shewach of Desktop Services will lead a discussion on how to utilize batch/shell scripting from FileMaker Server. Space is limited so register today!

More of the same and some things new!

Join us February 28th!

We will continue with our series on FileMaker standards with a look at calculation control structures, error handling in scripts, and script annotation. Let’s discuss some ways that are described on FileMakerStandards.org and then discuss why we think our own personal methods are waaaaay better (or, just maybe, not).

And then, for those of you who are a little frustrated with presentations that require your neurons to seemingly leap tall buildings with a single bound, have we got a treat for you. Direct from his Fortress of Solitude tucked away (for camouflage) deep in the heart of Middletown, Kentucky, lets hear a warm round of applause for Apple Certified Consultant, longtime FileMaker developer and all-around super guy, Byron Songer, who will be asking the question puzzling super-heros and philosophers alike down through the centuries, “Just what are these relationship-thingies, anyway?”

Through the miracle of modern database theory, Byron will be showing you when to hold ‘em and when to go all in; when to take another step and when to duck flying objects, when to employ another useless metaphor and when to shut up and get on with the presentation description. Yes, that’s right ladies and gentlemen, Byron will show you just why you might want to add another table and its associated relationship(s) to your database, and when you could conceivably get by with the tried-and-true, but cumbersome, “flat file” approach.

Also, we will try, yet again, to get our freebie-file solution off the ground this month. Tools, resources, techniques and just stuff will be tossed into a database as the meeting progresses and when we are done we will have a FileMaker file that we can use to review the content of our presentations. You have to come to get your copy, but it’s free.

All will be revealed in due time, butcha gotta come. See you Tuesday.

Come join us and we share a bit of good fellowship with others as we learn about our favorite database “platform!”

–The Committee
Alan, Bill, Brian, Byron, & Jonathan

Date & Time:
Tuesday, February 28, 2011 (FOURTH Tuesday from now on)
12:00 PM - 3:30 PM (-ish)
BYOB (Bring Your Own Brown Bag)
Soft drinks provided

Location:
1234 South 3rd Street  (In the St. James area of Old Louisville)
Louisville, KY 40203
FileMaker 101 Classroom map.

Registration here.