MightyNews - May 2011

Dear FileMaker user,

Welcome to our May newsletter! Check out new articles from four MightyData team members, the latest training and user group events in Austin and Dallas, and special offers from FileMaker Inc. Enjoy!

Parsing Like a Pro

By Martha Zink

In many cases, FileMaker databases get data from outside sources: Quickbooks, Excel, SAP, etc. Based on the way those external spreadsheets or systems are setup, the data may or may not be in the format that FileMaker wants it. Here’s where we start dealing with the issue of parsing.

Parsing entails taking something that’s all stuck together and breaking it into smaller pieces. For example, we could parse out the area code from a 10-digit phone number, or we can extract the month, day, and year from a birth date. However, what we often face is not as simple and can require more effort to break apart. But have no fear – this article is here to get your brain thinking about ways to approach parsing. Read more….

PHP Development for FileMaker Developers

By Anders Monsen

PHP is a fairly flexible language, where developers can create sites using linear or procedural code, or complex object-oriented code. The fact that you need to type most of your code and understand a new syntax is daunting to anyone, especially FileMaker developers who are used to the built-in GUI, native script steps, and pre-existing functions. The ease of setting up a database in FileMaker is one of the primary draws of this software. Despite the more manual effort required when writing PHP, there are many analogies FileMaker developers can use to become more comfortable with the code and process of PHP. Read more….

Inspecting Inspector Pro

By Kirk Bowman

Recently I presented Inspector Pro by Beezwax to our development team during our weekly Innovation Meeting. Most of our team is familiar with BaseElements by Goya and I wanted to expose them to another tool. Personally, I have been using Inspector since it was called Analyzer in the FileMaker 6 days. As a result, I am very comfortable with the user interface of Inspector. (For the record, I use both tools equally although each has different strengths.) Read more….

New FileMaker Go 1.2

Now there are more features to manage your data on the go with charts, signature capture, and printing. Upgrade to FileMaker Go 1.2 now... it is free for existing users through the App Store.

Also, for a limited time, buy FileMaker Go for iPhone or iPad, and get FileMaker Pro 11 for only $149. Offer expires June 17, 2011. Click here for more details.

The Psychiatrist is IN!

By Susan Fennema

No day is ever the same. To fully experience the day, project managers know that we play good cop, bad cop. Some days you’d think we were bi-polar. Sometimes we work with crazy developers and sometimes crazy customers...it just depends on the moon phase.

On a daily basis, I deal with developers, salespeople and customers. All three of these areas must be well balanced for any of them to be effective. (And, I mean it - both figuratively, as well as emotionally!). To maintain the balance, it takes patience, clarity of communication, empathy, honesty, integrity and an uncommon sense of fairness. Read more….

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