Although there will be an agenda for the evening, Ron will be happy to answer questions as they come up and explore topics more in-depth if desired. Heck, maybe we’ll just order drinks and debate the merits of the layout grid.

Ron’s just glad to be away from his desk.

Think of it as one of those fancy two thousand dollar training sessions, but free.

And shorter.

Hope to see you there!

Audrey ❦

We’ll be meeting on Tuesday, October 18th, from 6:30 to 8:30 pm at Frasher’s Steakhouse and Lounge in Scottsdale.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Audrey ❦

Typically, attendance at our meetings during the summer months is pretty low, so I would really appreciate your RSVP on this meeting.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Audrey ❦

At this year’s DevCon, it will be presented as a Pre-Conference session, and will be offered for an additional fee of $149.00. But you can see the preview in Phoenix for FREE!

Here’s the official session description from FileMaker’s website:

“This is Part 2 of a 2-part (4-hour) session. Recommended prerequisite: Part 1 of this session or some prior experience with the fundamentals of relational design in FileMaker Pro. In Part 2 of this 2-part session, we will introduce some more advanced relational design concepts. We’ll show you how to create multiple Table Occurrences from the same Base Table.  We’ll discuss Referential Integrity, cascading deletes, multiple-predicate relationships and Cartesian Joins. To help you keep your relationships clear, we’ll discuss some Table Occurrence naming conventions and we’ll introduce you to the concept of Anchor-Buoy design, which allows even very complex graphs to be highly readable and easy to manage.

What You Will Learn

• Creating Multiple Table Occurrences (TOs) from the same Base Table
• Referential integrity and cascading deletes
• Basics of Anchor-Buoy design
• Multiple-predicate relationships”

About Jerry Robin

The owner of FMPTraining.com, Jerry Robin is an experienced consultant, trainer and developer of custom FileMaker Pro databases. Jerry has been a presenter at nine FileMaker Developer Conferences since 1997, and was ranked among the top-rated speakers from 2000 to 2008. A FileMaker 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 Certified Developer, Jerry was a Technical Editor for “FileMaker Pro 9: The Missing Manual,” wrote and presented a highly praised FileMaker Pro 7 CD training series in 2004, and won the FileMaker Millionaire prize at the 2001 DevCon in Orlando.

When he’s not doing FileMaker, Jerry performs standup comedy and is also the throwing half of an award-winning competitive Dog Frisbee team (with his Australian Shepherd, Dakota.)

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Audrey

About Marc Larochelle - President/CEO

• Holds a BA in Music Business from the University of Massachusetts.
• 5 years experience with the National Association of Music Merchants as the in-house IT Manager and DBA.
• 19 years of FileMaker Pro programming experience with certifications in FileMaker Pro 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11.
• 14 years experience operating Productive Computing, Inc.

Marc’s strengths are in creating, planning and developing the company’s long-term strategies and goals. He is also responsible for the company’s product line, which consists of 11 FileMaker Pro plug-ins and 3 database solutions. Currently, he coordinates all product development, customer service and support strategies, and also directs the internal development of the software infrastructure that runs Productive Computing, Inc.

About Keith Larochelle - Vice President/CFO/COO

• Holds a BA in Music Business from the University of Massachusetts.
• 14 years experience with web programming and FileMaker Pro web integration.
• 10 years of FileMaker Pro programming experience with a certification in FileMaker Pro 7, 8 and 9.
• 14 years experience operating Productive Computing, Inc.

Keith’s strengths are in project management, marketing, financial planning and forecasting, accounting, human resources, and he is responsible for the company’s financial growth. He currently coordinates and assists Marc in the planning and execution of long-range goals while managing the day-to-day operations of Productive Computing, Inc.

About Productive Computing, Inc.

Since 1996, Productive Computing has been to helping their customers utilize technology to make their operations more organized and efficient.

This year, Productive Computing received the FileMaker Excellence Award for Business Partner of the Year. Chosen from over 1200 FileMaker Business Alliance members worldwide, Productive Computing was recognized for consistently delivering new releases of plug-ins and solutions for 15+ years and keeping current with the latest shipping version of FileMaker Pro. Their focus on FileMaker integration with their plug-ins such Outlook, Address Book, iCal and Entourage Manipulator and QuickBooks has been key to bringing customers to the FileMaker platform.

Register/RSVP: Please send an email to audrey@magicmakerpro.com, if you’re planning to attend.  Your RSVP will be especially appreciated and will help us in planning for food and beverages. Thank you.

We skipped the August and September meetings, but we’re back on track now and will be meeting in a new location!

On October 19th, 2010, Alexei Folger, Sr. Systems Engineer from FileMaker, will be demonstrating the newest member of the FileMaker family of products - FileMaker Go. She’ll demonstrate the ease at which a developer or user can access their existing FileMaker databases and create new ones for this exciting mobile platform.

Alexei will also discuss the various scripting and interface techniques developers need to know as well as resources available to help you get the most from and learn more about FileMaker Go.

FileMaker Go is a real game changer for developers and an essential service offering for clients who want to take their data “on the go”.

Already know about FileMaker Go? C’mon out anyway. Get to know Glen Suarez, your FileMaker Business Area Manager and Alexei Folger, one of the best FileMaker Software Engineers, and hang out with your best FileMaker friends!

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Location:
Frasher’s Steakhouse and Lounge
Private Meeting Room
2122 N. Scottsdale Road
Scottsdale, AZ 85257
Map of Location
Date & Time:
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
6:30 PM- 8:30 PM

Cost: FREE

Register/RSVP: If you’re planning to attend, please send an email to audrey@magicmakerpro.com. Your RSVP will be especially appreciated and will help us in planning for food and beverages.

Questions? Contact: Glen Suarez (glen_suarez@filemaker.com)

The session will run approximately 2 hours. At this year’s DevCon, it will be presented as a Pre-Conference session, and will be offered for an additional fee of $149.00. But you can see the preview in Phoenix for FREE!

Although this is positioned as a beginner-level session, Jerry promises that even experienced developers will pick up some useful nuggets of relational design wisdom. It’s always a good idea to review the basics, since they are the foundation of good database design.

Here’s the official description from the FileMaker website:

In this presentation, you’ll learn the theory and practice of building a relational database in FileMaker Pro. We’ll begin with some basic relational design theory and terminology, and show you how to plan the structure of your database. You’ll learn to identify and diagram one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-many relationships. Then you’ll learn how to build relationships on the FileMaker relationships graph, including how to resolve a many-to-many relationship. You’ll learn how to define key fields and you’ll see how easy it is to create and use portals to display information from a related table, or even from multiple related tables. And finally, you’ll understand the concept of “context,” which is fundamental to almost every aspect of FileMaker development, from scripting to calculations to reporting.

Topics Include:

• Understanding relational design terminology
• Understanding and setting up various types of relationships
• Understanding “context”
• Creating and using portals

About Jerry Robin

The owner of FMPTraining.com, Jerry Robin is an experienced consultant, trainer and developer of custom FileMaker Pro databases. Jerry has been a presenter at eight FileMaker Developer Conferences since 1997, and was ranked among the top-rated speakers from 2000 to 2008. A FileMaker 7, 8, 9 and 10 Certified Developer, Jerry was a Technical Editor for “FileMaker Pro 9: The Missing Manual,” wrote and presented a highly-praised FileMaker Pro 7 CD training series in 2004, and won the FileMaker Millionaire prize at the 2001 DevCon in Orlando.

When he’s not doing FileMaker, Jerry performs stand-up comedy and is also the throwing half of an award-winning competitive Dog Frisbee team (with his Australian Shepherd, Dakota).

Please send an email to audrey@fmugaz.com, if you plan to attend. Your RSVP will be especially appreciated and will help us in planning.

WorldCloud.com staff will be demonstrating the various technologies it offers to developers and resellers for deploying FileMaker solutions within its worldwide cloud computing architecture, including:

• FileMaker Hosting - hosting of FileMaker files with WorldCloud.com FileMaker 11 Cloud Servers.
• vApp for FileMaker - a native presentation of WorldCloud’s FileMaker client for Windows workgroups and remote desktops (Windows, Mac and iPad compatible) demonstrating that the WorldCloud.com vApp is the fastest hosted FileMaker solution available.
• XenApp for FileMaker - a native presentation of WorldCloud’s FileMaker client for cross-platform workgroups.
• Technology Highlights - WorldCloud.com will provide a brief overview of this year’s technology highlights, including the upcoming WorldCloud.com exhibit at the 2010 FileMaker Developer Conference in August.
• Giveaways and special offers for meeting attendees.

The WorldCloud.com presentation will be introduced by Karen Izbinski, WorldCloud.com Media Relations and Eastern Regional Sales Director. Karen is a graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology, a long-time digital media artist, a developer and is also the publisher of the Quarter Bound Press.

About WorldCloud.com

WorldCloud.com provides dedicated servers and data-centers for experienced administrators and developers. Their various nodes of presence around the world allows your solution to be deployed in their global Internet cloud.  Developers can select from several pre-built servers and operating systems or WorldCloud can provide your own virtual data-center. With virtual data-centers, developers can build and control multiple servers within their own resource pool. WorldCloud’s exciting new vApp technology allows for complete end-to-end Client/Server hosting of your solution, streamed to your workgroup desktops… anywhere… globally. This is the fastest hosted FileMaker solution available. WorldCloud.com provides the infrastructure for many leading FileMaker businesses, developers and hosting companies.

Here in Phoenix, we’ll have the good fortune to participate in Geoff’s workshop session months before DevCon!

In this workshop, we’ll explore some practical script trigger techniques we can use right away. We’ll also learn how to apply the concept of “let FileMaker be FileMaker” to both new and existing systems. Bring your questions and an open mind. Be sure to bring your laptop, too, so you can really take advantage of this workshop-style meeting!

What We’ll Learn

In addition to getting our most pressing script trigger questions answered, we’ll also be learning how to:

• Get usable drop-in trigger-powered techniques.
• Do less and get more… by letting FileMaker do what it does best.
• Take the power and simplicity of our FileMaker systems to the next level.

About Geoff

Geoff Coffey is co-owner of Six Fried Rice, where he writes about, teaches, and builds software with FileMaker Pro. He is also co-author of the acclaimed FileMaker Pro 10: The Missing Manual, the best selling book about FileMaker Pro from O’Reilly Media. Geoff specializes in web application development, and built his first database-connected dynamic web site in 1994 using FileMaker Pro and Applescript. Since then, he’s been creating production web systems in just about everything out there from perl CGI to Cold Fusion to JEE, but his current favorite for small-to-mid-size sites is Ruby on Rails.

Custom Menus allow us to modify and enhance FileMaker’s menus, making the menus more meaningful and appropriate for different users.

Custom Menus can:

• Hide certain commands from users
• Give users easier access to commands
• Include a script as a command in any menu
• Make virtually unlimited functionality available to users
• Make your database look more like a custom application and less like “FileMaker”
• Reduce training time and minimize tech support needs

However, the concepts behind creating Custom Menus–and the series of dialog boxes for creating them–can be rather overwhelming at first. Jerry will take you step-by-step through the process so that it all becomes crystal-clear.

(NOTE: He will be demonstrating the new, improved Custom Menus interface for FileMaker Pro 11, which is considerably less intimidating than previous versions!)

Topics include:

• Terminology: Menu Sets, Menus and Menu Items.
• Commands, Submenus and Separators.
• How to dynamically override the title of a menu or menu item based on the current context.
• Understanding the difference between Commands and Behaviors in Menu Items, opening doors to powerful interface tools, like preventing users from activating the Close box.
• Installing your Menu Sets and determining how they appear.
• Determining which Menu Set is active.
• Common errors and gotchas that come with Custom Menus (such as locking users out accidentally).

About Jerry Robin

The owner of FMPTraining.com, Jerry Robin is an experienced consultant, trainer and developer of custom FileMaker Pro databases. Jerry has been a presenter at eight FileMaker Developer Conferences since 1997, and was ranked among the top-rated speakers from 2000 to 2008. A FileMaker 7, 8, 9 and 10 Certified Developer, Jerry was a Technical Editor for “FileMaker Pro 9: The Missing Manual,” wrote and presented a highly praised FileMaker Pro 7 CD training series in 2004, and won the FileMaker Millionaire prize at the 2001 DevCon in Orlando.

When he’s not doing FileMaker, Jerry performs standup comedy and is also the throwing half of an award-winning competitive Dog Frisbee team (with his Australian Shepherd, Dakota).