This week's interview is with Tim Neudecker, co-founder of Kyo Logic (a developer of customized software solutions for small to medium-sized clients, with offices in New York and Connecticut). Tim has been very active in the FileMaker community for several years. He is the co-founder of two FileMaker Developer Groups -- one in New York (for which he also served as president) and another in Connecticut. He's had articles published in FileMaker Advisor Magazine, and in 2003, Tim won FileMaker's award for "Outstanding Contribution to the FileMaker Community." (Tim is yet another very inspiring FileMaker Addict!)
How did you get started in IT?
I have always loved computers. I taught myself to program in the 4th grade or so on my neighbor's Apple II and then I received a Mac 128 in 1984. I used that Mac until I went to college in 1987 when I started working for Apple computer and received a loaner Mac SE. I did a lot of tech support around campus helping departments network their Macs and teaching people about these great new things called email and Gopher that worked on BitNet/Arpanet (early internet).
How long have you been using FileMaker, and how did you get started with it?
While in school I worked for NeXT Computer and Apple Computer as a "Campus Consultant" (I would assist with department sales on campus and find who had money to buy computers.) A salesman at the campus computer store introduced me to FileMaker by showing me a quoting system he created that helped generate quotes for large sales very quickly. I had no Idea how it worked, but it ran on Macs so I loved it.
Then at the first interview that I went on (when I got out of school), the company asked me if I knew how to use FileMaker Pro. I said "yes, of course." So they hired me to be the company's Filemaker Pro programmer. That was on a Friday. I went out and bought a book about Filemaker, read it over the weekend, and started coding on Monday. I have not looked back since.
That was in 1992 I believe. I programmed in a vacuum for about 6 years moving from Filemaker Pro version 2 to 4 on my own, with no outside review of my code, and no peer support. I thought I was really good. Then I moved to New York City and attended my first Devcon in Monterey and I was blown away by the quality of the solutions I saw there. I did take the FMP Proficiency test that year and I passed, so I knew I could make the solutions I saw there. But I had a lot to learn about user interface design.
In what ways are you using FileMaker today?
Of course I use FileMaker internally at Kyo Logic to track billing and customers. But I also use it to track my own personal information. Nearly all of my FileMaker development is now done for customers. Kyo Logic develops everything from simple HR systems to complex bond trading applications (that actually make trades by interacting with bank computers via EDI).
One of my favorite applications that I have written was a "Phone logging" system. While poking around AGA's server room one day, I noticed our phone computer had a serial port for printing a log of all calls to a printer for review. Troi had just released the serial plug-in. So I set up a FileMaker database (in FileMaker 5 I believe), that would grab all the data coming out of the phone computer. I then cross-referenced the information with our HR system and the client databases. This allowed the accounting department to see all phone calls made to clients as well as track all calls made to non-clients.
One employee was actually caught calling their family in Paris every day. The employee thought they would be sneaky, and started calling Paris from other phones around the office. But we were able to link all of the calls to them. In the end, this program reduced the company's monthly phone bill by an more than $1500 a month. Over a year, that's a lot of money.
You're the co-founder of a company called Kyo Logic. Tell us about the company.
Kyo Logic started when I went to DevCon with my friend John Mathewson. We had both left AGA a year before, and we both were members of the Connecticut Audio Society. Neither one of us was very happy working on our own, and we realized we had very similar goals in life. So we decided that we could achieve them more easily by working together. So far business has been good. We've just hired our first full-time employees, and we're starting to move away from the use of subcontractors.
What do you like best about your job?
I really like to solve problems. I am getting a bit bored with repetitive execution of code. I like to interview the clients, learn their workflow, find ways to streamline it to reduce repetitive tasks and solve the big picture problem. Kyo Logic is now using many subcontractors and junior developers to crank out the basic code around the solution while John and I work on the "big picture" side of the solutions. Nothing beats delivering a solution and seeing the smile on the customers face as they realize just how well we've understood their needs and the amount of time and money the solution is going to save them.
You're also the founder and president of the New York FileMaker Developer's Group. Can you tell us about the group?
The New York FileMaker developer group was the third user group that I had started. I started my first computer group in high school, we mostly did fund raisers to try to purchase disks drives (because we hated using the cassette decks to save our programs). Then in college I started a NeXT user-group.
While working at AGA, I attended my first DevCon and "woke up" about the level of coding that was going on in the world with FileMaker. After being isolated from other developers for a year, I wanted to learn more from my peers. At the next Devcon in San Diego, I actively started to meet and get to know other developers from the New York area. I partnered with the CEO of AGA, John Mathewson, and we invited developers to come to a monthly meeting. I tried to make the group as open as possible, no formal membership, no dues, nobody had to do anything. I did ask for volunteers to help keep things organized and for the membership to help provide content. The group has grown a lot. I believe there are over 50 active members now.
About a year ago, I stepped down as the president of the group. The trip into the city was just too much for me, two to two-and-a-half hours door-to-door, and the meetings would not clear out until around 9 p.m. So I was getting home around midnight. This was way too late to get home when you have two small children. I still try to attend meetings when I can, but it is hard to stay in the city that late.
Not wanting to lose my connection with the developer community, Kyo Logic has started a new group in Connecticut that is meeting in the morning. This has been great, as I can now treat the developer group meeting as a normal business meeting and it does not interfere with my family time.
You've been a member of the FileMaker Solutions Alliance (FSA) for 7 years. What impact has being in the FSA had on you and your business? And would you recommend that the FileMaker developers that are out there (that are not already part of the FSA) join?
When I first joined the FSA it was mainly for access to the Tech Talk list server so that I could learn from my peers. At that time, I was still an in-house developer with very few links to the outside world of developers. Now that I own a development company, it is not only a technical resource but also an important marketing tool. I could not imagine being a serious FMP developer and not being a member of the FSA.
You're also FileMaker 7 certified. What impact has the certification had on you and your business? And would you recommend that other FM developers get certified?
I highly recommend taking the certification test. When I look for contractors to hire, or full time employees, one of my first questions is, "Are you certified?"
Also, since FileMaker, Inc. started listing certified developers on their website, I would estimate that cold calls from customers have doubled. So it is well worth the work involved to get certified.
Let's talk about the latest version of FileMaker. What are your favorite new features of FileMaker 8?
Variables have made scripting so easy, but so has copying and pasting of fields and scripts. I can't work in version 7 anymore because I keep wanting to use these two features.
If you could add one new feature to the next version of FileMaker, what would it be?
Uggh! Sophie's choice! I'll have to go for a pair for features. I would love to have a better event model in FileMaker, the ability to run scripts on field exit/record exit without a plug-in. Also, more and more I am writing systems that need to work with external data sources, and ODBC just is not cutting it. I need a direct "live" connection to these large data warehouses. If I could place a TO on the relation graph that pointed to a SQL table on another server, that would be awesome. I understand that I might not be able to do all the cool FileMaker things with the TO, but if I could at least search/sort/insert and delete from the existing structure it would solve so many issues with integration. And it would help me to convince large IS/IT departments that FileMaker is a real development environment.
What's your favorite tool, plugin, or technique for developing FileMaker databases?
I currently do not use a lot of plug-ins. I really like the Cleveland Consulting Calendar, very easy to link into an existing solution. I also love MetaDataMagic (by New Millennium Communications) -- I just wish they had a FileMaker 8 version. I am also using Inspector from Beezwax a lot. (Its currently in beta, but look for it when it ships. It will be well worth the money.)
What advice do you have for someone that is just getting started with FileMaker?
Whether you are brand new to FileMaker or still using FileMaker6 (and wanting to start using FileMaker 8), I say just do it. Don't worry about doing things properly or what is the most efficient way to do something. Just start coding. You can not learn unless you do. Reading books will only help you if you already understand the basics.
What technology has most changed your life?
I would have to say computers in general. Without computers I would probably be working in a McDonald's somewhere asking if you want fries with that. Until I received my first computer in 1984, I was pretty much a dunce in school -- poor grades, special classes, a troublemaker, and so on. Once I had a computer, I was able to focus my energy and do things. I was the only student in my class who turned in term papers from a computer (the other kids had to use typewriters). I could never use a typewriter, I just can't think linearly like that. I have to be able to cut, paste and edit after I spill my ideas. And my handwriting is so bad I could never do it on paper with a pencil.
What are your favorite things to do that don't involve work?
I love cars and home audio. I am currently working on fixing up a 1991 BMW M5 that is an absolute rocket. On the audio front, I am a board member for the Connecticut Audio Society, and I like to tweak and build my own audio gear. By build I do not mean buy a kit and soldier it together, but rather design and build from scratch. I have a great solid state amplifier I built about 4 years ago and I am currently tweaking and modifying a nice 1959 Dynaco ST-70 tube amplifier.
Thanks, Tim!
For more information about Tim's company, Kyo Logic, visit the company's Web site at http://kyologic.com.
FileMaker Addict Has Moved!
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Monday, December 12, 2005
Brian Dunning
Software Venture Consultant
Technical Editor, FileMaker Advisor magazine
This week's interview is with Brian Dunning. Brian has been a key figure in the FileMaker community for many years now. Since 1997, he's been a technical editor for FileMaker Advisor magazine. At the 2001 FileMaker Developer Conference, he was presented with the FileMaker Excellence Award. He is a software venture capitalist, and is involved in several companies, including Totwise (preschool and daycare management software) and Zipwise Software (a provider of ZIP code lookup data and related products). He's the mastermind behind ChartMaker Pro, a collection of techniques that allow developers to generate several different types of charts and graphs using FileMaker's built-in features. He's also a published author. If Brian doesn't inspire you, I don't know what will!
How did you get started in IT?
Back in high school, around 1980, we had some Apple II computers in the lab, and a few of us learned how to use them after school. A friend of my dad's was an Amway salesman, and we decided to create the first software program for Amway people. It was called Amacalc, and was written in Applesoft Basic. Anyone who used that may remember how you could read and write data to text files as a sort of poor man's database. So I spent an entire summer as a punk teenager, holed up in my room with my Franklin Ace clone computer writing Amacalc. It never really got off the ground, but it did plant some important seeds, as vertical industry software turned out to be my ultimate profession.
How long have you been using FileMaker, and how did you get started with it?
It's a story that's shared by so many FileMaker developers. From 1990 to 1995 my brother and I ran Head Gear, a sportswear company that we founded. We needed software to manage production, purchasing, sales, and commissions, and couldn't find commercial software that wasn't missing one or more important features we needed.
Somehow I got ahold of FileMaker II, or maybe the original FileMaker Pro, and cobbled something together. It was horrible since I had no formal training in relational database design. (I'd taken Cobol in college, how useless was that?) But it did the job, well enough anyway; more importantly, it hammered home the point that I enjoyed software more than I enjoyed sportswear.
Head Gear was an important turning point for me, because it led us to ultimately design our "Desktop Trade Show" CD-ROM that we sold to other players in the industry, and that finally became Buylink, a multi-million dollar worldwide service that was divested in 2002.
In what ways are you using FileMaker today?
FileMaker is the ultimate way to quickly build great software. There's hardly anything you can't do with it, relatively quickly, easily, and cheaply.
My principal business, which I call Software Venture Consulting, is working with industry leaders to build a software product to address a need within their industry. In this role, I spend a fair amount of time evaluating presentations and ideas that are often pitched at me. If I say yes to two or three times a year, that's a great year and a busy one.
My involvement depends on the stage of the product or idea, and can include forming a new software company; investing time, expertise, or capital; hiring or management; or even just being on the advisory board. My favorite level of involvement, which I've been fortunate enough to enjoy on several occasions, is where the product is of small enough scope that I can provide all that's needed simply by cracking open FileMaker and personally doing the software development myself. As a friend of mine recently said, it feels like Mozart must have felt playing the piano.
I'm much more interested in equity than in consulting so it's very important that my new partner brings as much to the table as possible. My business is the software and the product management. It's up to the partner to support the other end of the bridge: the channel marketing and the exit strategy. I need to be convinced that my partner is the best person in the industry to make that happen. If so, we're a team that can't be beat.
You offer a course called "ToMarket" for people interested in selling the FileMaker-based application that they've developed. Where did the idea for ToMarket come from?
Like all good ideas, it came from standing in the shower one day. Buylink had been incredibly successful getting over 20,000 of our companies to use this one particular product written in FileMaker Developer. It was essentially "power-listing" software for the Buylink web site, much like the software that's available today for eBay - and we'd learned all the lessons about features, support, security, sales, and marketing. At the time I was putting all that experience to great use on some new products in other industries, and at the same time I was trying to think of a new topic for the upcoming FileMaker Developer Conference. It was like the apple falling on Newton's head.
What are some of the "cooler" FileMaker-based applications that you've seen over the years?
For a while I was obsessed with graphics in FileMaker: filling repeating container fields with blobs of different colors. I made a topographic mapping application once that was my all-time favorite. I also made a FileMaker version of the electronic game Simon. I remember seeing some electronic music sequencers written in FileMaker, though I don't remember the authors. The early days of FileMaker Pro were great because you could do innovative stuff and people would say "I can't believe that's done in FileMaker!" These days that's a lot harder - plug-ins let you "cheat" too easily, and FileMaker's been around longer so more people have seen more things. I really love the challenge of doing something amazing with a very limited toolset, like we had in the old days.
What do you like best about your job?
Easy to answer: the freedom. Even though I budget my time in advance in great detail, everything that goes on my calendar is something I choose. I choose the products I want to develop, I choose the people I want to partner with, I choose how to best apportion my days.
My encouragement to anyone is to calendar your fun time first, and fit everything else around that schedule, rather than vice versa. I play in a couple of indoor volleyball leagues and also play at the beach. That time is carved in stone months in advance. So is family time. I never work one second after 5:00pm and never look at a computer on weekends. We're able to take vacations whenever the kids' school schedules permit. And once in a while I like to be impulsive, undisciplined, and irresponsible: sometimes my brother and I will take off with no warning and go sailing. My office phone rings and rings, and I laugh and laugh. Maybe I shouldn't admit that in a public forum...
You've been a technical editor for FileMaker Advisor magazine since 1997. How did you get involved in the magazine?
In the magazine's early days, they were starved for good material, and it was easy to get submissions published. Jeff Gagne, then the CSA liaison, showed off a mockup issue at a regional meeting and I immediately sent in proposals. I started with an article on charts & graphs based on my ChartMaker Pro product, and after one or two articles they asked me to be a Contributing Editor to help weed through the growing number of submissions. Somewhere along the line they converted me into a Technical Editor, which means that I get to check articles by new authors for technical accuracy and seat-of-the-pants "elegance" of the solutions submitted. We like to find articles about techniques that are truly useful to many readers, not oddball stuff, and that represent the best way (or one of the best ways) to solve the problem at hand.
From my perspective, the magazine is a way to stay sharp technically, but it also channels many new business leads my way. I try to always stay on people's minds as the go-to guy if you're considering building a product to address a particular industry need, and to that end, my visibility through the magazine has proven invaluable over the years.
What are your favorite new features of FileMaker 8?
They really hit it out of the park on this one. I love the script variables: they make me dance the Macarena atop my desk. I love the tool tips and the custom menus: they're so essential for software to sell its own usability within the first 30 seconds of a customer's evaluation. FileMaker 8 is the first release that addressed the needs of software designed for the vertical market.
If you could add one new feature to the next version of FileMaker, what would it be?
Getting rid of the damn application window on Windows. The way FileMaker 8 windows work on a Mac is perfect.
What's your favorite tool, plugin, or technique for developing FileMaker databases?
I'm still, after about two years, enjoying the honeymoon with the relationship graph. I'm of the "anchor-buoy" school (aka many other names, no doubt), where each layout context has its own TOG consisting of an "anchor" TO for the current table attached to "buoy" TO's for every kind of related data the anchor might need. In many ways it's a throwback to pre-7 relational design, you just need to get the E-R diagram mentality out of your mind when thinking of the relationship graph. So, though it may sound dumb, my favorite tool for FileMaker 8 databases is making my anchor-buoys in the relationship graph.
What advice do you have for someone that is just getting started with FileMaker?
I frequently hear from people who are considering quitting their "real" job and becoming a full-time independent FileMaker consultant, and they want to know the best way to get started. I always give the same advice. Don't risk starving yourself and your family by jumping into deep water amid much bigger fish. Unless you already have more business than you can handle lined up for the foreseeable future - and few new consultants do - then don't start as an independent. Instead, work for one of the large, established FileMaker consulting firms. You'll always have work; you'll learn the business, technology, and most importantly the people. Work hard for a couple of years, go to some conferences, and then you'll be ready to jump into the deep water and stay afloat.
What technology has most changed your life?
I fear I would reveal myself if I admitted that it's DirecTiVo, so I won't say that; and maybe Apple's rumored media center will change that anyway. And I also won't say the Internet because that's too obvious. Neither will I say FileMaker because, to paraphrase Lloyd Bridges in Airplane, that's just what you'll be expecting me to say. I might say Audi's Quattro IV advanced all-wheel-drive system. I might say the one-touch pushbutton tacking of the Raymarine 4000 Autopilot. But I think I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the technology I hope to soon change my life will be Porsche's upcoming VTG variable turbine geometry. I like to keep my priorities straight.
You're also a bit of an explorer. There are some interesting videos on your site that chronicle some of your adventures (to places like Area 51, Anza Borrego, and Death Valley). Tell us about your experience in the Anza-Borrego desert in May of this year.
You're talking about the "Mysterious Desert Flying Objects" video on my page at http://www.briandunning.com/vibrations/. Like the "Gravitational Anomaly" video above it, this one is something of a tongue-in-cheek joke. We actually watched this event for some minutes, and it was far more dramatic when it first started, before it occurred to me to grab my camera. And I freely confess that it did take us a little while to figure out what was happening. I'd seen this kind of thing many times before, but never with so many subjects moving up and down so violently. They were like balls in a lottery machine when the episode began - too bad it toned down so much by the time I started filming.
I really enjoyed making the few short films on my web site, and plan many more. I'm building a better Jeep and assembling better AV equipment. Man oh man - where were iMovie and Video Podcasts when I was in high school and college???
Tell us about "Strapping Young Lads."
This started as a collection of miscellaneous sketches that flew off the top of my head around 10 years ago. There were a dozen or so, they were no more than a page long, and I wrote them purely to amuse myself and never had any thought of doing anything with them. One day a lightning bolt struck and I saw how they fit together, and so over the course of about two years, cobbled them into the book that it is today. It's a farcical time-traveling adventure. I really like the characters, who drove the original sketches.
For grins I put it up on one of the free "print on demand" web sites that offers books for sale through Amazon, etc. I never had any thought of taking it seriously, and certainly not of spending any time or effort trying to market it. Due to the disorganized, organic nature of its birth, I've always felt that there are some weak points in the story, without a doubt. Nevertheless, I started getting emails, people posted Amazon reviews, some kid in Australia turned it into his high school film project, and a literary agent wrote me and asked to represent it. And that's where it sits now.
Will there be any more chapters to this story? We'll have to wait and see.
Do you still write fiction?
After a long dry spell of business distractions, I'm finally forcing some creative time back into my schedule. In particular I'm giving myself a present for my 40th birthday, which is to complete a project I've always wanted to do. Eventually it will wind up on my web site. Stay tuned.
Thanks, Brian!
Be sure to visit Brian's Web site at http://www.briandunning.com.
How did you get started in IT?
Back in high school, around 1980, we had some Apple II computers in the lab, and a few of us learned how to use them after school. A friend of my dad's was an Amway salesman, and we decided to create the first software program for Amway people. It was called Amacalc, and was written in Applesoft Basic. Anyone who used that may remember how you could read and write data to text files as a sort of poor man's database. So I spent an entire summer as a punk teenager, holed up in my room with my Franklin Ace clone computer writing Amacalc. It never really got off the ground, but it did plant some important seeds, as vertical industry software turned out to be my ultimate profession.
How long have you been using FileMaker, and how did you get started with it?
It's a story that's shared by so many FileMaker developers. From 1990 to 1995 my brother and I ran Head Gear, a sportswear company that we founded. We needed software to manage production, purchasing, sales, and commissions, and couldn't find commercial software that wasn't missing one or more important features we needed.
Somehow I got ahold of FileMaker II, or maybe the original FileMaker Pro, and cobbled something together. It was horrible since I had no formal training in relational database design. (I'd taken Cobol in college, how useless was that?) But it did the job, well enough anyway; more importantly, it hammered home the point that I enjoyed software more than I enjoyed sportswear.
Head Gear was an important turning point for me, because it led us to ultimately design our "Desktop Trade Show" CD-ROM that we sold to other players in the industry, and that finally became Buylink, a multi-million dollar worldwide service that was divested in 2002.
In what ways are you using FileMaker today?
FileMaker is the ultimate way to quickly build great software. There's hardly anything you can't do with it, relatively quickly, easily, and cheaply.
My principal business, which I call Software Venture Consulting, is working with industry leaders to build a software product to address a need within their industry. In this role, I spend a fair amount of time evaluating presentations and ideas that are often pitched at me. If I say yes to two or three times a year, that's a great year and a busy one.
My involvement depends on the stage of the product or idea, and can include forming a new software company; investing time, expertise, or capital; hiring or management; or even just being on the advisory board. My favorite level of involvement, which I've been fortunate enough to enjoy on several occasions, is where the product is of small enough scope that I can provide all that's needed simply by cracking open FileMaker and personally doing the software development myself. As a friend of mine recently said, it feels like Mozart must have felt playing the piano.
I'm much more interested in equity than in consulting so it's very important that my new partner brings as much to the table as possible. My business is the software and the product management. It's up to the partner to support the other end of the bridge: the channel marketing and the exit strategy. I need to be convinced that my partner is the best person in the industry to make that happen. If so, we're a team that can't be beat.
You offer a course called "ToMarket" for people interested in selling the FileMaker-based application that they've developed. Where did the idea for ToMarket come from?
Like all good ideas, it came from standing in the shower one day. Buylink had been incredibly successful getting over 20,000 of our companies to use this one particular product written in FileMaker Developer. It was essentially "power-listing" software for the Buylink web site, much like the software that's available today for eBay - and we'd learned all the lessons about features, support, security, sales, and marketing. At the time I was putting all that experience to great use on some new products in other industries, and at the same time I was trying to think of a new topic for the upcoming FileMaker Developer Conference. It was like the apple falling on Newton's head.
What are some of the "cooler" FileMaker-based applications that you've seen over the years?
For a while I was obsessed with graphics in FileMaker: filling repeating container fields with blobs of different colors. I made a topographic mapping application once that was my all-time favorite. I also made a FileMaker version of the electronic game Simon. I remember seeing some electronic music sequencers written in FileMaker, though I don't remember the authors. The early days of FileMaker Pro were great because you could do innovative stuff and people would say "I can't believe that's done in FileMaker!" These days that's a lot harder - plug-ins let you "cheat" too easily, and FileMaker's been around longer so more people have seen more things. I really love the challenge of doing something amazing with a very limited toolset, like we had in the old days.
What do you like best about your job?
Easy to answer: the freedom. Even though I budget my time in advance in great detail, everything that goes on my calendar is something I choose. I choose the products I want to develop, I choose the people I want to partner with, I choose how to best apportion my days.
My encouragement to anyone is to calendar your fun time first, and fit everything else around that schedule, rather than vice versa. I play in a couple of indoor volleyball leagues and also play at the beach. That time is carved in stone months in advance. So is family time. I never work one second after 5:00pm and never look at a computer on weekends. We're able to take vacations whenever the kids' school schedules permit. And once in a while I like to be impulsive, undisciplined, and irresponsible: sometimes my brother and I will take off with no warning and go sailing. My office phone rings and rings, and I laugh and laugh. Maybe I shouldn't admit that in a public forum...
You've been a technical editor for FileMaker Advisor magazine since 1997. How did you get involved in the magazine?
In the magazine's early days, they were starved for good material, and it was easy to get submissions published. Jeff Gagne, then the CSA liaison, showed off a mockup issue at a regional meeting and I immediately sent in proposals. I started with an article on charts & graphs based on my ChartMaker Pro product, and after one or two articles they asked me to be a Contributing Editor to help weed through the growing number of submissions. Somewhere along the line they converted me into a Technical Editor, which means that I get to check articles by new authors for technical accuracy and seat-of-the-pants "elegance" of the solutions submitted. We like to find articles about techniques that are truly useful to many readers, not oddball stuff, and that represent the best way (or one of the best ways) to solve the problem at hand.
From my perspective, the magazine is a way to stay sharp technically, but it also channels many new business leads my way. I try to always stay on people's minds as the go-to guy if you're considering building a product to address a particular industry need, and to that end, my visibility through the magazine has proven invaluable over the years.
What are your favorite new features of FileMaker 8?
They really hit it out of the park on this one. I love the script variables: they make me dance the Macarena atop my desk. I love the tool tips and the custom menus: they're so essential for software to sell its own usability within the first 30 seconds of a customer's evaluation. FileMaker 8 is the first release that addressed the needs of software designed for the vertical market.
If you could add one new feature to the next version of FileMaker, what would it be?
Getting rid of the damn application window on Windows. The way FileMaker 8 windows work on a Mac is perfect.
What's your favorite tool, plugin, or technique for developing FileMaker databases?
I'm still, after about two years, enjoying the honeymoon with the relationship graph. I'm of the "anchor-buoy" school (aka many other names, no doubt), where each layout context has its own TOG consisting of an "anchor" TO for the current table attached to "buoy" TO's for every kind of related data the anchor might need. In many ways it's a throwback to pre-7 relational design, you just need to get the E-R diagram mentality out of your mind when thinking of the relationship graph. So, though it may sound dumb, my favorite tool for FileMaker 8 databases is making my anchor-buoys in the relationship graph.
What advice do you have for someone that is just getting started with FileMaker?
I frequently hear from people who are considering quitting their "real" job and becoming a full-time independent FileMaker consultant, and they want to know the best way to get started. I always give the same advice. Don't risk starving yourself and your family by jumping into deep water amid much bigger fish. Unless you already have more business than you can handle lined up for the foreseeable future - and few new consultants do - then don't start as an independent. Instead, work for one of the large, established FileMaker consulting firms. You'll always have work; you'll learn the business, technology, and most importantly the people. Work hard for a couple of years, go to some conferences, and then you'll be ready to jump into the deep water and stay afloat.
What technology has most changed your life?
I fear I would reveal myself if I admitted that it's DirecTiVo, so I won't say that; and maybe Apple's rumored media center will change that anyway. And I also won't say the Internet because that's too obvious. Neither will I say FileMaker because, to paraphrase Lloyd Bridges in Airplane, that's just what you'll be expecting me to say. I might say Audi's Quattro IV advanced all-wheel-drive system. I might say the one-touch pushbutton tacking of the Raymarine 4000 Autopilot. But I think I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the technology I hope to soon change my life will be Porsche's upcoming VTG variable turbine geometry. I like to keep my priorities straight.
You're also a bit of an explorer. There are some interesting videos on your site that chronicle some of your adventures (to places like Area 51, Anza Borrego, and Death Valley). Tell us about your experience in the Anza-Borrego desert in May of this year.
You're talking about the "Mysterious Desert Flying Objects" video on my page at http://www.briandunning.com/vibrations/. Like the "Gravitational Anomaly" video above it, this one is something of a tongue-in-cheek joke. We actually watched this event for some minutes, and it was far more dramatic when it first started, before it occurred to me to grab my camera. And I freely confess that it did take us a little while to figure out what was happening. I'd seen this kind of thing many times before, but never with so many subjects moving up and down so violently. They were like balls in a lottery machine when the episode began - too bad it toned down so much by the time I started filming.
I really enjoyed making the few short films on my web site, and plan many more. I'm building a better Jeep and assembling better AV equipment. Man oh man - where were iMovie and Video Podcasts when I was in high school and college???
Tell us about "Strapping Young Lads."
This started as a collection of miscellaneous sketches that flew off the top of my head around 10 years ago. There were a dozen or so, they were no more than a page long, and I wrote them purely to amuse myself and never had any thought of doing anything with them. One day a lightning bolt struck and I saw how they fit together, and so over the course of about two years, cobbled them into the book that it is today. It's a farcical time-traveling adventure. I really like the characters, who drove the original sketches.
For grins I put it up on one of the free "print on demand" web sites that offers books for sale through Amazon, etc. I never had any thought of taking it seriously, and certainly not of spending any time or effort trying to market it. Due to the disorganized, organic nature of its birth, I've always felt that there are some weak points in the story, without a doubt. Nevertheless, I started getting emails, people posted Amazon reviews, some kid in Australia turned it into his high school film project, and a literary agent wrote me and asked to represent it. And that's where it sits now.
Will there be any more chapters to this story? We'll have to wait and see.
Do you still write fiction?
After a long dry spell of business distractions, I'm finally forcing some creative time back into my schedule. In particular I'm giving myself a present for my 40th birthday, which is to complete a project I've always wanted to do. Eventually it will wind up on my web site. Stay tuned.
Thanks, Brian!
Be sure to visit Brian's Web site at http://www.briandunning.com.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Jim McNeely
President
New Century Data Inc.
This week's FileMaker Addict interview is with Jim McNeely. Jim is a Certified FileMaker 7 Developer and President of New Century Data Inc. His company specializes in business analysis, FileMaker and SQL databases, and web applications.
How did you get started in IT?
I was a full time professional magician and children's entertainer, and I used FileMaker starting with version 2 to manage my bookings and routines and invoicing and such. I finally conceded after I got to version 5 that I preferred tinkering with the computer more than doing shows, so I took a job at a FM development house called the Stravin group, where I learned many more things and got deeply involved in all things FM, web, and database, and I've never looked back!
In what ways are you using FileMaker today?
New Century Data uses FileMaker to run our business internally, including making estimates, tracking time, defining projects, invoicing, some HR things, etc. Of course we do a lot of FileMaker work for our clients, and I am really starting to enjoy speaking and training people concerning FileMaker.
You're the president and cofounder of a company called New Century Data. Tell us about the company.
This is a really great company, I am very blessed to work with some extremely smart people. We do a lot of FileMaker Pro development, almost all of it in FM8 now.
The company got started when my old company, Envision Data, merged with Jeff Hoffman's old company. Jeff has now gone on to other things, but New Century Data is stronger than ever.
We have George Nassar on board, who seems to know every programming language known to mankind, and knows every little thing about the Windows OS environment. He is also very close to having a DOD security certification, so he is very security minded. He's a great php/perl coder, and is also great with jsp, asp, .net and lots of other things. We're lucky to have him.
Tom Rotrekl is our other main developer, he was a FileMaker developer for EDS for years, and has come over to NCD in the last few months. He is very very good at FM 7 and 8, and of course he is a complete guru with older versions.
You've worked on projects for some very impressive clients, including Lockheed Martin, JC Penney, and American Airlines to name just a few. What's the most challenging project that you've worked on?
Sometimes the smaller clients have more challenging requirements. We have recently installed a system for a commercial truck wash company called Steamaway, and they had extremely complex scheduling and invoicing needs.
I worked on portions of the sales force automation tool for FileMaker Inc. several years back, and some of the requirements for that were fairly complicated.
We are currently working on a new system in FM8 to manage charter flights for American Airlines, and there are a lot of requirements for a lot of people for that system, and I don't think any one person in their organization knows what the whole system is supposed to do in total. That has been a very challenging system, and Tom is doing a fantastic job on it.
You were a speaker at this year's FileMaker Developer Conference. What was that like?
I loved it. I felt very passionate about the material I presented, on understanding data context in FM7/8, and use-case driven database design. Devcon is always a lot of fun, you see people you have corresponded with over the year and learn some things and just see what all is going on. Being a speaker was even more fun, you get to go to some dinners and get a little special treatment.
You're helping with the FileMaker User Group in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. How's that going?
The group was founded by Ray Thompson, and was headed up by a crazy inventor of a developer named Brad Stanford. Brad is something else, really. He wanted to step down for a while, and I have been very excited to take up the mantle and set up meetings, come up with topics, and such. There are a lot of very talented developers in this area doing some amazing projects and I would like to showcase the things that people are doing with FileMaker around here.
On the New Century Data Web site, you wrote: "There is perhaps no area of business more filled with lunacy and ill-advised projects and ventures than information technology. Important decisions are made often based on little more than hype, buzz-words and vaporous promises." Looking back over the past several years, what technology do you think has been the most over-hyped?
I think one of the things that drives me crazy is how everyone wants their application to run in a browser. Web apps are crippled by the limitations of the www/browser environment. Obviously the web has its place, and it is of tremendous importance, but in a lot of cases I see people trying to get an elephant to do tricks like a dog; maybe you should get a dog to do dog tricks, right?
Also, I see people making very crazy decisions to throw out a perfectly good FM system because they don't want to pay seat licenses, when the cost of creating and maintaining an open source system would be 10 times the amount of the total cost of a FileMaker system, which could be developed faster and maintained easier. I am rabid about open source, I love it, but use the right tool for the right job.
So I think, web applications and open source are very hyped, many times beyond what is rational.
On a similar note, what emerging technology do you think is going to make a big impact in the future?
My take on this is a little different. I think there is a huge sweet spot with existing proven technologies that have not really been exploited enough for business applications. So many companies are trying to use tools on the bleeding edge, while great things that are possible now have not been done. I studied music composition in college; my joy was taking tired old instruments and combining them in new ways to make really lovely music. So I watch and read, but I am not always excited about emerging technologies, I am excited about what I can do today.
That said, I think in all honesty that FM8 ranks up there very high. I also think that "always on" wireless broadband internet is about to hit in a big way, and this means amazing things are possible. The internet, not just the web, is going to open up tremendous new possibilities for business, science, medical apps, and the arts when this happens.
As a musician, I am also looking forward to the large music brokers to collapse, and to have really great music go out to everyone on the basis of merit instead of on the basis of what genre the bean counters think it might find a market for.
What are your favorite new features of FileMaker 8?
I love the custom menus. You used to have to deploy a system with almost all of the menu items disabled, and your screens were sprinkled with buttons; you had to make everyone to everything with buttons. That is all changing now; my FM8 apps are so much more elegant because of this.
Also, I love the variables. It just makes development so much cleaner and easier.
If you could add one new feature to the next version of FileMaker, what would it be?
Copy and paste elements in the relationship graph from one file to another. Or, the ability to create table occurrences using queries to a SQL database, and use them as if they were native FM tables. That would be NICE!
What's your favorite tool, plugin, or technique for developing FileMaker databases?
We use SMTPit a lot. As far as techniques, we are very into creating prototype templates, and we are very passionate about doing use-case driven database design.
What advice do you have for someone that is just getting started with FileMaker?
Don't get overwhelmed, just start tinkering and having fun and soon you will be doing things you never thought possible.
What technology has most changed your life?
The internet.
What are your favorite things to do that don’t involve work?
I love to go bicycling, and I play the piano a lot. My favorite music is Bach, and jazz. I am a huge Bill Evans fan.
I noticed that you're a musician, and that two of your developers (George Nassar and Tom Rotreki) are musicians as well. I thought that was interesting. Is that just a coincidence?
No, I only hire musicians. I feel sorry for them.
Really, it was a coincidence, except that in my experience the same people who are good at music seem to be good at development also. It also makes it fun in the office to get into debates about whether Mozart merits his fame or not. I am not a big Mozart fan, until his later years when he had studied Bach. But then, why not just listen to Bach?!
Jim, thanks very much! Your "SQL table occurence" idea is terrific. I hope someone at FileMaker reads this and adds it to the "wish list!"
For more information about Jim's company, New Century Data Inc.
visit their Web site at http://www.newcenturydata.com.
How did you get started in IT?
I was a full time professional magician and children's entertainer, and I used FileMaker starting with version 2 to manage my bookings and routines and invoicing and such. I finally conceded after I got to version 5 that I preferred tinkering with the computer more than doing shows, so I took a job at a FM development house called the Stravin group, where I learned many more things and got deeply involved in all things FM, web, and database, and I've never looked back!
In what ways are you using FileMaker today?
New Century Data uses FileMaker to run our business internally, including making estimates, tracking time, defining projects, invoicing, some HR things, etc. Of course we do a lot of FileMaker work for our clients, and I am really starting to enjoy speaking and training people concerning FileMaker.
You're the president and cofounder of a company called New Century Data. Tell us about the company.
This is a really great company, I am very blessed to work with some extremely smart people. We do a lot of FileMaker Pro development, almost all of it in FM8 now.
The company got started when my old company, Envision Data, merged with Jeff Hoffman's old company. Jeff has now gone on to other things, but New Century Data is stronger than ever.
We have George Nassar on board, who seems to know every programming language known to mankind, and knows every little thing about the Windows OS environment. He is also very close to having a DOD security certification, so he is very security minded. He's a great php/perl coder, and is also great with jsp, asp, .net and lots of other things. We're lucky to have him.
Tom Rotrekl is our other main developer, he was a FileMaker developer for EDS for years, and has come over to NCD in the last few months. He is very very good at FM 7 and 8, and of course he is a complete guru with older versions.
You've worked on projects for some very impressive clients, including Lockheed Martin, JC Penney, and American Airlines to name just a few. What's the most challenging project that you've worked on?
Sometimes the smaller clients have more challenging requirements. We have recently installed a system for a commercial truck wash company called Steamaway, and they had extremely complex scheduling and invoicing needs.
I worked on portions of the sales force automation tool for FileMaker Inc. several years back, and some of the requirements for that were fairly complicated.
We are currently working on a new system in FM8 to manage charter flights for American Airlines, and there are a lot of requirements for a lot of people for that system, and I don't think any one person in their organization knows what the whole system is supposed to do in total. That has been a very challenging system, and Tom is doing a fantastic job on it.
You were a speaker at this year's FileMaker Developer Conference. What was that like?
I loved it. I felt very passionate about the material I presented, on understanding data context in FM7/8, and use-case driven database design. Devcon is always a lot of fun, you see people you have corresponded with over the year and learn some things and just see what all is going on. Being a speaker was even more fun, you get to go to some dinners and get a little special treatment.
You're helping with the FileMaker User Group in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. How's that going?
The group was founded by Ray Thompson, and was headed up by a crazy inventor of a developer named Brad Stanford. Brad is something else, really. He wanted to step down for a while, and I have been very excited to take up the mantle and set up meetings, come up with topics, and such. There are a lot of very talented developers in this area doing some amazing projects and I would like to showcase the things that people are doing with FileMaker around here.
On the New Century Data Web site, you wrote: "There is perhaps no area of business more filled with lunacy and ill-advised projects and ventures than information technology. Important decisions are made often based on little more than hype, buzz-words and vaporous promises." Looking back over the past several years, what technology do you think has been the most over-hyped?
I think one of the things that drives me crazy is how everyone wants their application to run in a browser. Web apps are crippled by the limitations of the www/browser environment. Obviously the web has its place, and it is of tremendous importance, but in a lot of cases I see people trying to get an elephant to do tricks like a dog; maybe you should get a dog to do dog tricks, right?
Also, I see people making very crazy decisions to throw out a perfectly good FM system because they don't want to pay seat licenses, when the cost of creating and maintaining an open source system would be 10 times the amount of the total cost of a FileMaker system, which could be developed faster and maintained easier. I am rabid about open source, I love it, but use the right tool for the right job.
So I think, web applications and open source are very hyped, many times beyond what is rational.
On a similar note, what emerging technology do you think is going to make a big impact in the future?
My take on this is a little different. I think there is a huge sweet spot with existing proven technologies that have not really been exploited enough for business applications. So many companies are trying to use tools on the bleeding edge, while great things that are possible now have not been done. I studied music composition in college; my joy was taking tired old instruments and combining them in new ways to make really lovely music. So I watch and read, but I am not always excited about emerging technologies, I am excited about what I can do today.
That said, I think in all honesty that FM8 ranks up there very high. I also think that "always on" wireless broadband internet is about to hit in a big way, and this means amazing things are possible. The internet, not just the web, is going to open up tremendous new possibilities for business, science, medical apps, and the arts when this happens.
As a musician, I am also looking forward to the large music brokers to collapse, and to have really great music go out to everyone on the basis of merit instead of on the basis of what genre the bean counters think it might find a market for.
What are your favorite new features of FileMaker 8?
I love the custom menus. You used to have to deploy a system with almost all of the menu items disabled, and your screens were sprinkled with buttons; you had to make everyone to everything with buttons. That is all changing now; my FM8 apps are so much more elegant because of this.
Also, I love the variables. It just makes development so much cleaner and easier.
If you could add one new feature to the next version of FileMaker, what would it be?
Copy and paste elements in the relationship graph from one file to another. Or, the ability to create table occurrences using queries to a SQL database, and use them as if they were native FM tables. That would be NICE!
What's your favorite tool, plugin, or technique for developing FileMaker databases?
We use SMTPit a lot. As far as techniques, we are very into creating prototype templates, and we are very passionate about doing use-case driven database design.
What advice do you have for someone that is just getting started with FileMaker?
Don't get overwhelmed, just start tinkering and having fun and soon you will be doing things you never thought possible.
What technology has most changed your life?
The internet.
What are your favorite things to do that don’t involve work?
I love to go bicycling, and I play the piano a lot. My favorite music is Bach, and jazz. I am a huge Bill Evans fan.
I noticed that you're a musician, and that two of your developers (George Nassar and Tom Rotreki) are musicians as well. I thought that was interesting. Is that just a coincidence?
No, I only hire musicians. I feel sorry for them.
Really, it was a coincidence, except that in my experience the same people who are good at music seem to be good at development also. It also makes it fun in the office to get into debates about whether Mozart merits his fame or not. I am not a big Mozart fan, until his later years when he had studied Bach. But then, why not just listen to Bach?!
Jim, thanks very much! Your "SQL table occurence" idea is terrific. I hope someone at FileMaker reads this and adds it to the "wish list!"
For more information about Jim's company, New Century Data Inc.
visit their Web site at http://www.newcenturydata.com.
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