a g i r i l e y . c o m

Though users of older Intel-based Macs were led to believe they would have to spend $169 to migrate from Tiger to Snow Leopard, new reports state the $29 upgrade disc will work just fine. Apple Insider

So this is good news, right? I ordered my copy of 5, which will arrive tomorrow. My main computer is due for a wipe so I thought I’d just wait for Snow Leopard and get this done at the same time.

“For owners of Intel-based Macs who are still using the older Tiger version of the Mac OS, Apple is officially making Snow Leopard available only in a “boxed set” that includes other software and costs $169,” Mossberg said. “The reasoning is that these folks never paid the $129 back in 2007 to upgrade to Leopard. But here’s a tip: Apple concedes that the $29 Snow Leopard upgrade will work properly on these Tiger-equipped Macs, so you can save the extra $140.” Walt Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal

Wired also confirmed that they were able to upgrade a system directly from Tiger to Snow Leopard. In addition, it is possible to completely erase a hard drive and install Snow Leopard without a pre-existing operating system in place, enabling users to bypass the possible headaches of an upgrade and go with a clean install instead. Wired said many users upgrading from Tiger should probably consider backing up their files from Tiger and doing a clean install instead. Apple Insider

So far news of upgrades state that they have been performed smoothly. Not all third party software is guaranteed to work. Do your research before upgrading.

Adobe, for example, has already stated that Creative Suite 3 has not been tested on Snow Leopard and may have compatibility issues. We were able to test Adobe Photoshop CS 3 on Snow Leopard and thus far have had no problems. We also tested QuickSilver, App Zapper, Adium, Tweetie and Evernote, and all seemed to work fine. But do some research and pretest on a nonproduction system if you’re concerned. Wired

Conclusion: Do not expect Earth shattering changes from Snow Leopard. You will see some minor interface changes, you will save some hard drive space but you mostly pay the $29 prize for performance improvements.

apple, iPhone, Leopard, snow leopard, tiger

One of the features that has made the Blackberry (among others) the ultimate business device was the ability to create and edit office documents right on the handheld. (I’m not going to get into the differences between Palm and Blackberry. Having had multiple versions of both devices, the Blackberry is superior to me for a lot of reasons.) Then came the iPhone. With its lacking business capabilities, a lot of companies and IT departments had to wait to upgrade because it would not meet today’s business needs. We are officially one step closer. According to ZDNet, Quickoffice will be demoing their new office suit for the iPhone at MWC. They already have office products for the Symbian, Blackberry and Palm OSs, and now they are expanding their offerings for the iPhone. They already have one iPhone app: MobileFiles.

iPhone, MWC, quickoffice

I tend to think of myself as a forward thinker. Having worked in technology for many years, I have the latest gadgets, and even if I don’t have them, I try to to follow technology, so I know what I’m missing.

I’m not a fan of too much control. I know people need to learn things from their own mistakes, even though I try to prevent the foreseeable. All of these new social media concepts and applications are great if you are into educating yourself, want to see what’s hip, who’s doing what, who’s eating what, etc. I haven’t decided if this is scary or a good idea.

I recently discovered two new ways of getting info about your neighbors:

1. Klick, an iPhone app to show you can pictures of your neighborhood from flickr (and your neighbor’s kids)
2. nearbytweets.com, as the name suggests, tweets of your neighbors

If you have nothing better to do with your time, you can certainly be a voyeour without leaving your armchair. Let’s just hope sex offenders won’t find smart ways of collecting and analyzing the data to fit their needs.

flickr, iPhone, klick, nearbytweets, social media, tweet, twitter

After reading several articles on Google one would think it’s a horrendous task to get all your feeds from Google Reader to NetNewsWire. But, really, it isn’t. Export your feeds from Google Reader, then import them into NetNewsWire. It’s that simple. You’ll get a folder with the freshly imported feeds, then you can just do a little organization. Then you can sync your feeds with NewsGator and read them on any computer or your iPhone. It’s that simple!

Download NetNewsWire

apple, google reader, iPhone, mac, netnewswire

Photo by Sandy Hechtman

December 11, 2008: I presented a FileMaker-made-mobile solution to the members of the New York Motion Picture Collective and the New York FileMaker Developer Group. The presentation demonstrated bringing a database from FileMaker to the iPhone through the use of FMTouch.

Click the images below to get a closer look.

Click on the image above to see the video

Now, let’s look at how this is done. To get started with porting your own database to the iPhone or iPod Touch, you will need the following:

• FileMaker Pro or Advanced 8-9;
• An IPhone or iPod Touch (2.0 firmware);
• FMTouch;
• A Database Developer Report (DDR) of the file you intend to use. If you don’t have FileMaker Advanced, you can use this solution;
• The sync plug-in;
• The FMTouch User Guide;
• FMTouch Style Guide and starter database for reference;
• A pinch of patience.

It may seem daunting at first, but these simple steps will allow you to begin:

1. Design your layouts you would like to use on the iPhone according to the style guide;
2. Buy FMTouch form the iTunes Store;
3. Download the synch plug-in and place it in your FileMaker’s extension folder, then restart FileMaker.
4. Make sure the plug-in is enabled.
5. Set up synching to your database on the iPhone (check the User’s Guide for more on this);
6. Transfer DDR to iPhone;
7. Name your Database;
8. Initialize DDR;
9. Choose the layouts you want to see;
10. Re-initialize;
11. Synch your database to get the data from the computer;
12. Open your database.

Congratulations! Now that you have a FileMaker database working on an iPhone or iPod Touch, here is a list of tips and tricks that might be helpful to you, as well as observations to be mindful of as you move forward in your own development.

LAYOUT DESIGN

* You can design the layouts based on the example DB and provided style guide. Make sure you pay attention to scrolling with fingers. If you don’t want editable fields to get in the way of scrolling, make sure to lock them down.
* With FMTouch you can show layouts in “portrait” (vertical), “landscape” (horizontal) or “both” modes. The iPhone is not able to differentiate between layouts whether they are designed for portrait or landscape modes. So you cannot simply rotate the phone in the hope that it will switch to a different layout. So, at this point you’re better off locking FMTouch to either vertical or horizontal mode, which you can do if you go to “Settings” after you click on the little “i” on the bottom right.
* Every time you change the layouts you would like to show, you have to reinitialize your solution.

LABELS

FMTouch is currently unable to show more than one line in a label showing text on the layout. You can, however, use two different workarounds:

• You can type every line of text into a new label;
• Or you can create a calculation field with the text you would like to show and place that on the layout.

FIELDS

You can use container fields in layouts, but they can only show a reference to an image. Only import the reference when you import an image; it will not show in FMTouch otherwise.

SCRIPTING

You can use the following script steps attached to a button on a layout:

• Go to Layout*
• Go to Record
• New Record
• Delete Record
• Set Field
• Go to related record.

* Note: You can use the “GoToLayout” script step directly from a button, but you cannot use this script step as part of a script, because “Perform Script” is not a supported script step.

Special thanks to Christina Tsao for her help with the database layouts.

Downnload the instructions (PDF)

I hope this has been helpful.

, database, filemaker, filemaker developer group, FMTouch, iPhone