Coimbatore Space Festival, India

Vanakkam! (That's Tamil for "hello and welcome!")

My name is Rin Scherrer, and I am the most recent addition to the Portage Bay team. I join the group as a developer, but I thought I would introduce myself with a story of my recent excursions to Coimbatore, India for the first ever Coimbatore Space Festival! 

The Coimbatore Space Festival is the first of its kind in India - held at Bharatiar University in southern India, the festival was a collaborative endeavor between NASA (USA), ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization), and DRDO (Defense Research and Development Organization).  The goal was to provide inspiration for children interested in astronomy, rocketry, and other space related fields. There was workshops for both students and teachers, lectures by prominent scientists on topics such as Women in Science and The Sun and Us, and hands-on activities designed to teach and inspire.

As its contribution, NASA sent 9 scientists and educational specialists with an astounding variety of workshops and activities. Two of these - myself and my partner - come from Grove of Hope, a non-profit educational group whose mission is to spread hands-on science education around the world.  I have been a volunteer scientist with Grove of Hope since 2009, participating in science caravans primarily in Morocco. Our contribution to the Coimbatore Space Festival was a workshop about Rockets! Aided by 20 english-speaking college students as translators, we discussed rocket theory, Newtons Laws, rocket structure, rocket uses, and many other topics. This was rounded out with demonstrations of different types of model rocket launches. Who doesn't like to shoot off rockets?! 

The other NASA scientists and educators brought activities relating to robotics, structural engineering, solar viewing, UV light, the solar system, and much more. 

For 6 days the festival brought in thousands of students, families and the interested public. Around 80,000 people visited the festival - nearly double what we expected! Most of these were school groups ranging from elementary to high school.  College students came on their own. Some buses drove students from over 6 hours away just for the chance to meet NASA scientists.  

I was blessed and honored to be involved with such an amazing adventure. I can only hope that our presence helped inspire young minds to pursue greatness in the sciences. 

Nandri! (Thank you!)

-Rin Scherrer

Rin and some of the fantastic volunteers!

Indian schoolchildren eagerly learn about rocket theory

July/Aug Newsletter Out

In the second of our series of videos on FileMaker 12, Kate talks about the 40 built-in themes, and discusses the possibilities, as well as a pitfall or two.

John tries out the Nest thermostat, one that doesn't need to be programmed, but learns as it goes. And, as always, we keep you up to date with the latest 4D and FileMaker software updates.

Read all about it in issue 4 of our 2012 news!

FedEx and FileMaker

As FileMaker developers, we are always interested in learning new tools and tricks to take a database to the next level. Recently we worked with a simple way to generate FedEx shipping labels from within FileMaker.

By using a 3rd party plugin and FedEx web services, this functionality is easily available in any FileMaker solution. We started by using the module for accessing FedEx Web Services that is a part of the ScriptMaster plugin from 360Works.

Designing and implementing this tool is pretty simple.

• The first requirement is to sign up for a FedEx developer account. 
• Next is to install the ScriptMaster plugin on each computer connecting to the database. 
• The third step is to create the FedEx required fields in the database. (These can be seen in the screenshot of the sample database below.)
• And lastly to create a button with one script step to generate the label. 

The screenshot below shows our sample database that generates the shipping label. The interface allows entry of all the required information for FedEx; shipment method, shipment date, weight, origin address and destination address. Once all fields are complete, clicking the "Generate Shipping Label" button will produce the FedEx shipping label and save it to your computer as a PDF.

~ Kate Wheeler

FileMaker Data Modification Tracking

We've been working on a FileMaker project recently where there is a requirement for tracking changes made to the data, so that at any given point in time, you can look at a log of who changed a particular value and when it was changed. In 4th Dimension (and many other database environments) this would be done in database engine level triggers, but FileMaker does not have this feature.

We've encountered three possible solutions: the CNS Audit plugin, a custom function that that uses an auto-enter calculation to capture data changes, and the server side add-on, SyncDek.

Each of these has advantages and disadvantages. 

The auto-enter calculation method is free, but will not capture data changes made through imports or scripts, it only captures changes made on layouts. It does work with FileMaker Go, but does not allow data modifications to be rolled back.

CNS Audit is fairly reasonably priced, but we've found that it imposes significant performance penalties given the user interface design we are using (it is slow when there are more than a few portals). In addition, it does not work with FileMaker Go or Instant Web Publishing.

SyncDek looks like a good solution and I really like the fact that it is server based, not client based. It is compatible with FileMaker Go and allows rollbacks. However, SyncDek is a fairly expensive option and at this point is outside the budget for this project.

If any readers out there have suggestions for alternative solutions to this requirement please drop us a note.

--John Newhoff