Key Ring 5.7.1

If you’re like me, your key chain has gotten increasingly heavier over the last few years, as more and more retailers offer rewards cards designed to be carried there rather than in your wallet.

Key Ring, a free app that scans in barcoded reward cards for Android, Blackberry, iOS, and Windows phones, has come to our rescue.

The Good News:

• Access your rewards cards from anywhere you have network access - backup is cloud-based;
• Scan others’ rewards cards and use them without having to sign up, so when I go to NJ to see the in-laws, for instance, and want to go shopping, I can use their cards to get price cuts, and they get the benefit of whatever rewards or points the club offers them; 
• Share your own with others;
• Print out rewards card info and your barcodes if you want a record;
• Join new programs quickly & easily.

Each scanned card has an easily accessed page with Notes, Click to Dial, and Find a Location buttons, along with links to the retailer’s Twitter, Facebook, and website. I’ve used Find a Location when out exploring the area with the dog - is there a QFC somewhere around here where I can pick up an easy dinner? Yes, just a mile away! I’ve also used Notes; do I get that one brand of dog food at PetsMart or Petco? Now I know and don’t have to wander the aisles hoping to find it.

Caveats:

Phone screen protectors can interfere with scanning; you might as well not even try with a flatbed scanner like those at your local grocery store. Between whatever has been grimed on the store’s scanner, and whatever my screen protector has picked up from my pocket or bag, I’ve never succeeded with one. (Back to the old-fashioned way of entering your phone number!)

The only card I had a problem scanning in was my King County Library System card, which may be a function of it being the outside card for a long time and perhaps getting banged around a bit. But I hear other folks have had issues, and it is best done in bright light with a steady hand.

There’s a “Join Programs” option that will bring up rewards offers near you using GPS, but you can’t search for one in particular, which is disappointing. Perhaps in the future.

If you lose your keys frequently, you might want to keep one of the cards on your key ring, so that it can be dropped in a mailbox or returned to a store and maybe get back to you (does that actually ever happen?), but other than that, I don’t really see a reason for carrying them all around anymore. There's a whole lot less jingling when I start the car these days.

For more information, see their website at http://keyringapp.com/get_started

~Alanna Clare

The Megabus Adventure

This week, I had the unique experience of riding on the maiden voyage of a new bus line here in Austin, Texas. Megabus, a luxury bus service that has been operating around the country since 2006, launched service in Texas this week. Their introductory offer featured free trips to San Antonio from Austin, with a $.50 service fee. The offer sounded intriguing so my boyfriend and I booked our tickets and left on Tuesday for an evening in San Antonio.

In the first five minutes of the trip we encountered our first hiccup. The engine seemed to stall a few blocks before we entered the freeway. We waited about 10 minutes until it was fixed, not sure if we would make it to San Antonio after all. The double decker bus was brand new and featured free wi-fi. The rest of the ride was smooth sailing, sitting in the front row on the upper deck.

After a splendid dinner at Greens restaurant and a quick visit to the Alamo, we hopped back on the bus headed for home. As the bus began to pass the exit for the Austin bus stop, we became concerned that the driver was not going to stop. After alerting the bus driver, we discovered we were on the non-stop to Dallas. Luckily the driver was nice enough to make a special stop for us.

This short adventure with Megabus is an experience I will never forget. The company seems to have some kinks they still need to work out but overall it was a joy.

Backing Up Is Easy to Do

Database backups are just as vital, if not more so, than the design of your custom database application. With the introduction in FileMaker 12 of the new progressive backup feature, we decided to take an in-depth look at backup techniques/best practices, as well as the specific backup features offered by both 4D and FileMaker Server.

See issue 3 of our 2012 newsletter for the full text of our article.

AppleScript / FileMaker Integration

FileMaker is a fully cross platform application, working equally well in a Windows or Macintosh environment. However I've recently been enjoying the challenge of working on a FileMaker solution that utilizes Macintosh specific technologies.   

The application uses AppleScript , the system level scripting language in Mac OS X, to make three separate applications work together: FileMaker Pro, the Mac OS X finder and Quark Xpress.

 The FileMaker application is the hub of the integration, initiating calls to AppleScript as needed to pull in the other two apps. The specific part of the app that I’ve been working on recently takes data from the FileMaker app and inserts it into a Quark Xpress document as a text block, which is then rotated and resized by the script. The script then prints the document as a proof. A high resolution version is then saved to a network share and a separate proof is uploaded to a web directory. Finally, the script emails a report to several people showing which proofs were processed and highlighting any orders where an error was encountered. All of this is initiated by running a single script in FileMaker. 

A key part of the development process for this project has been a program called Script Debugger. I wouldn't want to have to write and debug AppleScripts without it. Script Debugger gives you a couple of tools lacking in the built in Macintosh Script Editor app that I consider essential: a line by line debugger and an object viewer that lets you see the current state of all your variables.

FileMaker and AppleScript can be a powerful combination for automating complex processes.

--John Newhoff