We were supposed to be competing (hmm... let me think about that word?) in the Lakes Loop Challenge, originally set for early this month. But fate stepped in at the last minute and the event was postponed.

Every business dreams of a paperless office right? Where administration takes a back seat to customer care and excellence in your field. Dr Alex Buller and his team at Eye Surgeons Hawkes Bay (ESHB) have put the blinkers on, buckled their seat belts and embraced this challenge with absolute determination.

Imagine being able to access your business systems from anywhere, at any time, not having to run your own server, worry about backup, or have a plan for when the server dies…

Most of the time when we print records in FileMaker, the output of every record appears pretty much the same, with similar formatting and design. But what if we want records to print with a completely different output design depending on the type of record? In this article we detail some of the various ways in which this can be achieved, and the pros and cons of each method…

Do you use a FileMaker database in your business? If so, then you may be interested to know that FileMaker have a mobile version for the iPad and iPhone called FileMaker Go

Kiosk mode is a cool way to run a FileMaker database in a full screen environment where users are prevented from accessing the other functionality of the operating system. But what if you have a normal FileMaker solution and wish to use kiosk functionality in certain areas only?

In this article we illustrate how a typical FileMaker solution can be enhanced with a kiosk component for carrying out certain actions. We use the article example file to help illustrate this. We also give some information on what kiosk mode is, and things to watch out for when developing for it.

Displaying a long list of items on a layout generally means that the majority of the list is hidden from the user until they click into the field, with no feedback as to the size of the list. This article details a nice technique you can use to present the same list in a truncated style that gives live feedback on the number of items…

In the first of a two part series, we begin the search for a faster way to perform aggregates in FileMaker. We cover why aggregates can be quite a costly operation - especially on wide area networks - and use that as a jumping off point for finding a faster method…

In the final part of this two part series, we cover the technique introduced in part one in more detail. We also carry out a number of tests and present the results. We also try to address some of the limitations of this technique and ways in which you could try to work around these…

I can't think of a better escape than a trip San Diego in middle of the New Zealand winter, which is exactly what Daniel and I did a couple of weeks ago as we headed off to the annual FileMaker Developer Conference (DevCon) - an annual geek fest in a nice warm place.