Filemaker as a CMS Push

When working with a framework that is set up for multiple languages, I decided to give some more power to the client by evolving a content management system within Filemaker. The defined constants in each language file, for instance, can be controlled by editing the language file. The constants placed upon the design layer of the application allow for ease of changes, making it both possible and fun to provide a version of your site in alternative languages without worrying about the resultant shift in the design.

Calculation fields in filemaker can drive content and with the 360Works ScriptMaster ( is a free, general-purpose, modular plugin. It comes out of the box with modules for file manipulation, URL and network utilities, Web Services, shell scripting, event/script triggering, and many others) you can automatically ftp the resultant file built around the calculation.

This is a time consuming process, but well worth it. The result will be more empowerment for the marketing pro who wants to update content easier. Other steps along this path include editing of stylesheets. Practically anything that is text based can be modified this way and sent to a live site via ftp. In fact, this is so fun I just may decide to code up my version of a content editor inside of filemaker to see if it can be done.

Remix of oshell dot calm

aEon has owned the domain name oshell.com since 1994, while employed at The Learning Company. Around 1997 while working there I was befriended by the lead engineer on the software project for a CD ROM based product that was sold over the shelves at Egg Head and Comp USA (may the latter rest in peace). I was content to do rapid interface design mockups to bridge the gap between my department (then the graphics division) and her department, which was programming and engineering. The résumé building project was a real fork in the road of my life, although I didn’t realize it at the time. She taught me several things about HTML. I absorbed all the information she taught me and discovered a new interest. I decided to become a developer.

I had written some rudimentary applications in Lingo in Macromedia Director, and I continued to develop that skill, but the web opened up my eyes to a new set of possibilities. These the words my mentor bestowed on me: “No one wants to to anything unless it’s connected to a database” turned out to be very important indeed in shaping my choices.

oshell dot calm has had many incarnations over the years, from plain html, to images cut into slices (ahh, fireworks), to CSS pushed content, and finally a fully flexed version of the site. Pure FLEX, with the creation of a few elements in illustrator, the creation of animated parts as separate swf files, and of course a fully fledged data connectivity that uses the standard web 2.0 http request model for gathering data from a mySQL database that is pushing content - which is today’s release.

New Apple OS Ships with old version of flash.

I have not upgraded yet, and I am glad a took some time before jumping in the deep end. Not only will it install the old flash, but it will downgrade your version. This information comes from engadget, who suggest updating the flash after installing Snow Leopard.

Here is the article from engadget.

Flex VS Ajax – part one

Flex or AJAX? Depends upon your goal. Here are a few reasons that I – aEon- personally prefer flex over ajax. The biggest lure for me was the fact that cross platform text and rendering issues are prevalent in ajax solutions.

NEED	FLEX	AJAX
Faster Development	YES
Seamless Between Platforms	YES
Browser Compatibility Issues / PROBLEMS	FEW	MANY
Memory Leaks		YES
Superior UI	YES
Better components
Skinning / Cross Browser Compatibility	YES
Versatile data filtering, sorting, etc.	YES
Ease of Development	YES
Graphics API	YES
Usability	YES
Ease of use	YES
Mature framework	YES
Robust Security	YES
Asynchronous request/response model	YES
Binary data communication	YES
Client-side caching	YES
Cross Browser communication	YES
Streaming	YES
	YES

What tools do you work with?

A lot of people ask me this. Its a good question. I always start my tool selection with the question, what do I want to do? If we are about to do some php development, I personally choose ZEND studio. Not free, but worth every penny. I love the eclipse platform and I will never code php with anything else (at least, not until something better comes along).

Refactoring, the ability to navigate to declarations with the click of a button, and other little gems make ZEND my favorite tool. Moving lines of text with a key command, duplicate the whole line of text or block of text with another key command. Lots of fun little features that make working with it a pleasure.

There is also Oxygen – an editor useful for working with XML. You can use the project management features in oxygen to handle search requests, but it pales in comparison to the feature rich ZEND platform. This tool is OK in a pinch.

For authoring php and serious development, you can use Dreamweaver in a pinch. It has the ability to search and replace, so you can do ‘defacto’ refactoring with it, although I wouldn’t recommend. Dreamweaver is essentially a tool for designers, less of a code warriors delight. However, it does have its uses and I wouldn’t entirely discount it completely.

If you know what you are doing, you can code with practically any tool that will not mangle the results by adding those pesky little invisible characters. My rule of thumb is to let the task be the determinate of which tool you use, not the other way around…

Magnet Communications, where are you now?

Ah, the past. Sometimes it is fun to stroll down memory lane. I was doing that this evening, having packed for a long journey home and needing to relax a bit. In the early days of my flash development, right around the time flash 4 was released – I landed a gig in NYC at a place where all the cool kids hang out. ACG Communications, where I lived the dream of using flash to build some kick ass websites – most notably Lipitor. Also, there were others – including one that dealt with OCD (opened my eyes to my own symptoms, I might add) – and the American Bible Society experience. ACG became Magnet Communications shortly after this.

But where are they now? I cannot find them online. What happened to the place where I cut my teeth in the big city, and did some kick ass design / code – and was lead engineer on Macromedia Director based Multimedia pieces? The place where I found myself surrounded for the first time people who were so excited about ‘hand coding HTML’ ? (which made me laugh, of course)!

The information highway is littered with the carcasses of dead websites, and when they rot they don’t have time to decay. The equivalent of road kill on the internet, in my opinion, is the godaddy search screen that pops up when you type in the name or hit the bookmark that you know was working before. I hope I am wrong. Magnet, if you are there, rock on!

First Photo Source reborn

First Photo Source has been reborn, and expects a few growth spurts in the next serveral weeks. New features include some under the hood stuff people can’t see (filemaker and aperture are talking to one another, filemaker and mySQL are exchanging data nicely, and I have never been happier) and a very cool Media Preview…