Long time FileMaker expert Alexei Folger joins our crew at Fireside FileMaker for one of the most entertaining and informative interviews we’ve had this year. If you aren’t familiar with the name, Alexei has been in the FileMaker market for over three decades, starting out at the famed MIT Users Group, working in various capacities at Claris as a technical support agent and Systems Engineer and continuing her support of the FileMaker platform at Apple, Beezwax and finally as president of her own company. To say Alexei has a vast knowledge of FileMaker is an understatement. As Michael would say, join us for a facinating conversation with Alexei about so many topics, they can’t be summarized here!

We were honored to be joined by Andy LeCates who has been a leading light in the FileMaker community for several decades and has a wealth of experience both in developing professional Filemaker solutions and in promoting FileMaker. Andy is a superb presenter who has presented at many FileMaker™ conferences and he talks to us about his life inside and outside of FileMaker.  We enjoyed the cnversation and so will you.

Our special guest today is Bob Shockey, one of the FileMaker community's best known developers. Bob came to talk about Process Driven Design but, as usual, we went off in tangents for a fascinating two hour conversation with somebody who has an enormous depth of experience and knowledge.

Including our regualr guest, Marc Larochelle, all 3 of us have extensive experience in the FileMaker training market including teaching classes, creating videos, writing books, speaking at conferences and much more. Whether you are a student or a budding trainer, this fascinating discussion about all things training will help you become a better trainer or student. Come listen as we discuss so many different aspects of training, it’s impossible to list them all here.

David Knight is one of the FileMaker community's best known developers, running a successful consulting firm, speaking at DevCon and holding a board member position at the Chamber of Commerce in Burbank. Listen as we explore how David started his business from scratch and ended up as one of the most successful FileMaker development firms in the world. You might be surprised how he started his career in the FileMaker market and how it could spur you to think outside the box like David. And, did we forget to mention he helps manage the largest FileMaker developers group in the world? There’s so much to summarize from this chat so let’s just let the PodCast do the talking.

We were very honored to have Brad Freitag join us for, our 41st episode and, an absolutely fascinating conversation which gives all FileMaker developers the opportunity to hear Brad discuss his vision for Claris and his absolute committment to the developer community; something I don't believe any of us have heard before. This is a podcast that should be listened to by everybody who cares about FileMaker and wants to know what is in store for the future.  It is also a great way to get to know the man behind the sea changes that we are all experiencing on, almost, a daily basis. This is an episode where we really want to hear from everybody listening and we will pass all comments onto Brad so that he can read them in a single document rather than dozens, or perhaps, hundreds of individual emails. He deserves our support so let's give it to him.  Please email your comments to info@firesidefilemaker.com. Thank you. For those listeners who haven't yet written in with comments and suggestions to be passed onto Brad, we've set up a page where you can read the comments we have received so far. www.firesidefilemaker.com/freitag

Our guest today is Nick Lightbody from the UK, who you may not be familiar with but, behind the scenes, Nick has had and continues to have enormous influence on the work we do, because he is intently focused on getting FileMaker to perform better and faster. In Nick's words "Performance is the most underdiscussed subject and yet it is the object of most complaints." In this fascinating discussion, Nick talks about the work he does and its implications, and it will give all of us some really powerful strategies for having our solutions work better, plus insights on things that we should all be aware of. We think you'll be particularly intrigued by Nick's thoughts and usage of repeating fields for very high performance solutions.

In this episode, we are visited by the one and only Richard Carlton from RC consulting Inc.  Richard Carlton is a long time veteran of the FileMaker Community. With his 28 years of experience, he has built a team of 32 FileMaker developers and supporting staff throughout North America. Richard is best known for his video courses on the FileMaker Platform, developing “FM Starting Point” Business Software (free to everyone). RCC is involved with every facet of the FileMaker platform including: training, development of custom apps, and large scale deployments with organizations. So, needless to say, Richard has a treasure trove of experience that he shares that with us in a refreshing and candid way. Our conversation includes a wide range of topics including Claris and their future direction, what it's like training new FileMaker developers, the opportunities of a live daily broadcaster, as well as many other stories of life in Richard's shoes.

In this PodCast, we highlight yet another hero in the FileMaker market, Wim Decorte of Soliant Consulting. As long as there has been FileMaker, it seems like Wim has been there helping people on the message boards, writing white papers and presenting at Claris DevCon/Engage. He even created an open source FileMaker product, called the Punisher, aimed at testing a FileMaker solution over the network. We’ll discuss the Punisher and where you can get it, as well as optimizing performance on FileMaker Server, FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Go. Specific subjects include FileMaker Server logs, Linux, AWS, backups, 3rd party software, hardware, WebDirect and security. Come join us for this lively conversation with one of the smartest developers in the FileMaker market!

Developing a vertical market FileMaker solution is something that many developers have wanted to do but few do it because they don't have the depth of knowledge as to how to go about it. In this fascinating conversation Michael Rocharde & Marc Larochelle, both of whom have developed successful vertical market solutions, talk with John Mark Osborne about all the different things that have to be taken into account. Using case studies we disect the different methods of deployment, how you find a niche market to develop for, the importance of strategic partnerships, protecting your solution and much, much more. At the end of it you will know, without a shadow of a doubt, whether you want to enter this potential very lucrative but inherently risky arena. Buckle up.

In this episode, we are joined by a very special guest, Nick Orr from Goya, in Australia (https://goya.com.au). Nick is the creator of BaseElements, a FileMaker analysis tool which has been around since 2006 and which is one of the preeminent analysis tools for FileMaker developers. We’re also joined by our regular guest Marc Larochelle from Productive Computing (https://www.ProductiveComputing.com). Marc has created a dedicated course for BaseElements available at Productive Computing University (https://www.ProductiveComputingUniversity.com) and brings his personal experience and expertise with this tool into the mix. Yes, we are talking a lot about BaseElements itself, but the conversation is far reaching and fascinating. We believe that every FileMaker developer should be using an analysis tool whether it be BaseElements (www.baseelements.com.au) or Inspector Pro from Beeswax (https://www.beezwax.net/products/inspector-pro) or FMPerception (www.geistinteractive.com). These tools will help your development and allow you to find errors and unused elements in your code that would otherwise be easily overlooked. They are well worth the price of admission. Thanks for listening and, as always, we'd love to hear from you with your thoughts and comments by emailing info@firesidefilemaker.com.

Every once in a while, we find ourselves with a guest who brings a totally unexpected and fascinating viewpoint. These are the episodes that go way beyond the 'you should listen' and reach ‘you must listen'. Today's podcast is one of those episodes. We are joined by Darrin Southern, from CadenceUX in Melbourne, Australia, for an absolutely incredible conversation which starts with the somewhat 'new' concept of UX (the User Experience) and then veers off into some very intersting territory. Both John Mark and I learned a lot and you will also. Please let us know your thoughts by emailing info@firesidefilemaker.com

In Part 1 of this podcast John Mark and I talked about the major and significant features of all FileMaker versions back to the very beginning or rather when Claris bought it from Nashoba. In Part 2, we start with FileMaker 9 and go all the way up to the current version, Version 19.

In this two part podcast, John Mark and I go back deep into the past to discuss the most important and influential features released in each version of FileMaker. Many, if not most, of these fetures are still in use today but they have all paved the way for the deveopment powerhouse that FieMaker is today. Even though, nobody really needs to know when these features came about, we think you will find this episode more than a little interesting and, as always, we'd love to hear your comments. Part 1 covers all the way up to FileMaker 9 and Part 2 covfers from 9 to the current version, FileMaker 19.

Last week, the 1st Claris Engage conference took place, virtually, over a 2 day period. John Mark and Michael plus our special guest Marc Larochelle (from Productive Computing) reminisce about previous DevCons and then, at 11 minutes in, we start to discuss the conference itself. (All of the sessions are available to watch at https://filemakersupport.force.com/en/s/engage#engage-content). Login and then click on Academy, fill in the simple questionnaire and then click on Engage On-Demand). Whether you were able to attend the biggest FileMaker event of the year or not, you can get the complete rundown from our perspective where we highlight what we believe are the most important take-aways applicable to any professional FileMaker developer. Please join us in the conversation! Our last podcast had a very special guest (Darren Terry) discussing the calculation dependency tree.  If you haven't listened to it yet (and almost 1000 people have), we strongly recommend that you take the time to do so. John Mark, Marc Larochelle and myself all learned a lot and found it one of the most fascinating conversations we've had in a long time. https://firesidefilemaker.podbean.com/e/the-calculation-dependency-tree/

We invited Darren Terry on our show to talk about the calculation dependency tree (what triggers calculations to fire). What we got was so much more than we expected. Darren’s close ties with Claris engineers and dedication to the platform has given him insight into how FileMaker works under the hood. To put it simply, both of us were flabbergasted at how much he taught us about FileMaker. Come join us in this in this "can’t miss" PodCast about the calculation engine and whatever else comes across Darren’s big brain. (Our regular guest, Marc Larochelle had this to say "You can plant an entire garden while learning about dependency trees." Original "Shaking the Dependency Tree" Article from FileMaker Hacks

John Mark Osborne and Michael Rocharde are proud to release a special 2 hour episode discussing the release of FileMaker 19 and what it means for Claris, the developer community and ultimately its customers. At first glance, there doesn't appear to be all that much that is new. But, a closer look reveals a version that is about to revolutionize the way FileMaker solutions are developed. With our regular guest, Marc Larochelle of Productive Computing, we discuss every aspect of the FileMaker 19 release. Interesting and Useful Links Marc Larochelle - Productive Computing https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=lwN_Tp5iOEs&feature=emb_logo Matt Petrowsky - ISO Productions https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=6&v=T3dgfugxcBI&feature=emb_logo Richard Carlton - Richard Carlton Consulting https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=9&v=kRDXfpMrjvM&feature=emb_logo Soliant Consulting https://www.soliantconsulting.com/blog/javascript-filemaker-start/ DB Services - Creating Add-Ons https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=s9hUY7BgI1w&feature=emb_logo Soliant Consulting - Wim Decorte on Machine Learning https://www.soliantconsulting.com/blog/machine-learning-models-filemaker/ Soliant Consulting - Wim Decorte on NFC https://www.soliantconsulting.com/blog/nfc-scanning-filemaker-go/ DB Services on the new FileMaker solution upgrade tool https://dbservices.com/articles/filemaker-solution-upgrade-tool/

In Part 1, we discussed all of the tools within FileMaker itself. In Part 2, we discuss many of the external tools that are available to all developers to help their efforts. It's a fascinating discussion and we almost guarantee that you'll discover new tools that may well become essential to you and your work.

In this two part podcast, John Mark & I, are once again joined by Marc Larochelle (CEO of Productive Computing) for a discussion about the tools that are available to FileMaker developers at all levels. This part mostly covers the internal tools and options that are available inside of FileMaker and in Part 2, we'll be discussing some of the external (commercially available) tools that could enhance your development efforts. We hope you find the discussion interesting and enjoyable. Part 2 will be released on May 20, 2020

This episode is a continuation of our examination of the 179 script steps in FileMaker 18. We talk about the ones you should know intimately, the ones that you need to be aware of and use occasionally and finally the ones that you should never, under any circumstances use.  As always, we'd love to hear your comments so please email us at info@firesidefilemaker.com