Been wanting to do a GoZync logo that played with Zinc on the periodic table. For those who don’t know, Todd Geist named Zync: it was our private name for the project because “it sounds like sync but isn’t.” And it stuck.
If we get our act together we’ll do shirts of this for DevCon and see if we can get Martha Zink to autograph them. (Please, Martha)
We are very excited that the new Google Appointment Slots can talk to FileMaker via Zulu, our calendar sync extension for FileMaker Server.
Appointment Slots is probably the slickest and simplest way to let your customers create appointments on your web site. Check it out…
If you need to accept appointments online, get in touch; as we offer consulting and custom programming for taking this further.
Learn more:
…that talks to FileMaker.
One of the great things about Zulu is that it gives you a real-time, read-write connection to your FileMaker Server from the calendar on your iPad. Unfortunately, the calendar that comes with the iPad is a little rough around the edges. Fortunately, there are some great new calendar apps for the iPad that read the same calendar settings as the built in calendar, so they can talk to FileMaker Server via Zulu as well.
My favorite is WeekCalHD from Utilitap. If you rely on the iPad calendar, you owe it to yourself to check this out. Here is a short video of it manipulating some FileMaker records…
I wish this calendar would support clicking in URLs within the event’s notes (something Apple’s calendar also fails to support), but even so, it is a big improvement over Apple’s calendar app.
Utilitap has a calendar for the iPhone as well which I haven’t played with, but if it’s anything like their iPad work, it should be great. (The very elegant calvetica is my current favorite calendar on the phone.)
Just got this nice screen shot from one of our customers, Casa Buena, using FileMaker to manage vacation rentals in San Francisco. By syncing FileMaker Server to Google Calendar using Zulu, they can embed their schedule right on their web site using Google’s widgets: no php required.
Casa Buena's Public Calendar
Ken, of Casa Buena, uses this to coordinate the housekeeping schedules and says “We totally under utilize it’s
potential however it has completely improved our communications.” Glad to hear it Ken.
Fantastical is a sexy new toolbar calendar that works with iCal; and thus it can talk to FileMaker Pro via Zulu. Gives you a very lightweight way to see and create FileMaker events without opening iCal or FileMaker. Check it out…
Yann Liqueur-Salzedo from infografix has just published a great how-to article on revealing different layout areas when you rotate your iPhone or iPad running FMGo.
This is a technique we’re using in some of GoZync’s sample files, and his explanation of it is excellent! And the screens he’s drawn are pretty sexy as well.
Horizontal
Vertical
Check out the full article here.
What if iCal were a database? What if it had FileMaker’s calc engine and… script triggers. (You could push rich information about your contacts into iCal using the scripts built into Zulu.) Check it out…
Here is a great example of using fmSearchResults to not only search across multiple tables at once, but to privilege certain results: in this case, treating documents tagged with a keyword as better matches than docs just containing the keyword text.
Video comes from the new document and asset management solution from 360Works: DocuBin. We’ll import a folder full of PDFs and then search the text within those PDFs from within FileMaker.
Check it out ( < 2 min ):
GoZync
We’ve been wrestling with this for a while:
How can we let users work offline in FileMakerGo and then get their work back to the main FMP system when they do get an internet connection? We can’t ask people to email a bunch of files to be processed manually, nor can we just open the served files and start importing records: what if the connection drops?
Here is our answer…
A Push/Pull framework for FileMaker Go
GoZync is an unlocked framework you can add to your own mobile files, or use as the basis for new FMGo solutions. It manages all the essential problems of offline work:
• Delivers new FMGo files and/or new data to the mobile device.
• Pushes changes up to FileMaker Pro or Server even over shaky 3G connections.
• Completely transactional
• Supports containers, related records, and signatures.
See it in Action
I don’t think I’ve had this much fun making a video is a long time…
Stay Tuned
Subscribe to SeedCodeNext to learn more as GoZync is released.
GoZync is a collaboration between geist interactive and SeedCode. Interested in how all this started? Read Todd’s great post on Going Local.
Have questions? Post ’em here.
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