Mac4Construction

With a hat tip to Aron Trimble on The Unoffical Mac Web Log I just discovered that Apple has just published a tech support article for Windows users making the swithc over to Mac that answes the proverbial question:

"On Windows, I used to…"

If you’re a recent Windows to Macintosh convert and you don’t have a Mac friend, relative, or colleague you can call on (or you just don’t want to bother them anymore) you can visit Switch 101: On Windows, I used to… on th Apple website for answers to many of the of the frequenty asked questions switchers have laid out in easy to understand graphics like you see below.

by: J. Jerrald Hayes

The Jan/Feb issue of Electronic House magazine has an article iPhone Takes Control: The ubiquitous mobile device can control your home that covers some of the applications already available and takes a look at the direction iPhone application development will probably go in in the near future. The article appears online as:

Let Your iPhone Take Full Control:

Many manufacturers are developing apps that make Apple’s ubiquitous mobile device a touchpanel controller for automation, lighting, distributed audio and more.

Apple has already sold more than 6 million iPhones, and many home control companies are capitalizing on that trend by engineering their systems to communicate directly with the ubiquitous mobile device, as well as with Apple’s iPod and iPod touch products.

“People depend on their mobile devices for communication and entertainment. Now those same devices can be used to control the home,” says Chuck Hudson, co-founder of Control UI, a software development firm that collaborated with home control systems manufacturer Control4 to develop a software application for the iPhone and iPod touch.

[read the full article]

by: J. Jerrald Hayes

FileMaker today announced the release of FileMaker 9 the latest update to thier #1-selling easy-to-use and award winning database solution.

Some of the new features FileMaker 9 delivers:

• Quick Start Screen: remembers your favorite
  databases so you can open them instantly. more…
• Conditional Formatting: visually formats fields and objects based on conditions you decide. more…
• Send Link: share FileMaker Pro databases via a clickable email link
• Append to PDF: appends multiple (PDF) reports into one file for easier distribution.
• Use External SQL Data Sources: allows you to integrate live data from Microsoft® SQL Server, Oracle and MySQL ito your FileMaker solutions
• New Scripting Tools: Script folders and script copy
  and paste
• Enhanced Web Viewer and Tab Control Options
• Auto-Resize: Design it once. Use it anywhere. Layout objects, such as portals, tab controls, and the FileMaker Web Viewer, will scale to fit the screen or printer being used.
• Software Update: FileMaker will automatically notifies you when a
  new update is available.
• And Many More ….

For more information regarding just what’s in FileMaker 9 from some other sources check out:

• Macworld: Filemaker 9 focuses on ease of use
• Computer World : FileMaker bucking enterprise trend with latest version:
  Clean it up, pare it down

by: J. Jerrald Hayes

Today marked the start The 2007 Apple World Wide Developers Conference and with that Apple Unveiled a set of a great new videos to show off some of the kool new tools and features they have coming for us with the October release of Leopard OS X 10.5 ($129)

Interesingly along with that Apple also annoucned at the conference that they’ll be releasing a version of the Safari Web browser for Windows-based PCs and the Windows beta is available today at Apple.com/safari.

by: J. Jerrald Hayes

I can remember from way back in my pre-OS X days (Systems 7, 8, & 9) how perhaps the most important utility and add-on to my system was a program from Now software that was part of the Now Utilities group called Boomerang and eventually Super Boomerang.

When I moved on to OSX it was one thing I really did miss however after a few months without it I found a replacement in a program from St. Clair Software called Default Folder X.

What was I missing and what do I get from DFX? DFX is an application that takes the OS X save and open dialogs and adds features to them that improves and enhance your navigation through all the places your computer has access to for file storage. The first or primary thing that the program does is it installs a toolbar to the open and save dialogs that puts the folders you commonly use or want to specify within easy one click access.

• The Utility button, the first of 5 buttons on the toolbar, allows you to assign a default ’save’ folder for any applications you have and also rename, move, archive, and delete files from within the save and open dialogs.
• The Computer button allows you to navigate through your mounted volumes via hierarchical menus.
• The Favorites button allows the user to create and navigate through a list of favorite places on their Mac to save and/or open files from.
• The Recents button, probably my favorite and most commonly used button, just as the name implies can contain up to 100 of your recent folder locations organized by date or name.
• And the Finder button will give you a list of all the open Finder windows you may have at any one time.

One that I don’t use much but that I know a lot of other do is the program can be set in the Preferences to show you how much available disk space you have in your open volumes too.

You can also assign shortcuts to actions and save/open locations you commonly use and create different sets of Favorites for different projects and task that you do. And there is still much more that the application can do that I haven’t mentioned here.

In short and in conclusion it a very easy to learn ‘enhanced productivity tool’ and well worth the $34.95 shareware fee.

by: J. Jerrald Hayes

I have a domain name that I once set up ostensibly as a ‘Home & Garden E-zine’ and the idea languished and died from neglect. Thinking I could turn that domain name into a kid of regional online newsletter for architects designers and contractors closer to home I was doing some research online about possible using the Movable Type blogging tool as a web publishing platform and I somehow came across The Expression Engine Web Publishing System. Upon stumbling upon their home page I immediately picked up on the Macintosh look and feel an on investigating further I began to see this a the tool I should really take a look at using for the project I now had in mind.

ExpressionEngine as a Content Management System is a lot more than just a blogging tool in that is also has modules that support discussion forums, an image gallery, simple commerce using PayPal, mailing lists, a wiki, and membership.

While to use the ExpressionEngine publishing system you really need to have something of a background and understanding of HTML and how to design a website they do provide a variety of themes and templates to help you get up and running quickly.

In order to run ExpressionEngine you’ll need a web server that supports PHP version 4.1 or newer with XML support ,
MySQL version 3.23.32 or newer and 10 MB of disk space and if you server doesn’t meet those requirements and you can’t find one that does they also can provide you with hosting through their sister site EngineHosting.com.

I think on obstacle that may exist for many contractors is seeing how Content Management System is going to work for them in that their first impressionis that it really a souped up blogging tool and they can’t see how that going to work for them. I’ll offer then this example of an outstanding site desgin produced using Expression Engine that I found in their Showcase: Hertzler and George: Landscape Design & Construction.

if you a little bit hesitant about spending money on a web development tool you not sure you or your staff can handle ExpressionEngine also offer an outstanding deal with a 30 Day Hosted Trial on their servers for only $10 which should be plently of time to set something up and test it out and they’ll even apply the $10 towards the purchase of thier system should you like it enough to decide to use it.

I’ve got some other work I need to get done first t his coming week but I thinking by next weekend I going to set my self up to start working with this tool and I even now thinking of possibly changing over one of my other site to ExpressionEngine too if things work out like I think they can.

(This article also appears in my Quietly Re-Thinking Out Loud blog )

by: J. Jerrald Hayes

I’ve been following what goes on at Google in the way of new products and services that they offer by reading The Offical Google Blog for quite a while now. It was in reading that blog last October that I caught the announcement that Google had created a new blog specifically for Mac Users called The Google Mac Blog.

Well today as I was reading The Google Mac Blog I found out that Google has released a ‘beta’ Google Desktop for Mac. It’s not just a port of the Google Desktop for Windows product in that the two file systems are fundementally different but it does carry over some features such as the capability to index Gmail and web history but it is very much a Mac program in look and feel.

If you’re at all familiar with QuickSilver you’ll see similarities in the way the interface is designed, where it appears on the screen, and where they are triggered on the keyboard (QuickSilver is Control-Space whereas Google Desktop is Command-Command) it is not the “launcher” utility that QuickSilver is. It comes off functionally to me as an enhanced Spotlight.

Certainly it is very much worth the look.

by: J. Jerrald Hayes

Not April Fools Day joke at all, 360 Difference Estimating 2.0 the FileMaker based program I’ve designed and built to be a part of the 360 Difference Enterprise suite has been released.

To say thanks for your support this release is a free upgrade for the 360 Difference 1.x and Simple Estimate Worksheet users out there.

To potential new users joining the ranks this April we’re offering the program at $299 plus new users will also get to be involved in the development program for the Version 2 Production, Accounting, CRM, Human Resources, and Digital assets modules and get them for FREE to when they are released to the public.

The program allows users to very accurately build a production cost library of items performed internally by a contractors own personnel based on the contractors actual real costs of doing business rather than what some estimating data book says their cost are supposed to be.

The program does the same thing with respect to building a library of production costs based on what your contractors actually charge you or you can build you own cost items based on the billing rates your subs charge you and what you know the real material costs to be too.

And for the times when you do need to pull data from a third party estimating database you can do that too and we’ll be offering them from various providers in the coming months.

Come May 1st 2007 the price on the module goes up to $365.00

by: J. Jerrald Hayes

One of my favorite Safari hacks or add ons is free piece of software from Pozytron called Acid Search. Acid Search is a little enhancement that when installed it takes the Google search field in Safari and gives it more search options and search channels.

Through a pull down menu that appears in the Google field you can specify if you want to Google to search the whole web, just the site you are googling from, or it can Google for images. And if you not too nuts about Google you can even change the default search channel from Google to any one of a number of other search channels too.

In addition to all that is also allows you to choose what type of search you want to conduct with key board shortcuts and through Safari’s contextual menu when you in the body of a web page.

One word of caution though. Keep the uninstaller around because I recall when Apple’s Safari went from 1.0 to 2.0 all of a sudden a bunch of things started to go wrong for me an it was related to Acid Search which hadn’t been updated for that version change yet. That kind of thing can be expected from something that’s being offered out of the sheer generosity of the developer as freeware. But I also recall I hated being without it and couldn’t wait for the fix to happen so I could get back to using Acid Searches tools.

by: J. Jerrald Hayes

About two weeks ago my brother Phil brought to my attention a really neat piece of shareware called TextExpander from the people at SmileOnMyMac and while I am just beginning to use the program I’m seeing tons of way it can help speed up the things I do on my Mac.

I’ve been using iKey and before that QuickKeys to automate or speed up text entry on my Mac for years and while I’m going to keep iKey around to use for things like launching programs and opening documents from my keyboard (I am considering switching to yet another new application I’ve also just discovered but that’s going to have to be another post) but for text entry I’m switching over what used to be iKey tasks to TextExpander.

What does it do for me? Where here’s an example.

When The Journal of Light Construction switched over to vBulliten to power their forums I discovered I could bold and italicize text and set up links to terms in my project management glossary and other stuff too by utilizing these tags they had called vB code. While yeah, that was great I wasn’t too enthused at now having to learn and remember another set of tags. The problem was from working on web site development I was used to writing and working with HTML tags and whenever I wrote a post over there I would without thinking write an HTML tag and then when I previewed the post discover that I had used HTML instead of vb Code.

So what I did was I wrote a bunch of Ikey shorrtcuts that when I pressed a certain key combination I would get the vB Code automatically typed in to my document with the correct syntax. For instance hitting the command-/ combo would enter in ‘[b][url=•]•[/b][/url]‘ and I would then just replace the bullets with the URL and the text I was making a link and I would have a bolded link in my post.

That was great but this TextExpander tool does the same thing for me only even better. With TextExpander now I type the letters ‘llin’ like I’m trying to write ‘LLINK’ and TextExpander sees double L and then I-N combo and it then replaces that with ‘[b][url=•][/b][/url]‘ only instead of that bullet I used to use to tell me where to write the text I wanted linked, I programmed TextExpander to insert a blinking cursor there instead. That’s what I like about it over iKey. You program the insert cursor with a ‘%|’ and TextExpander know that means you want a blinking cursor there so you can just continue typing.

In writing this blog which I just switched over to using WordPress which I think is a really really great blogging tool there are tools to automatically insert the HTML code in to what you’re writing but when WordPress creates a link for you it doesn’t create the link with any attributes.

I often want the links to open in a new window so the reader doesn’t get taken away from what I was writing so I need the ‘a href’ tag to have the attribute: ‘ target =”_blank” ‘.

So I set up TextExpander so that whenever it sees me starting to write ‘ttar’ it replaces ‘ttar’ with ‘ target =”_blank” ‘. So now after WordPress has inserted the HTML code to create a link I click where I want the attribute inserted type ‘ttar’ and I get attribute I wanted to open the link in a new window.

So with those tricks right there I’m already pretty well hocked on TextExpander after just a few days but I’m thinking of all the other places I can use it too. If you’re someone who does a fair amount of Excel programming you can use TextExpander to insert the common formulas and variables that you use over and over again.

I’m already using text expander to enter comment code for me when I’m scripting in FileMaker along with date and time stamps for when the comment was written.

I’m going to use it to enter the different closings and signatures I commonly use in my email correspondence plus some of the other things that I find myself writing over and over again.

I just discovered that you can download a file they have of 100 common typos and get TextExpander to auto-correct those typos for you.

And I’m sure there’s lot more I can do with it as I become more and more familiar with it too.

If you’re interested in seeing it work there is a short little net cast MacBreak weekly video in which Merlin Mann demostates how it works you can view too. (MacBreak63: Textexpander)

by: J. Jerrald Hayes

If you’re an OmniOutliner user and are one of the many people out there that’s read David Allen’s great book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity then you really need to check out Kinkless GTD which is a free set of Applescripts that work with OmniOutliner Pro to help you implement the Getting Things Done methodolgy.

There a good movie on the Kinkless GTD site too to show you how it works (kGTD Introduction Video)

I found out about kinklessGTD via Merlin Mann’s excellent 43Folders.com personal productivity web site.

by: J. Jerrald Hayes

MacBreak Weekly is an excellent video podcast from TWiT.tv network (a free download from the iTunes store) which explores many interesting topics regarding Apple Inc.’s Macintosh computers. Host Leo Laporte is often joined by co-hosts Kendra Arimoto, Alex Lindsay, Emery Wells, and the whimsical and always infomative Merlin Mann of the productivity website 43 Folders.

by: J. Jerrald Hayes

Here’s a trick with a took that I’ll bet 99% of MacUsers don’t even know they have. It’s “Summarize” and it can be found in the Services menu in any program that can take advantage of it. I use it in Safari and TextEdit all the time.

To use it from what ever program you have that contains a lot of text you don’t necessarily want to read through (like one of my long long posts in Safari) you drag to highlight the text you want to summarize and then clicking on the name of the program in you are using in the menu bar you go down to the services selection and select “Summarize”.

When you do that a window opens up with the text you had just highlighted in it. From two radio buttons there you then select if you want you summary based on sentences or paragraphs and then adjust a slider to get a summary in a length of text that work for you.

It will only works in Cocoa applications which is most Mac applications but not all of them (notably Firefox), but the work around for that is to copy and paste text from the non-Cocoa apps into something like TextEdit and then Summarize what you want to.

The MacBreak video blog has a short bit on Summarize too if what I saying here isn’t clear enough.

by: J. Jerrald Hayes

Galerie is an absolutely great fast and easy tool for creating web page albums with pictures and QuickTime media files.

It will build index pages with thumbnails linked to the respective page in the gallery and you can use it working with collections from iPhoto and you don’t need to know any HTML to use it. Launch Galerie and it will in turn launch iPhoto (or another image browser that you can select in the preferences such as GrahicCoverter, iView Media, or Extensis Portfolio) and you can assemble the collection you want to use.

If you do know HTML you can build your own templates and have Galerie work building pages from them. If your a Macromedia Dreamweaver user like me and you’ve discovered the Create web Photo Album function doesn’t work on an IntelMac (still waiting for the Universal Binary) then this is the replacement solution you’ve been looking for and in some respects I think is ever better than the DW extension.

And to make a good program great it’s entirely free.

by: J. Jerrald Hayes

We’ve just switched over the site from the static pages we used to have here into a WordPress powered blog so that we can better deliver thoughts, news, software ideas, and company profiles of contractors who use the Macintosh as their computer platform of choice.

Be check back in as we move some of our old content over and continue to add new material here and feel free to contact me with any suggestions and ideas for things you would like to see.

by: J. Jerrald Hayes

I’ve compiled the short list of the commercial solutions available* to Macintosh based contractors:

360 Difference Estimating – Perhaps a little disclaimer is in order here in that I am the developer of the 360 Difference application suite. 360 Difference Estimating is a FileMaker based Estimating solution available in both single user Runtime versions for Mac and Windows as well as FileMaker powered versions that will work for one to multiple users and can be deployed in a variety of different networked distributions

BuildWorks™ is a complete construction information management system. Built upon the solid seven year foundation of GC/Works, Buildworks now integrates the Microsoft Office Suite with Intuit’s QuickBooks Pro 2003. BuildWorks‘ proven ”work flow process“ allows you to track and manage your business improving efficiency and profitability.

ECL Software by Eclectus – Filemaker based Accounting, Estimating and Project Management software.

JobPro Central – While not literally a building & remodeling specific estimating system JobPro is a fairly robust general purpose business management solution that can be “tweaked” and used to keep track of construction estimates as well.

PDM-CONTRACTOR™ – “is a highly flexible software package developed by SolutionMakers,Inc. to meet the needs of General Contractors (commercial and residential).”

Turtle Creek Software Goldenseal Estimating – Perhaps the best known of the Macintosh builder and remodeling estimating solution in that Turtle Creek goes back to the early days of the Macintosh back in 1987 with their original product ‘MacNail‘. Goldenseal Estimating is their Estimating solution that integrates with their accounting, and project management tools in one program interface.

(*-While the list above describes software that runs under the Mac OS the reality is that with the advent of Apple’s BootCamp and Parallels the list of estimating solutions available to the Mac Contrator is huge in that it includes every application a Windows computer contractor has to choose from too.)

by: J. Jerrald Hayes

Absolute Accounting – is now available in version 4.0! Written entirely in FileMaker Pro, Absolute Accounting is a high-volume, multi-user accounting system. First released in 1999, Absolute Accounting is the most complete FileMaker accounting system available. Designed by developers for developers, it enables quick and easy integration into existing FileMaker solutions. No plug-ins are required. Experienced accounting tech support is available.

CG Invoicer- A simple and inexpensive runtime FileMaker based invoicing solution.

MoneyWorks Accounting Software – A new group of accounting applications (Cashbook, Express, and Gold) from a New Zeland based developer that are feature rich but easy-to-use solutions for small-to-medium organisations. Plus if you worrid about your accountant being able to work with your records if you tell them who your accountant is the will send them a free copy of MoneyWorks to use with your accounts!

MYOB AccountEdge – MYOB’s AccountEdge is small business accounting and management software for Mac which allows you to create and track sales and purchases, handle all your banking, process payroll, inventory and jobs, track and bill time, actively manage your customers and access over 200 financial reports to start and maintain a well-organized, successful small business.

MYOB FirstEdge – MYOB’s FirstEdge is scaled down version of MYOB’s Account Edge with banking, sales, customer management, and reporting.

QuickBooks Pro 2007 for Mac – Back in January of 2003 Intuit returned to the Macintosh platform with their well known QuickBooks Pro and with 2007 version is has even more compatiblity with Windows than previous versions so you can more easily share your QuickBooks Mac data with Windows users, such as your accountant.

Turtle Creek Goldenseal Accounting – A full-featured small business accounting software for Macintosh and Windows computers.

by: J. Jerrald Hayes

AEC FastTrack Schedule 9 – (read the Macworld FastTrack Schedule 9 review) Price: $349; upgrade from version 8, $149; upgrade from version 7, $199.

OmniPlan – Omnigroup has taken over what used to be ‘PMX’ from JTech Softworks and now offers user OmniPlan. (read the MacUpDate reviews of Omniplan) Price: $149.95

xTime Project – (read the MacUpDate reviews of xTime Project ) Price: $99

ConceptDraw Project 3 – (read the MacUpDate reviews of ConceptDraw Project 3 ) Price: $199

Project X – (read the Macworld Project X 1.0.1 review) Price: $200

Shared Plan –

Merlin – (read (read the Macworld Review of Merlin 2.0.3) Price: 145 euros (about $199)

by: J. Jerrald Hayes

ArchiCAD 9 – by Graphisoft arguably “the” state of the art CAD application. (read the April 2003 Macworld Review of ArchiCAD 8)

Google Sketchup – Not literally CAD so to speak but an outstanding and powerful 3D sketching and visualization tool and it comes in a freeware version too. An absolute essential with possible “killer app” status!

Turbo CAD – Turbo CAD produces two products for the Mac platform in TurboCAD Mac v2 and TurboCAD Mac Pro v2 which are both very inexpensive CAD drawing programs.

PowerCADD 7 –

VectorWorks 12 – The most popular CAD application for the Macintosh (read the September 19, 2004 Macworld Review of VectorWorks 11)

by: J. Jerrald Hayes

Core Contact Manager – Productive Computing’s FileMaker based Contact Management system.

Coyote Business RecordKeeper – A heavy weight and expensive 3rd party FileMaker based solution from Coyote Business RecordKeeper can be used to manage key areas of your business, Contact management, Customer Issues, Time Billing, Contact Logging, Sales orders and quotes, Web Site, Credit Card processing, Inventory, Vendors, Purchasing, Employees, Time Clock, Remote Sales People, Estimating Shipping Costs, Multiple Company support with all companies simultaneously active, Importing orders from the web or delimited files and more.

Crm4Mac 3.0 CRM4Mac is a neat little application that provides Customer Relationship Management for Mac OS X users by linking together data in iCal, Address Book, Mail, and TextEdit and so will work with Backup and iSync. The latest version (3.0) adds projects as a top-level coordinating category for your information and the filter capability allows you to drill down to get just what you want displayed on the screen

Daylite from MarketCircle – A powerful CRM tool from Marketcircle, for managing customer relationships, sales opportunities, and company projects. DayLite is flexible enough to offer management at a bird’s eye view of the overall company or quickly drill down to examine each individual activity required to complete a sale. Catered to sales and business professionals and built upon a SQL database, DayLite is both sophisticated and robust.

Now Up to Date and Contact 5 – (read the November 28, 2005 Macworld Review of Now Up-to-Date & Contact 5.0)

by: J. Jerrald Hayes

Ovolab Phlink – Combined with the Ovolab Telephone Adapter, can answer telephone calls and identify the caller using Caller ID and Apple’s Address Book. After answering a call, Ovolab Phlink records a message and stores it on your Mac for later retrieval.But there is even more to it than just that….

by: J. Jerrald Hayes