Mac4Construction

by: J. Jerrald Hayes

Up until now Mac Users who wanted a take-off tool to work with drawings from plan rooms or work with drawing that came from anywhere for that matter found themselves left out in the cold and they had to devote a machine (virtual or otherwise) to run the Windows OS with one of Windows based Take Off tools.

Well now there’s QuickEye and while it does bring a rich set of take-off features to the Mac platform its’ also for Windows users too.

They say on thier website:

"With only one to three hours invested in learning and setup, you will gain one to two hours each day in productivity."

It took me a lot less than that. They have a regulary updated schedule of Go To Meeting based taining classes that you can just call them about and speak to one of the trainers .

If you’re ready to go and want to get started right away visit their Account Setup & Purchase License page to get yourself started.

by: J. Jerrald Hayes

360 Difference Estimating 4.0 for Macintosh, Windows and iPad* is finally here….well almost…

This is the public beta were releasing and we have a special offer to any new users who join us while were still in the beta test period this December. Purchase 360 Difference Estimating for the the discounted price of $265.00 ($100 off the regular price of $365) and we’ll give you the "Sales" interface module when it’s ready so you can estimate projects from your iPad* (*360 Difference requires FileMaker Go to run on a iPad) and the other 360 Difference 4.0 Modules too as they roll off the assembly line.

Click Here To Download a Demo of the 360 Difference Estimating 4.0 preview

For a limited time we’ll also enroll you in the beta test release programs for our other 360 Difference Modules that you see on our start-up screenshot below as we bring them up-to-date.

If you don’t already own a license of FileMaker Pro 11( you can try out a demo of FileMaker Pro 11 too by clicking here: FilemakerTrial.com) the Runtime versions of our programs have there own a built-in FileMaker engine and run with the only restriction being that the program wont produce PDF documents from within the application.

Any questions? Feel free to give me a call at 914-301-5838 and if your a Macintosh user using Tiger 10.5 or later I’ll be very happy to give you a live online demostration of the programs capabilites using the Share a-Screen capabilties in Apple iChatAV. Again, any questions about Share-a-Screen just call me and I’ll talk you through it too.

by: J. Jerrald Hayes

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