Eggressing Claris FileMaker container data to the Cloud.
If you’re just looking for a way to get your FileMaker container data to the cloud, check out s3.fm.
April 10th, 2024
Hey y’all!
It was my great honor to speak at the national FileMaker convention (aka Claris Engage) this year at the Apple campus in Austin, Texas. This year’s event was the first national event that Claris has produced since 2019. The pandemic REALLY messed up our community’s plans for a few years! It was quite a different experience than what we’ve done in the past with previous FileMaker DevCons and Engages. The target audience was much more the core of the professional development community. Instead of having close to 200 breakout sessions and 1,400 attendees, the conference focused on around 50 breakouts and 600 attendees. It was quite a thrill for me to be able to snag one of the coveted presenter’s slots. There’s even an APPLE EVENTS PAGE with my face on it.
The content of my presentation was about getting your FileMaker container data out out of FileMaker itself and into cloud object storage. If you haven’t thought about this before, here’s the gist: FileMaker container data can bloat your system. It can make backups and user experiences difficult, especially when you scale up. The best way to avoid this is to let someone else’s computer act as the storage for your container data. That “someone else” is probably going to be a cloud object storage provider like Amazon S3. Click here to learn all of the why, who, what, where, when and how by watching the presentation.
I’d like to send a special thanks to Ronnie Higgins for reminding me of the story of the dot. Back on April 2nd, 2020, Ronnie posted a new thread on Claris Community. He quickly realized that he wanted to delete that thread, but there was no way to delete the thread. Instead, he edited the thread to a single dot, hoping he wouldn’t receive any automated response emails from the community. I didn’t know Ronnie at the time, but like most FileMaker developers in late March and early April of 2020, I was in a holding pattern while the whole world was dealing with the first wave of COVID lockdowns. A lot of us were on the Claris Community that day, just looking to help each other. And, when I saw Ronnie’s post with just a dot, I decided the best thing I could do to help his dot was to add my own underneath. Ronnie’s dot looked lonely, and now it had a friend. A few minutes later, Josh Ormond put his dot under mine, and then another, and another, and so on until the flood of dots had made Ronnie’s thread trend at number one. It was getting more attention than the “Cris Ippolite – ask anything” thread at the top of the community. By the end of the day, Ronnie had received about 200 emails and the Claris Community moderators had locked the thread. It was a “cultural moment” for our community – one that reminds us that no matter how frustrated we are, that we’re all in this together. It doesn’t necessarily matter what the problem actually is – even if it’s just that your local store is out of toilet paper because of COVID – we’re all here to support each other. If you’ve only got 5 minutes, watch this bootleg clip of “the tale of the dot” first.
I’d also like to thank the legendary Jonn Howell (DataExperience) for helping me prepare for my presentation. Jonn is a very accomplished speaker in the FileMaker community, having presented dozens of times on a variety of topics over several decades of FileMaker DevCons, regional conventions and local meetups. Even though I have some experience speaking in front of groups and have always wanted to speak at the national convention, I still felt a lot of anxiety to get this one thing right for everyone. Jonn’s mentorship helped me ease that anxiety, as well as adding a whole lot of polish and style that really made my presentation come off well. If you’re thinking about applying to speak at a future Claris event or you want a well qualified pair of eyes to look over your presentation, ask Jonn for help. You’ll be glad you did.
Lastly, if you’ve never been to a Claris event, especially Engage or PauseOnError, please come and join us next time. Even if you only go once, you’ll come home with a far better idea of what is possible in FileMaker and who to talk to when you hit a wall. The coolest part of our community is that we help each other and share ideas at these conferences. The first time you go is a guaranteed game changer.
See you all soon!
-Sully