September 4, 2001

Technology: I attended the Filemaker Pro Developer's Conference in Orlando, Florida August 12 - 15. I was very pleased with changes announced for the new version 5.5. The new version offers record-by-record access privileges (applying to webenabled as well as locally hosted files), new script steps, a host of new logical, design, and status functions, the ability to execute any SQL statement via a script or execute SQL statements from a field value, Web
Companion support for custom MIME types, support for more graphic file formats and, a feature I have repeatedly requested, the ability to execute over 20 script steps from a web browser accessing a web-enabled database. I also met the programmers for Dragon Web Surveys to see if they thought Filemaker could be used as a processing engine for a natural language intelligent agent. At this time, they felt Filemaker was not as fast at processing conditional text input as other tools such as Vbscript. However, I did receive an e-mail from the developers of Ultrahal promising an upgrade to the Web Representative within one to three months so maybe I won't need to write my own from scratch after all.

At one of the workshop sessions on Filemaker interoperability, I got quite a kick out of the presenter demonstrating "Fishmaker Pro". He had taken a Billy Bass and reprogrammed it to respond to commands from a Filemaker database. It "sang" the theme from the Beverly Hillbillies accompanied by appropriate body movement. I have made Filemaker jump through a lot of hoops but never anything like that!

I was pleased with a script that I worked out to automatically enroll students in the appropriate classes at the American English Institute. These international students take a series of tests to evaluate their skills in Reading and Writing English, English Grammar, and English Oral Skills. After their initial admissions tests, they are promoted to different levels each term until they successfully complete the program. My task was to have Filemaker evaluate the student's assigned level for a particular term, then search the Schedule for the appropriate class sections then initiate a new record in the Registration object for each class. Each class has two sections, a Monday-Wednesday-Friday offering and a Tuesday-Thursday offering. Each section may be taught by different instructors in a different building at a different time so the schedule treats each section as a separate class although they do have the same level and section designation. My solution was based on a knowledge that, in a one-to-many relationship, if a calculated field in the "one" file is set equal to a field value in the "many" file, the calculated field will return the first value it encounters. So, I defined a calculated field to concatenate the term and level values in the Term Level object (with one record per student) and defined a calculated field to concatenate the term and level values in the Schedule Object (with two records for two sections of a class at a particular level). I then established a relationship between the Term Level object and the Schedule object based on the term level field sorted by Schedule ID in Ascending order. Then I established a relatioship between the Term Level object and the Schedule object based on a field sort of Schedule ID in Descending order. I then created a calculated field equal to the value of Schedule ID based on the Ascending order relationship and another calculated field equal to the value of Schedule ID based on the Descending order relationship. This gave me the schedule ID I needed for each section of the class offered for that level for any particular term. I then wrote a script that copied the Schedule ID values to successive portal rows in the Student Registration layout effectively registering them for each of the appropriate courses and sections.

While in Orlando, I visited "Splendid China", an exhibit originally built by the Chinese government that displays scaled replicas of sixty of China's historical landmarks. I took over 200 photographs so will be building a web page about it as soon as I have time. I also visited the rather controversial "Holy Land Experience", a new attraction that attempts to recreate ancient Jerusalem. It was built by conservative Christian developers so it has apparently not been received well by the local Jewish community. I am not overly religious but I enjoyed the lecture on ancient ritual and architecture using a HO gauge scale model of ancient Jerusalem, a reenactment of Jewish sacrificial rituals in authentic costume, and the beautiful voices of the singers and emotion portrayed in the dramatic readings. Most of the wares offered for sale in the shops were religious texts but I did find a translation of the writings of Josephus and a travelogue for Jordan. (I have always been interested in Petra and the Nabateans.) Unfortunately, the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit was not finished yet as most of the current construction effort is directed at the building of a Scriptorium to house manuscripts and ancient artifacts.

I revisited Universal Studios and particularly enjoyed viewing the props and concept art for the movie "Return of the Mummy". I also went to the "T2 - 3D Experience". Although it was well done, it was very anti-technology in the preliminary video that is shown to people waiting in line so I felt very uncomfortable with the attraction. For old times sake I went on the "Jaws" ride and then walked down to the "Twister" attraction. It was an interesting display of physical effects although many in the audience complained that there wasn't enough wind.

My last full day in Orlando I went to Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park. (I have been to Orlando three other times so I had already seen Epcot, Magic Kingdom, and MGM Studios.) I must admit, Disney has done a really nice job with this park. One thing I particularly appreciated was the walk-through attractions. I was able to take my time and photograph the animals and beautiful birds. With the weather at 100 degrees and 98 percent humidity I also appreciated the ability to linger in the shade of the trees and ride the whitewater raft attraction to cool off! The safari was really fun too. They load you into an open-sided safari truck and drive you through the reserve which looks very authentic. Although the animals are artfully separated by landscape you observe them in an environment without obvious barracades or feeding stations. I enjoyed the "Fantasy of Flight" show that featured bird researchers displaying different species and talking about their habitats. I was particularly impressed by a parrot that had been taught to sing seven different songs. It didn't just squawk either. It actually carried a tune. It sang a whole stanza from "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy" (a particular favorite of mine since I was born on the Fourth of July!) After the demonstration, two researchers remained on the stage so audience members could go up and ask questions and photograph these magnificent birds. I also enjoyed the "Tarzan Rocks" rock concert. I'm afraid I didn't have time for any other "shows". The only ride that I felt "cheated" by was the "Dinosaur" attraction. I stood in line for over an hour only to be loaded in to a rollercoaster type vehicle that roared through the dark with an occasional dimly lit animatronic dinosaur appearing around different turns. The whole ride took only about five minutes.