FileMaker Pro version 9 was recently released. FileMaker is rather silly about its version numbering; FileMaker 8 was released less than two years ago, and FileMaker 7 only 18 months before that, and really, there isn’t a whole lot of difference between the three versions; they are all cross-compatible in terms of file format and server access, and the feature enhancements in later versions probably won’t be of major interest to most users.
However, we still see a lot of databases and servers in L&S running even earlier versions of FileMaker, as far back as FileMaker 5.5 or 6. Those versions are over five years old, and most importantly, they are not cross-compatible with any of the newer versions. That is, you can’t open a FileMaker 6 database with version 7, 8, or 9, and vice versa. Because more and more departments are using different versions, it’s becoming harder to share databases, and to support the older software versions.
For LSCR-supported databases, we’re working on a migration plan that will move all of our FileMaker 5.5 and 6 databases to one of the more modern versions. We’ll be implementing this plan over the next few months, and we’ll be asking customers who are still using the legacy versions to purchase upgraded software when we migrate their department. It won’t be necessary to upgrade if you currently have FileMaker 7 or 8, but we want to be off FileMaker 5.5 and 6 by the end of the calendar year.
If you run your own databases and/or database server, I highly recommend developing your own migration plan at this time. Moving databases from the older versions to the FileMaker 7/8/9 format is not particularly difficult, but it does require some attention and work on the part of the database developer. FileMaker, Inc. has a good collection of documents on how to approach the process yourself, or you can contract with LSCR to manage your migration.
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
The PHP project recently announced that PHP 4 has reached the end of its life. PHP is a programming language commonly used for web pages; PHP 4 is the version installed on our main web server (LS.berkeley.edu, also known as “clue”), which provides web hosting for about 30 L&S departments. Version 4 will continue to be supported through the end of calendar 2007; after that time, the PHP project will provide only critical security updates.
Our plan will be to migrate our server to PHP 5 before the end of the year. In most cases, this should not cause big problems for our users, but there are some language differences between PHP 4 and PHP 5 which could cause some old pages to break.
We will be providing more information as we develop a migration plan. For now, if your pages use PHP, you should check to see whether they work under PHP 5. We will have a staging environment ready before the migration so you can test your code before we go live with the new version.
One of the things we’ve been hearing from folks in L&S is that LSCR doesn’t communicate enough; that we’re quick to respond when they call us, but we don’t do enough to tell people about what’s going on in technology in the industry and on campus. Part of the reason for that is that to communicate via our web site or email is fairly time-consuming for us. Before we’ll put up a post on our web site, we want to be sure it’s correct and complete, which requires us to spend time developing the content, and then going through an editorial process before a page can go live. For a lot of our content, that process is important; for example, our Thunderbird pages couldn’t be published until we were sure Thunderbird was going to be our email client recommendation, and we’d developed enough content to be worth making an announcement. (And really, we still haven’t made a formal announcement about Thunderbird, because as soon as we do that, people will want to know when we’ll be migrating them, and we’re still working on our schedule for that. The short answer is: within the next six months).
We need a communication mechanism that has a better signal-to-noise ratio than email (what percentage of your incoming email did you actually read today?), but less formality than our web site. Fortunately, technology has already helped us out with this one; blog software is easy to install and use (we’re using WordPress), and it’s easier to be informal in a blog context. Plus, the ability for readers to add comments can create an open dialog that saves everyone from having to ask the same questions over and over.
I’ll be posting news, announcements, and random thoughts about computing in L&S on a regular basis. Pretty soon (once it goes through our editorial process!) we’ll have an advice article on how to subscribe to blogs using RSS, which can keep you updated without the notices getting lost in your email.
We’re also planning to offer blog space to any departments who use our server for their web site; if the department chair or IT manager wants a blog, it’s easy for us to add a new blog to fit into your existing web site.
LSCR has been involved in a strategic planning process for over a year now. We’ve done a lot of work on developing a clear mission and vision for the organization and for computing in L&S in general. We got good information from the L&S computing survey which many of you answered earlier this year, and we have been conducting follow-up interviews with individuals. The CIO’s office is also helping out by conducting an external consulting review of our current operations.
On Wednesday, 7/18, LSCR will be participating in an off-site retreat (at the Headlands Institute in Marin) to synthesize some of the information we have gathered. Our focus will be to come up with some specific action plans and strategic goals which will guide the next phases of the process. We expect that in calendar 2008, we will have some concrete proposals to improve computing in L&S.
The retreat will require the participation of our entire staff, so we will be operating with a skeleton crew on 7/18. We will have someone watching our queues and able to contact us by cell phone if necessary, but we’d like to ask you to limit your requests on Wednesday to obviously urgent calls, or indicate whether the call can be deferred until we’re back at full staff on Thursday.
Thank you for your patience as we try to find ways to better meet the needs of our customers and the college.
