Filemaker 11 makes it easier than ever to take business data and create a snapshot of your information to help plan. It's also got dynamic links to auto-update such graphics

The canvas of the Filemaker database is wide and rich for Mac business users, an enduring data capture resource that looks even more vivid in the newest release of this tool. Filemaker 11 rolls out today with a big palette of charting and graphics shortcuts, the kind of built-in prowess that makes a great case for using the $299 solution instead of an Excel spreadsheet.

If it feels crude  to substitute a spreadsheet for a database, Filemaker’s Product Group Manager Rick Kalman says research shows otherwise. About 40 percent of the 15 million copies of Filemaker have been used by small business or small groups within larger companies. Already familar with Microsoft’s iconic spreadsheet, they press Excel into record-keeping of business inventory, sales or contacts. In doing so they limit the power of seeing their business portraits from every aspect.

The primary competition for us is Excel spreadsheets and paper, frankly,” Kalman said, “and that’s a pretty good target.” The features run well beyond the Excel hints and assistants that suggest you might be managing a list. And Filemaker 11 adds a feature that’s fast-becoming a Mac software standard: the Quick Search window in the top right of many programs, such as nearly every browser.

There's nothing like this in Excel, and the new Filemaker includes templates to go to work immediately with a professional-class database

Graphics stood out in the one-hour demo that Kalman led us through about a week ago. The wholly-owned subsidiary of Apple is among the best of Apple’s captive partners at creating tools ready for businesses, and the Filemaker 11 is ready to show off a company’s products, people in client databases or internal staff and contractors, even a new feature that interacts with Twitter to push in-progress photo updates for custom designs like guitars or Web sites or illustrations. But the concept of pictures extends beyond the fresh graphics tools in Filemaker 11. A new Snapshot link “flags a specific set of records at a point in time, preserving the same layout, view and sort order. Any changes made to the file are automatically updated in the database. This Snapshot Link file can be emailed to anyone who has FileMaker Pro 11 for easy collaboration.” That means that changes to you data can automatically be updated in a collegue or client’s office if they have Filemaker Pro 11 at hand. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the busiest booths at last week’s Macworld 2010 Expo was one staffed by a 500-year-old company, showing a sparkling-new product. Papershow makes a presentation interactive over the Web or inside a meeting room. It relies on the magic of Papershow paper, a frame of microscopic points, almost invisible to the naked eye, which work as locators when a special pen moves across the sheet.

The software, pen and paper integrate with JPEG and PowerPoint files, so that slick slide deck you created to dazzle in the boardroom or in a pitch to a client gets a fresh angle. Canson, a French company that started selling paper in the 16th Century, unveiled the product for the Mac at the show, after selling Papershow during 2009 for the PC. It’s a $200 solution that was competing, sort of, with the likes of the massive $4,000 electronic whiteboard in the booth right next door.

The full solution includes a pen with a micro camera, Bluetooth transcorder and a processor on-board; the magic paper both in printable sheets (to put your slides in front of you to annotate) and in a notepad format; and a USB key of 256MB to plug into your Mac and receive the pen’s transmissions. Your presentation’s audience doesn’t even have to be in the room — if you’re able to share your screen over the Web, your marks and notes become part of your show in remote offices.

In front of a crowd still buzzing after a day and a half of expo time, Chason’s rep showed the ability to underline, circle or make a note on top of a PowerPoint slide, in multiple colors. The product makes a presentation more alive than the stock animations from PowerPoint. Once it imports a PowerPoint file for annotation, it can save the resulting markup back to PPT or JPEG formats, or Papershow’s native format.