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Friday, June 27, 2003

World Peace, World Health, World Wealth

The automatic ads at the top of my weblog keep picking up advertisments for other database developers but I would like them to lead to world health, world peace, and philanthropic organizations. Evidently too much of my content has mentioned my database platform of choice which is picking up the wrong kind of ads.

If anyone knows what drives the adds and how to sway them in favor of "Saving the World" please drop me a line
jmbaworld@jmba.com

Once and Future Posts

This software allows me to draft a post before publishing it. So this one may seem a little late in appearing (after it's creation date).

I have set a goal to keep publishing to this web log until I get too busy doing the kind of work that I love. So if you see that this site has become stale.. just bear with me and come back in a few months. I will most likely have finished the project and have reverted to posting more frequently here.

Of course you can email me but if you are not in my address book there is a slight chance your message will get thrown out with the spam. Don't you just love the power of the spam polluters to make email less reliable?
jmbaworld@jmba.com


Cheers,
Joel

Tuesday, June 24, 2003

Web Log Technology

If you are interested in easily publishing to the web (the way this web log is created) Check out Blogger Site

Sunday, June 22, 2003

Education to fit a modern world.

A "Saving the world with FileMaker Pro" project proposed by Joel M.Bowers & Associates

Assumptions
The premise or underlying assumption for this project is that the world will be a better place if we can educate more of it's inhabitants in more subjects. I think it should be possible to remove the limits on adult education which often require physical presence of the student, fixed schedules based on instructor availability and cost per student based on classroom space limitations.

Summary
I am proposing to develop a way to meter out educational or informational material in a way that fits with widely varying schedules and conflicting personal priorities. This development project will require a grant to support the effort and some content or content provider to help with the initial testing and implementation of a trial of the newly designed system.

The concept in short is to provide a user controlled delivery of course content via email and website coordination. The goal is to provide some sort of user biased deadline/pressure for continuing to study but allowing a lot of flexibility to accommodate the fact that people have other priorities that tend to "get in the way". In theory, a series of email reminders and motivational messages would attempt to remind those falling behind to get back on course but allow individual based course delivery speed and completion schedule.

The content would allow for piecemeal delivery and some feedback mechanism to insure that content was received and digested before delivering some or each sequel.

Student Controls

The student should be able to control...
Study material per session (pages, reading minutes, homework minute goals)
How frequently to schedule sessions (nominal) coupled with
Course completion goal
Obtain the next session immediately upon completion of the previous session.
Choice from a wide variety of content
Cost control choices
Tuition free courses with the sponsorship or included advertising
Advertising free material by paying prorated costs
Etc.


Seeking interested parties

If you are interested in helping with this project please contact me at jmba@jmba.com.

Friday, June 20, 2003

Solving World Problems with FileMaker Pro

What are some of the BIG ISSUE problems of today? Perhaps:

Illiteracy
Hunger
Poverty
Terrorism
Ethnic Hatred
Overcrowding
Homeless
Disease
Environmental Problems


How might FileMaker be used to help solve or aid solution of some of these problems?

FileMaker is excels at efficient information exchange. Can information and better communication help? You bet! In some of these cases, communication can help to find a solution. Defining a problem and getting people to agree to work toward a solution is often the most important obstacle in the approach toward a solution.

What do I mean by information exchange? Much of the world has historically been run by bottlenecked or limited systems. One person, one office, one on one communication were often big parts of our political and social systems. I thing we are making a little progress toward making these systems more efficient, the web has done a lot to "open" some of these systems, but I believe more can be done by introducing database informations systems with appropriate business rules.

More later....

Leveraging my FileMaker Developer Skills to Solve World Problems.

I had a great idea today! I want to leverage my skills with database constructions and automation (using FileMaker - ). I have some great clients and work on a wide variety of new projects with a wide variety of new clients each year. Wouldn't it be great if I could lend more of my skills to the kinds of organizations that "Make a Difference"?

One of my most "Make a Difference" clients right now is FIRST. FIRST is an acronym for Fostering Interest and Recogition of Science and Technology. The organization founded by Dean Kamen with the help of some industry and educational mogels, runs a series of regional competitions and an annual championship for highschool robotics teams. They unveil a new game each year and the teams have to use similar components to build custom robots optimized for winning the yearly game. This year I was proud that FileMaker, Inc. contributed a copy of FileMaker Pro to each of the teams. I helped build the scoring system used at the 20 + regional events and got to help score using "my" system at the championship event at Reliant Stadium in Huston, Tx.

I hope to have time to add to these notes and make this a more interesting blogger site, but for today, this is it!


"Saving the world with FileMaker Pro" project proposed by and all rights reserved by Joel M.Bowers & Associates.