WALL-E

I took my son to see WALL-E on sunday. He had a blast. It is a very entertaining movie even for adults. Like most cartoons that I have seen lately, there are adult under currents running concurrently to the children's story.

The basic story is that Earth has been abandoned due to human pollution. The rivers are toxic, the cities are trash, nothing will grow. Technology has reached a point where humanity boards a spaceship for a five year tour. A company, Buy-N-Large, will under take a cleanup and return Earth to the humans. Unfortunately, it's so bad that the company abandons the effort and leaves humanity to spend an eternity in space.

Fast forward 600 years. WALL-E, a rolling, sentient trash compactor is relentlessly carrying on his directive, clean up. He's built towers of trash and lives in a small crate where he collects trinkets, spare parts and doodads. He watches a corny old human movie for a hobby and is really lonely. His only companion is a pet cockroach.

A spaceship lands and a new, sleek robot scans around looking for something. WALL-E falls in love and follows "her" around. This new robot posses powerful weapons and has no problem blowing things up and even comes closing to blowing WALL-E up. Eventually, the two make contact and WALL-E learns that his new love is named EVA. I would say her name is EVE but becuase of the way she pronounces her name, my son insists it is EVA.

Anyway, she continues her scanning directive and eventually finds what she is looking for, a living plant. She loads the plant into an internal compartment and goes comatose. I'll let you see the movie for the rest.

I couldn't believe how into the relationship between WALL-E and Eva my son got. He kept whispering questions to me, "Does she like him?" "Why does he love her?" "Is she mad now?" My son is 5, BTW.

The ending is what you expect from one of these, everyone lives happily ever after. This is not a complaint. That is how it should be. That's the movie we wanted to see. I think we'll probably buy this on DVD when it comes out.

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Dead and Deader: A Review

Just so you know, I don't review every movie I see. A movie has to have something in it to make me want to write about it. It has to be worth me recommending others to see, it has to be exceptionally bad, or it has to be just quirky enough to make an impression. Dead or Deader is one of the quirky ones.

This is a SCI-FI channel movie. You can tell because it starred Dean Cain. ;-) Dean Cain seems to be this generations Vincent Price, the king of low budget sci-fi and horror movies. That's not meant to be an insult. Price is a legend. In 50 years, I bet people will talk about all the B-grade movies Cain did.

Dead and Deader is about a special forces type team sent into the jungles of Cambodia to check on a humanitarian relief team that has not been heard from. The team finds some dead bodies of what looks to be military men and a bunch of creepy scorpions in terrariums. While they're looking around, they're attacked by some undead soldiers. While fighting, a still live scientist looking guy hurls a grenade and blows up the room.

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The next scene is Dean Cain getting autopsied. As the doctor is about to cut into him, he opens and his and asks what the heck the doctor thinks he's doing. Seems the whole team was killed and the doctor is trying to figure out what killed them. The doc calls in a female doctor, a superior officer. She tells Dean that he's really dead but Dean doesn't buy it.

Dean wants to see his team and about that time finds out that he has some kind of mental connection to his undead team mates. He takes off to find one of them at the same time his undead team mate decides he's hungry. Only protein will do! While fighting the undead team mate, the female doctor is bitten and becomes undead. She quickly becomes really dead (the ceiling fan episode is completely unrealistic but fun to watch).

It's here that Dean meets his side kick and things really heat up. If this sounds like a really bad movie, you would mostly be right. The thing is that they built in a lot of humor into this movie. Sight gags and one liners abound.

It's not as funny as Army of the Dead and it's not a particularly gory movie. Some nasty bits with body parts, fluids, vomit, etc. Can't touch the really gross movies though. Special effects are ok but most of the body parts look like fake body parts.

All in all, I give this movie two thumbs up. As long as you go in expecting a funny, semi gory sci-fi channel movie, it won't disappoint. It's a couple of hours you won't ever get back but pop some corn and get a cold beverage on a boring night.

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Requiem for a Dream

I just finished watching Requiem for a Dream on hulu.com. I like hulu, free movies and tv shows. Anyway, Requiem for a Dream is about four junkies but not all junkies are the same. The blurb about the movie says:

Drugs. They consume mind, body and soul. Once you're hooked, you're hooked. Four lives. Four addicts. Four failures. Doing their best to succeed in the world, but failing miserably, four people get hooked on various drugs. Despite their aspirations of greatness, they succumb to their addictions. Watching the addicts spiral out of control, we bear witness to the dirtiest, ugliest portions of the underworld addicts reside in. It is shocking and eye-opening but demands to be seen by both addicts and non-addicts alike.

I wasn't sure if I would like it but it had some stars that I like, Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly (still hot), Marlon Wayans (spent most of his time naken), and Christopher McDonald (playing yet another smarmy character). It's from 2000 but I am sure I've never heard of it. I decided to watch and am glad I did though it's not always an easy movie to watch. The ending is particularly bad, as drug addiction usually is. Ellen Burstyn plays a senior citizen who starts taking drugs to lose weight and completely self destructs. That's probably the hardest part to watch. All in all, I would recommend this movie. It should probably be mandatory viewing in high schools and colleges.

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FileMaker Pro 9 Advanced: Managing Databases

I know I said in my last review entry that I would create a new database. I decided to save that for next time. Instead, I thought I would do a quick run through of the screens used to manage databases. That is, the screens used to create tables, create and edit fields, set relationships, etc.

As I have come to expect from FileMaker, the tools used to manage databases are very visual. So far, the visual aspect of FileMaker has been its strongest feature, for me anyway.



In the photo above, you can see where I have arrows to two buttons on the tool bar. The button to the left is the "Manage Database" button. The button to the right is the "Manage Value Lists" button. I will explain both of those below.

When you press the "Manage Database" button, you are taken to the Tables tab. On this tab, you will see all table definitions contained within this file.

Remember the last entry when I created the Recipe database, I saved a single file. In FileMaker, you may have a database file with 1 or more tables. The recipe data is simple enough that only a single table was required. A future application in the series will create a database with multiple tables.

On this screen, in addition to seeing what tables are contained within the file, you can see how many records are stored in the table and how many fields comprise the table.

The next tab is the fields tab. The fields tab is where you would add, drop or edit a table column. You give a column a name and a data type. You can optionally give it a comment.

The Options button allows you to set additional processing information about the field. Some of the options are Defaults, Calculated Values, Lookup Values, Validation, Editability, Storage, Indexing and even a Japanese translation. I will also cover this field in greater detail in a future review entry.

The final tab is the relationships tab. There's not much to say about this database because there is only a single table. In a more complex structure, you may link fields in one table to fields in another table. This is called a foreign key and/or referential integrity.

In FileMaker, you may link many tables in a single file, or you may link tables across files. As a matter of a fact, you can create a relationship to a table using an ODBC connection which means you can link to external databases from other vendors. That is a topic I will definitely be covering in the future.

The other button I highlighted above, is the "Manage Value Lists" button. The recipe database has a field called category that is pre-populated with a list of values. You use the "Manage Value Lists" to edit the values in that list.

From this window, you can select the value list of interest and press the Edit button. Of course, you can also create and delete lists here.

For your value list, you can either use values stored in a field in this database, in another database or with hard coded values.

Very frequently you will want to use a table as a lookup value. In a system, you will want to share that data across multiple databases. In my next entry, I will create a new database and store the Category lookup value as records in a table. I will then come back and modify the Recipes database to use that database and table.

LewisC

filemaker review

FileMaker Pro 9 Advanced: Create and Use a Seed Database

Note: Click on any picture to view a larger version of it.

I decided to start off with baby steps. I'm going to create a database using on of the seed definitions. FileMaker comes with a decent selection for most home and small business users. Because I am a cooking affcianado, I decided to use the Recipe seed database.

After selecting the database type, you will get a "file create" dialog. Using this dialog you can put your database wherever you like. This is different from Oracle, PostgreSQL or MySQL where you have a specific data directory(ies).

When using a seed database, FileMaker generates several views for you automatically. You get a form view (for viewing and editing), a list view and a report. The form view comes up automatically after you create the database.

The form has fields on the screen that correspond to columns in your database. The Recipe database is pre-seeded with data so that Category column is already populated with recipe types. If you were building your own database, you would need to populate lists like this.

Being a glutton, and a cook to boot, I enter my own Lite and Spicy Chicken recipe.

Before choosing New from the toolbar, I tried to start typing and got the error below. That's not a bad thing. The message told me what I did wrong and what I needed to do to correct it. How many times have you tried to do something using a particular piece of software and the error message made absolutely no sense. Two thumbs up.

After entering my recipe, I clicked on the "View This Report" link on the upper toolbar. FileMaker as me if I wanted to save my record. I clicked yes and it did.

The report view is a fairly basic example of the report building tools in FileMaker. I plan to give those tools a work out in the next couple of weeks.

One thumb down here for a non-intuitive return to the edit screeen. It took me several minutes to figure out how to get back. Click on the Continue button at the left and that will return you to the edit screen.

While in the Report view, you can click the PDF icon to generate an Adobe PDF. I will touch on PDFs in future posts.

I don't need the note field on my form so I am going to remove it. I would also like to resize the ingredients and instructions fields. I select the form view and above the layout slect list, I choose layout editor button. The layout editor button is towards the upper left of the screen.

I make my changes. To delete the notes label and box, I highlight them and select cut. I highlight the ingredients and instructions boxes (one at a time), and drag to resize. Very basic and normal Windows editing.

I click back on the Browse selector and view my screen.

I created a seed database, used a form to add a record, viewed a report and generated a pdf. I didn't like the default form so I removed one field and resized two others. I did this all in about 10 minutes. Awesome! It took me twice as long to write this blog entry as it did to actually do the work.

Next up, I will create an empty database and build my own form.

LewisC

filemaker review

FileMaker Pro 9 Advanced: Installation & Requirements

I am going to refer to the software, "FileMaker Pro 9 Advanced" as "FileMaker" or "the software" for the rest of this review.

The Package

FileMaker comes boxed with a printed manual (which is a nice feature compared to other products). The siftware is contained on a single CD. Printed on the back of the CD is a 35 digit license key that must be entered, registered and activated. The software comes with a and a freebie trial CD to pass on to a friend and with a printed resource guide containing third party software solutions, consultants, certified developers, etc.

Access to the FileMaker Technet requires a paid account. The current price is US$99/year. The FileMaker site contains links to user groups, news groups and email lists. I was not able to find an actual forum on the site but that may be included with a technet membership. You can search the knowledge base for free.

System Requirements

FileMaker runs on Windows and Mac operating systems. According to FileMaker, the system requirements are:

• Mac OS X 10.4.8
  
• • PowerPC G3, G4, G5 or Intel-based Mac
  • 256 MB of RAM
  • CD-ROM drive
• 
  
• Windows XP Professional, Home Edition (Service Pack 2)

• • Pentium III 500MHz or higher
  • 256 MB of RAM
  • CD-ROM drive
  • SVGA (800 x 600) or higher resolution video adapter and display

• Windows Vista Ultimate, Business, Home
• • 800 MHz 32-bit (x86) or higher
  • 512 MB of RAM
  • SVGA (800x600) or higher resolution video adapter and display
  • CD-ROM drive

I installed FileMaker on a Pentium 4, 3GHz laptop with 1.5GB of ram running Windows XP Pro. Before installation, I had 16.1GB free disk space and aftwards, I had 15.8 GB free disk space.

Installation

Installation was quick and painless. The setup program is the normal wizard that we have come to expect of any quality software. The wizard contained about 10 or so screens: choose your langauge, enter the user/company/license key, review the license, where should it go, etc.

The actual installation runtime on my laptop was about 10 or 15 minutes from start to finish. Once I answered the questions on the wizard, it ran undisturbed. I accepted the option to create a desktop short cut and a quick link short cut. It does give you the option to not create those.

Following the installation, you have the opportunity to register your software. You can register via email or online. I chose online and was finished in just a minute or two.

That was it for installation.

Post Installation

There are no post installation steps that are required to be taken but, being the curious type, I decided to nose around a bit.

Unlike almost any other database software that you will install, FileMaker does not install a server service.

FileMaker does install a license manager called FlexNet. This service is started when FileMaker starts and may (or not) shut down right away. You can get additional information on this service from the FelxNet Site.

As part of the FlexNet license management, the first time you run FileMaker, you will need to go through an activation process. You can choose to activate via telephone or via the internet. I chose the internet.

The activation also went flawlessly and within about 20 minutes, I had installed the software, registered it and activated it. I was now ready to create my first database.

filemaker

Review - FileMaker Pro Advanced 9.0: Intro

I recently had the opportunity to get my hands on FileMaker Pro Advanced 9.0. I played with FileMaker waaaaay back in the DOS days but I haven't taken a look at it in a long time. Since I had this opportunity, I thought I would review the software from a holistic point of view.

This will be a multi-part review over the next couple of weeks. I'm going to take it from the basics of installation and reviewing FileMaker's support offerings all the way out to advanced topics like connecting to and querying multiple databases (Oracle, Postgres, MySQL, etc).

If there are any topics of interest for you along the way, please drop me a note and I will try to cover it.

Some historical information

FileMaker, a wholly owned subsidiary of Apple, has a long history. You can think of it somewhat as a multi-platform dBase that grew up. While dBase couldn't keep up with the changing technologies, FileMaker has thrived and grown. Currently profitable with 250 employees in 8 offices around the world, I think it can be considered a success.

Wikipedia has a very detailed history of FileMaker. In the beginning:

FileMaker began as a DOS-based product known as "Nutshell", developed by Nashoba Systems of Concord, Massachusetts around 1982 or 1983. Nutshell was distributed by Leading Edge, an electronics marketer that had recently started selling PC-compatible computers and software.

With the introduction of the Macintosh, Nashoba combined the basic data engine with a new forms-based GUI, creating a program that was dramatically easier to use. Leading Edge was not interested in the product, preferring to remain a DOS-only vendor, and kept the Nutshell name. Nashoba found another distributor, Forethought Inc., and introduced it to the Mac market as "FileMaker". When the Macintosh Plus was introduced, the next version of FileMaker was named "FileMaker Plus" to reflect the computer's name.

Forethought Inc. was purchased by Microsoft, who were then introducing a series of products that are today the core of Microsoft Office. Microsoft had their own database product, Microsoft File, so the rights to FileMaker were reverted to Nashoba. In 1988 Nashoba introduced "FileMaker 4" under its own name.

Shortly thereafter, Apple Computer formed Claris, a wholly owned subsidiary, to market software. Within months they had purchased Nashoba to round out their software suite. By that time, Leading Edge and Nutshell had faded from the marketplace because of competition from other DOS and later Windows platform database products, whereas, in spite of competition from Microsoft File, FileMaker continued to succeed on the Macintosh platform.

And from there, we have 9.0. In the next installment of this detailed review, I will cover features, system requirements and the installation process.

filemaker

Review: Doomsday - The Death of Superman

Close to a month ago, I blogged about Doomsday - The Death of Superman. As I said in that post, I really wanted to see it. I just finished watching it a little while ago. I planned to buy the DVD but I noticed that it was on pay per view so I watched it with my son.

He is 4 and he lost interest within the first few minutes. This is a very adult cartoon. Not in language or sex or anything but in themes. There were a few brutal parts, Doomsday crushes a soldier's head for example. The movie shows Doomsday grab his head, the camera angles away and you hear the crushing sound.

It's not just the insinuated violence that makes say it's adult-themed. The relationship between Lois and Kal-El is very adult and the show spends quite a bit of time on that relationship. The reactions when superman dies are equally adult.

I'm not complaining. Though my son lost interest right away, I thought it was a very good movie. Great graphics and animation. Good color. The story and action were well done. I would watch it again.

It wasn't the book though. The book The Death and Life of Superman and the Graphic Novels were much deeper and contained several concurrent plots. There were many characters involved.

This movie mainly concentrates around the initial fight and death of Superman and then into Lex Luthor, Clone Superman and Superman rebuilding himself. That was kind of disappointing; to know how much story there was and for the movie to be so limited.

I think the only way to really do this justice would be to make it a mini-series. And while I would watch it, I'm not sure how many others would. It's too adult to hold a small child's attention and not many adults want to sit through several nights of cartoon.

I can heartily recommend this DVD to any genre fan though. If you are a fan of Superman, which I have always been, this is a must have. If you are a fan of comics in general, this is a good addition to the collection. If you don't really like animated movies or if you are thinking of a movie for your child, I would say to stay away.

superman movie review

Transformers: A Review (Seriously!)

This is a review of both the book and the movie, Transformers. I was recently in Books a million and saw a display for the new movie Transformers. Actually, the display was for a novelization of the movie by Alan Dean Foster. If you don't know Alan Dean Foster he did the novelization of at least the first Alien movie (and I think more), Krull, a bunch of original Star Treks, Pip and Flinx, Outland, the Spell Singer series, and about a bazillion more. If you read, you have probably read something from Alan. Transformers, the book:

• Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey; Mti edition (May 29, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345497996
• ISBN-13: 978-0345497994

I was a fan of the transformers in my late teens when they first came out. I've always been a fan of comics and cartoons. As a fan, I decided to pick up the book and give it a read. My son wanted to see the movie (he is a HUGE fan) so I figured I could use "research" as an excuse to buy it. If you don't know the premise, it's fairly simple. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away a battle raged between intelligent cybernetic beings on a planet called Cybertron. The good beings are, being autonomous, Autobots. The bad guys, being deceptive, are Decepticons. Combined are they Cybertronians? Cybertrics? Cybertronner? The war between good and evil starts to destroy Cybertron so the All Spark, the special energy cube that gives life to inanimate (but only complex inanimate) objects, is ejected into space to prevent Megatron (leader of Decepticons) from getting it. Megatron goes after the cube and after thousands of years, both arrive on Earth. Eventually the good guys follow, followed by additional bad guys. The story is about the search for the All Spark, the battle between good and evil and two horny teenagers. Sam Witwicky, bumbling teenager, manages to, ineptly, steal the girlfriend of the ultra-macho, footballer bad guy. The girl, Mikela, is poor where Sam is solidly middle class. In the meantime, the Men In Black, are tracking Sam and Mikela down and the Secretary of Defense is trading witty banter with a green haired punk rock computer genius (in the book anyway, the same character in the movie is an attractive blond with an British accent). The movie ends in a crescendo of robotic violence of epic proportions. I'm not sure how many more cliches could have been squeezed into a single novel/movie. The weird thing is, it works. The novel is better than the movie but only because Alan Dean Foster is a master and he can spend more time building the characters. An example of the time spent on characterization is this bit from an early scene in the book:

Later, as they cruised back toward town, her voice rose above the hum of the Camaro's engine as the car coasted down a hillside road. Sunset muffled the light but did nothing to mute her continuing rant. "I cannot believe I am here," she was saying. "You can duck down if you want," Sam suggested helpfully. "It won't hurt my feelings." She flicked her eyes at him. "Duck down? Are you crazy? Not with you, in your car. Here, in this situation." Leaning back against the headrest, she implored the heavens. "This serves me right. God, I've got such a weakness for hot guys." So this is what grandma meant when she used to talk about someone making her feel knee-high to caterpillar, Sam mused as he mumbled a response. "Yeah, that, that is a weakness."

The story is enjoyable on many levels. My four old, whom I did bring to the movie with me, was only impressed with the last 15 or so minutes. I, on the other hand, read the book in about 8 hours and then two weeks later was held spellbound for the entire two hours and twenty three minutes. The other audience members, who seemed to range from young teen to elderly, were also spellbound. The theater resounded with applause in several places and the applause lasted for several minutes at the end. This movie/book combination has something for everyone. Drama (teen angst, alien invasion, politics, world war), humor (the way the autobots talk, computer geek inside jokes, Sam's slightly tipsy mom and his "special time"), special effects (transforming giant robots), military jargon, and so much more. Some of the humor is decidedly adult but much of it is straight at the teen demographic. Maybe it's just because I am an old fan but I would be willing to see a part 2, if there is one. Want to take odds that there will be? Alan Dean Foster has written a prequel to the movie, Transformers: Ghosts of Yesterday (Transformers (Ballantine Books)). I plan to buy this the next time I am in a book store. If you need a book to while away a lazy weekend or if you have a few hours to burn on a movie, you could do worse than Transformers. LewisC