![]() The database is manually updated (via an automated script) with data I download from E-junkie. I hadn’t used FileMaker extensively in nearly a decade, but my basic skills came back pretty easily. To make sure we better tracked our sales activity going forward, I created a FileMaker Pro customer database. FileMaker Pro 11 ($ varies): One of the issues I faced when joining Many Tricks was incomplete historical customer data.Most of our customers (over 80%) use PayPal, and it seems they process orders more quickly than does Google Checkout. ![]() ![]() credit card approvals) after a user places an order with the E-junkie online store. PayPal and Google Checkout (% commission): These two companies handle payment processing (i.e.While Rob thinks they have a less-than-ideal name (Peter of course finds that name hilarious, but then, he also thought “Textpander” was funny), they provide a great service, and their system is very flexible and easy to work with. E-junkie ($ varies): The provider of our online shopping cart.We like THL’s elegant interface, and its support for tagging lets us manage a number of complex mini-projects with ease. While THL isn’t a true multi-user app, we’ve sort of solved that by using Dropbox: we moved the THL support files into a folder on Dropbox, and now we can both see and work with the same set of data-just not at the same time. The Hit List ($50): We use The Hit List (THL) to track all of our to dos for current and future apps, and for the business itself.We wonder how they can afford to make it a free service, though. Dropbox fits the bill perfectly, and makes it super easy for us to share our files back and forth-any changes made to the shared folder are automatically duplicated to all our Macs. Dropbox (free): With the distance between us, we needed some easy way to move files back and forth.Without iChat or something like it, our time and distance separation would make running the business much tougher. Most of our written communication is via iChat (so we both have transcripts enabled, to record what we type), and we use screen sharing (to work through the product design and implementation process) and video chat (so we can occasionally speak instead of type). iChat (free with Mac OS X): We rely on iChat extensively.In this part, we’ll discuss how we keep the business running and some general Mac applications we use every day. In the first part, we discussed how we create our applications and manage our online activities. Welcome back to the second part of our behind-the-scenes look at the tools of Many Tricks’ trade.
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