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Recently, I wanted to watch a couple of log files for new entries and have them sent to an http endpoint for collection and later analysis. I did a quick research on what tools exist, but eventually decided to create a small Python app myself which doesn’t require a complicated setup. I thought of something along the lines of: pip install <the module> Define which log files to watch and where to send the contents to Run it from the terminal. And so I built it. ...

Here is a little story about resolving an issue with a web site that turned out not to be an issue with a web site :-) A client approached me and asked, if I could look into an issue they were having with their web app. Multiple users, mainly from mobile devices, were reporting 404 Not Found errors when accessing the site’s domain. Server error for some devices? 🤨 It sounded like a strange thing that the server would give a 404 for some mobile devices. I tried to reproduce the issue, but was not able to do so, neither on one of my devices (mobile or not) nor on devices from an external device farm. ...

Have you ever gotten the following error after trying to encrypt your FileMaker databases? Due to an error encountered, File encryption/decryption was skipped. File:my_file.fmp12 [853] Error 853 refers to One or more containers failed to transfer in the error code listing and herein usually lies the problem. When you encrypt your database, make sure to place the existing external container data into the same folder as the database you want to encrypt. It is not enough to copy the RC_Data_FMS directory straight from the server. You need to have the external container data in a folder called Files. ...

Today I needed to debug a scheduled script and test its behavior when run in the Windows Local System account instead of my regular domain user’s (this was on Windows Server 2016 but should work the same in (much) older versions). I did a bit of research and found a tool from the PsTools suite on sysinternals called PsExec. It is mainly for executing programs on remote machines and gives you the ability to launch interactive command prompts. Good stuff, even though we only need a tiny portion of its capabilities. ...

A few hours ago FileMaker 17 was released, and with it an updated Data API, which is now finally out of trial phase. Depending on your situation and if you have used the Data API in v16, there’s good and bad news. The bad news is that all API paths have been renamed, response formats have changed, authentication works a little different, and a few other little changes here and there. The good news is: if you have been using my python-fmrest wrapper library, little to no adjustments are necessary to make your existing app compatible with FileMaker 17 😎. If you have not used the library but have an app that you need to update, you might still be interested in reading a bit further to get a summary of the changes. ...