Recently, I got the chance to take a sneek peek at FileMaker’s newest version of Bento. I gotta admit, I’m not much for cataloging my CD or DVD collection or keeping track of the number of times my dog howls aimlessly so when I first heard about Bento last year, I wasn’t nearly as impressed as one of my fellow writers here at iBAM. However, recently I have changed my tune all together. As most of you know, I organize PodCamp AZ and it’s quickly approaching. I have an ever growing number of registrants and a database with all sorts of info that I needed some serious assistance in managing. The stage is set for 2 weeks ago and my chat with a couple reps from FileMaker and their demo of the new Bento.

The tour took less than 30 minutes and in that amount of time, I had learned all of the basic essential skills I needed to manage the database. Within an hour I had exported the PodCamp AZ Registration DB and Bento made it all pretty for me. I was able to see how many were coming, how many are interested in pre-registration, who wants a shirt and how many of each size to order. I gotta admit, I was very impressed!

Well, today’s the day! Bento 2 is finally released and ready for you to play with. It has all sorts of new features and easy to use tools to make your data managing a whole heck of a lot less boring. I would recommend at least giving it a test drive to see what it can do. It might just make you sane again! Below is the official press release so you can check out some of the features and raves. Have fun! [Continued]

It’s finally here! (Well mostly anyway) The iBAM Community has officially launched. Now, I don’t claim to be a Ning Superhero by any stretch of the imagination so I’m gonna keep playing around with the site pretty much indefinitely. As always, iBAM is a community so I need your help. If you have ideas, suggestions or whatever, please feel free to post your thoughts either here or over in the community. Our goal is to make this cool and fun so DO IT! haha

I hope you guys enjoy the community and remember… Just because you bought a Mac (or even if you want to) doesn’t mean the community site has to be ALL MAC STUFF. We all have other interests too so feel free to share as we all celebrate at least the one thing we all have in common, our Mac.

See you over in the community!

- Brent

Hey all… I’m going to the New Media Expo with the Viddler crew. We’re going to be handing out a bunch of t-shirts with our logos to promote Viddler’s new “brand yourself)” campaign. I will also have a few regular iBAM tees with me to give away as well.

I will have a very limited supply of iBoughtAMac/Viddler (brand yourself) tees and a few regular iBAM tees… So if you want one and you’re gonna be there at NME, be sure to let me know (via the comments) and I’ll be sure to hold one aside for you.

Be on the lookout for my “as random as always” NME videos over at the NME Videos site. You can post videos there as well if you tag your Viddler videos with “newmediaexpo2008″ or “newmediaexpo”.

See you at NME!

Ok… So, I got quite a lot of pressure today to open a CafePress Store after posting Cadie’s onesie pics. So, I took my sheets of iron-on’s and the art I had made for the iBAM Tees and uploaded the whole sha-bang to CP for anyone to posses. That said, if you want one of Cadie’s onesies, a semi-spendy front only printed tee or a pretty cool mug, swing by and do your worst. I’ll try to add more stuff as I think of it (or as you suggest it). All proceeds will go to help out here at iBAM. Just remember that if you buy something, please send me a link to a pic of you and/or your iBAM swag. I really geek out over that stuff! Rock on!

Taken from pinkforoctober.org

Web sites will Go Pink during the month of October to bring attention to Breast Cancer Awareness Month, get people talking about breast cancer, and raise money for research.

But to be clear, raising money isn’t the primary purpose of this web event.

The hope is that you turn your site pink (in whatever way works for your site), go out to that World Wide Web thing (in fact you’re on it right now!) and educate yourself about the multiple issues related to Breast Cancer, then take that newfound knowledge and tell someone else what you’ve learned.