It’s funny how you can make a tiny change which on the surface seems innocent but underneath reaps enormous consequences.

Take, for example, our accounts database. It was created back in 1991 when the accounts were first computerised. FileMaker Pro 1 was the chosen software, largely because we had a copy and it came with a set of templates for an American-based business. In those days FileMaker was only a flat file database but it had look-up facilities in a one direction, relational sort of way. It is a big tribute to FileMaker’s creators that we were able to recreate a whole accounting package, working only from the on-line help files, but this is the nature of Apple’s software which ‘just works’.

A Little History
FileMaker’s first incarnation was in the early 1980 as a DOS based program called Nutshell. When the Mac appeared in 1984, Nutshell was adapted for GUI, as a result became far easier to use and was renamed FileMaker. At one point it nearly became a Microsoft program when they bought up FileMaker’s distributors, Nashoba. FileMaker was not part of the package and actually outsold Microsoft’s own database, imaginatively called Microsoft File, in it’s pre-nascent Microsoft Office suite. Shortly after, Apple bought FileMaker, renumbered it and published it under their Claris label.

Over the years FileMaker has become one of the easiest RDBMS to use, gaining features and rewrites, crossed platforms and always had the ability to make changes on the fly. Which is exactly what I had done. A recent switch of car meant I was entering diesel costs into a field called ‘Petrol’. Being a neat and tidy person (ha!) I changed the name to ‘Diesel’, entered the last three months receipts and tried to do my VAT return.

Bigger than Felix Dennis’s tax bill
Apparently I owe HM Customs and Excise eight million quid. I would happily pay this were it true, thinking what our turnover would have to be to accumulate a tax bill larger than Felix Dennis’s. Since I have no recollection of such wealth passing through our meagre accounts, something had gone horribly wrong. A moment’s delving into FileMaker showed the error. The ‘Petrol’ field set up 15 years ago, was referenced in many calculations which, because of our lack of advanced maths, were done with simple additions, subtractions and so on. Changing the field to ‘Diesel’ had confused the rest of the database. A quick retyping of its name saw eight million become eight hundred. Which is just as unachievable but at least we don’t have to skip the country.

A Blog too far
As you may have noticed, ITPro have changed their blogging system. Editor Chris has a soft spot for the WordPress system chosen but there’s no accounting for taste. Everything was hush-hush for the last few months until the switch-over last weekend. On the surface all seemed well, staffers were able to propel pearls of wisdom onto virtual paper but us lesser minions, or this one at least, were sent to blogging purgatory.

Trying to do even the simplest of actions sent a gazzillion password boxes at Firefox which got stuck in an endless loop until force-quitted. Safari, by far the best browser for the Mac, coped better but WordPress has decided it doesn’t want to display correctly in Safari. It appeared blogging was impossible.

It’s that blooming butterfly’s wing
Luckily ITPro’s canny second in command and power behind the throne, saw the solution. During the trial period, images were relocated but when WordPress became live the new locations were not automatically updated. Unfortunately for Maggie, it means a lot of work to re-code every URL involving a photograph and now, further problems have arisen with the changes to changes.

As may have been noted by Lorenz, pioneer of Chaos Theory, it’s not the butterfly’s wing you have to worry about, it’s the seagull’s. And we live on an island surrounded by sea.