Was Merlin a project manager? (part two)
Frank Blome on 12. October 2009
There is usually a long story behind a successful product. This applies for Merlin and my first visions about it in 2003.
Here is how the drama started.
Was Merlin a project manager? (part two)
….We were looking for alternatives. Someone in the company started to [ab]use MS Excel as a project management tool. In the beginning I found this to be a good idea, and followed willingly. Some weeks later we had scripted a great amount of data sheets with innumerable charts. It was fine for separate projects but made our overview on all running projects smaller day by day. When colleagues began again to do their job manually, bypassing the scripts and their automations, it became clear to me that we needed yet again another, better solution.
Tags: Excel, Mac OS X, Merlin, Merlin Project Management, MS Office X, MS Project, PM, Project Management Software, Project Manager, Story, Windows
Was Merlin a project manager? (part one)
Frank Blome on 7. October 2009
There is usually a long story behind a successful product. This applies for Merlin and my first visions about it in 2003.
But first things first. Back in 2002, founding ProjectWizards, I decided to switch to Mac OS X. It was a relatively new operating system based on NeXTSTEP, which Apple bought and developed further. The excellent quality that Apple machines had, and still have, was one of the main reasons for switching. With MS Office X, we had a good basic software package for daily work. And even though Word, Excel and PowerPoint on Mac were always a step behind their Windows versions, they contained the functions we needed. Last but not least they offered a relatively good compatibility to Windows files. All this was necessary for our job at ProjectWizards; Project management. And here is where the drama starts.
We tried at first FastTrack Schedule by AEC. It was the only Mac OS X application for project management available, with all limitations and problems of a classic OS 9 application. The software had some inconsistencies making its professional use by ProjectWizards impossible.
The next step wasn’t any easier. Virtual machines were not performing well on PowerPC based Macs, so MS Project on MacOS X was not an option. We had tested Windows machines with terminal server, accessed by “remote desktop”. But this was not really a better solution either…
Tags: Excel, FastTrack Schedule, Mac OS X, Merlin, MS Office on Mac OS X, MS Office X, MS Project, MS Project on Mac, PM, Project Management Software, Project Manager, Story, Virtual machines, Windows
Our shop was down
Frank Blome on 4. August 2009
Update: We are back in business – you can now order again.
Due to technical issues at our billing provider Share-It, Merlin can temporarily not be acquired. We already did contacted our billing provider and learned they have already started to worked on that matter. In important cases please contact our support and ask for a temporary license. Please contact support@merlin2.net.
Tags: Billing, Merlin, Share-It
Online Training Trial
Frank Blome on 31. March 2008
Last week we conducted our first interactive Merlin online training session using Leopard’s iChat screen sharing. It was a pleasant experience. The client appreciated the interactive mode and being able to talk and see what we were doing during the session. Fortunately, we encountered just a few glitches with audio that by re-establishing the connection could quickly resolve.
We are committed to conducting more sessions in the future. If it continues to be well received, we will begin offering a one-on-one session and a webinar, where multiple people can join in for training. If you have any other thoughts on this topic, please let us know and we will be happy to consider them.
US-Dollar, sorry about your exchange rate
Frank Blome on 31. March 2008
This weekend ProjectWizards held a meeting due to the troubling situation of the exchange rate between the US-Dollar and the Euro. Over the past 6 months we have been selling Merlin under price when compared to the Euro. As you can see here, this is a huge problem for us – as it is for every Euro-based company:
So unfortunately we decided repricing action was necessary:
Effective April 3, 2008, the price for ProjectWizards’ Merlin 2 application for new users will increase $20 USD, to $225 USD. This slight price increase is to accommodate for the difference between the two currencies which Merlin operates in, namely the USD and the Euro.
As a reminder, all current Merlin 2.x licensed users will receive all updates within the 2.x series for free. And last not least, should the US Dollar become stronger, we will consider correcting the price again.
Training Opportunity in London, UK
Frank Blome on 25. March 2008
Many Merlin users have been clamoring for training opportunities in order to expand their knowledge of Merlin, so when we discovered the right training partner in London-based LgoConsulting, we decided to seize the opportunity and begin offering personalized training.
The two-day training session will be held April 22 and 23, 2008, in London, and will offer a comprehensive overview of Merlin’s most important features. This course will be of benefit to both new and seasoned users to Merlin, as we will cover not only the basics of Merlin but also some of the differences between earlier versions and the latest release, version 2.5, which was released this past January.
The training will take place on April 22 and 23, 2008 at The Space Centre Conference Rooms, Judd Street, Central London conveniently located near King’s Cross St. Pancreas Station. The cost for the conference is £495 payable to LgoConsulting Ltd.
For more information or to register for this Merlin training session, please contact Gareth Watson, Director of LgoConsulting Ltd., at gwatson@LgoConsulting.co.uk or via telephone at +44-(0)845-124-9255.
Merlin 2.5.2 Handbook is now available
Frank Blome on 13. March 2008
Since most of us are always on the hunt for some exciting bedtime reading material, we’ve answered the call by compiling Merlin’s Help content into a single PDF. You can download it here. Sweet dreams….
Merlin 2.5.2 is out
Frank Blome on 6. March 2008
Merlin 2.5.2 has been released into the wild along with many tweaks and fixes. Get it now while it is hot.
Change Log
New Features
- Initial beta version of the French localization added.
- In reports, users can define colors for charts or graphs in the options.
- There are now two new orderings for resource leveling.
- Implemented two separate modes for dynamic shifting. You can now specify, whether only the expected values should be dynamically shifted, or planned and expected values.
Changes
- If opening a remote project file did not work, Merlin now provides a better error description.
- Resource users are now allowed to have empty passwords.
- Activities starting on non-working times without a specified work value do not generate warnings anymore.
- The field “assigned resources” now reflects the actual ordering of the assignments.
- Some minor translation issues and typos have been fixed.
- The English and German Help files are improved.
Resolved Issues
- Some reports did not work correctly with combined projects.
- Under some circumstances Merlin could crash if the login dialog was canceled.
- If an activity group was separated into a linked project the resulting file could sometimes not be saved.
- The values in the field “Default Work” were not persistent.
- Linking a project under some circumstances wrongly modified the start date of the main project.
- Deleting linked projects could lead to exceptions.
- QuickLook previews were generated for password-protected files.
- Under some circumstances, activites could not start on certain working times.
- The report “Next Due Activities” did include groups.
- Warnings were even shown if they were turned off.
- In single page PDF export the outline header was wrongly placed.
- Under some circumstances actual values could not be cleared.
- For certain values, changing the “Given planned duration” was not possible.
- Activating a workspace did not correctly update the print settings if the print dialog had been opened before.
- Notes of linked projects did not show up in the inspector.
- Changing the resource initials did not update the “assigned resources” field in the Gantt chart.
- Finish-finish dependencies were sometimes wrongly allowed between summary tasks.
- Calendar exceptions could not be imported from .ics files.
Tags: Merlin, Release notes, Update
MacUser Reviews Merlin 2.5
Frank Blome on 11. February 2008
We were honored to see that MacUser 
has awarded Merlin a perfect 5 mice rating. You can read the review on their website.
Tags: Awards
Merlin (Mac OS X) vs. MS Project 2007 (Win)
Frank Blome on 11. February 2008
We shy away from answering Merlin vs. X type questions because we don’t think we will be 100% objective (well maybe 90% 
). When customers answer that kind of question, we like to share it with the rest of the world. In this case, a Merlin user has posted his opinion on Merlin vs. MS Project. Check it out here .
Tags: Merlin (Mac) vs MS Project
Merlin social network
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PMOT, AGILE Tweets
- Focus on What to Leave Out http://t.co/m4iWDsHQuT Be very aware of the true cost of adding capabilities #agile #pmot SolutionsIQ (SolutionsIQ)
- RT @versionone: Accelerate enterprise #agile with SAFe - see the slides from AgileLIVE pt.1 here: http://t.co/6vdL8AccCM #pmot #pmi #leanma… vaxxecorp (Vaxxe Interactive)
- Accelerate enterprise #agile with SAFe - see the slides from AgileLIVE pt.1 here: http://t.co/6vdL8AccCM #pmot #pmi #leanmanagement versionone (VersionOne)
- Congratulations to the 233 people who passed thier #PMI- #ACP last month! that makes 2,858 PMI-ACPs #pmiacp #pmiagile #pmot #agile joseph_flahiff (Whitewater Projects)
- The Inconsistency of Agile #pmot #agile #edtech http://t.co/cyX2IrNmZt TeamDynamixHE (TeamDynamixHE)