We would love to read your answers in the comments.

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In this case the actual project URLs will fall out of sync with the URL and IP address that Merlin has originally published. Fortunately, there is a solution readily at hand thanks to the free service provided by DynDNS.org that allows you to create a static host name that can be used instead.

Creating a DynDNS account and a host service is free of charge. This service can convert the dynamically generated and ever-changing IP address that your router obtains from your ISP to a static host name and automatically route to your location. This way you will have a reliable URL that can be used for accessing Merlin projects from a web browser which otherwise would not be possible.

To do so, please proceed as follows:

1. Call in your web browser www.dyndns.org and click onto ‘Create Account’



2. You will be asked to enter information for creating your account by DynDNS and will receive an email on the registered address. To activate your account you need to click  a confirmation URL contained in the email.
3. Log-in once again into DynDNS, navigate to ‘Account’ and ‘Add Host Services’



4. Type a host name and select the desired domain. Supposedly you would like to create “myproject” as the domain prefix name for the domain “homeunix.org”, you simply type  myproject as a host name and select homeunix.org out of the domain pop up. This would result in an address like http://myproject.homeunix.org.
5. Enter in the IP Address field the current IP Address of your router or click onto ‘Your current location’s IP address’
   
   Some routers may not support this configuration option, but DynDNS.org provides free software for the Mac which helps you map your dynamically IP address to this newly created host of your account.
6. Press ‘Add To Cart’ and proceed as DynDNS advises.

Once you have identified your static host name as provided by DynDNS.org, you can now use it for all Merlin projects you will be publishing with the Web Module. This means you can manually alter the URL so that it uses the static host name before providing it to users for web access.
For example, let’s assume that Merlin has generated the following URL for your published project: http://123.456.789.012:7080/wa/default?title=Client-Website

You can swap out the IP address 123.456.789.012 with the complete domain name myproject.homeunix.org. The resulting URL can now get propagated and used to access your Merlin project through a web browser:

http://myproject.homeunix.org:7080/wa/default?title=Client-Website

Updated:

by Vicky Stamatopoulou

Revised text and screenshots

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Frank Blome, our CEO, was interviewed by Richard Joerges at the CeBit, on the second day of the trade show.
He was asked for a resumé to the CeBIT so far and whether he sees any current trends in the Project Management.

Frank talks about Windows based PMs thinking about switching to the Mac platform, traditional project management, Agile and Scrum.  Enjoy the interview

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Supposedly you plan an activity of 5 days work to be accomplished in the duration of 10 days. As an experienced PM and Merlin user you create the activity in your project as follows:

This results to a 50% utilization for the assigned resource

Your resource starts working on this activity and at the end of its second day, enters the actual work done so far. This translates by the current utilization (50%) to a progress of 4 calendar days:

Now your resource and you realise that the originally planned  5 days of work are not enough to complete the activity, and that rather a total of 7 days would be necessary, so you enter this information into the actuals:

You notice the delay in accomplishing your goal and inform your client accordingly but he insists that the task should be completed on time.

Well, this is fine for Merlin. You simply switch to the ‘Plan’ pane of the inspector, enter the latest end date and enable the ‘fix’ flag:

If you now check the utilization view you’ll see the new dynamically adjusted percentage of the assigned resource calculated as 70%

Your goal is achieved if your resource manages to complete this activity on the March 19, 2010, which is by a utilization of 70%  rather probable.

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We are testing Merlin for project management on the Mac and are very interested to use your solution but there is one functionality which seems to be not covered in the web access; we are not able to add elements (risk, issue, or files)

That’s correct. Merlin in the web module allows users working on other platforms to collaborate on Merlin files using a web browser*. It is not just another implementation of the Merlin Mac OS X application for the web.
While behaving similarly to the native Merlin application, its functionality and graphical user interface  is deliberately minimalized** to insure better usability from web users not having deeper Merlin knowledge.

_

*) Supported web browser: IE7, IE8 in compatibility mode, Safari 4, Firefox 3

**) All differences between Merlin on Mac OS X and in the Web module: here

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Under a quality system, if it wasn’t documented (according to your own rules), IT NEVER HAPPENED!

Found in a post about Managing Projects in the Medical Device Marketplace

My thoughts in random order:

• It pays to document things as you do them, it’s a horror to catch up later on
• There is no such thing as over-documentation
• Next team meeting ToDo:  Suggest to develop dietary supplements additionally to our Mac OS X project management software; Merlin
• When documenting don’t forget localisation aspects

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Why is it that we seek a silver bullet to magically solve all of our problems?

Found here

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… the world’s foremost tradeshow for the digital industry in Hannover – Germany

If you prefer some independent information about Cebit 2010  you may want to check this one.

OS X Business Park: 25 companies with business solutions for Macs and iPhones. A fitting place for your favourite wizard.

Our CEO, Frank Blome presenting Project Managent on the Mac OS X with Merlin.

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• MS Project (.mpx, .mpp, .xml)
• OmniOutliner (.ooutline, .oo3)
• OmniPlan (.omniplan)
• NovaMind (.nmind)
• MindManager (.mmap)
• Merlin 1 (.merlin)
• Merlin 2 (.xml)
• Text files (.txt, .csv, .tsv)
• OPML files (.opal)

So you look on the list above, have project WBS saved in MS EXCEL and don’t know how to proceed?

Well, it is easy. You can open your EXCEL file in Microsoft Excel, and save as a text file. It can be a tab separated text file or a CSV.

Now you can drop it onto Merlin’s application icon or use the File > Open dialog.

Note:

• If your EXCEL file contains more than the WBS you want to use in Merlin (for example some commenting text on the first or trailing rows), copy the cells with the column header and the data, paste into a new worksheet, and select this sheet when saving into a text file.

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