CeBit 2010
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 2. March 2010
Merlin and ProjectWizards are this year as intended at the CeBit 2010 in the OS X Business Park. According to the organisators, CeBit is
… 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.
Tags: Business solutions, CeBit, Germany, Hannover, Mac OS X, Merlin
Merlin: Adjusting keyboard shortcuts
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 28. October 2009
It is very easy to adjust keyboard shortcuts or add new ones on Mac OS X. There is a specific tab in the preference pane ‘Keyboard’. Shortcuts will be shown on the right side of the menu entries they are assigned to.
The shortcut Shift + Command + N for example is assigned per default to the Merlin’s menu entry ‘New Project…’ as listed under the File menu:
Surely you have noticed that the command ’Combine Projects…’ has no shortcut. Here is how to proceed in case you want to assign one.
Tags: Mac OS X, Merlin, Merlin 101
Was Merlin a project manager? (part four)
Frank Blome on 20. 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. Here and here how it continued.
Was Merlin a project manager? (part four)
The product name Merlin was defined even before the first code line was written. We were ProjectWizards; our software simply had to bear a name of a magician. We have many names from the Arthurian legend in use, so the decision was not very far-fetched.
Exactly like the legendary figure Merlin, Arthur’s magician advisor, should our Merlin be a wizard and advisor for project management. There was no necessity in finding a good name considering marketing aspects. Merlin was meant to be sold only to selected partners. Pretty naive…
Frank Illenberger and I held our first kick-off-meeting on April 9th 2004 in Frankfurt. We had talked about the concept, answered questions and mentioned ideas. Frank intended to work two days per week on programming Merlin. We defined a vague target date, as none of us had ever worked on a similar project. At that time Frank had experience on only small programs. Have I mentioned how naive we both were?
Tags: Apple Expo, Business plan, Mac OS X, Merlin, PM, Project Manager, Story
Was Merlin a project manager? (part three)
Frank Blome on 16. 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.
And this is how it continued.
Was Merlin a project manager? (part three)
…It was decided, we would get someone to write a piece of software just for us. As mentioned before, we were not developers so could not do it on our own. The creation of a first concept was quickly completed. Our own partners and customers helped us on its definition. My intension was to refinance the project through the sale of software licenses to selected customers. I was even thinking, that with a bit of luck, our own license could even be free. Pretty naive…
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, MS Office X, MS Project, PM, 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, PM, Project Manager, Story, Virtual machines, Windows
Merlin: MacOS X Firewall
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 17. September 2009
As you know Merlin has very powerful publishing features that allow you to publish your project files, and share them with other users or other applications.
You can publish your saved project files to:
- Other users using Merlin’s powerful Project Sharing. This will allow you to collaborate with other Merlin users using the same project file.
- The Web using Merlin’s own Web Module
- The iPhone or iPod touch using Merlin’s own iPhone Application
- iCal so you can synchronize your activities with iCal
When allowing external access to your machine you should consider setting up a Firewall. This is usually done in your router, but some users would like to use the built-in MacOS X Firewall. Here is a small description of how to set your Firewall for Merlin 2 and Merlin Server 2 on a current MacOS X 10.6.1 (snow leopard) configuration.
Tags: Firewall, Mac OS X, Merlin, Merlin 101, Merlin Server, Merlin Web, Server
Merlin: Formatting text
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 2. September 2009
Do you often write notes on activities or resources? Surely you have noticed that you can use the spell checking features of Mac OS X here to. Have you ever needed the possibility to format it accordingly and was wondering how to do so?
The answer on this is very simple.
Tags: Mac OS X, Merlin, Merlin 101
Merlin: How to update…
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 31. August 2009
Whenever a new Merlin version appears, Merlin will prompt you for an update. This can happen automatically on Merlin’s start up, or the next time you have defined in the preferences that the application should check.
Tags: Mac OS X, Merlin, Merlin 101, Update
Merlin Server: How to update…
Vicky Stamatopoulou on 28. August 2009
Sharing your projects for remote, web or iPhone access is very easy and straight forwards. If you follow the simple steps described in the Quick Start Quide, everything works as expected, nice and silently.
When a new Merlin version appears, Merlin will prompt you for an update, but how to proceed for updating the Merlin Server? Surely you don’t want it causing additional traffic just for its checks. And you definitely do not like updating a server software during the active working times interrupting its service, or even have it done unattended.
So here is a short description on this:
Tags: Mac OS X, Merlin, Merlin 101, Merlin Server, Server, Update
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- RT @ourfounder: If you don't question, you don't improve. #pmot #agile #lean mdturner (mdturner)
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