Blog

Happy Holidays and Prosperous New Year!

I'm sure many of you are like me. I organize my daily routine with to-do lists. That way, no tasks get forgotten. Even the list of tasks that absolutely had to be done before the holidays is now checked off.

Recently, I came across a to-do list for students on the web that gave them tasks for the Christmas vacations. There I read things like.

• 🎬 Watch a Christmas movie.
• 📖 Read a good book
• 😁 Make someone laugh
• 🍪 Snack on delicious Christmas cookies
• 🍹 Sip some delicious punch

I immediately felt addressed, even though I'm not a kid anymore, this list is on my desk now and I plan to work through it over the holidays 😉

Time for me to flip up the keyboard and enjoy Christmas with my favorite people.

The whole ProjectWizards team wishes you a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and all the best for 2023.

Grown up at last!

Happy 18th birthday, Merlin Project!

Like for everyone in Germany, the 18th birthday is also something special for our Merlin Project. Finally of age - finally grown up. Our project management software was released 18 years ago today and has lost none of its magic to this day. Happy birthday.

We could only achieve this together. Thanks to

• our developers for their thoughtful approaches and realization of functional wishes,
• our supporters for their fast, competent and always friendly help,
• our partners for their support and mediation,
• Frank Blome, our boss, who challenges and encourages us.

But our sincere thanks also go to you, our customers. You support us through your subscription, but also through your feedback in the further development of Merlin Project.

Without each and every one of you, Merlin Project would not still be the fun project management solution on the Mac and iPad that we enjoy working with. Thank you!

When To Pull The Plug On Your Project

Recently, an article appeared in our local newspaper reporting the closure of a restaurant just a few months after it opened. The reasons given by the operator were that despite the positive feedback from the guests, the restaurant operation will not be profitable in the foreseeable future. This is due to the general price increase and the associated cost explosion.

Surely this is only one case among many. A project is terminated here because the operator sees no future in the current situation. But when is it time to consider a project a failure and end it? Is it enough that the budget has been used up? Should it only be abandoned when the project goal cannot be achieved?

TED Talks for Project Managers

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design and is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to the dissemination of ideas.

The importance of TED in the United States is comparable to that of the World Economic Forum in Davos in Europe, one of the most prominent forums for information exchange across sectors and interdisciplinary boundaries. However, TED has evolved from the progressive, liberal, tech-savvy environment of the West Coast, and so TED is much more about inspiration, positive thinking, "looking forward", and networking with other "changemakers" than Davos is.

True to the motto

Ideas worth spreading

an exclusive group of professionals from a wide range of fields share their ideas in the form of short (maximum 18 minutes), powerful talks at the annual innovation conference. The best of these are later published on the TED Talks website as free videos.

Settle subscriptions via the Apple App Store as a company

What has long been standard practice on iPhones and iPads for some time increasingly applies now to Mac software too: buying software from Apple's App Store and subscribing to it.

The benefits are obvious:

• Software for your Mac, iPhone or iPad can be found in one central place.
• The App Store is pre-installed and can be used without much effort.
• Software is checked by Apple and only then released for the App Store. Malware can thus be excluded.
• Software updates are made available for download centrally via the App Store and, depending on your settings, are loaded automatically.
• Apple takes care of the protection of your personal data and does not pass it on to third parties - not even to the software developers.
• You have central access to all App Store purchases in the purchase history.
• Your billing information is linked to your personal Apple ID, so you don't have to re-enter your data and payment information for each purchase.

However, this last point in particular presents many companies with a challenge in terms of accounting for expenses. The link to a personal Apple ID means that purchase receipts are not issued to the company, but to the user.