AAUG Reviews

by Mike Baranowski ,AAUG Member

Installing the application on my Mac Book Pro went smoothly.
* It is already a universal binary so one installation is optimized for either the older PowerPC or new Intel processor. I downloaded the installer from www.omnigroup.com. It is highly recommended to use Leopard for the version I am reviewing. There are known issues of version 1.1.2 and Leopard. So use version 1.5 of OmniPlan with Leopard.
* You can request a full trial version of OmniPlan for a 24 hour period after which you can request it again if you need more time. Omni does this for all their products. You can use a demo version of OmniPlan for as long as you like but as long as your version is unlicensed you are limited to projects with less then 20 activities. I have always been happy with Omni Groups products but it is still very nice that you can work evaluate a full application before you buy.

Omni Group captures the essence of this product in their subtitle for OmniPlan: Project management made painless. Projects are temporary endeavors with a beginning and end that produce a product or service. To be considered Project Management Software, the product needs to be able to cover; task dependency, scheduling, cost controls, resource allocation, collaboration, communication, and produce quality documentation to keep projects on track. (more…)

by Zachary Zaletel ,AAUG Member

Intro

Whether you are a chef, a doctor, hauling packages for UPS or just trying to figure out where to plant vegetables in your garden, maybe you’ve run into this situation – you’re trying to convey an idea or topic which you have some expertise in to another person and, despite your best efforts and years of hard-won experience, they’re just not comprehending. Often, a sketch or drawing will help bridge the gap and get your idea across. This, I think, is the actual reason that cocktail napkins were born, but we’re not here to discuss that. Instead, I’m going to talk about OmniGraffle, which is a diagramming/mapping/drawing software produced in the secret island fortress of The Omni Group. OmniGraffle might just replace those hastily sketched cocktail napkins in your life.

Program / Features

OmniGraffle was last review just over two years ago by Garrit Dalman, and I do encourage you to read his thoughts here. He was spot on in writing that OmniGraffle is “…the best diagramming application available on any platform. It’s a feature-rich application for brainstorming, serious flow-charting, and even drawing.”

Since I don’t want to repeat his efforts, I thought I would talk (more…)

by Zachary Zaletel ,AAUG Member

Looking around the web recently, I stumbled onto OmniOutliner and was curious if they’d managed, once again, to make a piece of software that, on it’s face, doesn’t sound all that interesting, into something that is efficient and a pleasure to use. Can OmniOutliner handle the rather chaotic series of events that is my writing process?

Program Features

Opening up Outliner, you’re presented with little more than a blank slate to start typing at. Simply start typing away and Outliner will capture your thoughts. Want to make certain sections fall under headings? Just hit tab and the section you’re writing in will indent. Decided that what you’re typing should be a section of its own? Hit shift-tab to undent (I probably made that word up) the section. After you’ve outlined your opus and step back, you can take a look at it as a whole. Roll up or down the sub levels as needed (Pro version only). Cut and paste or simply use the grab-dots to drag your thoughts, er, the sections around until things seem to gel. While that briefly the basic mission of the program, and you may be thinking to yourself Word (Pages, OpenOffice, insert your program of choice here) has an outlining mode, OmniOutliner does quite a bit more.
Under the file menu are the New File, Open File, Close, etc… standard options which you find everywhere. There is also a New from template option which expands the options available. In my experience, (more…)