I'm glad to see any update from MS but where is cloud syncing and minor usability features which never seem to be addressed. Where is the full Mac Office suite including OneNote and where are the iPhone apps; especially an app for Outlook?
It seems to be Microsoft's strategy to keep the Mac version a "light" version in the delusional hope that one would switch to Windows to get all the features. I can't think of anyone who would do that.
I really like Office for Mac but I am ever frustrated by the lack of parity with the Windows version and the lack of iPhone support.
I would like to use Thunderbird as a replacement for Mail/Addressbook in Lion because I dislike the latter apps so much however there appears to be no way to sync my contacts with Thunderbird.
Sure I can import them but if I work with them in Thunderbird there is no apparent way to have the changes sync back to Address Book; rendering sync with my iPhone useless.
After all these years and the success of the iPhone one would think that Thunderbird and Lightening for that matter would sync seamlessly with Apple's info apps. This is the sole reason I don't use this.
If I'm being dumb and not seeing something obvious I'd appreciate some feedback. Thanks.
I want to like this program but alarm window bugs and a poor selection of snooze options keep forcing me back to Outlook. It's too bad because the rest of the program is nice, very competently designed and a pleasure to use. I was hoping to at least see a fix for the alarm window bug (where it appears but is NOT the top-most window and the alarm item isn't selected in the list) but the bug is still there. How hard can it be to make a window appear as the top window? Common, fix this.
Overall, this is an excellent application for anyone looking for more features over Apple's paltry iCal, yet it does have some serious shortcomings when compared to calendars such as Outlook on either Mac or Windows.
The primary of those, at least for my workflow, is alarms. Alarms are the single element of this application which feel unfinished and buggy. When an alarm triggers the window doesn't actually come into focus but remains a background window. The item triggering the alarm is shown but it also isn't in focus; now forcing two unnecessary mouse clicks simply to respond to the alarm.
If I want to snooze the alarm (which I often do) I'm forced to make several more mouse clicks to manually set a time and date for the snooze, forcing me to think far too much.
What I'd prefer is an exact copy of Outlook's snooze options, which I find to be nearly perfect. I especially love the "end of day" and "tomorrow morning" options but they are all useful.
Another annoying aspect of alarms is if an alarm is associated with a recurring task, all the future tasks show up in the alarm window regardless of their alarm status.
These omissions and bugs make this part of the program feel buggy and are annoying to use.
If you are not concerned with alarms, this program is excellent in virtually every other respect and I highly recommend it. If you live by alarms and snooze, as I do, you will be frustrated by the lack of polish and options.
I've been waiting years for this and I'm pretty excited that development is continuing. It is polished and professional and even the beta has worked exceptionally well for me. I think I can speak for many others that only one question remains, what the hell took so long?
Now for a feature request. Alarms, good alarms with lots of snooze settings like Outlook.
Evernote development seems to be going in the opposite direction of what I would like. This update includes "social sharing" as a feature but I don't want or need yet another sharing tool. I'm looking for privacy and security for my notes, neither of which Evernote offers; both by it's nature as a cloud service and the complete lack of password security. Even the ability to password protect the database would be ok for me but I would especially like note level security.
I've got Facebook and many other services for "social sharing" what I want is privacy.
I was able to download it just fine. The update went well and I'm experimenting with sync services sync. I was *very* pleasantly surprised to discover that calendars (i.e. categories) sync as well if favour of the lame method in Entourage where all content was dumped into an "entourage" calendar.
One annoying thing which wasn't fixed is the "are you sure" dialogue when saving a note you edited and the way all new notes start in a new window instead of inline as I want it.
Speed seems much snappier on loading, email and searching.
Well worth the update but problems remain; many of them.
I've used Isolator in the past to fill the gap when Menustrip was unavailable but now that Menustrip has been resurrected from the dead it does this and much more and much better. Yes, it's 10 bucks and this is free but I think it's worth it.
I love it and I'm thrilled to have it back. MenuStrip was the first utility I purchased back in the early days of OS X. It worked well until around 10.4 when I sadly had to abandon it.
I can't tell if anything is new, it doesn't seem like there is but that's ok since this utility is probably the best and most useful utility to pass my wireless in 20 years of computing.
At first it seems replicate functions which already exist but it offers options to truly master your UI and workspace to get the most of your computer. I had this installed for only one day and my workflow has already been transformed.
If you buy it, take time to learn all the features and myriad ways you can use it to improve your computing experience. My two favorite features are the auto-hide button it puts in my menubar (essentially returning the "one-app" feature of the first public beta of OS X and the ability to custom script more little buttons in your menubar to do whatever you want from hiding applications, launching them, applescripts, automator actions or anything with just ONE click.
This is an absolutely terrific utility and I'm positively thrilled to have it back!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Microsoft Office 2011
Cocoanut reviewed on 25 Apr 2012
It seems to be Microsoft's strategy to keep the Mac version a "light" version in the delusional hope that one would switch to Windows to get all the features. I can't think of anyone who would do that.
I really like Office for Mac but I am ever frustrated by the lack of parity with the Windows version and the lack of iPhone support.
+5
Thunderbird
Cocoanut reviewed on 24 Apr 2012
Sure I can import them but if I work with them in Thunderbird there is no apparent way to have the changes sync back to Address Book; rendering sync with my iPhone useless.
After all these years and the success of the iPhone one would think that Thunderbird and Lightening for that matter would sync seamlessly with Apple's info apps. This is the sole reason I don't use this.
If I'm being dumb and not seeing something obvious I'd appreciate some feedback. Thanks.
+2
BusyCal
Cocoanut reviewed on 07 Nov 2011
+6
BusyCal
Cocoanut reviewed on 16 Jun 2011
The primary of those, at least for my workflow, is alarms. Alarms are the single element of this application which feel unfinished and buggy. When an alarm triggers the window doesn't actually come into focus but remains a background window. The item triggering the alarm is shown but it also isn't in focus; now forcing two unnecessary mouse clicks simply to respond to the alarm.
If I want to snooze the alarm (which I often do) I'm forced to make several more mouse clicks to manually set a time and date for the snooze, forcing me to think far too much.
What I'd prefer is an exact copy of Outlook's snooze options, which I find to be nearly perfect. I especially love the "end of day" and "tomorrow morning" options but they are all useful.
Another annoying aspect of alarms is if an alarm is associated with a recurring task, all the future tasks show up in the alarm window regardless of their alarm status.
These omissions and bugs make this part of the program feel buggy and are annoying to use.
If you are not concerned with alarms, this program is excellent in virtually every other respect and I highly recommend it. If you live by alarms and snooze, as I do, you will be frustrated by the lack of polish and options.
+2
The Hit List
Cocoanut reviewed on 31 May 2011
Now for a feature request. Alarms, good alarms with lots of snooze settings like Outlook.
+9
Evernote
Cocoanut reviewed on 26 Apr 2011
I've got Facebook and many other services for "social sharing" what I want is privacy.
Microsoft Office 2011
Cocoanut reviewed on 12 Apr 2011
One annoying thing which wasn't fixed is the "are you sure" dialogue when saving a note you edited and the way all new notes start in a new window instead of inline as I want it.
Speed seems much snappier on loading, email and searching.
Well worth the update but problems remain; many of them.
-1
Isolator
MenuStrip
Cocoanut reviewed on 07 Feb 2011
I can't tell if anything is new, it doesn't seem like there is but that's ok since this utility is probably the best and most useful utility to pass my wireless in 20 years of computing.
At first it seems replicate functions which already exist but it offers options to truly master your UI and workspace to get the most of your computer. I had this installed for only one day and my workflow has already been transformed.
If you buy it, take time to learn all the features and myriad ways you can use it to improve your computing experience. My two favorite features are the auto-hide button it puts in my menubar (essentially returning the "one-app" feature of the first public beta of OS X and the ability to custom script more little buttons in your menubar to do whatever you want from hiding applications, launching them, applescripts, automator actions or anything with just ONE click.
This is an absolutely terrific utility and I'm positively thrilled to have it back!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MindNode
Cocoanut reviewed on 07 Feb 2011