From linda at omnigroup.com Thu Feb 2 13:35:56 2006 From: linda at omnigroup.com (Linda Sharps) Date: Thu Feb 2 13:36:29 2006 Subject: OmniNews - Issue #18 Message-ID: <729A1FF0-0EBB-4F95-A48F-FCD3B423DE3B@omnigroup.com> OmniNewsletter www.omnigroup.com - 2/2/06 Issue #18 Hello, faithful subscribers! Surely you are all a-glisten with the fevered joy that can only mean one thing - that there is an actual t- shirt available in reference to most awesomely-named movie of all time . Also, a newsletter! Man, everything's coming up Milhouse! WHAT'S NEW -------------------------------------------------------+ Perhaps you've heard about these Apple machines sporting fancy new Intel chips? I was especially thrilled to hear about the new iMacs being as how I bought my OWN iMac a few months ago, and now there's a new version that's twice as fast, which is great, because.... Actually, it fills me with the white-hot rage of a thousand suns. Ahem. However! This newsletter isn't about *me* (until I figure out how to send these things without my boss noticing and THEN, my friends, IT'S ON), it's about Omni, and you should know that mere moments after the Macworld keynote we had released Universal binary versions of OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, OmniDiskSweeper, OmniObjectMeter, and OmniDictionary. Of course, by "released" I mean "ran around all crazy trying to update the website while our web gurus were in San Francisco", but the point is we were ready, we were poised, and at the appropriate moment we struck - just like a snake on a plane! Or, a finely tuned team of Mac geeks. Whatever. You can grab all the updates for free - assuming, of course, that you're a current owner of these fine applications, and why wouldn't you be? - at . "But what about OmniWeb?" I can hear you, you know. Don't think I can't. Unfortunately, OmniWeb is taking a little longer; our Web team is pounding away behind giant stacks of empty Mountain Dew cans in order to release OmniWeb 5.5, which will feature the latest rendering libraries based on Apple's WebKit as well as the native compatibility with Intel-based Macs. OmniWeb, we have not forsaken you! We leave no software behind! DID SOMEBODY SAY FREE SOFTWARE -------------------------------------------------------+ Looking for an excuse to run out and buy new Apple hardware? I've got your justification right chyeah, baby: buy a Powerbook or Power Mac, and both OmniGraffle and OmniOutliner are yours, all yours. For "free"! Buy an iMac or MacBook Pro, and while you miss out on the free OmniGraffle love, you'll still get OmniOutliner. These are fully licensed copies of the standard versions, not demos, because we are just that incredibly generous. If you have our software bundled on your machine, but you'd like to be using the PRO editions (you savvy "prosumer", you!), fear not: discounted upgrade pricing is available. All you need is your computer's serial number and purchase date, and our spiffy online store will walk you through the process of upgrading your bundle license. We're spamming you with newsletters, we're putting our products on your computers; next up in our ultra-intrusive guerilla campaign: Omni sneaks into your bedroom and leaves software under your pillow. Droolers exempt. RECENT ACCOLADES WE DID NOT EVEN HAVE TO PAY FOR ------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------+ Back in December, we received a Macworld Editor's Choice Award in 'best productivity software' for OmniOutliner Professional. This was very cool, because aside from the fact that it's a prestigious, well- recognized industry award, we got this killer STATUE, which is big and gold(ish) and can be used as a prop to imitate Sally Field's 1985 Oscar acceptance speech. Our Eddy award has occasionally been spotted canoodling with our 2003 MacUser "Maxine" statue, which, hello, May- December relationship much? *Scandalous.* Anyway, Philip Michaels, the Online Content Director over at Macworld magazine, wrote this about OmniOutliner: "It's great that Mac users have so many options when it comes to outliners, but as far as I'm concerned, there's only one choice". And you know what he was talking about, right? Right? OMNIOUTLINER THAT'S WHAT. Boo-yah! But wait, there's more: ? We had a nice write-up about OmniGraffle in Macworld's December issue, which gave us a 4.5 mice (out of 5) rating ? Mr. Andy "Fancypants" Inhatko mentioned us over at MacDevCenter.com, saying, in part: "I use it as a database, I use it for accounting, I use it for ordering ideas, I use it for snippets of information that otherwise defy categorization... All thanks to OmniOutliner." ? Low End Mac talked up OmniGraffle in January, describing how to use Graffle for big presentation graphics If you'd like to catch up on these reviews, or read actual Omni press releases that are at least 50% less ridiculous than this missive, visit . UNSOLICITED USER LOVE -------------------------------------------------------+ We recently heard from esteemed user Isaac, who had this to say: - - - "Last night I purchased the production bundle. So beautiful... Now I'm verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves. Seriously guys, kick [email edited for mature content] job. You have definitely found a loyal enthusiast." - - - The reason this particular user love section is extra special to me: I got to include a semi-naughty word. Almost. If you didn't already know about Omni's Productivity Bundle, it's a...well, a *bundle*, of four Omni apps: OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, OmniWeb, and OmniDiskSweeper, all wrapped up in a special discounted price. Tell all your friends! Don't let Isaac be verklempt all on his own over there. Productivity bundles, education pricing, family packs, and thousands of other confusing pricing options are all available at . ACTUAL EMAIL FROM ACTUAL OMNI EMPLOYEE -----------------------------------------------------------------+ From: our chef (yes - CHEF. He is to blame for all of my failed New Year's resolutions, thank you very much.) Subject: Lunch And Secret Hidden Message Lunch: turkey sandwiches. IF YOU TAKE THE LAST OF SOMETHING THROW AWAY OR RECYCLE THE PACKAGING. DO NOT LEAVE IT ON THE SHELF. LAME. (This is how hard we're working on our apps, folks. We are so engrossed with updating products and creating new apps that we forget to clear away our trash. Clearly you need to stay tuned for some exciting upcoming developments! And possibly another disgusted email from our chef.) THANK YOU, THANK YOU VERY MUCH -------------------------------------------------------+ Thank you, as always, for your interest in Omni. Drop me a line (linda@omnigroup.com) with ideas, comments, methods for distracting a howling 5-month-old, and recommendations for filling an empty Netflix queue. A big thanks, also, to my coworker and stunt newsletter- writer, Bill, who sent out the last edition of OmniNews, which you are not allowed to describe as "much, much better". To subscribe (whee!), unsubscribe (oh SNAP), or change your settings, please use the following link: . From linda at omnigroup.com Tue Apr 4 15:01:15 2006 From: linda at omnigroup.com (Linda Sharps) Date: Tue Apr 4 15:02:08 2006 Subject: The Omni MOUTH Message-ID: Hello OmniNewsPeople! I get emails all the time from people begging for more updates from The Omni Group. "Oh please," they cry, "if only there was some way, some kind of technology, some kind of...web-based method, say, of keeping me in the loop on the exciting goings-on at Omni!" And then *I* say... I... Um, okay, I've never had to respond to that sort of request, technically because I've never "received" an actual "email" like that. However, lack of demand WILL NOT STOP US. No, indeed, we are barging straight ahead into the magical world of blogging. Because we are focused on community! And we like talking with our users! And, well, some of us have too much time on our hands. *cough* Anyway, please feel welcome to visit The Omni Mouth at . Thank you very much, Linda, The Omni Marketing Weasel --- To subscribe (woohoo!), unsubscribe (d'oh!), or change your settings, use the following link: http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/ omninews From linda at omnigroup.com Tue Sep 12 16:40:32 2006 From: linda at omnigroup.com (Linda Sharps) Date: Tue Sep 12 16:39:58 2006 Subject: Some updates from The Omni Group (FINALLY) Message-ID: <2C280B48-E360-41FF-B4DF-F9D5724C82EB@omnigroup.com> Hello, OmniNews list subscribers! Well, the positive side of having multiple communication vehicles with which to deliver Omni's various maw-flaps is that it hopefully increases the likelihood of Message A reaching Person B, even if our communications content is of dubious quality since, among other things, it often includes made-up words like "maw-flap". The downside is that between the press release list, the blog, and the various forums and user lists, the OmniNews archive has kind of been empty and forgotten for several whole months in a row. Until today, when my boss said, "Did you send the OmniWeb 5.5 announcement to the news list?" and I realized that I totally did NOT. And...um, there were maybe some other announcements that didn't get sent, too. Man. Does anyone make a T-shirt for "Worst Marketing Weasel EVER", because I would wear it. WITH SHAME. The thing is, I'm not completely sure what we should do with this list now that we have the blog. The blog, among other things, allows us to use actual HTML with, you know, links and stuff, which is maybe a little nicer than this plain text email? (Plus, we can preview our maw-flaps before they get sent out, so we, okay *I*, can at least make a stab at minimizing the embarrassing typos.) We're posting informal announcements, product tips, and some everyday ponderings over on the blog; formal, just-the-facts-ma'am information to the Official Press Release List; and between the product-specific mailing lists and the forums, I don't know what's left for this digest. One option I was thinking of is creating an email subscription function for the blog and giving you the signup info - it would just send you a brief excerpt of each blog post, so you could choose whether or not the entry was worth reading (if you prefer email to RSS feeds). The signup process is super easy and doesn't send you anything unwanted. If you have feedback on that idea, drop me a line and let me know, okay? On to the slightly-stale, but deliciously-chewy-as-a-result news. I'll just briefly cover our activities, software-development-wise, over the last few months: We released OmniDazzle on June 16th, which is a screen/mouse utility that can be used as anything from a time-wasting toy to a presentation aid. Our friend Dan Lurie over at the Unofficial Apple Weblog wrote, "It's fantastic! I don't think I've had that much fun using my mouse since, well, I've never had that much fun using my mouse." We're hearing from a lot of people who are using OmniDazzle for capturing screen shots, doing presentations, and creating training materials. So, you should check it out if you haven't already: . The beta release of OmniPlan, our project management application, went out on July 26th. OmniPlan gives you project management functions like resource management, scheduling, critical path highlighting, cross-application data sharing, and more, but it doesn't make you want to stab your eyes with pencils and weep into your Gantt chart. It's user-friendly and non-ugly; if you've ever had to use project management software, you should definitely give OmniPlan a look. It's in beta right now, you can learn more at . Finally, OmniWeb 5.5 shipped on September 6. This is the Universal, updated-with-WebKit, compatibility and performance enhanced version that we've been working on for a very long time. Take my word for it, you need to get this download, especially if you've been using OmniWeb 5.x and encountering issues. Okay then, you're mostly caught up. Don't forget to write me with any feedback you have about this list. Oh, and here are some other places you might want to visit: ? For informal announcements, product tips, general blather, and occasional snarkiness, our blog: ? For official Omni news announcements, typically covering product releases only, the Omni Press list: ? For product-specific user mailing lists, our...uh, mailing lists: ? And let's not forget the Omni Forums! Hope this email finds you well, and thanks for reading! Best, Linda, Omni Marketing Weasel PS. To unsubscribe, or change your settings, please use the following link: .