Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Mariner Software StoryMill Review

When I was researching scientific information for my novel, I found that my typical journal technique simply became a mess as I scratched out ideas that won't work and kept jotting ideas around the margins. I like neat notes and I like physically writing my ideas, but writing them quickly became a bigger mess than ever before. That's what happens when you write a complicated, detail-necessary work! How do I get organized? How do I make it easy to find my ideas without a ton of Word files in my research folder? I'm still trying to find a good solution that works for me, and during this process, I've come across quite a few writing tools that sound interesting. The first one on the list: StoryMill.

StoryMill is one of a few software packages by Mariner Software that work to help writers. While StoryMill is dedicated to various aspects of overall novel writing, Persona (character management) and Contour (story outline) are two other options that focus on specific areas of novel development. I'll be honest: Contour is not something I'll try because I am not the type of writer who outlines in any detail whatsoever. I have a general idea, pit stops along the way, and an endgame; however, my characters direct me better than any outline I've ever done. In other words, you won't see a review of it here because it won't be unbiased. With that being said, Persona is on my list because it has what I wished StoryMill did for characters: detail, detail, detail!

Character Screen
This is one of my problems with StoryMill. The most you have under the info block is what you see above: role, height, hair, race, weight, and eyes. You can add photos, tags, links, and blah blah blah, but the majority of your information is going to be typed in a blank word-like document. It's not very organized other than being under the name of the character. This is why I'll be testing out Persona for my characters; however, if I'm going to drop money on software ($40 a pop!), I don't want to have to buy something else I would think should be included.

It does have some simple planning features that make Contour unnecessary for many writers. The main screen for "Scenes" gives you a list of your scenes and the ability to pull up a timeline of your novel's scenes:

Scene Main Screen
In each scene's page, you can write the scene, make notes, add photos, select the chapter, choose the characters in the scene, pick the location, and choose the date and time it starts and ends.

Individual Scenes

When going back and adding the information for my novel, the most helpful parts for me were the chapter, date, and time. I was able to get a timeline going and really think about the amount of time that was passing in each scene and how plausible certain things were in the scheme of that time frame. On the other hand, the timeline feature is only so helpful. Rather than stacking scenes chronologically for each date, everything falls in a line to scroll horizontally no matter how short of a time frame you select.

Timeline
Notice above that the first time shows "The Ex....Dealing". This is because there are multiple scenes in that time period. It would be much more helpful if it was more of a calendar format where each day's scenes stacked in a straight line and then you could scroll right for the following days.

Locations
The locations option is helpful but still basic. You can add pictures, take notes, create tags, save links for files or websites, and see which scenes are related to the location. This is helpful for keeping together information for each location, but there's nothing special about it. The research tabs are similar. The only difference is that the "scenes" tab is missing. You can also create a list of tasks that you want to complete and use tags for them.

There are a lot of small features having to do with formatting, exporting, etc., but they are what you would expect from writing software. A few mop-up features of interest:
  • Word Frequency - See how many times you use certain words in each chapter or the novel overall.
  • Progress Meter - Set a word count goal and you'll see a meter at the top of the screen that shows your progress to the selected goal. It can be progress for the current session or the whole novel's completion.
  • Highlight Cliches - Find possible cliches in your writing.
  • Snapshot - Take a snapshot of your work before you make big edits or changes. 


You can use any of these 4 coupons in Mariners online store and save between 5% and 25% off the retail price of new purchases or one of the 5 pack bundles.



Putty for Mac
Putty for Mac
$15.00

https://winereviews.onfastspring.com/putty-for-mac



Monday, December 28, 2015

MacGourmet Deluxe 4.2.3 has been released

https://marinersoftware.com/

Introducing MacGourmet Deluxe 4, the most powerful food and drink management experience for the Mac! And El Capitan compatible.

Import recipes from your favorite websites. Create, edit, and scale your recipes. Share them via email and Facebook. Break down and illustrate the steps for your recipes with images, as well as written directions. Use the Chef’s View for distraction free cooking. In addition to cooking notes, you can now build up a library of notes about beer, cheese, as well as wine. There’s a place for tasting notes, brewery, pricing - even pairings. Enhance your recipes and your notes with images. Make shopping lists from your recipes - even combine multiple lists. Plan out meals for your family or a formal dinner.

Concerned about nutrition and how many calories you consume?

MacGourmet Deluxe will calculate the calories and nutrition of your recipes. If you have a collection of great family recipes, creating a cookbook of them would make a great gift. Use the Cookbook Builder to do it and have a PDF of it that’s suitable for printing.

Not sure what to have for dinner? Use the Ingredient search or let MacGourmet Deluxe suggest a recipe for you.

Share with other MacGourmet Deluxe users - via a Mac or iOS device - when you sign up for an included, free Mariner Cloud account where you can store and sync all your information.

================

New in MacGourmet Deluxe 4

• Full, two way, incremental syncing for Mac and iOS
• 64 bit architecture
• More intuitive user interface
• Added new Icon View
• Added Beer Notes
• Added Cheese Notes
• Moved and improved Chef Reference
• Fixed date comparisons in Smart Lists
• Added Chef View to default toolbar
• Added new recipes
• Added new wines, beers, & cheeses
• Added share with email, Facebook
• Added prices in shopping list printouts
• And much more!

================

• "As an Executive Chef and business owner, I need to be organized and able to view and use a recipe at any moment. MacGourmet Deluxe does all this for me - and more. One of my favorite features is the ability to send attractive looking pdf recipe files to guests and magazines. Love the product and love the folks at Mariner." -- Kent Rathbun, Iron Chef America Winner

• "With so many ways to sort, organize, and search for recipes, MacGourmet Deluxe is invaluable for anyone who loves cooking and collecting recipes." -- MacNN

• "It all boils down to this: if you need a database to manage your recipes, there are several available, though none has been more pleasant for me to use than MacGourmet Deluxe." -- ATPM

What's New in Version 4.2.3

Updated the Food&Wine.com importer to support the new site format.
Updated the NYTimes.com importer to support the new site format.
Updated the Epicurious.com importer to support the new site format.
Updated the FoodNetwork.com importer to support the new site format.
Added (more) missing Retina display images and icons.
Fixed a crash when using web clippings.
Added new security for El Capitan.
Updated Help menu.

You can use any of these 4 coupons in Mariners online store and save between 5% and 25% off the retail price of new purchases or one of the 5 pack bundles.



Putty for Mac
Putty for Mac
$15.00

https://winereviews.onfastspring.com/putty-for-mac



Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Mariner Software Paperless at 40% off for Black Friday Cyber Monday Sale

The folks over at Mariner Software are having a Black Friday, Cyber Monday Sale. This sale offers a instant 40% savings off the extremely popular Mariner Paperless product for Mac and Windows.

About Paperless 2.3.3

Paperless is a digital documents manager. Remember when everyone talked about how we would soon be a paperless society? Now it seems like we use paper more than ever. Let's face it - we need and we use paper. But Paperless 2 is one of those incredibly useful applications that will help you manage all your paper and digital documents and at the same time positively affect the environment.

When it's tax time no more bringing a shoe box full of receipts to your accountant. According to ruling Rev. Proc. 97-22 from the IRS, a digital document is acceptable. With Paperless 2 you can create a Smart Collection and keep all your documents neat and tidy and in one place. Additionally, once you store your receipts in Paperless 2, you can select the receipts to email, print, or export to PDF, or even show as a chart.

Paperless 2 has the ability to keep up and maintain the task of not only reducing your need for paper but managing the paper you use. Simply scan your receipts, bills, statements, warranty cards, business cards - any paper document and the OCR function of Paperless 2 recognizes the data and adds it to the Details Window. The built-in search functionality even lets you find and organize receipts and documents into Smart Collections. Already have your documents as PDFs or other file formats? No problem. Simply drag and drop them into Paperless 2. By taking your paper receipts, product manuals and other documents and creating an electronic record you've already reduced your need for paper.

https://marinersoftware.com/


To avail the 40% off sale just use coupon code ( plblfr ) in Mariners online store and get instant savings this holiday season.

After this sale ends you can use any of these 4 coupons in Mariners online store and save between 5% and 25% off the retail price of new purchases or one of the 5 pack bundles.





Putty for Mac
Putty for Mac
$15.00

https://winereviews.onfastspring.com/putty-for-mac



Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Mariner Software is now on VOAT

I just setup a voat subverse for Mariner Software if you want to come join the conversation and see how a proper Reddit should be managed VOAT is the place to be.

Developers and publishers of Mac OS X, Windows, and iOS productivity applications, for your home, office and writing software such as Mariner Write, MacGourmet, Paperless, MacJournal and many more.

You can use any of these 4 coupons in Mariners online store and save between 5% and 25% off the retail price of new purchases or one of the 5 pack bundles.



Putty for Mac
Putty for Mac
$15.00

https://winereviews.onfastspring.com/putty-for-mac



Monday, November 2, 2015

Mariner Software Mariner Write 3.9.5 has been released

Mariner Software Mariner Write is your Mac OS go-to word processing tool! Professional writer, educator or student, Write has all the functionality you need for that important letter, technical paper or research project. Elegantly efficient and powerful, Mariner Write turns out great looking documents. Create customized headers, footers, endnotes or footnotes. Easily define styles; use keyboard shortcuts for repeated tasks. Use Mail Merge to automate a mailing. Write possesses a powerful Find Dialog, an intuitive Font Panel and much more. Mariner Write empowers you to create your own word processing environment so you can produce documents that are clean, consistent and professional.

 

What's New

Version 3.9.5:
  • Fixed an issue with the Print dialog when running El Capitan.

  Requirements

  • Intel
  • OS X 10.7 or later
You can use any of these 4 coupons in Mariners online store and save between 5% and 25% off the retail price of new purchases or one of the 5 pack bundles.



Putty for Mac
Putty for Mac
$15.00

https://winereviews.onfastspring.com/putty-for-mac



Mariner Software MacGourmet Deluxe 4.2.2 has been released

Mariner Software MacGourmet Deluxe is a recipe-management application that allows users to create, edit, and scale new recipes, or import recipes from their favorite websites, then share them via email, Facebook, and Twitter. Unlike MacGourmet, MacGourmet Deluxe users can also plan meals, analyze nutritional information, and generate shopping lists.
Features
  • Chef's view for distraction-free cooking
  • Add images to your recipes and to the steps, as well as to your Beer, Wine, and Cheese notes
  • Use the Ingredient search or let MacGourmet suggest a recipe for you
  • Free cloud account for storing and syncing on Mariner Cloud

 

What's New

Version 4.2.2: Note: Now requires a 64-bit Intel processor.
  • Updated the web site importer to support additional sites.
  • Updated the AllRecipes.com importer to support the new site format.
  • Updated the Food&Wine.com importer to parse the instructions properly (format change).
  • Added a print template to print Nutrition info.
  • Updated the print preview display to properly update style and template changes (MacOS change).
  • Fixed a bug with calculating nutritional data that caused an exception (crash).
  • Fixed MealPlan printing to read the css styles.
  • Added missing Retina display images and icons.

 

Requirements

  • Intel, 64-bit processor
  • OS X 10.7 or later
You can use any of these 4 coupons in Mariners online store and save between 5% and 25% off the retail price of new purchases or one of the 5 pack bundles.



Putty for Mac
Putty for Mac
$15.00

https://winereviews.onfastspring.com/putty-for-mac



Mariner Software MacGourmet 4.2.2 has been released

Mariner Software MacGourmet is a recipe management application that allows users to create, edit, and scale new recipes or import recipes from their favorite websites, then share them via email, Facebook, and Twitter. For more core functions, try MacGourmet Deluxe.
Features
  • Chef’s view for distraction-free cooking
  • Add images to your recipes and to the steps, as well as to your Beer, Wine, and Cheese notes
  • Use the Ingredient search or let MacGourmet suggest a recipe for you

 

What's New

Version 4.2.2: Note: Now requires a 64-bit Intel processor.
  • Release notes were unavailable when this listing was updated.

 

Requirements

  • Intel, 64-bit processor
  • OS X 10.7 or later
You can use any of these 4 coupons in Mariners online store and save between 5% and 25% off the retail price of new purchases or one of the 5 pack bundles.



Putty for Mac
Putty for Mac
$15.00

https://winereviews.onfastspring.com/putty-for-mac