Hi,
Here are my one-week impressions of Max 8 Personal released May 2004. I installed the upgrade on May 20/04.
1) What's your environment? (Product, number of users, industry/business)
Maximizer 8 personal. One user. Business: Management consulting in the Natural Resources Sector, British Columbia. I use the product to manage projects, keep track of tasks to do, track project notes, manage contact info (heavy use of UDFs), and generally organize my business and personal life.
2) How is stability from 1-10? (0=bad, 10-Rock solid). Stability over past week: 10, very solid (Win2000 Pro laptop 512MB), no problems. Installation and updating Max 7 address book went smoothly. (Note, once the Adress Book is updated to Max 8, it cannot be opened or shared with a Max 7 user).
3) How good are new features from 1-10? (0=no real change, 10=Incredible). For new features, I rate Max 8 (over Max 7) between 3 and 4.
Updates:
a) new "look" of address book/contact editing window (re-arranged fields in window),
b) area added for up to 4 "key UDFs" in main contact edit window, more flexibility in annotating phone/fax/cell numbers (still limited 4 phone numbers).
c) There is a new "My Workday" window available that shows hotlist taks and appointments--same information as in hotlist window. My Workday window is not customizable.
d) Main improvement for me is ability to click "Task Complete" without opening and editing a task. A minor improvement as it reduce to one mouse click what took 3 in Max 7.
e) Calendar has new popups that give more details on appointments without opening the appointment.
f) Can print calendar view (1-month) of calendar.
Max 8 changes how Maximizer functions, sometimes resulting in a loss in function relative to Max 7. For me, the main losses are around the calendar view:
a) calendar view takes longer to generate (Max 8 now generates HTML to display the calendar),
b) I cannot move the highlight from one day to another day in the monthly or weekly calendar views using cursor keys, now need to point and click on individual days with mouse [update June 17/04 Customizer support reports this is a trade-off as the improved calendar view is generated in HTML hence doesn't respond to key strokes, just mouse clicks],
c) cannot move from month to month using page-up and page-down, need to use mouse clicking on name of 12 months in top right corner and more clicks to scroll through the years. Same issue as (b).
d) cannot change an appointment's date by dragging appointment to a new calendar date: need to open and manually edit dates in appointment. If it is a recurring appointment, then need to delete all entries and re-enter from scratch.
Other comments :
e) clicking on a date in say "last contact" or "next contact" brings up the old date already there instead of the current date. I find in Max 7 where clicking on the date brings up the current date is much handier for updating as the current date is what I want.
f) cannot drag a contact from the address book to the calendar to make a new appointment. Have to use mouse right clicks and Add Appointment or other means.
g) Updated June 22, 2004 I originally reported that the spyware "EzulaTopText" loaded each time Maximizer 8 was started and that upgrading to Internet Cleaner 4 solved the problem. Maximizer staff assure me there is no spyware in Maximizer products (I accept this). However, Internet Cleaner still reports the presence of EzulaTopText, likely a false positive on Internet Cleaners part.
h) Changes to user interface requiring mouse clicks instead of being able to do it from the keyboard (e.g., selecting new values in UDFs).
I haven't used the opportunity tracker or report (Crystal reports) functions so cannot comment on changes there.
There is an free upgrade to MaxLink for synchronizing with Palm PDAs. I didn't notice any material functional changes from MaxLink 7 though I ended up with duplicate records back in Maximizer after synching the PDA. I've had problem this before with MaxLink 7.
Upgrade price for existing users $99Cdn plus shipping & taxes.
4) Overall impressions/tips? I've been a Maximizer customer for 10+ years. My overall impression of this new version is there are some minor improvements, but moreover there are some changes that significantly (for me) reduce function (mostly around the calendar). I'm hoping any soon to come patches address the negative improvements.
Whether an existing user should upgrade depends on how important it is to keep up with the current version. Perhaps there is more value in the upgrade for those who really use Maxmizer as a marketing tool and as a tool for e-commerce. As a project management tool, there are no significant changes (perhaps some net losses) relative to Max 7 and considering the $99CDN + taxes upgrade cost. Still I think Maximizer is still one of the best organizers around and it's up whenever my computer is on.
-Tony Wong
Vancouver BC, Canada
