Nimble Method

Acunote for Google Summer of Code Projects

We in Pluron are great believers in open source. We develop and deploy with open source tools on open source platforms and we were always keen to give something back to the community. We've been sponsoring KDE developer for two years, we've released several parts of our product - Acunote Shortcuts, Mediacloth and ActiveReC++ under open source MIT license. But of course that's not everything we did.

We made Acunote free for open source projects. Starting with summer 2007 we also offered Acunote access for Google Summer of Code program participants.

Google is running Summer of Code program for the fourth year now. Students who participate in this program write open source code but have their own designated projects with a deadline and a mentor assigned. The mentor needs to keep track of student's progress and has to review his code. And this is when Acunote becomes useful for both mentors and students because of its strong task management and code review capabilities.

Last year 14 GSoC projects used Acunote and we got some very positive feedback. This year we of course continue offering our lightweight and cool software project management tool for GSoC'ers.

So, if you are a student working on Summer of Code project or a mentor keeping an eye on such project, take look at our Acunote for GSoC HOWTO page to learn how you can use it and signup for free!

Kamal's Acunote Review

Kamal Fariz Mahyuddin posted did a brief review of Acunote and Mingle for Malysia.rb. The parts that jumped at me were:

• "Stats pr0n" -- :-)
• "User forums, all there is now is Alt+;" -- we hear you

Check it out. Also, do note that Acunote allows 3 levels of tasks.

Since we launched we've had tons of great feedback from newly-registered customers. It's been exceptionally useful, if a little overwhelming -- we thank you all -- and do keep it coming. It's pretty clear we need to setup a way for the community to interact better.

Acunote Launch Announcement

We are launching Acunote http://acunote.com, an Agile Project Management web application we've developed in Pluron, Inc. Pluron is a young Silicon Valley startup. We started out by making a product we wanted to use ourselves. We then worked hard to enhance it for our alpha users. Now, we are opening it to you.

Our users feedback is what shapes the product. We'll be continuing to engage Agile community and enhance Acunote based on your feedback. To help us do it, we are looking to hire an Agile Evangelist, please see below.

• General

  • Hosted web application, built using Ruby on Rails.

  • Lightweight by design -- we provide the tools, you bring your process. Ideally suited for Scrum, XP and other Agile methodologies.

• Features

  • All the basics -- sprints/iterations, backlog, tasks and burndown.

  • Flexible task hierarchies -- use them for user stories, story-trees, tasks, sub-tasks, bugs, etc. Never commit, mold your task list to your needs as your needs evolve.

  • 0-click analytics -- multiple burndown charts, per-team/user/tag progress report, when-will-I-be-done forecasting, hierarchy-based roll-up progress charts for parent tasks.

  • Integration with your existing bugtracker -- Bugzilla, Mantis, Trac, JIRA are supported.

  • Integration with Subversion (yes, over the network -- http, https, svn protocols) and Perforce.

  • Full peer code review functionality -- since with integrate with your SCM, you can review a changeset and comment on any line with a single click. From that point Acunote will manage this comment as a task.

  • Tags -- because relational is good. Define your own workflow and analyze it with tag-based analytics.

  • CSV export/import. Full-roundtrip change merging -- export, modify tasks in Excel, import and have Acunote reconcile the changes.

  • Timeline -- you did it, we track it. Find out what happened in your organization, filter and subscribe to RSS feeds to stay in touch.

  • Collaboration -- comment, discuss and email.

  • Full-text search

• Usability

  • Powerful AJAX task list interface. Create, estimate, decompose, edit, complete, reorder and filter tasks on a single page. Edit task description, status, owner and estimate with 1 click. Bottom line -- you can enter and keep track of a full project plan with fewer actions than in Excel.

  • Keyboard shortcuts -- if it's in Acunote, it either already has a shortcut or soon will. Vi/Emacs/Gmail users should feel right at home.

• Pricing

  • Free and non-crippled for groups of 5 people and under.

  • Paid plans run $7-10/user per month.

  • Always free for open source, non-profits and academia. We are proud to offer Acunote for Google Summer of Code.

• Jobs

  • We are looking for an Agile Evangelist. This person will be an advocate of Agile community in our company, and be an advocate of our company in Agile community. A multi-functional role combining product management, marketing, coaching, PR and business development. Ideally located in Silicon Valley.

  • We are aggressively growing our development team in Ukraine. If you are a star developer, designer or QA, give us a shout.

• More info

  • http://acunote.com/
  • http://acunote.com/promo/screencast -- screencast by our lead developer
  • http://blog.acunote.com/ -- product blog
  • http://blog.pluron.com/ -- Nimble Method (company blog)