Some recent posts at the 37signals Product Blog:
Basecamp
New File Uploading features in Basecamp
We’re excited to announce a batch of improvements to File Uploads in Basecamp. Now it’s easier to attach multiple files at once, we’ve improved our progress bar to show you as each file is uploaded, and you can click thumbnails to zoom image attachments without leaving the current page. These new features make it faster and easier to attach, review and discuss files in Basecamp. Here’s a demo video to show you all the improvements.
New Basecamp feature: The Daily Digest
We’re excited to announce a great improvement to Basecamp. The new Daily Digest feature makes it easier than ever to track the progress of your projects. The Daily Digest is an email that Basecamp sends you once a day. The email tells you about any to-do items or milestones that were checked off or added in the last day. Daily Digests are per-project, so you can subscribe to the projects you really care about without being distracted by any unnecessary information. Now you’ll always know day-by-day as work is completed or new work is assigned. It’s a really powerful feature.
Timy: “An easy-to-use desktop application to fill out your Basecamp timesheet”
Timy is “an easy-to-use desktop application to fill out your Basecamp timesheet.”
Jamie Pittock of ErskineLabs: “Basecamp’s beauty is its simplicity”
“1. Don’t fight Basecamp. 2. Write everything down. 3. Focus on the actionable.”
Burndown: Generate burndown charts for Basecamp milestones and to-do lists
Burndown is a simple tool that takes your Basecamp milestones and to-do lists and generates burndown charts with them.
Report2Base lets you analyze Basecamp data from different perspectives
“If you are an avid user of Basecamp, the highly acclaimed web-based project collaboration tool, you would find Report2Base to be a valuable and useful add-on for your project analytics and reporting. “
How to adapt Basecamp to an agile methodology
“The purpose of Basecamp is to promote and enhance collaboration between a team. Basecamp doesn’t try to force you into a specific workflow as most project management tools do. You can pretty much do whatever process or workflow you want, and still, Basecamp is going to be helpful. Guess what’s the first line of the Agile Manifesto? Individuals and interactions over processes and tools. So instead of thinking “Is ticket 4137 assigned to David or to Paula?”, you will see the discussion of a real issue between your team.”
Basecamp: Keep track of the hours spent on a task with time tracking
Basecamp time tracking lets you keep track of the hours spent on a task or a complete project (for plus or higher accounts only).
Seth Godin: “Basecamp is the perfect tool for coordinating”
“Another lesson: We used Basecamp. It’s the perfect tool for coordinating this sort of work.”
Highrise
Import Clients, Contacts and Won Deals from Highrise into Harvest
Harvest lets you and your staff track time, log expenses, and create invoices in one simple, integrated workflow. Now you can quickly import Highrise contacts and won deals into Harvest to track time and invoice clients.
Highrise helps Inchoo follow-up with prospects
“It happened a couple of times that I’d make a follow-up on a prospect who needed some small Magento tweak a month ago and decided to go with another developer. He had experienced some problems and was very much relieved to hear back from us and ask for our help with a larger deal that we would then land. Who knows if I’d have remembered to make that follow-up had I not created a task two months ago.”
Backpack
Backpack is used to publish points of contact and resources during Toronto’s garbage strike
There’s a garbage strike currently underway in the city of Toronto in Ontario, Canada. As expected, the citizens of Toronto are left with only questions about what to do about the garbage that is piling up. Luckily Danyl Sobolev used Backpack to quickly publish a list of useful contacts and resources for this difficult situation.
Always remember with Backpack Reminders
Backpack can send reminders to you via email or as a Mobile SMS/text message. That means you won’t ever forget to attend a meeting, make a call, or any other task that you have to do. You can even set and schedule reminders for your co-workers too.
Getting Real
Getting Real is one of Tim Ferriss’ five must read books
On Ferriss’ list: Getting Real. He says, “It has the potential to change your life and your business…It does have a software focus but all of it can be applied to entrepreneurs in general.”
“Getting Real was a pivotal read for me and my business partners”
“I just wanted to drop a note and thank you for writing Getting Real. I can’t say I’ve ever been someone to champion a book or to change the way I operate based on one. That said I have to say that Getting Real was a pivotal read for me and my business partners. The first time I read the book I had many a tearful laugh, having experienced the pitfalls of not Getting Real first hand.”
Multiple products
“Run your home more like a business” with 37signals tools
101 Tools to Run Your Home More Like a Business. Included on the list: Basecamp, Backpack, Highrise, Campfire, and Writeboard.
Jeff Smith
on 02 Jul 09I’m interested in what has changed your opinions about lightboxed images since your post against lightboxing a year or so ago?
RS
on 02 Jul 09That post against lightboxing was specifically complaining about the strobe effect, where the background darkens to hide the page behind the zoomed image. I’ve always liked plain zooming image previews when the background stays intact and doesn’t flash between dark and bright as you open and close images.
Tim
on 02 Jul 09@37signals
I see you added a lightbox to your image thumbnails.
I thought you hated the use of lightboxes.
What’s changed?
Jeff Smith
on 02 Jul 09I guess I was referring more to the loss of context statement in the post. I still see having an image zoomed over surrounding content as losing context—but to each their own, context is likely to be seen differently through each user’s eyes.
Sabon
on 02 Jul 09Have you used any particular plugins for file uploading? Or have you just created your own? Same goes with the progress bar.
Greg
on 02 Jul 09I think they use a flash plugin but am not certain.
I’m also curious.
Naveen Dittakavi
on 02 Jul 09Yes, I’d love to hear more about how you accomplished the graceful multi-file upload. Will you be releasing a plugin / source for Rails on this?
SWF Upload
on 02 Jul 09http://code.google.com/p/swfupload/
Matt Radel
on 02 Jul 09Awesome, awesome updates to BC guys. They’ve been a BIG help – thanks.
The only thing that would make it better would be if you could page through attachments with arrow keys, a la the highslide JS (http://highslide.com/). Not a huge deal at all, just a nice to have.
Jeff Koke
on 03 Jul 09I love the image previews, but it would be nice to show the file name somewhere either in the thumbnail or in the pop-up window. That would make it easier to compare and discuss multiple files with clients (rather than having to describe the image I’m discussing).
vizyondaki filmler
on 04 Jul 09grasyas baby
Jeff
on 05 Jul 09At first I read the title of this post:
Product Blog update: New Basecamp feature: Highrise-integration
But, alas, I read wrong.
Just curious: Why do you folks work harder on integrating with 3rd-party products than on becoming at least compatible with your own?!
This discussion is closed.