Some recent posts at the 37signals Product Blog:

Highrise
A novel idea: Use Highrise to keep track of fictional characters’ lives
“If your story is very character heavy, keeping track of all the people in your novel, who they are, and how they interact will be vital to making sure the continuity isn’t interrupted. It may seem silly to treat your fictional characters as real people, but using an online CRM application like Highrise (which offers a free account good for 250 characters), can be a great way to keep track of the people in your book. Create an entry for each character and treat them like real people, attaching notes about their interactions, histories, and characteristics as you write.”

New in Highrise: Color coded categories for tasks and deals
“Today we released a new feature to better organize your tasks and deals in Highrise. Now you can set a custom color for each task category or deal category. For example, you can make your ‘call’ tasks red, your ‘followup’ tasks blue, ‘meetings’ green, or anything you like. Color-coded categories help you organize your work and add a touch of personality to your account.”

Chosen color

Basecamp
McSweeney’s iPhone app creator says Getting Real and Basecamp made it possible
“As McSweeney’s are based on the west coast of America and I’m currently living in Zürich, Switzerland we had a major time difference to contend with. We started using Basecamp that same day, and have used it ever since for everything from reviewing screen designs, to hammering the copy into shape in Writeboards, to keeping track of deadlines and development to-do lists. A second project also served as an excellent platform for our closed beta stage, giving our testers a place to collect the new binaries and leave feedback.”

iphone app

Zendesk adds integration to Basecamp
“Here at Zendesk we use Basecamp to qualify, plan, assess and discuss the hundreds of feature requests we harvest from customers, stakeholders and of course ourselves. Some of these feature requests are spawned of support tickets. In stead of having a manual copy-and-paste workflow, we implemented a Basecamp Target that enabled us to create a message in a Basecamp project directly from a support ticket.”

Log it: iPhone app that lets you log your time entries to Basecamp
“You no longer need to dig deep into the time entry section of each project. Simply fire this up, tap out the details, and be on your way. Save time! Do More! Earn More! Just Log it! Important: In order to use this application you must have the Basecamp API option enabled on your account.”

Peanut Media: “Basecamp cuts out the chaos and provides a project management tool that just works”
“Here at Peanut Media HQ we refer to Basecamp as ‘our bible!’ and we’d struggle to manage all our day to day operations without it. Having a project management tool that takes no time to learn and is quick, easy and intuitive is vital to us. We’ve explored other project management systems in the past, but most of them offer very over-worked solutions, that are a nightmare when trying to train staff how to use. Basecamp cuts out all the chaos and provides a project management tool that, put simply, just works!”

Campfire
v1.01 of Propane released (app for using Campfire on Macs)
“With a clean interface, smart drag-and-drop, custom notifications and more, Propane makes Campfire a joy to use on Mac OS 10.5.”

Mashable lists Propane/Campfire as top Mac productivity apps
“For any Mac user who uses Campfire on a daily basis, I highly recommend Propane. More than just a single-site browser, it’s a well designed app that makes searching, adding in files, viewing files and using Campfire a joy. You can set your Growl settings for certain alerts or extended alerts, you can drag and drop images or videos directly from Safari into Propane and adding other files is just as easy.”

Backpack
Get your wedding party involved with Backpack
“Though initially designed for business use, Backpack is a single-page, wiki-style organizer that can be amazingly useful for keeping track of who is doing what, what is left to do, and what has already been accomplished. Because Backpack pages can be shared, you can also use the app to get your wedding party involved — dole out tasks to bridesmaids, groomsmen, and relatives and keep track of everyone’s progress.”

Multiple products
List of recommended free tools for running a small business (including Basecamp and Highrise)
“Running a Small Business – Free Tools” offers advice on tools that help with scheduling, project planning, invoicing, and everything else that goes into any other small business.

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