Some recent posts at the 37signals Product Blog:

Highrise
New in Highrise: Filter tasks by category
We just added a new feature to Highrise. Now you can filter your tasks by category. To filter by category, go to the Tasks tab. If you have any categorized tasks, you’ll see a pulldown with the categories you have used in the header of the page.

New in Highrise: More storage, same price
Good news: We’ve just added more file storage to all paying Highrise accounts — at no additional charge. We hope this additional storage helps those who are already near the limit, and encourages others to attach even more files to their contacts without worrying as much about hitting their limit.

Filtering_tasks

Now all Highrise accounts include SSL security
As of today, all Highrise plans — including the free plan — include SSL secure encryption. Prior to this update only Solo, Plus, Premium, and Max plans included SSL. To turn SSL on for your account, click the Settings link at the top of the screen and scroll down to the SSL section.

[Case study] How Basecamp helped Design Extensions grow from a 1 man shop doing under $50k/year to a 5 man shop doing over $250k/year
“Any tips or tricks for other customers? Once a project moves from a production status to more of a maintenance/on-going project that may not be accessed on a regular basis, but we still want to leave active, we move them to the company ‘ZZ Maintenance.’ This helps separate the projects we are in and out of every day from accounts we might only be in once a month.”

zz

How GetFave.com uses Highrise to manage sales leads
Through a feature our programmers have developed, we can feed leads into highrise on demand. Then, these leads are randomly distributed to our sales reps (users/people) and tasks to call the leads are automatically created. The sales reps use HR to manage the entire sales process, from calling and setting meetings to taking meeting notes and referring back to them. We use tags to categorize the leads. I like the note taking and I also like the ability to create tasks.

Basecamp
New in Basecamp: Thumbnail previews of images on the Files tab
Today we added a new feature to make organizing image files in Basecamp even better. Now files such as JPG, TIFF, PNG, and GIF images uploaded to Basecamp show a thumbnail preview on the Files tab. You can click the thumbnail to zoom-in for a larger preview. This makes finding files easier and brings image zooming available elsewhere in Basecamp to the Files tab.

New in Basecamp: More storage, same price
Good news: We’ve just added more file storage to the Max, Premium, Plus, and Basic Basecamp accounts — at no additional charge.

Radar is a native app for Mac that notifies you of updates to a Basecamp account
“Why use Radar? It’s easy to get distracted. Radar enables you to concentrate on your work without needing to login to Basecamp all the time to check for updates. Radar checks for updates on a time interval that you set. Radar also launches when you login to your Mac and updates itself as well, so once you’ve setup your account information, you can just get to work.”

Screenshot: Radar for Basecamp.

How to use Inkling prediction markets in Basecamp
Inkling aims to make prediction markets easily accessible to a wider audience. The product now has a widget that integrates with Basecamp so you can predict milestones.

Top 100 Graphic Design Blogs gives shoutout to Basecamp
Not really “blogs” per se, but on the list are Basecamp (“Stop here for a leading web-based project collaboration tool. They have various plans and options, a free 30 day trial, and sign up takes as little as 60 seconds.”) and the 37signals Job Board (“This job board stands out for its notable listings from top companies. Currently, there are openings with Sony Music, Barnes & Noble.com, and Yahoo.”)

Campfire
Campfire sounds: crickets, rimshot, and trombone
Keep things light with sound effects in Campfire. Type “/play crickets”, “/play rimshot”, or “/play trombone” and share a sound “message” with your group.

Multiple products
Basecamp and Highrise change history pages
We’re constantly working under the hood to make our apps better. While we usually announce any major changes here at the Product Blog, there’s a constant stream of little changes going on too. You can now follow along with everything that’s happening at the Basecamp change history and Highrise change history pages. These pages will show you every little bug fix, tech note, update, and feature addition.

BC change history

“How can I get my coworkers to stop sending me so many emails?”
Are you asking, “How can I get my coworkers to stop sending me so many emails?” Try using Basecamp and/or Backpack to centralize your communication with coworkers. That way people can just go to the app to catch up on communication. Or subscribe to the RSS feed. No need to rely on constant email back and forths that clog up your inbox and get all confusing. And if you want to “create a paper trail,” it’s much better to do so in one place than relying on dozens of scattered emails.

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