Basecamp AlertThingy brings updates from Basecamp and other social apps to your desktop
“AlertThingy v3 brings the very latest updates from your favourite social networks direct to your desktop. Plus send Tweets, update your Facebook status, upload photos to Flickr, post to Tumblr and more. With v3 AlertThingy makes it faster and easier to manage the online you. Plus you get the coolest looking RSS reader on the interweb. Now, for business users we have Yammer, Basecamp and Huddle integrations. So you can mix work and play.”
Anthony Brewitt: “Basecamp Changed My Design Process”
If you’re a designer who uses Basecamp, you may find Brewitt’s approach interesting. The post offers a detailed analysis of how he uses Basecamp throughout his design process. “Its changed my design process forever, improving communication with my clients and allowing me to easily run multiple design projects.”
Virtual assistant for realtors calls Basecamp “phenomenal”
“My favorite feature of Basecamp is the ‘Dashboard’ and the fact that tasks that are due can be assigned to different associates, but we can all see if they are past due. I also like the fact that my Realtor clients can log in 24/7 without playing ‘seek and find’ – from the minute they log in, they can see an overview of all their projects, what’s been done, and what’s coming up. I believe this feature allows us to retain clients that are nervous about ‘virtual’ assistance, it gives them a glimpse into our ‘office’.”
Left to my own devices, with no family, I’d start writing at seven p.m. and stop at four a.m. That is the way I used to write. I liked to get ahead of everybody. I’d think to myself, “I’m starting tomorrow’s workday, tonight!” Late nights are wonderfully tranquil. No phone calls, no interruptions. I like the feeling of knowing that nobody is trying to reach me.
Less as a sales tool: five by Haagen-Dazs. “All-natural ice cream crafted with only five ingredients for incredibly pure, balanced flavor… and surprisingly less fat!” Ingredients: skim milk, cream, sugar, ginger, egg yolks. What’s being left out? Looks like corn syrup, corn starch, pectin, alkali, etc.
People sometimes ask us how much we look at the competition. The answer: not much. We can’t control what they do. We can control what we do. So we focus on that.
Someone who responds to a constantly shifting landscape
with a similar approach: Conan O’Brien. In “Building a Home in Late Night’s Shifting Sand,” he talks about why he doesn’t pay attention to the incessant chatter about time slots, competitors, etc.
“Maybe I’m a bumbling, Gomer Pyle fool who should be more concerned about this stuff, but I can’t control what’s going on around me,” Mr. O’Brien said. “And TV is changing so much, I don’t think anybody in television knows how it’s going to play out.
“A lot of that is up to me. If I do a good, funny, and fresh ‘Tonight Show’ every night at 11:35, it’s going to be successful, and it’s going to be irrelevant what everybody else is doing.”
That’s it. If you make something good and fresh, what everyone else is doing becomes unimportant.
The best part of this approach: It liberates you. You don’t have to obsess over others. You only worry about what you can control which helps keep you sane.
Here’s some Conan fun:
Update: Switched embed from Hulu to NBC clip. [thx Peter]
I’ve been buried under a lot of work lately. I don’t know what happened, but in the last 10 days or so I feel like I’m working three jobs. Paperwork, administration work, design work, vision work, writing work, misc. work.
My desk is a mess. My desktop is full of icons. My inbox is overflowing. I have a list of people to get in touch with. I have what feels like a hundred decisions to make.
I’m not complaining, I’m just observing. And the primary observation that comes out of all this is that multitasking is the fastest way to mediocrity. Things suck when you don’t give them your full attention.
I’m not thrilled with the work I’ve been doing lately.
This isn’t a breakthrough, it’s just a reminder. If you want to do great work, focus on one thing at a time. Finish it and move on to the next thing. It means some things aren’t going to get done as fast as some people may want. It means some people aren’t going to get your full attention for a while. But doing a bunch of crappy work, or making a bunch of poorly considered decisions just to get through the pile isn’t worth it.
For a long time we’ve been struggling to manage the growing presence of JavaScript at 37signals. We needed a way to share common JavaScript components and behaviors across our applications and web sites. And we wanted the ability to organize our JavaScript source code into multiple files and folders without the overhead of including dozens of <script> tags on every page.
Sprockets is a Ruby library that preprocesses and concatenates JavaScript source files. It takes any number of source files and preprocesses them line-by-line in order to build a single concatenation. Specially formatted lines act as directives to the Sprockets preprocessor, telling it to require the contents of another file or library first or to provide a set of asset files (such as images or stylesheets) to the document root. Sprockets attempts to fulfill required dependencies by searching a set of directories called the load path.
It helps you turn messy JavaScript into clean modules for development and a single .js file for deployment.
The copy at Urban Spectacles > Philosophy offers a nice example of how little guys can compete against bigger competitors by emphasizing the strengths of things that are handmade: “Whereas eyewear mass produced by means of machines and computers results in the exact same pair of frames every time, two human hands, even if they wanted to, would not be able to make exact duplicates of anything. This is very true of the spectacles I create. Every pair stands alone as an absolute original, born from my hands, to live on the bridge of your nose.”
Neat how the iTunes music store lets you choose your level of depth in a genre (i.e. The Basics, Next Steps, Deep Cuts, or Complete Set). You can dip your toe or dive all the way in.
Reminds me of how video games allow players to compete at a beginner level or a more advanced level. That keeps people coming back for more. You can be a newbie or an expert and still get something out of it.
Apps, on the other hand, usually offer a one-size-fits-all interface. It’s a compromise that tries to find a decent meeting point that’s not too tough for beginners but not too dumbed-down experts. That’s a sweet spot that can be tough to find though.
“Where is your money going?” from the new Recovery.gov site. The numbers are so big that $8 billion is a small circle simply labeled “other”. I also like how the image name is investmentbubble.jpg.
Now that we’re almost done redesigning our product sites it’s time to turn our attention to the mothership: the 37signals site. A large portion of traffic to our product sites originates from the 37signals site. It’s important that we direct potential customers to the right products that meet their needs.
There is currently a page—37signals.com/which—that does a decent job of informing the customer which product to choose. However we are all in agreement that this is a temporary solution and it can be done better.
Yesterday I was experimenting with a different approach that would help these customers choose the right 37signals product. Right now it’s just a concept that might not even see the light of day (except on this here post). The copy is also not final. The overall shape, arrangement, and wording will ultimately determine if this concept will fail or succeed. Nonetheless, it’s an early iteration. Here’s a sample slice of the illustration:
The idea here is that software feature charts are boring. Maybe there’s a better and more interesting way to help people see what each app can do. The customer would click on the “word bubble” that is closest to addressing their need. This would link them to the relevant site: Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, or Campfire.
What do you think? Trying to be too clever or am I onto something here?
For a long time we’ve been struggling to manage the growing presence of JavaScript at 37signals. We needed a way to share common JavaScript components and behaviors across our applications and web sites. And we wanted the ability to organize our JavaScript source code into multiple files and folders without the overhead of including dozens of <script> tags on every page.
