Check out the amazing Plastic Logic Reader:

Very cool shit.

But there’s a demo lesson to be had here: When you’ve got a product that does something amazing, don’t waste 40 seconds talking about it. Just show it! The best demo is a usage demo, especially if you’ve got wow factor. Explain it later (...or maybe you won’t have to explain it at all).

Surely, the demo at the Plastic Logic site doesn’t make the same mistake. Nope. It’s even worse! Two minutes until the good stuff. Hey guys, we know what paper looks like. Get on with the show.

Earlier this week we launched a big Basecamp update that allows people to attach files and leave comments on to-dos and milestones.

Since we launched the new feature 72-hours ago:

• 220,568 comments have been posted
• 197,003 (89.03%) comments were posted on messages
• 18,481 (8.35%) comments were posted on to-dos
• 5088 (2.3%) comments were posted on milestones

(You may notice that the numbers don’t add up — that’s because new comments were added between the database queries)

We’re really happy that about 10.5% of the comments posted in the past 72 hours were comments posted on to-dos and milestones. That’s great uptake on a new feature in just 3 days. We’re thrilled that people are loving the new feature! Thanks for your continued support.

Very clever new input concept from one of the guys who brought you T9. I was just simulating this on my keyboard and it’s surprisingly easy to do. Of course I don’t have anything to measure my accuracy, but I think the concept is fascinating.

Full story at CNET.

Please join us this Thursday, September 11 at 11am central for the next edition of 37signals Live.

This show’s topic will be “The Starting Line: From Idea to Execution”. How do you start your business? How do you take that idea you had and actually do something with it? How do you get from thought to action? How do you deal with business plans and projections and all that stuff you’re supposed to do when you get started. Do you hire people? Do you design business cards? All that good stuff.

We look forward to seeing you for 37signals Live this Thursday!

So, we’re working on this new Highrise feature that requires currency icons. We’ve been making icons for some popular currencies:

During our currency research we stumbled upon the universal currency sign which is used to denote a currency when the symbol for a particular currency is unavailable. The currency symbol was invented in 1972. I want to invent a symbol!

Armed with this knowledge, we made an icon to represent the other currencies that may not have custom icons:

The currency sign was news to us so we thought it might be news to you. If you already knew, lucky you. If you didn’t, maybe this can fill your “learn something new everyday” quota.

Dear British Airways,

I have all this money here, and I’m wanting to spend it on you. Why, oh why, are you making this so difficult?

Why are you allowing me to choose a city for my departure when you don’t even fly out of that city? If you don’t fly there, and your route map clearly shows you do not fly there, don’t let me choose it as my departure city!

Stop getting my hopes up like a bad prom date. Why not offer me a departure city of Funkytown, arriving on Mars?

Four Travel Deals

Like Woot for travel: Fourtraveldeals.com cuts out the noise.

Foodzie

Like Etsy for food: Foodzie is an online marketplace where you can discover and buy food from small artisan producers and growers.

Today we’re thrilled to be able to announce a big new addition to Basecamp: You can now attach files and post comments on to-dos and milestones. Previously this functionality was only available on messages.

Watch a bigger version of this video on the 37signals Product Blog.

A quick look at how it works

A green comment icon after a to-do or milestone means there are new comments on that item. A dark grey comment icon means there are comments on that item, but you’ve already read them. And if an item doesn’t have any comments, you’ll see an empty comment icon when you hover over that item. Clicking the comment icon will take you to the comments view for that to-do or milestone.

Deeplinking: A happy side effect

This new feature comes with a great side effect: You can now deep link to individual to-do items or milestones. Previously you could only link to a to-do list or the milestones section, but now you can link directly to individual to-dos or specific milestones.

Project management is communication

This new feature is directly in-line with Basecamp’s core premise: Project management is communication. Before you had to keep all your discussions in the messages section. That worked, but it required you to discuss one part of your project in another part of your project. Now you can have discussions about to-dos and milestones right on top of those to-dos and milestones.

We hope you love it

We’re really excited about this new feature. We think it’s going to help you get a lot more more out of Basecamp. Thanks again for your continued support!

Labor Day recently passed. That means you may have received a shared photo album from a friend or relative. You know the type: It’s usually dozens (or hundreds) of shots of vacation fun.

But you’re not into it. Now, it’s not that you don’t care; It’s fun to peek in and see what happened. But who wants to sort through a glut of 200 photos of someone else’s vacation (or baby photos or whatever)? What actually happens: You wind up deleting the email with the link and don’t even bother seeing any of them.

The power of editing
It’s about the power of editing. What if these people picked out the five best shots instead? The five photos that are the cream of the crop. The five that undeniably kick ass.

Then the whole thing shifts. Instead of it being a chore to see how their vacation went, it becomes a pleasure. It only takes a few seconds. Plus, that means they can just attach the photos to the email, instead of forcing you to visit (and sometimes register) at some random photo site. It’s only five photos, no big deal.

36:1
I had a photography teacher (Richard Stromberg at The Chicago Photography Center) tell me once that if you get one good shot on a roll of 36, you were doing good. That’s the ratio: 36:1. When you edit ruthlessly like that, you come out with great results. People think you’re better than you are. It’s not that you became a brilliant photographer, it’s just that you started exercising taste and restraint.

It’s one of the biggest challenges in the digital age: When you can bombard people with everything, it’s tempting to do so. That’s why taste, restraint, and editing are so important. Sometimes it’s about throwing out the 35 bad shots and revelling in the one great shot.

Omit, then submit
What you leave out is often what turns good into great. What you leave out is the difference between something that is either 1) never seen or used or 2) simple, clear, and actually digestable. It’s true for photography. It’s true for features in software. And it’s true for plenty more too.

P.S. Fun bit about Stromberg, the photography teacher I mentioned: He required all students to purchase a fixed 50mm lens for their camera. Students would invariably ask if they could use a zoom lens instead. His response: Every lens is a zoom lens. Just walk closer or further away to zoom. I always loved that.

Related
Eureka: We’re editors [SvN]
Ask 37signals: Is it really the number of features that matter? [SvN]

Training and marketing as taxes
“Training is a tax you pay for a lousy hiring environment…Marketing is a tax you pay for being unremarkable.”
-Robert Stephens of Geek Squad in A Geek’s Guide to Great Service

Complex UIs
“Why do software designers want their work to appear more complex instead of less? I just don’t get why they don’t get it.”
-David Pogue in It’s the Software, Not You

Choosing between safety and risk
“Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and need for defense) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth): Make the growth choice a dozen times a day.”
—Abraham Maslow on 8 Ways to Self-Actualize

Launch quickly
“One reason to launch quickly is that it forces you to actually finish some quantum of work. Nothing is truly finished till it’s released; you can see that from the rush of work that’s always involved in releasing anything, no matter how finished you thought it was. The other reason you need to launch is that it’s only by bouncing your idea off users that you fully understand it.”
-Paul Graham in The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups

Design languages that can grow
“The main thing Guy Steele asks during the lecture is ‘If I want to help other persons to write all sorts of programs, should I design a small programming language or a large one?’ He answers that he should build neither a small, nor a big language. He needs to design a language that can grow. A main goal in designing a language should be to plan for growth. The language must start small, and the language must grow as the set of users grows.”
From Growing a Language by Guy Steele [good coders code, great reuse]

Software stays healthy
“It can be hard for a business to stay ahead if its technology is falling behind. That is one reason that despite an uncertain economy, worldwide information technology spending is on track to reach $3.4 trillion in 2008 — an 8 percent increase over 2007, according to the research firm Gartner. Of all spending categories, software and services are set to show the healthiest growth — with projected increases of around 10 percent each.”
From In a Downturn, but Still Spending on Technology [NY Times]

Chicago-style software
“There’s the dot-com, Silicon Valley, blow-all-your-money-on-booze style. Then there’s the Chicago thing: Do something, do it well and be modest about it.”
-Adrian Holovaty from EveryBlock.com in Cyberstar [Chicago Tribune]

Get on with it
“Test just enough to know what your gear can do, and then get on with real photography.”
-Ken Rockwell in The Seven Levels of Photographers

Deleting code
“Abandoning a speculative peice of functionality just allowed me to delete 2/3 of this module’s code. I got all 37signals on its ass.”
-Mike McCaffrey