When we launched Highrise, we gave the forums a new look. We’ve since redone the Basecamp Forums too.

The old forums were heavy on borders and grids — “chartjunk” in Tuftese.

We customized the new forums, which are powered by Beast, so they’re cleaner and more open.

A public space
We give the forums a different look than our apps or marketing sites because we want people to feel like the forums are in a separate place — somewhere far away from the products they use everyday. The forums are a place where people can talk about the product without being inside it.

Ira Glass on Storytelling

This American Life host explains how to weave a good yarn.

Twittered director’s commentary

“Drive” director Greg Yaitanes twitters live director’s commentary during show. Sample entry: “bad directing moment: shuttle is taking off and no one is watching it as alex runs away.”

The small-is-beautiful movement

“Our society’s been based on excess for so long, it’s still a somewhat novel idea to live simply…I can’t say what the definition of a small house is. Maybe it’s 4,000 square feet, if that’s what it takes to suit their needs. The idea is that the house is being well-used. Some people need more space than others.”

Work-for-hire model broken?

Jim Coudal: “We don’t think that is a particularly equitable way to do our business. The whole work-for-hire thing in design and advertising, where the client owns everything outright, is a broken model.”

Wikipedia popularity soaring

“Eight percent of American Web users visited Wikipedia during a typical day this winter—a higher proportion than those who made an online purchase, visited a dating site or chat room during a typical day…Wikipedia isn’t replacing the professionals; it’s just quickly and efficiently harnessing their work.”

Tips on raising money for a startup

“The business of getting funded is only about the business you’re trying to build and nothing more…Don’t confuse perseverance and a poor plan…Go as far as you can as fast as you can before you raise your first dollar…Raising money is about people not money.”

Gizmo
Matt Carey: “i came across the ‘learn more overview’ at the gizmo project site today. wow, someone needs to tell them that ‘less is more’! i’m still confused! box and arrow overload!”

Abel Cole
Melissa Fehr writes:

Abel & Cole are an organic produce delivery company here in the UK, and I just signed up to them this morning. The interesting bit is that within your account preferences, you can specify which fruit and veg you dislike, which you don’t mind, and which you love, all with an easy smiley face matrix. Then the system takes these into account when filling your box each week so you get the stuff you love if it’s available (like blueberries and squash for me) and never the stuff I hate (like brussel sprouts).

What’s cool is that you can specify groups all at once, so if you dislike all berries, you can choose to exclude all of them at once, or just exclude strawberries put keep all other berries, and you can set up temporary exclusions, like if you have a ton of apples on hand already and don’t need any more for this week’s delivery.

I just thought this was such a great way to get across quite complicated information about each person’s food foibles, and it was done in such a clear and simple way.

When it’s no longer politically correct to call it a “Boarding Pass” the next logical step is the “Departure Management Card” by United.

While record labels bemoan their sad plight, artists like Nine Inch Nails are coming up with creative ways to inject mystery and playfulness into the music promotion game.

The elaborate campaign for NIN’s new “Year Zero” album — 42 Entertainment is the agency behind it — is a great example of blurring the line between marketing and entertainment.

Trail of clues
It all started with a concert t-shirt:

The bolded letters on the shirt spelled out a domain name that describes Parepin, “a revolutionary drug.” This kickstarted “a long, elaborate, cookie trail of clues and cryptically hidden website URLs hidden in the most unlikely of places.”

Another version of the truth is also one of the campaign’s sites. It features an idyllic photo and message, but clicking and dragging on the photo reveals hidden, darker imagery.

That dystopian vision is reflected in the album’s songs too. Fans discovered USB Flash drives left in bathrooms at the band’s shows. On them were unprotected versions of the new tracks. These leaked songs soon showed up online as another part of the puzzle.

The power of mystery
Rolling Stone said the “Year Zero” project is “the most innovative promotion scheme since the leaked sex tape.”

NIN have treated their fans to a sort of Where’s Waldo game that includes tour merchandising, a dizzying network of websites and, umm, bathrooms in European concert halls.

Adrants praised the campaign and said, “Mythology adds fuel to fan fire.”

This is the way a viral campaign should be run – with a brand using multiple forms of media to play with its users and leave them things to find and chase after.

The Google perspective
Matt Cutts, a Google software engineer, points out why the campaign is a winner from an SEO perspective.

- Check out the text from iamtryingtobelieve.com/purpose.htm. It’s so jittery that it’s hard to read, but if you view the source, you’ll notice that it’s mostly text content, which lets search engines index it.

- The buzz built pretty organically. USB drives were left in bathrooms at conferences and messages were hidden in conference T-shirts. It’s much better to let people find you than to push too hard to get noticed. The links from the “people-find-you” approach are more organic than if someone spammed to get links to viral sites.

- I appreciate that the campaign picked a lot of terms (e.g. “parepin”) that were unique nonsense words. That keeps the marketing campaign from crufting up search results for actual topics or real peoples’ names, which is a pretty rude thing to do.

I recently decided to upgrade my cookware. I asked a friend of mine who’s a chef for recommendations. Here’s what she had to say:

I like All-Clad stainless, I’ve had good luck with it.

I also have some copper cookware that Williams Sonoma got from a French company, but I don’t believe they carry that exact brand anymore. Copper conducts heat really wonderfully; it gets a patina which some people don’t like, but I don’t mind. I never polish it and I don’t think that affects its performance.

I dream of also owning some Le Creuset cookware, at least a Dutch oven to make braised meats and stews.

Calphalon is a brand people like a lot, too, but I haven’t personally worked much with it.

Re: nonstick, it won’t hurt to have one nonstick pan for certain uses, but keep in mind the lifespan of nonstick is not very long because the nonstick surface gradually wears away.

There is also cast-iron, which can be a great option and not very expensive. It conducts heat well. But you have to take care of it; you shouldn’t really submerge it in water, and you need to rub it with vegetable oil to keep it conditioned/seasoned. Very respected among cooks.

The 8-year old in me snickered since that’s the first time I’ve heard the phrase “dutch oven” used in a serious manner. Anyway, I wound up purchasing this All-Clad Stainless 6-Piece Set and so far it’s great. Made some hash browns this weekend and got some crispy onion action that I never achieved with my previous pans.

Related: Lodge cast iron [SvN]

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 recently launched with a streamlined, cut-through-the-crap service-level agreement (SLA). The old version was seven pages, the new version is one page (competitor Novell’s is 36 pages). According to Red Hat, the new SLA eliminates legalese and offers “no questions asked” support on anything it makes.

With one fell swoop of a presentation slide, [Red Hat vice president of support Ian] Gray took the nine-page document that accompanied Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and turned it into a one-page affair meant to simplify a customer’s service experience. “If we ship the bits, we support the bits,” he said. “No more legalese.”

In the old SLA’s place was a “production support scope of coverage.” While technically an SLA, this one-page document now says if Red Hat made it, and it’s production-ready, then Red Hat will support it—no questions asked.

Plus, the company is simplifying support for customers too. It is creating the Red Hat Cooperative Resolution Center to solve problems even when they come from partner products.

In addition, Red Hat created a support center called the Red Hat Cooperative Resolution Center. The center will work to solve issues whether they arrive from Red Hat technology or a partner’s applications, executives said. With this center, Red Hat will take sole ownership of inquiries for any partner’s product that runs on RHEL 5, regardless of whether the problem lies with RHEL 5 or the partner’s product. It’s important to note that Red Hat says it isn’t just covering vendors like Oracle, but all of its partner applications as well. According to Red Hat, its support technicians will accomplish this by working with the support staff of a customer’s vendors to solve a problem.

Kudos to Red Hat for seeing things through their customers’ eyes. Customers don’t care who/what caused the problem, they just want it fixed. When multiple technology providers are involved, it’s nice to know you can count on someone to get it done rather than shift the blame. [tx ED]

Brightkite
Ryan Mendoza: “Came across this ‘we’ll let you know when it launches’ screen (at brightkite), which is a little bit out of the ordinary. It lets you get notified not only via email, but also via IM and SMS. Pretty neat, given that the product they’re promoting is about notifications.

Chicago2016
Derek Vaz: “Chicago2016.org has a nice litte form treatment for entering your reason why you support the bid. As an IA I’m always trying to make forms smaller, simpler and warmer. This actually invites me to ‘speak my mind’ instead of just ‘enter text here’.”

NBA fonts
Jeremy Wallace: “One often doesn’t see fonts competing like this...I’m going to have to go with the Jazz based on readability.”

NBA box score
Check out San Antonio veteran Robert Horry’s line from this NBA game (it’s since been modified).

Got an interesting link, story, or screenshot for Signal vs. Noise? Contact svn [at] 37signals [dot] com.

Eddie Jabbour, graphic designer for Kick Design, is obsessed with replacing the confusing NYC subway map (below: originals on left and Kick maps on right — click for larger versions).

The logic behind the changes
“Can He Get There From Here?” profiles Jabbour’s quest. Here he explains the reasoning for his changes:

Mr. Jabbour pinned two maps to the wall, then pointed to the different renderings of the Atlantic Avenue terminal in Brooklyn, which he says is the most difficult station to represent because so many subway lines converge there. In Mr. Jabbour’s map, the subway lines run parallel to one another, making the map easier to read, if slightly inaccurate. Each line is marked with a circle bearing the route’s letter or number, instead of the oblong station markers used on the current map.

There are other differences. Unlike the official map, Mr. Jabbour’s map does not have a single line representing all the trains in a “cluster” route, like the 1, 2 and 3 trains in Manhattan. He used the same type font throughout, and words travel left to right, rather than diagonally, as on much of the official map. The lines bend only in 45- and 90-degree angles, to create a gridlike pattern.

In the eyes of Mr. Jabbour, the New York system is too complicated to layer on information like commuter rail and bus routes, as the current map does. He would like to see a map that is singularly devoted to the subway.

Distortion vs. accuracy
Jabbour’s map looks like a winner. (Thankfully, the navigation on it is a lot better than the messy Flash interface at Kick Design’s main site). He wisely recognizes that usability is more important than geographic accuracy here. Subway map readers want to know how to get from A to B a lot more than they want to know the exact curve of the tracks along the way. Sometimes truth is less important than knowledge.

It’s also interesting to see how he increases the number of lines on the map yet decreases the overall noise created. That change means riders can put their finger on a line and trace it all the way to their destination. That’s not always an easy task on the current map (multiple trains run along a single line until veering off).

[Fireside Chats are round table discussions conducted using Campfire.]

The Chatters
Dave Brasgalla (Icon Factory)
Brian Brasher (Firewheel Design)
Jon Hicks (Hicks Design)
Corey Marion (Icon Factory)
Michael Schmidt (Cuban Council)
Josh Williams (Firewheel Design)
(Moderated by Matt and Jason from 37signals)