“In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.” -Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut

Art on a matchbox. Beautifully balanced, hand-drawn, great colors, cool type, simple imagery, appealing propaganda and advertising.

Backpack has had a great calendar for a while now. But we’re about to make it better. If you have multiple users on your Backpack account you’ll be able to use the calendar together.

Many calendars, one grid

The new Backpack Calendar’s color coding lets you plot different people’s schedules on the same grid. Plus, you can toggle calendars on and off by just checking the box in front of a calendar:

Privacy too

The new Backpack Calendar allows allows you to specify who can see which calendars. When you create a new calendar, or edit an existing calendar, you can check off the names of users on your account. If they’re unchecked they can’t see the calendar.

The new Backpack is around the corner

Stay tuned for launch. It’s coming soon!

A shopkeeper sweeping the sidewalk in front of her store.

A young girl holding the door for an elderly gentleman.

A mother telling her son to say “thank you” when the waitress gave him a piece of candy.

A piece of dovetailed furniture.

A squirrel deftly de-shelling and devouring a peanut.

A handwritten letter.

The sun.

Seen anything lately?

So far we’ve previewed multiuser and messages & newsroom in the upcoming Backpack release. Now we want to talk about the new Page Changes feature.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

When you have multiple people contributing to a page it’s handy to know when and what changed since your last visit. We’ve made this really easy with the new Backpack.

If you visit a page that changed since your last visit you’ll see a sticky note in top right corner of the page. Close up it looks like this:

In context it looks like this:

History

When you click the “See changes” link you’ll see the full change history of the page:

New stuff, changed stuff, tweaked stuff—the history gives you what you need to know about how the content has changed over time.

More soon

Over the next week or so we’ll be unveiling some of the other new features coming soon to Backpack. Stay tuned.

Yesterday we announced multiuser support is coming to Backpack. Today we want to preview two more features: Messages and the Newsroom.

Messages

While we were building Backpack Multiuser we realized that something was missing. The “watercooler” feature where people could discuss stuff going on in the office, quick projects, make announcements ala a bulletin board, etc. So we built messages into the new Backpack.

Messages make Backpack a great hub for internal discussions and conversations that are usually passed around in mass emails. Toss the email mess and post in Backpack instead.

Newsroom

A big part of multiuser is knowing who did what when. Who made a new page? Who added something to the calendar? Who commented on a message? Knowing these things helps you discover new content and connects you with the other people who are part of the account.

Here’s what the Newsroom looks like:

You’ll see the latest messages appear at the top of the Newsroom. At the bottom of the Newsroom you’ll see the “Latest Activity” section which lists big picture activity in the account such as new pages, new calendar items, new messages/comments, etc.

We think you’ll love the Messages and Newsroom sections coming to Backpack soon. Note: Both of these features are only available on larger multiuser plans (they really aren’t useful on two or three-user accounts). More on this in a future post.

More soon

Over the next week or so we’ll be unveiling some of the other new features coming soon to Backpack. Stay tuned.

We’ve been working on something. Backpack is going multiuser.

Multiuser makes Backpack crazy delicious

So here’s the story. At our first full-day full-team get together with Jeff Bezos last year we were tossing around some ideas on how we could make Backpack even better. Some of those ideas made it into a major release last year. The second big idea was to make Backpack multiuser.

Why multiuser?

You’ve always been able to share Backpack pages via email. And while that works, and while you’ll still be able to do that, we felt that we could go further and make it much easier for people to use Backpack together. So instead of having to share pages by email and deal with multiple Backpack accounts and URLs, soon you’ll be able to just add multiple users to your account:

Backpack matures into a great business tool

There’s a clear advantage to a multiuser Backpack account: Backpack becomes a wonderful small business/group tool.

While Basecamp is great for managing client and internal projects, Backpack multiuser becomes a great tool for sharing information across your organization, centralizing knowledge, and a home base for all those little bits that everyone needs but no one can find. Since anyone with access to a page can add content, Backpack pages turn into collaborative blank slates.

For example, you could make a page where your team could brainstorm ideas for the next version of a product or project…

...or you could gather and store research for an upcoming project or white paper you’re going to publish…

Dubner invites you to write a new six-word motto for the US.

Some fun ones in the comments include:

• Still Using Fahrenheit, Feet, and Gallons.
• Hubris: it’s not just for Greeks!
• One Nation, Over Weight, Over Budget.
• Our worst critics prefer to stay.
• The world’s scapegoat except in emergencies.
• America: Our poor own big screen TV’s.
• No Lobbyist, No lawyer, no service.
• We’re mostly corn. Check the label.

Need inspiration? Check out Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure:

From small sagas of bittersweet romance (“Found true love, married someone else”) to proud achievements and stinging regrets (“After Harvard, had baby with crackhead”), these terse true tales relate the diversity of human experience in tasty bite-sized pieces. From authors Jonathan Lethem and Richard Ford to comedians Stephen Colbert and Amy Sedaris, to ordinary folks around the world, everyone has a six-word story to tell.

Can you sum up your life so far in six words?

Vote NO and get an earful.
That’s how it works in Chicago.
Via Gapers Block

Writeboard, our simple collaborative writing tool just received a long requested feature: Autosave. Every 10 seconds your latest version is saved so you don’t lose any work if your browser window closes, crashes, or otherwise doesn’t cooperate.

Autosave is included in standalone Writeboards, and Writeboards that are integrated into Basecamp and Backpack. We hope you find autosave valuable.