RailsOnWave Ruby on Rails web 2.0 Ajax - News

In/Out by 37signals

2008-06-13T08:24:00Z

In/Out is an internal application by 37signals first sited by Jason Fried 2 months ago. They implemented it to keep in touch with each other during the workday without useless interruptions:

In/Out is based on a simple need. People working together, on the same team or the same project, that sometimes need to know what each person is doing during the day.

What are you working on? When someone asks you this question it interrupts you and if 3, 4 or 5 people ask the same question during the day, it’s better that you take the day off.

In/Out helps to solve this problem efficiently. Each person in the team can use this tool to notify their actual status to others, and at the same time they can add log entries just describing what they have just accomplished.

The main page – and I suppose the only one – of this application allows you to see on the left side what has been finished by everyone during the day, while on the right side every worker can see each others status and the list of what they’ve already finished:

It’s probably one of the most innovative and simple tools that I’ve ever seen.

There’s only one thing that I cannot understand. Why they don’t release it as a stand alone product? I think it could be a major hit. Of course making something similar is not hard for anyone – so it cannot be considered a real asset for 37signals. Actually they only released it as part of Backpack.

But having conceived something so simple and at the same time so useful is really impressive. It’s like having designed the first non-Twitter application for the business, using the same fundamental principle of “simply useful” – I’ll get back on this concept again in future articles.

There’s only a subtle doubt I have. What if they decided not to release it stand alone to avoid cannibalizing their golden egg, Basecamp?
Mmmmhhhh…

If I was Jason Fried I would be studying a smart way to release it as a stand alone application and at the same time, have it integrated as a “module” of Basecamp – like they have already done with Writeboard.

For those of you that want to have some details there’s a short video describing this application at work – now renamed as Backpack Journal:

References:
- A peek at In/Out an internal app at 37signals
- Launch: the Backpack Journal

RailsConf 2008 is on air!

2008-05-30T16:12:00Z

The most wonderful conference about Ruby On Rails is starting and GotThingsDone.com is again Gold Sponsor. This year we have big news about our main product: WhoDoes 2.0

Chad Fowler is introducing the whole program right now. Keep following us on this blog or at Wave Factory blog

Tasking with WhoDoes 2.0

2008-04-30T13:33:00Z

Tasking items has never been so easy and simple with WhoDoes 2.0

How it is done…

The Task List gives you a clear indication of the workload for each team member, all tasks assigned to team members appear below their names and closed tasks are shown with the number of tasks that are closed.

WhoDoes 2.0 has taken working on paper and implementing it into the application. The shortcut add new task link enables you, just as in jotting down a “To-Do” list, to add new tasks unassigned or assigned to team members quickly and effortlessly.

With the simple drag and drop functionality, tasks that have not yet been assigned can be passed to team members by simply dragging the task to the name of the team member.

Any documents related to the tasks can be uploaded in the Documents uploaded section. Shared documents for the task are stored in a central point for team members to retrieve.

The project manager is kept up to date with the progress of the project and the number of hours that have been dedicated to each task. This is done with the easy-to-use hour uploading system within the task view, when the task has been updated the team is informed with an e-mail keeping everyone up to date.

Introduction to WhoDoes 2.0

2008-04-29T19:25:00Z

Upcoming WhoDoes 2.0 is improved with more intuitive and easy-to-use features.

What’s new?

WhoDoes 2.0 makes it possible to start managing a project in a just few minutes, even more efficiently. Using just one of the new features Fast Planning, assigning tasks to team members, defining due dates, implementing task priorities and keeping your project’s progress under control is done simply and easily with WhoDoes 2.0

A new and innovative idea of sharing documents and e-mails has been built into WhoDoes 2.0, lost documents and e-mails will no longer be a problem. Team members will be kept up to date with WhoDoes’ new advanced centralized document and e-mail repository system which contains all the material that is related to the project with a new Project e-mail functionality.

Limited resources for a project is something in the past, WhoDoes 2.0 introduces network Teamwork. This will enable you to invite people to your team who are part of the WhoDoes network and have chosen to be visible. Finding resources is easier and simple. Not only can you find people to assign to your project with the WhoDoes network but you don’t need to re-invite users that already have a WhoDoes account, they can simply be added as a team member.

WhoDoes 2.0 has managed to integrate instruments into an online application making collaboration between team members and sharing of documents more efficient and easy for projects managed within the same office or projects with team members dispersed all over the world.

Coming Soon: Whodo.es 2.0

2008-04-28T17:54:00Z

It took us a while but we’re finally close to the release date of WhoDoes 2.0

The philosophy

What drove us to this release was the need to make our product as simple as working on paper. Most of your daily planning is normally done without following any particular schema, you simply start writing activities as soon as they come to mind and only then you choose who will be the person responsible for them.

While working in a team, it could occur that all players need to plan (or detail) their activities that could influence others, in this way it is necessary to use a tool that mixes collaborating and handling deadlines, in a smart way.

Nowadays a to-do list driven management system is the key factor for smart and easy project management. This statement is true, but we believe that it is not enough to manage a project’s workflow, the upcoming screencast gives you a taste of one of the amazing features that we have incorporated into the new version of whodoes to help make managing projects easier and successful.

The Screencast

More to come

Stay tuned to railsonwave.com to discover all the new WhoDoes 2.0 features ! As usual we would be very greatful for any constructive criticism, comments or suggestions you would like to make about the upcoming whodo.es version.

Matz's speech from Euruko 2008

2008-03-29T14:55:00Z

I’m writting this post from Prague’s Euruko 2008 Ruby conference. The conference is taking place inside the city university and it is organized by Czech and Slovak Ruby User Group.

This morning we have attended to Matz’s speech titled ‘The Past, The Presen and The Future of Ruby’. Matz did a great comparison between all the current Ruby interpreters, JRuby, YARV, Rubinius. In particoular YARV impressed me much because, as explained by its author, Sasada Koichi, is up to 20x faster than the original Ruby interpreter!

Next Matz talk about some of the new Ruby 1.9 features, as enumerator chain:


            ary.map.with_index{|x,i|
                ...
            }

and a cool way to interact with enumerators out of a block:


    e1= [1,2,3,4]
    e2=[10,11,4]

    loop {
        p e1.next+e2.next
    }  
    #=>11,13,7

The last part of the speech was about Ruby 2.0, Matz sad that the keyword for this new release is scalability. Last but not least Matz talk about a new pre and post method hooks that will be implemented in Ruby 2.0 giving us more control on our functions (and maybe lead us to a design by contract paradigm in Ruby).

RailsConf 2008 speeches recommendation system

2008-02-21T22:16:00Z

Trying to find a way to code an application that uses the recommendation library I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, I started thinking on how could be improved a conference’s schedule and I came out with this little speech recommendation system.

What is it ?

It’s a little web application that uses data collected from users choiches to suggest you a bunch of speeches that you may find interesting. For each speech a recommendation index is calculated using Pearson Distance algorithm and an appropriate message is given to the user based on that index.

How it Works ?

The application first asks you for a few speeches you are sure to attend to, then it calculates the Pearson distance between yours and other users choiches and basing on that index it finds which speeches may be interesting for you.

Screenshot and application’s link

Here is a screenshot of the application, I used YUI base css pack to speed up the developing process while keeping the layout clean and cross browser.

The ‘choose a few speeches you are sure to attend’ phase

The ‘a bunch of speeches you may find useful’ phase

Now, what next ?

Well, now it’s time to try out the conference speeches recommendation system; when the application will start to collect a considerable amount of data I’ll publish some statistics about the most wanted speech !

Try WhichSpeech?, RailsConf2008 recommendation system!

Disclaimer

What I created is intended as an exercise about recommendation algorithms and it works only by estimating your preferences based upon other users choices. It does not aim to show that some speeches are better that others.

Merry Christmas !

2007-12-24T13:01:00Z

We want to wish you a merry Christmas and a very happy new year ! Thanks to everyone who share with us his knowledge and passion on this blog and see you on 2008!

ps: which books are you going to read on these lazy Christmas days ?
pps: take a look at our Ruby on Rails Christmas screensaver!

Dave Thomas Keynote - Rails Conf Europe 2007

2007-11-27T11:00:00Z

As I promised today I’m going to publish the keynote that Dave Thomas hold at RailsConf Europe 2007 in Berlin.
Please click on the image below to enjoy it!

RailsConf EU 07 - DHH & Dave Thomas keynotes

2007-11-16T10:49:00Z

In the next few days will make available the full version of Dave Thomas keynote at the RailsConf Europe in Berlin in streaming. We are sorry for being so late producing it, but at the moment we are very busy in building the version 1.2 of WhoDoes.

However, if many you are actually interested, we could provide David Heinemeier Hansson and Dave Thomas keynotes in MPEG-4 format – ready to be loaded on the iPhone too.

Let me know with your comments

We are becoming great. Let's celebrate

2007-11-05T15:09:00Z

WhoDoes got forth place in Google Directory Project Management Hosted Solutions list

Good news comes one after another.

A few days ago we announced that we got PageRank 6 and for this result we have to say thanks to all of you. Taking into account that our main competitor, Basecamp by 37signals, is PageRank 7.

That’s amazing! Don’t you think?

During this period we discovered another incredible achievement. It came from the Google Directory. Boys, we got the forth place in Project Management Hosted Solutions category. Look at this:

Check this out with your own eyes :) at this Google Directory link

Thanks to everybody.

Google PageRank update

2007-10-27T11:18:00Z

Google PageRank update October 2007

As you probably just know, the Google PageRank (PR) is a value, from 0 to 10, that measures the sites popularity.

Google constantly calculates the PR of the web pages.

The value showed in the Google Toolbar is only a snapshot of the real PR value at a point in time, this value was usually updated every three months…

was usually, because since the last update (between April and May 2007), this is the first time that the value wasn’t updated for more than five months.

But today, Google has finally update the PageRank value.

We’re proud to see that our blog and our most important web sites have now a wonderful Page Rank 6.

Talking about the future of PM software

2007-10-22T15:37:00Z

Bas de Baar author of SoftwareProjects.org asked me a few questions on the future of Project Management software. I’m glad to be interviewed and so I want to share my answers with you.

So, please enjoy my interview on SoftwareProjects.org.

New Feed RSS grouped by Categories

2007-10-19T08:58:00Z

New Feed RSS grouped by Categories.

As you know, our team is composed by people with different skills as management, design, programming and web marketing, for this reason we usually wrote about different themes.

In order to spread posts in a better structure, we recently divided them in different Categories, each one with a dedicated Feed RSS.

Now you can choose to subscribe All posts Feed or to subscribe the Category Feed you prefer:

News – News and Tips
Ruby on Rails – Technical posts about Ruby and Ruby on Rails
Web 2.0 – Posts about Web 2.0 and its continuous evolutions
Design – Posts about Art, Design and Web Design
Web Marketing – Posts about Marketing, Web Marketing and Search Engine Marketing
Got Things Done – Posts about our company and our products
WhoDo.es – Posts about our main web application
Events – Post about events and conferences

Follow The Oracle

2007-09-13T13:21:00Z

Follow the Oracle - Oracle driven Project Management

Finally a definitive solution for all problems related to Project Management.
Answers for all the Project Managers doubts.
The times for inventing excuses to justify why you are late to your boss or your clients, are over.
The times for inventing creative methods to increase the team work productivity, are over.

The web site Follow the Oracle allows you to consult an Oracle in order to obtain all the answers to the typical questions of people involved in Project Management.

The Oracle answers in a peremptory way to the frequently asked questions, suggesting original excuses to justify the continuous projects delays, and proposing innovative methods to increase the team work productivity.

Don't worry anymore about Project Management problems...
now with the Oracle Driven Project Management, you've only to choose a question... and Follow the Oracle!

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