37signals Product Blog

37signals ID update: Now you can have different email addresses for each Basecamp

2009-12-15T08:18:21-06:00

When we pushed the 37signals ID update this weekend, we consolidated email addresses into a single email. That means your 37signals ID was tied to a single email address.

This was fine for Backpack and Highrise users because each one of those apps also has a "notifications email" address inside the app. So even if your main account email was john@domain.com, you could specify a separate address for each one of these products to use. Basecamp, however, didn't have a separate email address. So every one of your Basecamp accounts sent email to the same email address - your 37signals ID email address.

Some people didn't like this because they liked keeping emails from their work Basecamp account and emails from their personal Basecamp accounts separate. Totally fair.

So yesterday we scrambled to add a separate Basecamp email address field to each account. And last night we pushed the update. Now you can have a different email address for each Basecamp account. Just log into a Basecamp account, click "My Info" and edit the email field. And BTW, we restored the previous email addresses from our backup, so everyone has the same email address in each Basecamp account as they did before the 37signals ID update.

Thanks for sending over your feedback. We hope you like the fix.

37signals ID begins rolling out

2009-12-13T08:07:59-06:00

37signals ID, our new single sign-in system is beginning to roll out to customers (starting with our Max and Premium plan customers). Over the next week we'll roll it out to more and more people. By the end of the week (around the 18th) we expect the upgrades to be rolled out to everyone.

Here's a list of many of the major changes that come along with the 37signals ID username and password system upgrade. We'll be providing more detail on some of these in the coming week.

Launchpad (global)

Introduced Launchpad. Visible to anyone with multiple accounts tied to a 37signals ID or Open ID. The Launchpad shows up when someone signs in from 37signals.com or a product marketing site home page. Also linked from the in-app Launchbar.
The Launchpad displays all accounts linked to your 37signals ID. Each product gets a column, and each account gets a row. Drag and drop reorder columns and rows. Single click sign-in to any listed account.
Edit Identity: Edit your 37signals ID name, email, avatar, username, and password. Switch between OpenID and 37signals ID username and password.
Settings: Assign nicknames to each product account. Hide accounts you don't want displayed on the Launchpad or Launchbar.

Launchbar (global)

Renamed Launchbar (was called Openbar for OpenID users).
Everyone with more than one account attached to their 37signals ID sees the Launchbar at the top of the screen when they're in an app.
Horizontal application order, and vertical account order, mirrors the layout on the Launchpad. User configurable via drag and drop reordering on the Launchpad.

Sign-in screens (global)

Resetting your password asks for your email address instead of your username.
Introduced temporary tokenized sign-in link if your OpenID provider is down. This allows you to still access your accounts if your OpenID provider is offline or unavailable for any reason.
Modernized the design of the in-app login screens with the rounded edges tablet design. Otherwise the same.
Customers who have custom sign-in screens on their own site can update their forms with this new form code.

Edit user (global)

Everyone's "My Info" screen shows 37signals ID card (with a user's real avatar) and a link to edit info in the light blue header. Note: Basecamp clients don't see "37signals ID" branding.
Avatars are now global. Upload an avatar to your identity and it's updated across all your accounts that use the same 37signals ID.

Reset password (global)

New reset password screens. Enter email and get password recovery link sent via email. Actual passwords not sent though email.
Username and password can't be the same for security purposes.
Legacy users (users who haven't gone through transition) continue get old password email.

RSVP - accepting an invitation to create an account (global)

New invitation emails include a link to choose a username and password.

New create an identity screen (pick a username and password).

People can choose to use their OpenID, create a new 37signals ID, or link to an existing 37signals ID they already set up.

Special Basecamp client-view of the RSVP create a username and password screen doesn't show 37signals ID name/branding.

New success screen overlay replaces the old "bookmark this page" message above the sign-in screen. Newly designed success email as well.

Live username and password validation.

In Basecamp

Added a link on the edit person screen that allows admins to fire off a "here's how you recover your username/password" to any user. Admins can use this if one of their users forgets their username or password.
Added a link to edit person to resend the original "set up your account" email.
Users pick their own username and password. Admins create users by entering their first name, last name, email address, and any contact information they want. The system then sends an invite to the email address with a link to the new user to create a username and password.

In Highrise

Added extra email fields to the dropbox email screen. This allows someone to tell Highrise other email addresses they may use so Highrise recognizes them when they forward an email to their dropbox.
Separated users from contacts. A user can be a user without also being a contact.
Export data link moved from edit contact to edit user.
"Import from Basecamp" feature now uses an API token instead of username/password fields. Changed to improve security.

In Campfire

Added support for OpenID.

Thanks again for your patience during this long-term project. This upgrade addresses a variety of top customer requests and lays the foundation for us to deliver even more good stuff in 2010. Stay tuned!

Give your customers Basecamp reporting without requiring them to login

2009-12-11T10:11:59-06:00

Youcalc now offers a way to give your customers Basecamp reporting without a Basecamp login.

Want to give customers, partners, suppliers or other external users access to live reporting on specific Basecamp projects, but without giving them a login to Basecamp?
Could be a customer that wants to track time spent or milestones completed on their project, but you don't want the customer to get access to all project data. Or a company intranet where you want employees to be able to follow project progress on specific projects...

You can choose the exact reports and data that you want other people to have access to, and send them a link to a youcalc app that gives them just that.

Or you can insert the specific youcalc apps in your extranet/intranet and let customers/employees run the reports from there.

The good news is users won't need neither a Basecamp login nor a youcalc login - the apps will simply run and connect to the exact data that you have specified, without asking the users for anything!

Learn more and see a live demo.

Interior designer and client use Basecamp to collaborate on design of new baby room

2009-12-10T10:41:25-06:00

Mike Rohde is using Basecamp to collaborate on the design of a new baby room with Aga Artka Interior Design. Here's a look at some of the screens:

Do you use a 37signals product in an interesting way? Let us know.

Backpack helps grad student write masters thesis

2009-12-09T10:09:00-06:00

Daniel Dehner wrote to tell us how Backpack helped him with his masters thesis:

Backpack became my partner in writing a 65 page masters thesis as I stored links, references, and research materials on it. I could access it anywhere, and it was like password protected, virtual storage. I could let my advisor see my progress during various phases of my work, and it never let me down. If one computer failed or froze, I could just move to another one, and recall what I had last saved. I could email links and materials to the page on the fly for reading later. I could send myself deadline reminders and use the calendar to schedule interviews and other research needs.

The "Working Document" page (right) has a couple of versions of my paper and a reference list. I can download my paper, work on it, and either upload it or email it to the page. Sometimes during a long writing session, I will upload my work in progress once or twice to "save" in addition to saving on my computer.

The "Research Page" (above) is where I use the "Note" function to paste links and their descriptions. I also can upload PDF and Word documents of articles etc. right as I find them for review later. Since all I need is an internet connection, all my materials and links are a few clicks away. Kind of like a traveling "Favorites" list.

I love the drag and drop so I can prioritize and rearrange. Backpack is an apt title for this product.

Do you use a 37signals product in an interesting way? Let us know.

Use Backpack to help sell items at Kijiji, eBay, Craigslist, etc.

2009-12-08T09:47:00-06:00

Mike Leonard wrote in to suggest using Backpack to offer supplemental information when selling items on Kijiji, eBay, Craigslist, etc.

I use Backpack as a supplemental information page when selling items on [classifieds site] Kijiji.
I set up my ad and include a link back to my Backpack page, which has been publicly shared.

Instead of the standard 4 images allowed i can display as many pictures and very detailed descriptions as needed for the item I am selling. It has helped significantly when selling higher end items where people want to see more detail than is offered in the standard Kijiji ad.

The best part about it (as you know) is how fast you can get the page up and running.

Here's an example: Mike's page that offers details on a Sharp 26" LCD Television for sale.

Have a tip for other 37signals customers? Let us know.

How to win a client by including Basecamp in your pitch

2009-12-07T09:34:46-06:00

Matthew C. Egan (@ImageFreedom at Twitter) recently tweeted:

Recently a client chose Image Freedom over another SEO company. Why'd they choose us? We use Basecamp from @37signals. #TrueStory

We asked Matthew to share the rest of the story with us. His tale provides good inspiration for how you can use Basecamp to help pitch clients, regardless of your industry. Here's what he wrote:

I was sitting down with a potential client who was interested in Search Engine Optimization for his business. My company Image Freedom had been in business in a new town for less than six months and I didn't quite have the name for myself that any new business strives to build. This potential client had told me that he'd been speaking with a well known local company regarding SEO and he wanted to get a second opinion before locking down his choice.
I began to talk about my service, my game plan for optimization, and he told me essentially I was telling him much of what he'd heard, link building, the Google Local Business Center, optimizing each page for popular search terms, etc. This firm he'd spoken to had been around a lot longer than I had and had to answer these questions a hundred times over. I was sweating a little bit, what made me different? I wasn't about to lose this opportunity.

It occurred to me that I'd spent much of the day working with another client, MadeInSATX, and that they'd been commenting and coordinating some SEO ideas of their own through this new software I had been turned onto, Basecamp. I think I'd been using the software no more than a couple of weeks and I tapped in the address into my laptop and spun it around to this potential client. I told him that in my experience web development came with a certain mystery. You pay a guy, he says he is going to do X, Y and Z but after you meet with him you may not know what progress has been made or where your project is in being completed. I told him that for me Basecamp was my way of including the client every step of the way.

I created a new project, I generated a username and password and sent it to his e-mail which he immediately got via smart phone. I showed him how I had the Chieftent application on my iPhone and I went about creating milestones and to-do lists for his project. If we begin today, I'll have the design document for you by this date, entered it into Basecamp, if we begin today, I'll have a mockup via development server for you by this date, entered that into Basecamp too. He was clearly impressed.

See he thought the way that I did, that when you hire someone to do web work for you, it is often because web work is foreign to you. Having a tool like Basecamp allowed him to feel connected to his project, and while he didn't sign with me that very minute. I believe that Basecamp put me over the edge in his eyes. He called me just a few hours later saying he'd chosen Image Freedom to handle his SEO, and at the end of the call he said that not a whole lot made my company different from the one he'd previously spoken with. Our prices were more or less the same, we both offered a non-competetion so we wouldn't be off helping his competitors with their SEO, we both said we'd do essentially the same thing, but it was Basecamp and how I was applying it as a customer service resource that gave him the confidence that I was the right company to work with.

Basecamp made a believer out of me that day, and while my business is smaller than many I've seen highlighted on the 37Signals site, I know that as I grow Basecamp will grow with me, already capable of handling situations I haven't run into yet. There are a lot of competitors out there who do great work, mine is a field filled with some very talented people, I needed something that made me different, I needed a something special: thankfully I had Basecamp.

Do you use a 37signals product in an interesting way? Let us know.

Encamp, a great iPhone app for Basecamp, renamed Insight

2009-12-04T11:59:10-06:00

Encamp, a great iPhone app for managing Basecamp projects, has been renamed Insight. Use it and wherever you go you can stay connected with your projects and tasks. Check it out at the iTunes App Store (price $9.99). Or learn more at the (yet to be rebranded) Insight site.

Head of sales for a technology company: Basecamp is a "vital tool for honest communication"

2009-12-03T09:35:32-06:00

Christien Louviere writes about sales and the importance of communication when it comes to change management and/or innovation. In 3 Vital tools for honest communication, he lists some of the tools that he use because of their ease and effectiveness. On the list: Basecamp.

Basecamp – 37signals has a nice package of collaborative tools that are perfect for any organization from bootstrapped to venture funded. Basecamp is their project management platform. It allows you to manage multiple projects, assign certain users to certain projects and milestones. The dashboard provides an easy to follow snapshot of everything that is going on within a project. My favorite part is that I can subscribe via RSS or email to the reminders, so I always know where everyone stands.

Read the full piece.

A letter to our customers about the new 37signals Accounts system

2009-12-02T11:36:20-06:00

In a few weeks we'll be launching a completely new username and password system we're calling 37signals Accounts. This means that everyone who uses a 37signals product will need to pick a new username and password. You'll only have to do it once, and it will only take a few seconds.

We recently linked to the 37signals Accounts detail page and now there's also a letter to our customers explaining the rollout schedule, full list of benefits of the new system, and additional information. The information on these pages should answer any questions you have about the transition.

The new 37signals Accounts system lays the groundwork for a variety of enhancements you've been asking for. We'll be working on these in 2010. Thanks again for your continued support.

What the "pick a new username and password screen" will look like.

Tip: Email attachments to Backpack pages

2009-12-01T10:49:15-06:00

Backpack customer Rizwan Reza writes in:

Backpack Tip: Send attachments to a Backpack page...I have come to use this on a regular basis now. Have some attachment in your email you want to save in Backpack, just email it to your page's email address, and magically, you'd find your message along with the attachments! Super handy!

Learn more about how Backpack can quickly turn your emails into notes, files, to-do lists, and photo galleries at the Tour: Backpack and Email page.

For example, this...

...becomes this:

Have a tip for other 37signals customers? Let us know.

[Preview] The latest on 37signals Accounts

2009-11-30T16:37:12-06:00

We're getting really close now. Back in August we previewed 37signals Accounts — our new single sign-on system for Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, and Campfire. Today we announced that we're just a few weeks out from official release.

We just put up a 37signals Accounts pre-launch page detailing the basics, the benefits, a few screenshots, and FAQs.

Read this post at Signal vs. Noise for additional details and a couple of highlights from the new system.

Tip for what to do if you accidently delete something in Backpack

2009-11-24T12:49:55-06:00

At Twitter, @maguay writes:

Quick tip for using @37signals Backpack ... if you accidently delete something, check the RSS feed or the page history - it just saved me!

Just go to the footer of any Backpack page to find these links...

Got a 37signals product tip others might like? Let us know.

[Case study] SEO company: "Basecamp has cut our project management time in half"

2009-11-23T09:54:18-06:00

Below, Dan Kaplan from SEO company periscopeUP tells us how his team uses Basecamp to manage two production facilities, three writers, and three designers spread around the world.

Basecamp Keeps periscopeUP Above Water
periscopeUP is a boutique SEO company, managed entirely in the cloud. Our two man shop is able to help dozens of clients stay on top of Google, Yahoo! and Bing rankings and generate more leads from their websites. To keep costs low, periscopeUP outsources every aspect of their business, and Basecamp keeps track of it all.

My co-founder Eric Kronthal (sales) and myself (operations) rely on Basecamp to manage two production facilities (in the Philippines and Thailand), three writers (North Carolina, Baltimore & Denver) and three designers (Phillipines, Denver, and Baltimore).

As a Project Manager, staying on time and on budget is critical, and Basecamp is the only tool I've found that helps me manage so much productivity.

periscopeUP's Basecamp Dashboard.

How is One Project Manager Able to Manage So Much Work?
With Eric focusing on sales, I am the company's only PM. I am a power-user of Basecamp, taking advantage of advanced features to streamline operations and manage dozens of web development and SEO projects.

Templates are a favorite feature. periscopeUP uses a proprietary process created over the past 13 years of web development trials and tribulations. We've put this 52 point SEO checklist into a template, broken out into each stage of the process.

Getting a new client up on Basecamp takes about five minutes, because all we have to do is create milestones and attach pre-made to-do lists from our templates. Everything is ready to go, from project intake to billing, on-page optimization to coding, and site submissions to link building.

More Productivity. Lower Costs.
Maintaining and improving a repeatable process has allowed periscopeUP to scale our business without having to add new Project Managers:

Pushing the Basecamp RSS feed to shared Google Calendars helps us stay on schedule
Writeboards keep track of SEO content revisions
Comments let writers, designers, coders and PMs collaborate with clients
By giving clients their own Basecamp account (and correct use of private tasks), we're able to easily get client approvals on screenshots, copy changes and documents without revealing too much of the secret sauce.

The Basecamp RSS feed pushed to a shared Google Calendar.

A Focus On Clients
When we started the company, we were struggling with Google Docs, then DotProject, to keep track of multiple jobs, multiple vendors, and multiple headaches.

Eric has said that, "Basecamp has cut our project management time in half, which as a salesman I love because it allows us to provide high touch customer service and not worry that something's going to fall through the cracks. After they've worked with us, upselling a client on more services is easy!"

It Travels Well
When a client called in a panic that they were no longer on page one, with Eric in West Virginia, myself in New York, a coder in the Phillipines, and a writer in N. Carolina, the team was able to check their SEO logs, make copy updates, recode a few pages, and update XLM site maps to quickly restore rankings.

To-Do items across all projects.

Tips for other customers
Do we have tips for other Basecamp users? I'm excited by the new dates feature on tasks. Use your milestones to schedule the big deliverables, and apply dates to key tasks on the critical path needed to achieve those deadlines. The feature has been out only a week, and we've already been able to use it to reduce email clutter.

How To-Do list due dates saved the day for a Singapore company

2009-11-20T10:35:37-06:00

Anol Bhattacharya, CEO of GetIT | Comms, a boutique outfit, based in Singapore providing interactive digital media solutions to hi-tech and telco companies, writes in:

Recently Basecamp's To-Do list added in a new feature of mentioning due dates, and coincidentally just at the right time for us.
Last Friday one of the project managers of our team had to rush to Seattle to attend to a Family emergency within 5 hours of notice. There are multiple very important projects ongoing and there was not enough time for a proper handover. Basecamp came to rescue! Quickly we jotted down all the To-Do's with due dates and comments. Since then, for the whole of this last week we have been using that To-Do page as a dashboard, with comments, counter-comments, adding & checking off 'to-do' items. So far we managed it well and most of the things are DONE! Thanks to Basecamp and my great team!

A screenshot of the page is attached, I had to strike out most of the texts due to confidentiality, sorry about that.

Inc. magazine looks at how an organic produce farm in Indiana uses Basecamp

2009-11-19T10:02:55-06:00

"How to Choose the Right Collaboration Software" [Inc.] discusses the emerging breed of low-cost tools, including Basecamp, that are making project collaboration much easier.

"Companies have been looking for ways to make up for the overreliance on e-mail as a collaborative tool," says Jeffrey Mann, an analyst with Gartner. "Now we're seeing the evolution of tools that tackle everything e-mail is bad at -- like allowing users to follow a discussion, share files, monitor workflow, and get the latest status on tasks and projects."

The article discusses Stranger's Hill Organics (see above photo), an 81-acre farm in Bloomington, Indiana, that uses Basecamp to help its business of growing organic produce and selling it to Whole Foods Market, food co-ops, and farmers' markets.

Almost two years ago, the farm's founders, Dale and Lee Jones, brought on four new partners to help fund an expansion. That created some problems. The founders continued to work at the farm, but the new partners held jobs elsewhere and could make it out there only a few hours a week. That made it difficult for the owners to discuss topics such as tax planning, marketing budgets, and which crops were ready for harvest. "It was almost impossible to get everyone together on a regular basis," says Rick Dietz, one of the new partners.
Things changed last summer, when the owners began using Web-based collaboration software that allows them to create a central repository for information. The farmers now post updates using a laptop in the farmhouse. Each day, the farm's manager, Vanessa Caruso, logs in to see which tasks, such as fixing a barn's leaky roof, the partners have assigned. "We now have a way for everyone to communicate regardless of where we are," says Dietz...

Dietz, who is the IT director for the city of Bloomington, thought it would be less of a hassle to set up and maintain. "I didn't have the time to be the farm's system administrator as well," he says. He also wanted a tool that was inexpensive and easy to use. His choice: Basecamp, a Web-based collaboration program he had used before. For $24 a month, it offers to-do lists, a wiki, a chatroom, 3GB of file storage, and a function that lets users set milestones and track due dates. Dietz was able to set everything up in a few hours...

Now the partners use Basecamp to discuss strategic decisions and keep up to date on marketing efforts, crop conditions, and chores. Through Basecamp, the partners also check a daily log from Caruso, the farm's manager, who documents what happens in the fields. Among her recent posts: "Fixed a little wind damage on the field. Not too bad, though. Much warmer and windy. Mice seem to be eating squash seeds, so I moved all trays up to the cloche." Entries like that help all the partners sleep a little easier.

Do you use a 37signals product in an interesting or noteworthy way? Let us know.

Basecamp connects myows.com team members in Singapore and Cape Town

2009-11-18T10:51:02-06:00

11 months ago, Max Guedy wrote to us detailing how Getting Real helped him create a new app. Recently, he wrote us again with details on how Basecamp helped him launch that app, myows.com. The tool is dedicated to providing a full suite of copyright solutions for designers, photographers, musicians, and anyone else who creates copyrightable work.

Just like 37signals, we're a small team (4 people), but we all have our own agencies or practice to run. To make matters even better, one of our team member lives in Singapore (the developer), whereas the 3 others are in Cape Town, South Africa.
Communication is of prime importance for a project the size of ours, and after a couple of emails went missing in action, I insisted that all communications be made through my agency's Basecamp account.

I put up a catchy name for the project ("the road to success") and my partners got to grip very easily with the Basecamp interface.

Documents are uploaded for approval, bugs are tracked through to-do lists and general messages go on a Writeboard.

Somehow it worked, and I'm proud to announce that myows.com went live yesterday with a minimal amount of bugs that we'll address during the BETA phase.

Do you use a 37signals product in an interesting or noteworthy way? Let us know.

New in Basecamp: An easier way to add 10 milestones at a time

2009-11-17T14:23:01-06:00

Basecamp has always had an "add 10 milestones at a time" feature, but the date picker wasn't the easiest to use. We had three pulldowns - one for year, one for month, and one for day. It worked, but it wasn't optimal.

Today we launched a nice improvement we think you'll like. Now just click a "Pick a date" field and up pops a calendar. Click the day and it's set. That's all there is too it. Faster, easier, more contextual, and more fun to use.

Thanks again for using Basecamp.

The Basecamp outage / slowdown today

2009-11-16T16:42:17-06:00

Today Basecamp suffered the worst outage / slowdown that it has had in a very long time. We're very sorry that this disrupted your day. We know that you depend on Basecamp and any downtime, no matter how rare, is a serious problem. That's why we want to share all the details with you, so we can be as transparent as possible and you can trust that we're doing everything we can to prevent this from happening again.

If you don't care about the technical details, the summary is that a server went down and our redundant backup server wasn't operational as fast as we expected it to be. No data was lost. We're making sure that both issues are taken care of and will not be repeated. If you do care about the technical details, read on.

It all started when we ran what should have been an innocent diagnostics tool to check the configuration of some hardware on the main database server. This tool wasn't so innocent after all and somehow managed to crash the server. (We're still investigating the root cause to find out exactly what happened).

This shouldn't have been a problem. We run a big, beefy slave database that's supposed to be ready at a moments notice. It has all the latest data, so even if the main machine is nuked out of orbit, we don't lose any customer data and can go straight back to trucking. Or so we thought.

The problem with this is that it's been way too long since we last had to failover to the slave server and in the meantime we've grown a ton. So while the slave database server has all the latest data and is just as beefy as the main machine, the read cache was cold because it's not being used to feed live requests. That means it has to build up the appropriate cache when we switched over to the backup server and that took way longer than we anticipated (last time there was much less data) and made everything painfully slow while it happened.

The solution is to make sure that the slave server sits with a pre-heated cache at all times, so it's ready to take over from the master immediately. There are a number of options available for this and we're looking at all of them to pick the best one.

Once again, we're really sorry for this. It was very painful to watch Basecamp be unavailable or slow for that long when we knew what we had to do to prevent this in the future. Please accept our apologies. Thanks for being a Basecamp customer.

New in Basecamp: Add due dates to to-dos!

2009-11-16T08:02:23-06:00

This one's been a long time coming. It's been our top request for quite a while. Now you can add due dates to to-do lists in Basecamp.

We spent a lot of time working on the experience, the interface, and flow, and the speed of this feature. Countless variations and hundreds of little tweaks later, we think we nailed it. We hope you'll agree.

Here's a video showing you how it all works:

This is phase one of this new feature. We have some additional features rolling out for to-dos shortly. The next major feature will be showing dated to-dos on your Dashboard and Overview calendars. Currently those calendars only show milestones due in the next 14 days. Soon they'll show to-dos as well. We'll also be revamping and modernizing drag-and-drop reordering. We think you'll really like that as well.

So thanks again for your patience while we developed the due date feature for to-dos. We took the time to get it right. We think you'll agree it was worth it.

Thanks again for using Basecamp!

Inchoo on Basecamp: "It's simple for us and it's simple for clients"

2009-11-13T12:00:36-06:00

How Inchoo uses Basecamp. (Warning: Shaky camera ahead!) Inchoo specializes in developing eCommerce solutions using Magento as a platform.

Correction: An update on issue with BlackBerries and Basecamp notifications

2009-11-13T11:52:26-06:00

Correction: We recently posted an update from Research In Motion regarding an issue with BlackBerries and Highrise. Actually, the issue is with BlackBerries and Basecamp notifications.

Due to a recent change in the way BlackBerry devices handle (or rather ignore) certain "Reply-To" addresses, people are experiencing issues when replying to Basecamp notifications on a BlackBerry (i.e. the Blackberry incorrectly sends the reply to "notifications@XXX.basecamphq.com").

Research In Motion has acknowledged the bug and they said they are working on a resolution. For full details, read "An update from Research In Motion re: Basecamp and BlackBerry."

Frugal IT: Backpack filled with "real-life usefulness and smooth interfacing"

2009-11-12T10:51:34-06:00

"10 Applications that can help you with Personal Information Management" [Frugal IT] investigates various Personal Information Management (PIM) solutions. Backpack is first up:

Backpack is a SaaS intranet for you or your business. You can store, share, discuss, and archive everything that’s essential for you or your team. “It adapts to how you see it fitting into your life, and it can bend and reshape itself to fit the application you use it for. Multiple pages with multiple levels of functionality within each page equate to an application with customization beyond that of all others. Think of it as a wiki, but overflowing with real-life usefulness and smooth interfacing.” – Mike Rundle

Try Backpack.

Haystack: Improved city, state, country navigation

2009-11-11T09:36:08-06:00

We just made it easier to move between cities, states, and countries when browsing Haystack. This is a subtle, but important improvement.

When you're in a state (California, in this case), you see a list of the top cities in that state below California. See the pink highlighted band in this screenshot:

When you're in a city (San Francisco, in this case), you see a list of the top cities and a link to the state under San Francisco. See the pink highlighted band in this screenshot:

And when you're in a country (the United Kingdom, in this case), you see a list of the top cities in that country below United Kingdom. See the pink highlighted band in this screenshot:

This really makes moving between cities, states, and countries a lot easier. You no longer have to go back to the main city, state, country listing page to navigate nearby locations.

Thanks again for using Haystack!

An update from Research In Motion re: Basecamp and Blackberry

2009-11-10T11:20:24-06:00

We just received an update from Research In Motion regarding an issue with BlackBerries and Basecamp notifications.

Due to a recent change in the way BlackBerry devices handle (or rather ignore) certain "Reply-To" addresses, people are experiencing issues when replying to Basecamp notifications on a BlackBerry (i.e. the BlackBerry incorrectly sends the reply to "notifications@XXX.basecamphq.com").

Research In Motion has acknowledged the bug and they said they are working on a resolution:

Hello,

Thank you for contacting BlackBerry Customer Support in reference to the reply to address not working on the BlackBerry Smartphone.

This is a previously reported issue and will be fixed in a future release of the BlackBerry Internet Service. No estimated time of repair is provided.

We have narrowed this to an issue with messages in a UTF-8 format and it appears our system is stripping the reply to field.

Since no further information can be provided I will be resolving this case.

If you require further assistance, please feel free to contact us.

Thank you again for contacting us.

Sincerely,

Jason
BlackBerry Customer Support
Research In Motion Limited
Tel:
NA Toll Free: 1-877-255-2377
UK Toll Free: 0808 100 7466
Europe: +44 1753 558400
Worldwide: +1-519-888-6181
Email: help@blackberry.com
Web: www.blackberry.com

We wish we had better news, but since the issue is on Blackberry's end there's nothing more we can do at this time. We'll post any updates we receive and follow-up with them to make sure they remain aware of the issue. Sorry to everyone affected — we hope this is resolved soon.

Why Highrise is the best way for real estate agents to manage leads

2009-11-10T10:41:54-06:00

In "How to Work Real Estate Internet Leads Without Going Crazy,"
Michael Lapeter, a real estate agent who works at Resonant Properties and writes the San Francisco Real Estate Blog, advises agents to use Highrise to track leads.

Use a CRM System
37signals, a hugely successful software company has a great saying: make half a product, not a half a**ed product. The same goes with leads: it's better to work half your leads well, than try to work all your leads and do a half-a**ed job of it.
To do it right, you'll need to track your leads. For no frills, make an excel sheet with their info, how/ why the found you, and what you've sent them so far. Don't forget the most critical part: prioritize your leads (I can't argue with the time-tested "A, B, C" system, but feel free to get creative if you need a little flair in your CRM).

My personal favorite for real estate CRM is Highrise, by the aforementioned 37signals (just Google "highrise, they're #1). It's free up to 250 contacts, it's drop dead simple to use, and it plays nicely with your email.

We got in touch with Michael to learn more about how he uses Highrise:

Where do you work and what do you do?
I'm the Broker-Owner of Resonant Properties, an independent real estate brokerage in San Francisco. I help people buy and sell San Francisco real estate, with a focus on technology, service, and transparency.

Why do you use Highrise? What do you like about it?
I like it because it's simple. Before Highrise, I'd used a variety of real estate specific CRMS, plugins for outlook, and everything else I could find. After I spent half a day installing, syncing, etc, the novelty would wear off and I wouldn't use them consistently. Highrise is simple and speedy enough that it's painless to use consistently. My favorite feature is the email dropbox to create new contacts.

How does Highrise compare to other similar products that real estate agents might use?
I cringe every time I get an email from a real estate CRM provider inviting me to a webinar! The other solutions seem to be either way too complex, or simple but lacking the polish (buggy, poorly thought out features, etc).

How does Highrise save you money?
It keeps me from dropping the ball with clients, which helps me close more deals.

How does Highrise save you time?
The email dropbox is a big timesaver, also just how quick it is to add contact tasks.

What tips do you have for other real estate agents who use Highrise?
The average age of real estate agents is 50+, so my biggest tip would be to just give it a chance it for 5 minutes. It's a tiny learning curve, and it's a huge step up from trying to paste every lead into an excel worksheet. I would say definitely try using the email dropbox.

How would you pitch Highrise to a real estate agent who hasn’t used it before?
I would pitch it as something that's way better than a spreadsheet but much easier to learn and use than top producer.

Do you use a 37signals product in an interesting or noteworthy way? Let us know.

Download Squad recommends running Campfire with Fluid on your Mac

2009-11-09T10:18:01-06:00

Download Squad says Campfire is one of the 10 web apps you should be running on your Mac with Fluid. What's Fluid? A Mac app that can pull web applications onto your desktop and turn them into OS X native site-specific browsers.

Campfire, the popular team communication system from 37Signals, works so well with Fluid that 37S has released an official Fluid Icon for Campfire. Some great scripts, including Growl alerts when someone mentions your name in Campfire, can be found at Thoughtbot's blog.

Bungalow lets you manage your Highrise task list on your iPhone

2009-11-06T09:27:00-06:00

Do you use Highrise to handle your task list? Do you have an iPhone? Then Bungalow may be for you...

Bungalow brings your Highrise task list to your iPhone so you can manage them on the go. Even if you are not connected to the internet you can tick tasks off, edit them and create new tasks with seamless background syncing when you're back online. In future releases of Bungalow we'll be extending it to handle other parts of your Highrise information. Get it now while the price is low and you'll get all the updates for free!

Prefinery manages software betas and integrates with Highrise

2009-11-05T11:18:57-06:00

Prefinery manages betas (for webapps and desktop software) — and it integrates with Highrise. It allows customers to create a splash page, supports a sign-up form with fields and survey questions, and handles incrementally inviting users. Customers can sync their list of testers (early adopters, best customers) with Highrise via the API to track leads, conversations, etc for further down the road. Prefinery also integrates with MailChimp.

Haystack helps web designers and clients find each other

2009-11-04T14:09:23-06:00

Lots of Haystack success stories are pouring in. And Download Squad just wrote about how Haystack helps web designers and clients find each other:

Early reports seem to be positive, with designers reporting they are signing new clients in short order. So if you're looking to advertise your design abilities, or if you're looking for a designer, give Haystack a look.

Learn more about Haystack.