Today All the oxygen trapped in a bubble- There are many good reasons to be concerned about whether the internet industry is in another bubble. Once shaky, unproven businesses hit the NASDAQ, the chance that granny is going to lose her pension fund goes up big time. That’s the direct economic consequence that you’ve probably heard already.
What hasn’t been discussed as much are some of the secondary effects that a bubble has on the industry. Like how it gets harder to hire good people as a consequence. Sure, you may have heard …(more)
- Today Three quick Rails console tips
- I was bouncing around the Rails API documentation yesterday, and I noticed a few rails console tricks I haven’t seen before. There’s been plenty of posts about irb and Rails before, but I’m hoping you’ll learn something new here. The following console samples were taken with Basecamp Next on Rails version 3.2.3.
Dive into your app
Running the app method in rails console gives you an integration session instance, so you can use it just like when you’re a normal i…(more)
- We're hiring: Help us significantly improve conversion and retention
- We’re looking for another teammate. This time we’re looking for someone who is completely focused on improving conversion and retention. You love moving the needle, one small step at a time. This job is all about seeing untapped potential.
Conversion could be financial (get more people to start a trial or complete it – what we consider a “sale”), or outcome-based (inspire people to create more Basecamp projects by showing them creative ways to use Basecamp they n…(more)
- Taking the Pain Out of MySQL Schema Changes
- A common obstacle we face when releasing new features is making production schema changes in MySQL. Many new features require additional columns or indexes. Running an “ALTER TABLE” in MySQL to add the needed columns and indexes locks the table, hanging the application. We need a better solution.
Option 1: Schema Change in Downtime
This is the simplest option. Put the application into downtime and perform the schema change. It requires us to have the application down for the durat…(more)
- Basecamp in Antarctica
- We have customers around the world doing extraordinary things with our software, but Ben Saunders is taking it to a whole new level.
Ben and his team are using Basecamp to organize an expedition to the South Pole and back, unsupported and on foot. This is the same journey Captain Robert Scott died trying to achieve 100 years ago, and no one has attempted it since.
Ben has been a professional polar explorer for more than 10 years and is one of only three people to complete a solo jour…(more)
- Sortfolio: Going once, going twice...
- A year ago we put Sortfolio up for sale.
We entertained a variety of offers, met with a few potential suitors in person, and negotiated numbers. Ultimately nothing came together. Then we shelved the process so we could focus all of our efforts on designing and building the new Basecamp.
Sortfolio continued to run itself for another year, generating over $200,000 in profit for us during that time.
Our paying customer count continues to hover consistently in the 170s, each paying $99…(more)
- VIDEO: Keynote by David from RailsConf 2012 on progress…
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Keynote by David from RailsConf 2012 on progress, curiosity, fear, and the danger of easy-bake ovens.
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- New in the all new Basecamp: Email-in!
- This is going to be a big one. Now you can post messages, to-do lists, files, and text documents to the all new Basecamp just by sending an email.
First, some background
In Basecamp Classic, you can post a new message by sending an email directly to Basecamp. This feature is especially useful if you’re on the road and want to post a message to the project from your phone. Just fire up your email app, address the email to Basecamp, and it’s immediately posted as a message to the p…(more)
- Today Etsy Find of the Day: The iPad Typewriter
- Sigh: touchscreen keyboards. Those tiny letters. The complete absence of charm. If only our shiny new gadgets could incorporate some of the clackety clack of those old Royal Portables.
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- Today Review: Awesome Action Barely Keeps <em>Battleship</em> Above Water
- Battleship starts like Top Gun, morphs into Transformers and ultimately ends up somewhere in the neighborhood of Independence Day.
…(more)
- Today Meet the Man Who Invented the Instructions for the Internet
- Steve Crocker was there when the internet was born. The date was October 29, 1969, and the place was the University of California, Los Angeles. Crocker was among a small group of UCLA researchers who sent the first message between the first two nodes of the ARPAnet, the US Department of Defense?funded network that eventually morphed into the modern internet.
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- Today May 18, 1980: St. Helens Blows Its Top Off
- Washington state?s Mount St. Helens volcano explodes in a cataclysm that pulverizes its top 1,300 feet, deforests nearby valleys, sends ash 12 miles into the air and kills 57 people.
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- Today Raccoon Sex Tape Is Sad Barometer of Good Taste
- Shaun Pendergast was working away at his Portland apartment when he heard a strange noise. He walked to the window and saw two raccoons expressing their love for each other on his roof.
…(more)
- Today Leaked Docs: 300-HP Fisker Atlantic on Sale in 2014, Priced From $50K
- The Fisker Atlantic ? the compact follow-up to the high-style Karma ? debuted early last month to a fair amount of fanfare as early adopters heralded the new range-extended EV as more proof that affordable electrics are on their way. But according to leaked investor documents secured by InsideEVs, the Atlantic won't go on sale ...
…(more)
- Today How Filmmakers Al and Al Tackled the Story of Alan Turing for <cite>The Creator</cite>
- Al and Al tackle the story of the English computer scientist after realizing they are in love with their computers. The filmmakers talk about their upcoming movie, The Creator, and Turing's lasting impact on culture.
…(more)
- Today Autonomous 'RoBoat' Making World Record Attempt
- The aptly-named "RoBoat" has been taking home the World Robotic Sailing Championship (WRSC) crown for three years, but this July the team behind the world's winningest autonomous watercraft will attempt to snag another record for the longest robotic sailing expedition.
The Austrian Society for Innovative Computer Sciences (INNOC) has been tweaking and iterating the RoBoat since ...
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- Today European Activists Could Force Facebook’s New Privacy Changes To A Worldwide Vote
- The European activists “europe-v-facebook.org”, led by a group of Austrian students, say that they have reached the 7,000-comment threshold on a Facebook privacy proposal, first raised last week, which would force the company to take the revisions to a worldwide vote. Perhaps not the best timing for Facebook, but great timing for those looking for more profile on the whole issue of privacy and how it is approached by Facebook.
Specifically, if you go to Facebook’s English-language Dat…(more)
- Today Facebook Says Haters Gonna Hate, Likers Gonna Like
- Facebook knows what’s best for you, sometimes before you do. That’s the meaning of a new “Likers Gonna Like” inspirational mini-poster printed by the Facebook Toronto Office. If you don’t approve of something Facebook’s doing, fine, there’s millions of other people who do. And just as with the launch of the news feed, if you hate some change to the Facebook interface, wait a few months, and you’ll probably end up Liking it too.
It’s a cavalie…(more)
- Today Want Facebook Shares? HK’s 8 Securities Offers $200 Of Them If You Join Its Trading Platform
- With Facebook announcing its ballsy stock price of $38 yesterday and all eyes now on what will happen with the social network when it finally goes public today, a new trading platform in Hong Kong, 8 Securities, is seizing the moment to boost its own profile by offering customers US$200 of Facebook shares if they sign up to trade on 8 Securities’ trading platform in the next month.
The offer indirectly serves a couple of other purposes, too: it gives non-U.S. citizens a relatively easy cra…(more)
- Today Backed By Mark Cuban, WhiteyBoard Launches v2 Of Its Paint That Turns Walls Into Whiteboards
- Two years ago, WhiteyBoard founders Saachi Cywinski, Sherwin Kim and Jason Wilk set out to re-think those clunky, inflexible whiteboards found in classrooms and offices around the country. They developed a portable, flexible alternative: An inexpensive, “instant” plastic board that weighs less than two pounds and adheres to any surface without screws.
The idea, and the fact that co-founder Jason Wilk was (at the time) hard at work on a Y Combinator backed startup, quickly attracted …(more)
- Today And The First Facebook IPO Hackathon Photos Roll In
- Hundreds of Facebook employees congregated at ‘Hacker Square’ at the company’s Menlo Park headquarters this evening ahead of the company’s insanely-hyped initial public offering. Now, some of the first photos are starting to trickle in. There was a standing ovation for chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, who gave a talk before several long-time engineers bounced in while wearing capes or bringing boomboxes.
Tonight Facebook is having its 31st Hackathon to celebrate the IPO. …(more)
- Today Spotting The Next Facebook: Why Emotions Are Big Business
- Editor’s Note: Nir Eyal is the founder of two acquired startups and an advisor to several Bay Area companies and incubators. Nir blogs about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business at NirAndFar.com. Follow him on Twitter @nireyal.
Tomorrow Facebook will sell shares in one of the biggest tech IPOs in history. New investors will gobble up the stock to get a piece of the global phenomenon famously started in Mark Zuckerberg’s dorm room in 2004. But while owning the stock will h…(more)
- Today Facebook Keeps Shipping. Now You Can Silence Spammy Apps And More With New Notification Controls
- If there’s something on Facebook that won’t stop pinging you with Notifications, tell it to shut up instantly with Facebook’s new granular, in-line notification controls. Hover over an alert in the Facebook.com homepage’s globe icon drop-down and click the ‘x’ for the option to turn off notifications from that app, group, event, or post you commented on. The whole drop-down has a slick new look, and you can scroll down to much older notifications too.
Previous…(more)
- Today Kleiner Perkins Closes On $525 Million For Its 15th Venture Fund, ‘KPCB 15′
- Silicon Valley venture capital stalwart Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers is announcing this evening that it has closed on a $525 million round for its fifteenth venture fund, dubbed ‘KPCB 15.’
The fund will be headed up by 10 managing members: Mike Abbott, Chi-Hua Chien, Amol Deshpande, John Doerr, Bing Gordon, Wen Hsieh, Randy Komisar, Matt Murphy, Beth Seidenberg, and Ted Schlein. Longtime Kleiner Perkins investment partners Brook Byers, Ray Lane and Bill Joy are all notably o…(more)
- Today Playlist: The roots — and effects — of income equality
- Explore these TEDTalks that discuss income inequality — what causes it, the brutal effects, and how we might fight it. Start with this talk from Richard Wilkinson, whose 2009 book The Spirit Level gathers decades of research to draw this conclusion: Societies with more income inequality suffer — in utterly predictable ways — more than [...]…(more)
- Today How 60 hairdressers are spreading ideas in Buenos Aires
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Whose talk keeps you glued to your chair? Your hairdresser’s. Which makes these talented folks a perfect vector for spreading big ideas. TEDxBuenosAires invited 60 hairdressers and stylists to their latest TEDx event — and filmed what happened next. Watch the charming results … and watch to the end for a sneak preview of the next big idea-spreading idea.
Watch TEDxBuenosAires’ previous idea-spreading experiment: TEDxTaxi >>
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- Yesterday TEDxMogadishu report: A rebirth of hope
- From the TEDx Tumblr, this inspiring story:
TEDxMogadishu — the first TEDx event in Somalia — will happen tomorrow, May 17, and livestreamed around the world.
Between 50 and 100 people from diverse backgrounds will attend the event to listen to Somalis discuss the rebirth of Mogadishu. The event will be livestreamed for Somalis who can’t attend (e.g., the diaspora) and people who are interested to learn about the positive changes happening in Mogadishu.
The goal of the org…(more)
- Unseen Narratives: The TEDSalon in London
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Books, film, art, food — and science and social issues — were at the center of the talks at the sixth TEDSalon in London. The event took place on May 10 in a packed Unicorn Theatre, with the support of longtime TED partner frog.
“Our bodies are made of atoms, but our lives are made of stories”, host and TEDGlobal curator Bruno Giussani said, introducing the event’s theme: “Unseen Narratives.” We are our stories, he suggested, our memories, desires, pa…(more)
- Reports from the road: TED Talent Search in Nairobi …
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As the TED team travels around the world hosting salons in 14 cities, we’re collecting great local stories. Start with this Storify from Nanjira Sambuli that rounds up tweets from TED@Nairobi:
62% of secondary school students are reading #ShujaazFM. 'It's not about ideas,it's about how you deliver them'. @awelltoldstory this is!— Nanjira Sambuli (@NiNanjira) May 05, 2012
From the blog “Inflation, Stilettos, Pacifiers & An African Dream,” this g…(more)
- Life on Mars: Fellows Friday with Angelo Vermeulen
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When artist and scientist Angelo Vermeulen (watch his TED Talk) first started weaving together biological and technological systems in his artwork, little did he know he’d someday be asked to consider how to create living ecosystems for future space habitation…
Do you consider yourself an artist or scientist first?
I usually describe myself as an artist with a background in science, but I feel first and foremost an artist. Artist, biologist, space researcher, and TED Fellow — that&…(more)
- Watch Vidal Sassoon’s moving, funny TEDx talk
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At TEDxOxford last September, legendary stylist Vidal Sassoon, who died this week at 84, shared this moving talk about his extraordinary life.
As a YouTube commenter writes: “A good way to remember this humble and inspirational man.”
Plus! See this talk (and many others from TEDxOxford) illustrated by the Livescribes, a British group of live illustrators.
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- Revealed! Speaker lineup for TEDGlobal 2012: Radical Openness
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Today, we’re thrilled to announce the TEDGlobal 2012 speaker lineup — exploring the theme “Radical Openness.”
As the world becomes ever more interconnected, the ways we relate, the means by which we learn about one another and develop mutual understanding, and the rules about what we hide and what we share are changing. That’s the inspiration for the theme — and it’ll be explored by scientists, artists, technologists, students and visionaries from aro…(more)
- 3 days Responsive Images and Web Standards at the Turning Point
- Responsible responsive design demands responsive images—images whose dimensions and file size suit the viewport and bandwidth of the receiving device. As HTML provides no standard element to achieve this purpose, serving responsive images has meant using JavaScript trickery, and accepting that your solution will fail for some users.
Then a few months ago, in response to an article here, a W3C Responsive Images Community Group formed—and proposed a simple-to-understand HTML picture element c…(more)
- Application Cache is a Douchebag
- We’re better connected than we’ve ever been, but we’re not always connected. ApplicationCache lets users interact with their data even when they're offline, but with great power come great gotchas. For instance, files always come from the ApplicationCache, even when the user is online. Oh, and in certain circumstances, a browser won't know that that the online content has changed — causing the user to keep getting old content. And, oh yes, depending on how you cache your resources, non-c…(more)
- Say No to Faux Bold
- Browsers can do terrible things to type. If text is styled as bold or italic and the typeface family does not include a bold or italic font, browsers will compensate by trying to create bold and italic styles themselves. The results are an awkward mimicry of real type design, and can be especially atrocious with web fonts. Adobe’s Alan Stearns shares quick tips and techniques to ensure that your @font-face rules match the weight and styles of the fonts, and that you have a @font-face rule for …(more)
- Content Modelling: A Master Skill
- The content model is one of the most important content strategy tools at your disposal. It allows you to represent content in a way that translates the intention, stakeholder needs, and functional requirements from the user experience design into something that can be built by developers implementing a CMS. A good content model helps ensure that your content vision will become a reality. Lovinger explains how to craft a strong content model and use it to foster communication and align efforts be…(more)
- Tinker, Tailor, Content Strategist
- What does content strategy mastery look like? As in any field, it comes down to having master skills and knowing when to apply them. While there are different styles of content strategy (from an editorial and messaging focus to a technical and structural focus), the master content strategist must work with content from all angles: messaging architecture and messaging platforms; content missions and content management. Above all, she must advocate for multiple constituents, including end users, b…(more)
- Getting Clients
- Co-founder of Mule Design and raconteur Mike Monteiro wants to help you do your job better. From contracts to selling design, from working with clients to working with each other, his new book from A Book Apart, released today, is packed with knowledge you can’t afford not to know. A List Apart is pleased to present an exclusive excerpt from Chapter 2 of Design Is a Job.…(more)
- Dive into Responsive Prototyping with Foundation
- There are hundreds of devices out there right now that can access the full web, as Steve Jobs once put it. They come with different capabilities and constraints, things like input style or screen size, resolution, and form. With all these devices set to overtake traditional desktop computers for web traffic next year, we need tools to help us build responsively. Jonathan Smiley shows how to dive into responsive design using Foundation, a light front-end framework that helps you rapidly build pr…(more)
- Style Tiles and How They Work
- How do you involve your client in a successful design process? Many of our processes date back to print design and advertising. It’s time we evolved our deliverables to make clients a more active participant in the process. The style tile is a design deliverable that references website interface elements through font, color, and style collections delivered alongside a site map, wireframes, and other user experience artifacts. Learn how style tiles can align client and designer expectations…(more)
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