Yesterday Customer support beyond email- We’re seven members strong now and we’re able to add a lot of things our customers have been seeking. The bigger team also lets each of us work on support projects other than answering emails lightning fast. Since our sysops, developers and designers have been rightly bragging about the great things they’re doing, I thought I’d take the opportunity to tell you about what our amazing team has been doing to improve customer happiness.
Basecamp 101
The mere whisper of the word ‘webinar…(more)
- Yesterday PHOTO: Boney Money Brown.
-
Boney Money Brown.
…(more)
- Developing for old browsers is (almost) a thing of the past
- It used to be one of the biggest pains of web development. Juggling different browser versions and wasting endless hours coming up with workarounds and hacks. Thankfully, those troubles are now largely optional for many developers of the web.
Chrome ushered in a new era of the always updating browser and it’s been a monumental success. For Basecamp, just over 40% of our users are on Chrome and 97% of them are spread across three very recent versions: 16.0.912.75, 16.0.912.63, and 16.0.9…(more)
- Giving away the secrets of 99.3% email delivery
- We send a lot of mail for Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, and Campfire (and some for Sortfolio, the Jobs Board, Writeboard, and Tadalist). One of the most frequently asked questions we get is about how we handle mail delivery and ensure that emails are making it to people’s inboxes.
Some statistics
First, some numbers to give a little context to what we mean by “a lot” of email. In the last 7 days, we’ve sent just shy of 16 million emails, with approximately 99.3% of th…(more)
- Benchmarking Basecamp's uptime against five other web apps
- As we announced at the beginning of the month, we’re always on a mission to improve our uptime. Inaccessible apps are the cause of much frustration and users don’t care whether that’s because they’re scheduled or not.
While publishing our own uptimes have been a great step towards getting everyone in the company focused on improving, we also wanted to compare ourselves to others in the industry. So since December 16, we’ve been tracking five other applications th…(more)
- Matt Kent joins 37signals as Sysop
- Today Matt Kent started at 37signals as the sixth member of our operations team. Previously Matt worked for 10 years(!) at Bravenet as a System Administrator handling application deployment and scaling tasks. Some of Matt’s managers and coworkers used phrases like “backbone of our team” and “a great person, and a fantastic engineer” to describe what working with Matt is like.
Recently Matt was selected as an Opscode MVP for his contributions to Chef not once, not…(more)
- Code statistics for Basecamp Next
- When I did all the programming for the original version of Basecamp back in 2003, we ended up shipping with just about 2,000 lines of code. A lot has happened in those eight years and we’ve acquired a more delicate taste of just how beautiful we want the basics executed.
This means significantly more code. Here are the stats from running “rake stats” on the Rails project:
On top of that we have just over 5,000 lines of CoffeeScript — almost as much as Ruby! This…(more)
- PHOTO: Steve Gadlin, Basecamp customer, received…
-
Steve Gadlin, Basecamp customer, received $25,000 from Mark Cuban on the television show SharkTank last Friday with his unique business idea: $10 cat drawings. He wants to draw a cat for you. What are you waiting for?
…(more)
- Today A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Feb. 5
- Google's daily brainteaser helps hone your search skills.
…(more)
- Yesterday A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Feb. 4
- Google's daily brainteaser helps hone your search skills.
…(more)
- Yesterday AMD Eyes ARM Alliance in War on Intel
- Could the low-power-chip design that's used in your iPhone someday show up inside the chips built by Intel-rival Advanced Micro Devices? Definitely maybe. Or as AMD's brand new Chief Technology Officer Mark Papermaster put it to us: "The answer is not no."
…(more)
- Yesterday How Windows Phone 8 'Apollo' Would Stack Up Against iOS 5, Android 4
- Microsoft's Windows Phone OS is often criticized for lagging far behind iOS and Android. But on Thursday, a leaked description of Microsoft's next big mobile OS, Windows Phone 8, came to light, revealing how the operating system will improve. But can it really compete? We handicap Apollo against iOS 5 and Android 4.
…(more)
- Yesterday Sugar May Be Bad, But Is the Alternative Worse?
- Given the recent controversy over sugar, one might look to artificial sweeteners for an easy alternative to thorny scientific and ethical questions. But to anyone seeking pastel-packaged reassurance that regulators won't ever need to pry donuts from their cold, dead and pudgy fingers, science offers only more uncertainty.
…(more)
- Yesterday Motorola Tablet Snafu Exposes Some Users to Privacy Risks
- Today Motorola issued a fail alert of epic proportions: From October to December 2011, 100 out of 6,200 refurbished Xooms sold from Woot.com may contain the previous owner's personal data.
…(more)
- Yesterday <em>Me @the Zoo</em> Exemplifies Internet's Infiltration of Indie Film
- Nothing illustrates the web's growing influence on filmmakers more effectively than Me @the Zoo, a feature-length documentary that premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival.
…(more)
- Yesterday Why Margarita Can Purr, but Can't Roar
-
…(more)
- Yesterday The .net strip #17: Project requirements
- This week Brad Colbow, the creator of our exclusive comic strip, delves into the reality of project requirements…(more)
- Yesterday 37signals to stop developing for IE8
- Basecamp Next will require IE9+, Firefox 4+, Chrome 7+ or Safari 4+…(more)
- Yesterday The top three Flash game engines
- Flash game engines are still a great choice for building browser-based 2D games. Freelance game developer Tom Vian takes a look at the three most popular open source frameworks…(more)
- 3 days Inside the CSS WG: Daniel Glazman, co-chair
- In a new series web standards advocate Molly Holzschlag gives us exclusive access to the W3C CSS Working Group and interviews its members about their work and vision. Today she quizzes the group's co-chair, Daniel Glazman…(more)
- 3 days WebKit scuppers skip-to-content links
- JavaScript required to get anchors to work properly in Safari and Chrome…(more)
- 3 days Create a custom lettered logo in Illustrator
- Learn how to use Adobe Illustrator CS5 to creatively manipulate letterforms that, in combination with unique shapes and negative space, create a solid, recognisable mark. Designer Chandler Van De Water talks us through it…(more)
- GOV.UK launches in beta
- A search-based single site for all government services…(more)
- The instant web
- Digital marketing strategist Luis Freitas ponders on the next step the web is going to take and discusses the semantic web, the instant web and Web 3.0…(more)
- Today The Phone Stacking Game: Let’s Make This A Thing
- So it’s Saturday night and you’re out with friend. Are they the inconsiderate jerk who can’t stop checking their smartphone? Or is that you?
Either way, here’s one way to make dinner a little more interesting.
I’ve seen/heard this described as both “The Phone Stacking Game” and “Don’t Be a Dick During Meals”. It’s been mentioned on a couple of blogs, but a quick straw poll of my friends suggests that it hasn’t become wi…(more)
- Today I’m A New York Times Subscriber, So Where’s My Tote Bag?
- The New York Times released its latest earnings report earlier this week, spurring another round of discussion about the newspaper’s paywall, which was launched near the beginning of last year. The consensus: Early signs are positive, but it’s not doing well enough to offset plummeting print ad revenue.
What’s the solution? Well, if you listen to a number of online media pundits, it’s all about bringing more value to the most devoted members of The Times’ readershi…(more)
- Today Labor Efficiency: The Next Great Internet Disruption
- Editor’s note: Nick Cronin is a former corporate attorney and now the President and Founder of ExpertBids.com, which is based in Chicago.
For more than a decade now, the Internet has done a great job of making things in our day-to-day lives more efficient by easily connecting parties who can have a mutually beneficial personal or business relationship. This same idea is now on the verge of disrupting labor and changing the definition of employment as we know it.
The Rise of the Independent…(more)
- Today Facebook – Run from the Bulls?
- Editor’s note: Guest author Keith Teare is General Partner at his incubator Archimedes Labs and CEO of newly funded just.me. He was a co-founder of TechCrunch.
Much ink has been spilled these past few days on the Facebook IPO filing. Much of it analyses the details revealed in the S1 initial document. Some of it has focused on revenue and growth; some of it on control and corporate governance, some on valuation and how reasonable or not it is likely to be, and a little on whether or not t…(more)
- Today An Arab Spring For IT
- Editor’s note: Alan S. Cohen is Vice President of Marketing at Nicira. A 20-year IT veteran, Alan has held executive positions at Cisco, Airespace, Tahoe Networks, IBM, US WEST, Coopers & Lybrand, and the Department of Energy.
Change in the air. It’s palpable.
Those of us in the technology world are witnessing a transformation: A buyer-led revolution in how information technology is both produced and consumed. Smartphones and tablets are upsetting the PC order; social applications ar…(more)
- Today Gillmor Gang 02.04.12 (TCTV)
-
The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, John Taschek, and Steve Gillmor — trembled in the face of Facebook’s IPO and all-out war on the open Web, also known as Google. Me, I go back to Bill Gates during the DOJ deposition when he basically said we don’t need no steenkin’ breakup when Google will come along and be invented.
@kevinmarks makes a good college (fitting) try of defending the open schmopen set, while none of us seem to notice Social Spring just keeps on ro…(more)
- Today Algorithms/Data vs. Analysts/Reports: Fight!
- Quick, what’s the second most traded commodity in the world, after oil? Sorry, no: it’s not coffee. In fact, while hard data is scant, it may well be — of all things — carbon. No, really. According to the World Bank (PDF) , the global carbon market was worth a whopping 1.42 Facebooks US$142 billion in 2010.
Mind you, it’s not like container ships weighed down to the gills with graphite are crossing and recrossing the Pacific every week. What we’re actually tal…(more)
- Today Sh#t VCs Say: “Have You Ever Tried Kiteboarding?”
-
Following in the tradition of “Shit Silicon Valley Says” and other Shit ______ Says memes, August Capital’s David Hornick has made “Shit VCs Say.”
There are some gems in here, including:
“Is an 11 good on Klout?”
“What if we put that in the cloud?”
“Have you ever tried Kiteboarding?”
“That is literally the worst Four Seasons in the world.”
Add your own below, maybe we can get David to make another video.
…(more)
- Today Remembering Mike deGruy
-
We are saddened by the news that ocean photographer, filmmaker and storyteller Mike deGruy died yesterday in a helicopter crash in Australia. Mike was truly one of the great teachers and advocates for the oceans, as you can see in his TEDTalk, filmed aboard Mission Blue in 2010:
In this talk, as in his photography and his many films, you can sense Mike’s infectious humor, his passion for the oceans — and his example of a life well and richly lived.
Photo top: Mike deGruy at Baltr…(more)
- Today State of the X: Stats on TEDx and TEDxTalks in January
- The new feature “State of the X,” on the TEDx Tumblr, runs the numbers on TEDx and the great video coming from these worldwide independently produced events.
To start — how many TEDx events happened in the past month?
TEDx events by the numbers: January
77 TEDx events happened around the world
67 cities hosted one or more TEDx events
29 countries hosted one or more TEDx events
TEDx by the numbers: All time
3190 TEDx events have happened around the world
800 cities around t…(more)
- Yesterday Robin Ince: “I’ve just realised what I should have done my TED talk on”
-
Late in January, Robin Ince tweeted:
balls, 7 months too late I’ve just realised what i should have done my TED talk on
So the TED Blog asked: What?
And here is what he wrote:
Every year I attempt to say yes to things that are out of my comfort zone. These are never physical things such as parachute jumps or mountain climbs — I am not so keen on actual death, I am happy to make do with the death of my own self-regard. A TED talk was one of those leaps into abject terror I made in 2…(more)
- Yesterday Breakthrough solutions: Fellows Friday with Juliette LaMontagne
-
Juliette LaMontagne’s Breaker offers millennials a unique, hands-on alternative learning opportunity — working on projects with serious social impact. Breaker teams take on such challenges as illiteracy and feeding the city, while gaining valuable real-world social entrepreneurship skills.
Take us through the Breaker process — how does it work?
Each three-month Breaker project convenes a multidisciplinary group of young people between the ages of 18 and 24 to design product or ser…(more)
- Yesterday TED Conversations in the classroom
-
Can students learn better by sharing what they know? TED Fellow Nina Tandon believes in the power of sharing ideas and using TED Talks in her classroom. In addition to that, she is now using the TED Conversation platform in the Bioelectricity course that she’s currently teaching at Cooper Union in New York City. After hosting her own conversation on TED Conversations, Nina was inspired to use the platform in her classroom and let students take the role of sharing knowledge and leading dis…(more)
- Announcing a global talent search for TED2013 speakers
-
The best moments at TED have often come from unexpected places. But this year, we’re pushing that to an entirely new level. We’re staging a global talent search to bring together the most remarkable lineup in TED’s history. A series of public auditions in cities around the world will reveal voices, talents and ideas that delight and surprise. As a result, at least half of our TED2013 program will literally be crowd-sourced through what we’re calling the TED2013 Worldwide…(more)
- New TED Book asks: can changing how we teach make our kids smarter, more creative?
-
Ten years ago, educator Sugata Mitra and his colleagues cracked open a hole in a wall bordering an urban slum in New Delhi, installed a networked PC, and left it there for the local children to freely explore. What they quickly saw in their ‘Hole in the Wall’ experiment was that kids from one of the most desperately poor areas of the world could, without instruction, quickly learn how the PC operated. The children also freely collaborated, exploring the world of high-tech online connectivit…(more)
- Extreme swimming with the world’s most dangerous jellyfish: Diana Nyad on TED.com
- In the 1970s, Diana Nyad set long-distance swim records that are still unbroken. Thirty years later, at 60, she attempted her longest swim yet, from Cuba to Florida. In this funny, powerful talk at TEDMED, she talks about how to prepare mentally to achieve an extreme dream, and asks: What will YOU do with your wild, precious life? (Recorded at TEDMED 2011, October 2011, in San Diego, California. Duration: 16:58)
Watch Diana Nyad’s talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate…(more)
- Responsive Images: How they Almost Worked and What We Need
- With a mobile-first responsive design approach, if any part of the process breaks down, your user can still receive a representative image and avoid an unnecessarily large request on a device that may have limited bandwidth. But with several newer browsers implementing an “image prefetching” feature that allows images to be fetched before parsing the document’s body, some of the web's brightest developers are abandoning responsive images in favor of user agent detection, at least as a tem…(more)
- Pricing Strategy for Creatives
- Strategic pricing helps your brand and helps you to make more money. Issuing a price is like handing out a business card—it’s a great branding tool, but be careful about what it says to your market. Beginning relationships with customers at a high price makes the statement: “we’re good at what we do and we know it.” Fighting with a competitor over a low price says “I’m uncertain about my abilities, so I’ll take what I can get.” Failing to use…(more)
- Building Twitter Bootstrap
- Bootstrap is an open-source front-end toolkit created to help designers and developers quickly and efficiently build great stuff online. Its goal is to provide a refined, well-documented, and extensive library of flexible design components created with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for others to build and innovate on. Today, it has grown to include dozens of components and has become the most popular project on GitHub, with more than 13,000 watchers and 2,000 forks. Mark Otto, the co-creator of Boot…(more)
- An Important Time for Design
- Design is on a roll. Client services are experiencing a major uptick in demand, seasoned design professionals are abandoning client work in favor of entrepreneurship, and designer-co-founded startups such as Kickstarter and Airbnb are taking center stage. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the fact that design has a massive role to play in the evolution of the web and the next generation of web products. The result, says Cameron Koczon, is that designers have now been given a blank…(more)
- A Pixel Identity Crisis
- The pixel has long been the atomic particle of screen based design: a knowable, concrete unit of measurement. But layouts based on the hardware pixel are fast becoming an endangered species. Even the introduction of a new, W3C standard reference pixel, although it promises stability in the long-term, can't help us navigate the current chaos. Consider the two "standard" pixel definitions and 500 "standard" viewports your user's Android device may support. To create designs that transcend platform…(more)
- What I Learned About the Web in 2011
- As the year draws to a close, we asked some A List Apart readers to tell us what they learned about the web in 2011. Together their responses summarize the joys and challenges of this magical place we call the internet. We need to continue to iterate, to embrace change, and challenge complexity to keep shipping. Above all, we must continue to reach out to one another, to teach, to support, to help, and to build the community that sustains us.…(more)
- Say No to SOPA
- A List Apart strongly opposes United States H.R.3261 AKA the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), an ill-conceived lobbyist-driven piece of legislation that is technically impossible to enforce, cripplingly burdensome to support, and would, without hyperbole, destroy the internet as we know it. SOPA approaches the problem of content piracy with a broad brush, lights that brush on fire, and soaks the whole web in gasoline. If passed, SOPA will allow corporations to block the domains of websites that ar…(more)
- Getting Started with Sass
- CSS’ simplicity has always been one of its most welcome features. But as our sites and apps get bigger and become more complex, and target a wider range of devices and screen sizes, this simplicity—so welcome as we first started to move away from font tags and table-based layouts—has become a liability. Fortunately, a few years ago developers Hampton Catlin and Nathan Weizenbaum created a new style sheet syntax with features to help make our increasingly complex CSS easier to write and man…(more)
This page has been viewed 42922 times
Page rendered in 0.3079 seconds
Total users: 0
The most visitors ever was 290 on 04/27/2007 01:56 am
Sections