37signals

Those that know me know I’m a big fan of 37Signals. Heck, I even applied for a job there once upon a time along with several hundred other people.

Over the last week or so they have been having some major issues with their campfire product. And in true 37signals style, they have an explanation and apology all wrapped up in one great blog post.

What’s so great about it?

Well, first off, its honest. There’s no marketing bullshit. No fake apology. Its sincere and straight forward. They had several issues, they laid them out, and took full responsibility for stuff breaking.

How often are you interrupted during the day? Do you have the new email notifier turned on? How often is that thing going off? How often are you seeing IMs coming in, both personal and professional? Twitter? facebook? Yup, those too are major enemies to productivity.

You may not have it that bad. Your company may lock down some of the social media services which eliminates a lot of the distractions. For many of us out there we are getting bombarded by interruptions. And as a programmer, it is horrible for productivity.

Now this is a different twist on book advertising. How often do you see a trailer for a book?

If you haven’t had a chance to read their first book, its all online at gettingreal.37signals.com. Its well worth the read.

Thank you 37signals!

Even before [I signed up for my Backpack account]3, I had been wanting to allow others to comment on some of my todo items on pages that I was sharing. I use my BackPack account as my personal intranet. And I have a page for each of my major topics and some just random bits of information. Most of my projects involve doing some side programming for websites. In order to keep myself organized, I’d like to allow others to view the pages, add todo items or post comments on the items, notes, files that I already have up there. Up until now, it has been rather difficult to do.

Those that work with me know that I am a huge fan of the products put out by 37Signals. They have created some great apps that are simple, clean, and rock solid. The concepts aren’t always new, but they have made it so anyone can login in and hit the ground running. There is a *lot* to be said about that ability to have well design applications. I can’t say enough great things about their apps!