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Interestingly, their "Signals vs Noise" blog is powered by PHP: http://www.37signals.com/svn/index.php

(Freaky. Captcha is 'signal')

http://37signals.com/, although in fairness, they had a large hand in writing Rails.

• No more buying, installing, and managing your own software
• No more buying, installing, and managing your own hardware
• No more dedicated IT headcount
• No more owning and managing of your own data centers
• No more long rollout cycles
• Because everything is web-based, people can connect from anywhere in the world
• Etc.

• http://www.traverseit.com/
• http://www.salesforce.com/
• http://www.netsuite.com/
• http://www.37signals.com/

I've killed some time on this since it's a pretty interesting idea. It turns out there are plenty outside the D and F range. It does seem to like pages with a single Flash object and not much else, so that's bad. It also makes some pretty arbitrary decisions which don't mean squat to many sites. There are some sites that get enough traffic that speed is a factor but not so much that a content delivery network is really necessary, for example.

I skipped the actual link and score on sites that are pretty much just representative of the sites around them. I wanted to include them by name, though, to show where they fall. I've stuck mostly to main index pages, and I've noted where I've gone deeper.

A: Google (99%), Altavista main page (98%), Altavista Babelfish (90%) (including upon doing a translation from English to French), Craigslist (96%), Pricewatch (93%), Slackware Linux, OpenBSD, Led Zeppelin site at Atlantic (100%), supremecommander.com, w3m web browser site (96%)

B: Apache.org (87%), the lighttpd web server (84%), Google Maps, which also got a C once (84% in most cases), Perlmonks (84%), Dragonfly BSD (85%), Butthole Surfers band page (81%), 37 Signals

C: One Laptop Per Child,, ESR's homepage, the Open Source Initiative (78%), Google News (73%), Lucid CMS (74%), Perl.org (75%), lucasfilm.com, Charred Dirt game

D: gnu.org, The Register, A9 (66%), kernel.org, Akamai (64%), kuro5hin.org, freshmeat.net, linuxcd.org, Movable Type (61%), Postnuke, blogster.com, Joel on Software (67%), Fog Creek Software, metallica.com, gaspowered.com, Scorched 3D (68%), id software (64%), ISBN.nu book search

F: MS IIS (49%), microsoft.com, msn.com, linux.com, fsf.org, discovery.com, newegg.com, rackspace.com, the Simtel archive (26%), CNet Download (29%), Adobe (58%), savvis.com, mtv.com, sun.com, pclinuxos.com, freebsd.org, phpnuke.org, use.perl.org, ruby-lang.org, python.org, java.com, Rolling Stones band page (56%), powellsbooks.com, amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, getfirefox.com

My site for my company (96%) gets an A (no, I'm not going to get it slashdotted) which is pretty simple but has a pic and some Javascript on it. Several sites I have done or have helped design with someone else get C or D ratings.

Meetings are toxic.

There is absolutely a big market for this. That is what 37signals and Google, among others, are proving with their web apps.

The benefits of web office apps are many and great. I do not intend to discuss them here, since it is too long a topic. For instance, the same site links to a very interesting article on the subject.

What is holding this evolution of the systems right now are the genuine security and confidentiality concerns from managers and sysadmins. As many stated, most companies will not trust their data to servers that leave a minimum possibility for security breaches. That is what makes Google Apps (and the likes) not a viable option for many.

I do not yet clearly understand the goals of this project, but I hope they intend to make the resulting applications open source, and easy to install.

One project with that goal in mind is OpenGoo, with which I am involved. What the project intends is to form a community from existing open source project members to leverage their work in the pursuit of this ambitious goal that we believe can not be achieved by one single OS project alone.

Please contact me if you want to get involved or have any ideas or suggestions for the project.

Compare and contrast
iPod launch (wiki - little to no pre-publicity
with the iPhone - where we are seeing every last bit of information from tech specs, usability, form factor down to projected price points. I believe the iPod launch worked because even though there were plenty of detractors, ultimately the device was in peoples hands and proving itself. The pre-launch on the iPhone opens up too much opportunity for competitors to steal ideas and be at market in a similar timeframe, and worse it lets everyone make a decision about the product before they get one in their hands - which is ultimately where hearts and minds are won.
I believe apple makes some of the most user friendly devices around, and they should focus on getting them out to market (and THEN hyping the mother-loving goodness out of them).

37signals seems to be just such a company.

So the comments here are turning into a bit of a "Email Client Wishlist" so I figure I'll throw my own two cents in...

I'd love to see a "smart" email client that that can analyze incoming mail, strip quoted text, and turn the emails into a threaded forum-like format. The "top-reply" is simply the way everyone [I exchange mail with] seems to go these days, and nothing sucks more than having to read a forwarded email bottom-to-top.

Does something like this (or something that makes achieving this easier) exist?

You'll never get anything done "for real" until it's important. Whether it's a personal project like the console emulator you mentioned, or a for-hire piece of work, or a chunk of Mozilla you really care about, you'll do it when you have to.

26 years ago, I did part-time work on a PDP-11-based system as I entered college. I found that in my classes, I'd write a 1000-line program that produced ten lines of code... and at work, I'd have a 1000-line program that produces 10,000 pages of output a month, on a much more constrained system. And my 1000 lines of code were equivalent to 3000-line versions by other students (and yes, I had documentation in my code)

Constraints make you work better. Read 37Signals' blog to find out how to work with less.

Big projects happen in little steps. Take a project management class -- look at the Project Management Institute to understand "work units" and "earned value" -- understand how to get work done and measure it.

Not buying it. The average CS student makes around $45k a year out of college, significantly higher than the average for other degree-wielding graduates. And after a few years and a switch of employers, they're making $55-65k a year, again, much higher than the average. You can't convince me that those wages are too low to provide for a family, because my dad was a nurse, and our family managed just fine on quite a bit less than that.

Besides, who says a change in career direction is bad for you?

I think long-term, we're all much better off if everyone enjoys their profession.

I don't believe that we will approach a bubble like we did in the late 90's. The very fact that people are apprehensive about such evaluations is a good sign that hopefully things will stay in check.

37 Signals wrote a good article a while back trying to keep this hype in check.
http://www.37signals.com/svn/archives2/dont_believ e_businessweeks_bubblemath.php

Remember, part of an evaluation is function of current value vs. a projection of ROI. How will this investment in Reddit be returned? I have no clue, but the very fact that we're thinking about these issues (as opposed to an all-out buying frenzy in the early 90's) is a better sign.

Jim
http://www.runfatboy.net/ - Exercise for the rest of us.

If storage is becoming more net-centric, what really matters is having the most ways possible to access your data. People don't really need the desktop software features. I'd gladly give away 90% of them if it was just easier to collaborate and be able to find our stuff when we need it.

To hell with expensive collaboration tools that require my own server. First there was eroom, then the much cheaper 37 signals, and now the free google. Long live google.

Well, once there is an api, there is no reason to be confined to the browser. Look at Google Earth for instance.

What I find to be the strength in these applications is not that they are done in ajax but that they effectively place your content in nodes on the web so that you can access them from anywhere and make them available to collaborators. The fact that google is (at least) able to ulitmately provide an editing api lowers the barrier to collaboration because you and your collaborators no longer have to have common software. That's even the case now with browsers because multiple browsers are supported.

The next step will be to see google edit, a downloadable ap that uses an open api. The really great thing would be to see them open up the api so that anyone can write that downloadable ap. The people who something to fear from this are 37 signals who have made a niche for themselves in collaboration, not microsoft.

There are alternatives - publish it yourself and cut out the middle men completely. 37 Signals did it with "Getting Real" with great success.

...in 37 signals (the guys who made Ruby on Rails), I wouldn't be suprised to see some more RoR happening there as some commenters here have suggested. Good times...

Go to 37signals.com and BUY a copy of the book "Getting Real".

The solution is NOT ruby or rails or another tool or asking slashdot. It's getting down to business. "Getting Real" *WILL* change your perspective and make some of the most difficult questions easy to answer.

https://gettingreal.37signals.com/

In fact, get the site license, it's cheap and you can share it with others so that everyone can have a clue.

It's that good.

Quite a few actually - you've probably just never heard of them:

• BlinkSale invoicing (which I actually pay for)
• BaseCamp and half a dozen other 37signals services.
• Zimbra webmail
• Zazzle
• Tons more that i'm not linking to...

I've been using basecamp http://www.basecamphq.com/ as a lightweight solution, and I really like it so far. I'm not sure about scaling it up to a large corporate level, but it has been great so far for my small team. The downside is all of your data is on their servers.

It uses a Software as a service model, pay as you go. So not GPL, but it does expose a HTTP/XML API that could easily be hacked with perl, python, etc.

The company http://www.37signals.com/ also offers a few other solutions. You may have heard of them through all of the RoR hype lately.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

It being tax time in the US, I've had experience with an online-tax-prep service. I've also dealt with some online business-scheduling software (Fusionary IMS, similar to Basecamp). Being on Slashdot, I've taken a look at some of the Online Word Processors from a few days ago, as well. My prediction: things like online tax-prep, relationship management, or project management will prosper, while things like the online "Office App Replacements" will continue to endlessly struggle for relevance.

The office-app replacements are the proverbial "cure for which there is no disease". There is little reason that a composition program needs the network to function better, and certainly not enough reason to justify the hurdles involved in presenting these programs online. For something like tax-prep, it makes perfect sense to offer a "use" payment plan. The software is, by its nature, only ever used once a year, and the functionality needed (basic fill-in) is no real stretch for the Web. Something like customer-management is a task that is there to benefit the outside world, so having it tied into the network is an obvious choice. Something like internal project-management software depends more upon internal communication, but with the widespread connectedness of the Web, it makes sense to use the already-existing network to present the function, and get the peripheral benefit of being to check in on the road.

That said, the article read like a press release.

Iteration is a good thing. The "this will be everything to everybody" model of product development is a tar baby.

Check out Getting Real if you're interested in seeing how less can be more not just in theory, but in the real, rough and tumble world o' business.

On a bang-for-buck analysis, it's better to lace together OSCommerce, phpBB2, and one of the random CMSes in order to produce an actual workable Web site that, you know, does something.

That must be some good crack you've got there. Have you ever heard of a little company called 37 Signals? No? Go check them out and tell me that their applications aren't useful. Ever heard of a site called Penny Arcade? No? Well, then I guess you're from another planet then, or something. Those are just some quick examples from memory of sites done in Ruby/Rails.

You stick to your *snicker* PHP... I'll be having more fun and getting more done with less code.

Put another way, RoR seems to do things that are simple very simply, and it seems to do things that have already been done quite simply. But for new, radically different applications, you're still back to straight programming and hand-writing SQL.

Opinions are like assholes... Everyone's got one, and often they stink. It's always amusing to watch people (here and elsewhere) spout off about something without even having learned about it.

If you had said "I've tried Rails, and here are xyz reasons why I don't feel compelled to move to it", I might be more interested in what you have to say. As it is, your post is about as useful as tits on a bull. :P

While no ticket systems exactly, useful tools at http://www.37signals.com/

I've used Mantis for years and it is wonderful - pretty easy to use, flexible, powerful, easy to install, just lovely. There are two things to bear in mind, though, out of the box it doesn't support time keeping of any sort (besides adding a custom field), and also its UI is a bit tricky to configure, it isn't templated so you have to jump into editing its core files. Its PHP & MySQL-based, though they've recently added a database abstraction layer so you can try hooking it up to MSSQL, PostgreSQL, etc.

Another one to consider is the hosted system Backpack, from 37 Signals, the folks you brought Ruby on Rails to the world. They've got a pretty powerful system there, available as a free account or paid if you need extra space, etc.

Damien

I can't get through to the "Google Page Creator" to really check this out, but it sounds like a ripoff of the incredibly useful Backpack by 37signals which (surprise) uses Ajax as well (through Ruby on Rails).

Ruby on Rails is actually a generalized/modularized version of the production code used by 37signals, authors of Basecamp. That's how it came to be. Their developer, David Heinemeier Hansson, chose Ruby as their primary development language (gutsy, I have no idea why). As a course of building all of their products, he abstracted the framework he created and released it to the public as Ruby on Rails.

(apologies on any inaccuracies on the story. this is how i understand it, corrections welcome)

It kind of makes one wonder how long it will be until we simply stop thinking about where our documents are stored. I've kind of assumed that, soon enough, we'll simply have our key that we'll use to access our information anywhere, anytime. Seeing the things coming out of 37Signals and other likeminded businesses that allow you to store and edit information online from anywhere, it really seems like this is the way we're headed. The only thing is, will we find some way to keep our information more secure, or will the average joe just stop caring?

To anyone who has yet to try Ruby on Rails but refuses to do so because they think it is for speghetti coders, script kiddies, etc., I just have this one comment to make...

Who do you think the people evangelising RoR are? Do you think they are actually people who have only learned Ruby, so they don't know any better in trying to get other to try it? For some reason, I doubt it... While I don't necessarily have any hard evidence on user profiles, I would suggest such promoters have likely tried more than one programming language and web framework, and are using their own experience to come to the conclusion that RoR is worth at least trying out. Ruby has now been publicly available for 10 years, but there certainly wasn't much widespread excitement about Ruby in general until RoR came along. There has to be some valid reason for that. If it was really just a mob of script kiddies trying to build the momentum, development firms such as 37signals would not be as successful as they have been. Not to mention, the fact that the functionality of the RoR framework has or is being ported to many other languages of late.

I'm not trying to convince you it's the best thing since sliced bread, but I don't see the logic behind swearing Ruby on Rails off before even looking under the hood for yourself...

Well I haven't seen any company claim credit for it, so...
So 37signals isn't a company? Rails was extracted from Basecamp and open-sourced.

So, all the arguments about RoR being untested are untrue as well because 37s is making quite enough money off products built on Rails.

The best definition of Web 2.0 I've ever seen was posted by some wag in reply to this blog post.

I know exactly what web 2.0 is:

* pretentious
* oversized fonts
* pastel colors
* buzzwords
* featureless "user experiences"
* overly friendly and self-important copy
* acronyms

Basically it's 1998 with less money and more metrosexuals.

Their site and logo is actually a direct rip off of 37signals. Everything from the dorky oversized fonts to the pastel colors and highlighting.

Even the logos! Flock's logo vs. 37signal's logo. Shameless.

Here's another example.

Flock vs. 37signals

Amazing.

Their site and logo is actually a direct rip off of 37signals. Everything from the dorky oversized fonts to the pastel colors and highlighting.

Even the logos! Flock's logo vs. 37signal's logo. Shameless.

Here's another example.

Flock vs. 37signals

Amazing.

Their site and logo is actually a direct rip off of 37signals. Everything from the dorky oversized fonts to the pastel colors and highlighting.

Even the logos! Flock's logo vs. 37signal's logo. Shameless.

Here's another example.

Flock vs. 37signals

Amazing.

By far the best on-line applications are made by 37 Signals. Google should just buy them - makes much more sense than some of the other stuff they've brought recently and would probably be much cheaper.

There's a wonderful bit about specs from Jason Fried here. Pretty similar in viewpoint, I think.

However, anyone who uses it for essential stuff on sites where you can't guarantee the browser type is going to make a lot of users very annoyed.

Essentially, if Google, 37signals, etc. are fine with requiring a modern browser, so am I.

I've been pouring over the site for a while now. Very very interesting stuff, this Zimbra...

If you actually look at the details, it's a Linux based (Red Hat RPM distro at the moment) that appears to be the absolute best web email system I've seen to date. AJAX is only a very small part of what Zimbra does. AJAX simply improves the end user browser experience by making it feel more like a local application and less like a web app. AJAX allows for page updates without reloading the whole page so it can add features like drag and drop, right-clicking context menus, live searches, etc. i.e. faster instant feedback much more like a native app.

The person behind the site is the former CTO of BEA Systems (WebLogic). He wanted a better email system that was available anywhere. Grouping of discussion threads, saved searches (like Mac OS Tiger), etc. What this group has come up with is pretty darn interesting and if it's well designed will only get better.

The geek reading Slashdot ought to go read the Admin Guide available from Downloads_Documentation_Admin Guide (PDF or HTML). There are some real nice technical explanations not found in the marketing flash demo!
Before you continue to bash it, go check out the technical details while keeping in mind that it's new and will be improved as time moves forward. Linux, Apache Tomcat, PostFix, MySQL, OpenLDAP, SMTP, LMTP, SOAP, XML, IMAP, POP, and AJAX. You can connect with IMAP and POP clients! This means you might be able to connect via IMAP with OS X Mail.app which supports much of the threading, sorting and search features not found in Outlook. iCal can use the calendar system. Addressbook can connect to the LDAP directory for GAL entries. Pretty darn slick! Zimbra has certainly gotten my attention. If you have to you could use Outlook, but I would rather use the web interface then use Outlook! Ugh...

Should be interesting if someone decides to do the same thing in Ruby On Rails! Might be easier to build and maintain and thus faster to market with new features. Same technology except substituting Java and Tomcat for Ruby, the Rails API, plus Lighttpd & FCGI. Go take a look at Basecamp, Backpack, and Ta-da List and you can see that http://www.37signals.com/ could easily build a similar system to Zimbra and make it sing! Or course the 37signals way of things is to host it for you and you subscribe to it. Zimbra is meant to be installed by your geeks with a support contract to Zimbra and consulting available. There also TextDrive's Strongspace Ruby on Rails app http://strongspace.com/. There is going to be an explosion of such applications being refreshed by AJAX powered feedback. AJAX is exciting as it can greatly improve the user experience. But that's all it does, the backend geekness is where the real fun begins. Whether it's Java or RoR things are going to start changing. Get ready for Web 2.0 without the Web 1.0 hype and dotbomb! You must have a viable business model to succeed with Web 2.0!

Yahoo's engineers and marketers have already had their first stab at ruining Flickr, the wonderful photo-sharing website. The simple, friendly, three-question signup that worked so well before has been turned into a ghastly Yahoo ID signup process that includes the usual corporate interrogation and other goofiness spread across multiple pages and redirects.

Just wait till the rest of Flickr gets the Yahoo treatment.

http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/flickr_signup_f rom_human_to_droid_in_a_yahoo_moment.php

No kidding!

I develop sometimes, and sometimes I have to be the UI designer too.

I can really appreciate and "see" a good design. I love the Mac for instance. I try really hard to make my UIs simple and clean and intuitive. But it takes a lot of effort. I'm really not good at it. I just tweak and hammer and edit all day until it looks like something a good design team made (like 37signals, I copy their UIs all the time). I go by trial and error, not by any deep understanding of what I'm doing.

What I need is training, NOT a shiny new tool. That's like giving a designer a copy of Emacs and saying, "heres a good tool, write a giant Lisp system". Well actually what I need is a good designer to work with... because I can't do all this stuff myself.

Microsoft needs to stop dumbing down everything, and stop giving people more and more "easy wizard tools". This doesn't lead to better software, it leads to 1) more software, most of it crappy, and 2) more money for Microsoft.

I'd like to see more effort being made at teaching foundation knowledge and basic *understanding* of what it means to design a database, write a program, or design a UI. More idiot-proof tools aren't what we need. Hell, I do my UI design with paper and pencil and then Vim.

Oh well. And people wonder why software crashes all the time, has security bugs, and needs to be rewritten every 18 months!

The original article is yet another whinge without any realistic solutions. There's a great series of demonstrations by 37 Signals where they put their balls on the line by showing how they would make real improvements to an existing scenario. e.g.:

http://37signals.com/better_fedex.php

They took the Fedex shipping manager screen/process, and redesigned it to make more sense and increase usability.

Be sure to note their lack of weak jokes about aliens or Russians being able to design better GUIs, or the absence of Stevie Wonder mentions.

The parent post at least adds some realistic suggestions or obvious problems. My pet peeve is another window stealing focus when I'm typing elsewhere -- very, very annoying. Google is a bitch like this; if the page is still loading while you're entering a modified/new search, it will overwrite what you've entered with the old query when the page load completes. Ridiculous! How about having some JavaScript that detects existing focus on the field and cancels the other script if a user has already started typing?

Is it a Perpetual Beta?

What about your 'To Do' List?"

I started using Ta-Da List the day it launched and haven't looked back since. It's incredibly simple, free, web-based, and endlessly useful. I have a dozen other tools on my computer that can handle to-do lists (with syncing, priorities, due dates, etc), but Ta-Da List's basic approach makes it more useful than any of them.

37signals (the makers), also run two similar-but-different web-based organization apps, Backpack and Basecamp, that I highly recommend. All of them can be used for free.

• Backpack
• TaDa Lists
• BaseCamp

Signal vs. Noise has a discussion about how Google Web Accelerator can break web applications that rely on making state changes (i.e. deleting todo list items) over the GET protocol.

Even though the w3c reccommends using POST for state changes, GET is used all the time for practical reasons.

And for end-users, disable GWA while using a web application, or you may find items magically deleting themselves.

The accelerator prefetches the links on web pages, in effect clicking on all of them (except ads), which includes links that say 'delete this' or 'unsubscribe' etc. Many webpages use GET links to do these actions, and this is causing pages to disappear. Until web apps are rewritten to take note of the prefetch header, it's probably unsafe to use the accelerator. (Which seems to be offline at the moment - the page redirects you to the toolbar)

I have to disagree with you, shipping obligations of an online retailer are completely their own fault.

Your mother doesn't have an obligation to you like an online retailer does, she didn't make any guarantees for a delivery date and she also didn't miss here expected delivery date by over a month.

According to the article I posted the link to, Amazon is going to deliver some products which were ordered in November of 2004 in February of 2005. This is most likely more than a mere shipping problem, but it doesn't change the fact that they still have an obligation to their customers. When you purchase an item from Amazon and pay for next day shipping, but they don't ship for a week, they haven't lived up to their obligation to their customers.

Amazon also has a system in place which is supposed to give their customers very detailed information about when they can expect their deliveries. I have to disagree with your comparison, as it's not a valid one.

Did anyone else notice that both Google and eBay posted $805.9 million in revenues in Q3? (spotted at Signal vs. Noise)

Most sites designed by 37signals are pretty good.

This Guy has some good ideas about how to improve it.

I personally like the service a lot. My only complaint is that they didn't take advantage of the fact that they have your whole music library in the same application. They could offer some amazing recommendations based upon your existing library. Also, it would be nice to have a "Buy More Music by this Artist" contextual menu item in iTunes that would take you to the store and search for the artist...