Information Density: Signal v. Noise (37signals) – Signal Evidence & AI Readability

[IMG: Signal v. Noise]
[H1]
Signal v. Noise is closed.
It’s been a wonderful run, but we decided it was time to do something different. With the launch of HEY World, everyone at Basecamp who was writing for SvN now has their own blog. Of course, we’ll keep the lights on here until the end of the internet. Enjoy exploring a decade plus of SvN:

[IMG: posts from 2016 - 2021]
2016 - 2021

[IMG: posts from 2006 - 2015]
2006 - 2015

[IMG: posts from 2005 - 2006]
2005 - 2006
[H2] Where you can follow us now:
Jason Fried is on HEY World and Twitter.
DHH is on HEY World and Twitter.
You can also follow Basecamp on Twitter.
P.S. don’t forget to check out our products, Basecamp & HEY.

Chairman Klein and members of the Senate Industry, Business and Labor Committee-
My name is David Heinemeier Hansson, and I’m the CTO and co-founder of Basecamp, a small internet company from Chicago that sells project-management software and email services.
I first testified on the topic of big tech monopolies at the House Antitrust Subcommittee’s field hearing in Colorado just over a year ago, where I described the fear and loathing many small software makers have toward the app store duopoly.
How fees upwards of 30% of revenue, applied selectively, and in many cases capriciously, put an enormous economic burden on many small software businesses. How paired with the constant uncertainty as to whether the next software update will be rejected, or held for ransom, can put entire businesses in jeopardy.
I was then merely speaking on behalf of my many fellow small  business owners. As someone who’d heard the tragic stories from app store duopoly victims, whispered out of fear of further retribution, for the better part of the last decade.
Little did I know that just six months later, Basecamp would be in its own existential fight for survival, after launching a new, innovative email service called HEY.com. Apple first approved our application to the App Store, only to revert themselves days later, after we had publicly launched to great critical acclaim. They demanded we start using their in-application payment system, such that they could take 30% of our revenues, or we’d be kicked off the App Store. A virtual death sentence for a new email service that was aiming to compete with the likes of Google’s Gmail and Apple’s own iCloud email hosting.
Keep reading “Testimony before the North Dakota Senate Industry, Business and Labor Committee”
The attack on the US Capitol, and subsequent threats of violence surrounding the inauguration of the new US administration, has moved us to reflect and reacquaint ourselves with the reality that however good the maker’s intentions, technology can amplify the ability to cause great harm.
This includes us and our products at Basecamp. Therefore, we feel an ethical obligation to counter such harm. Both in terms of dealing with instances where Basecamp is used (and abused) to further such harm, and to state unequivocally that Basecamp is not a safe haven for people who wish to commit such harm.
Our full Use Restriction Policy outlines several forms of use that are not permitted, including, but not limited to:
Violence, or threats thereof: If an activity qualifies as violent crime in the United States or where you live, you may not use Basecamp products to plan, perpetrate, incite, or threaten that activity.Doxing: If you are using Basecamp products to share other peoples’ private personal information for the purposes of harassment, we don’t want anything to do with you.Child exploitation, sexualization, or abuse: We don’t tolerate any activities that create, disseminate, or otherwise cause child abuse.Malware or spyware: Code for good, not evil. If you are using our products to make or distribute anything that qualifies as malware or spyware — including remote user surveillance — begone.Phishing or otherwise attempting fraud: It is not okay to lie about who you are or who you affiliate with to steal from, extort, or otherwise harm others.
Any reports of violations of these highlighted restrictions, or any of the other restrictions present in our terms, will result in an investigation. This investigation will have:
Human oversight: Our internal abuse oversight committee includes our executives, David and Jason, and representatives from multiple departments across the company. On rare occasions for particularly sensitive situations, or if legally required, we may also seek counsel from external experts.Balanced responsibilities: We have an obligation to protect the privacy and safety of both our customers, and the people reporting issues to us. We do our best to balance those responsibilities throughout the process.Focus on evidence: We base our decisions on the evidence available to us: what we see and hear account users say and do. We document what we observe, and ask whether that evidence points to a restricted use.
While some violations are flatly obvious, others are subjective, nuanced, and difficult to adjudicate. We give each case adequate time and attention, commensurate with the violation, criticality, and severity of the charge.
If you’re aware of any Basecamp product (Basecamp, HEY, Backpack, Highrise, Ta-da List, Campfire) being used for something that would violate our Use Restrictions Policy, please let us know by emailing [email protected] and we will investigate. If you’re not 100% sure, report it anyway.
Someone on our team will respond within one business day to let you know we’ve begun our investigation. We will also let you know the outcome of our investigation (unless you ask us not to, or we’re not allowed to under law).
While our use restrictions are comprehensive, they can’t be exhaustive — it’s possible an offense could defy categorization, present for the first time, or illuminate a moral quandary we hadn’t yet considered. That said, we hope the overarching spirit is clear: Basecamp is not to be harnessed for harm, whether mental, physical, personal or civic. Different points of view — philosophical, religious, and political — are welcome, but ideologies like white nationalism, or hate-fueled movements anchored by oppression, violence, abuse, extermination, or domination of one group over another, will not be accepted here.
If you, or the activity in your account, is ultimately found in violation of these restrictions, your account may be closed. A permanent ban from our services may also result. Further, as a small, privately owned independent business that puts our values and conscience ahead of growth at all costs, we reserve the right to deny service to anyone we ultimately feel uncomfortable doing business with.
Thank you.
For further reference, our full list of terms are available here: https://basecamp.com/about/policies

You can write fast, modern, responsive web applications by generating your HTML on the server, and delivering that (with a little help) directly to the browser. You don’t need JSON as an in-between format. You don’t need client-side MVC frameworks. You don’t need complicated bundling and transpiling pipelines. But you do need to think different.
Because the mainstream story in web development of the past decade or so has been one of JavaScript all the things! Let’s use it on the server! Let’s use it on the client! Let’s have it generate all the HTML dynamically! And, really, it’s pretty amazing that you really can do all that. JavaScript has come an incredibly long way since the dark ages of Internet Explorer’s stagnant monopoly.
But just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
Keep reading “HTML over the wire”
Spend enough time talking with entrepreneurs, product people, designers, and anyone charged with proving something, and you’ll bump into questions about validation.
“How do you validate if it’s going to work?”“How do you know if people will buy it to not?”“How do you validate product market fit?”“How do you validate if a feature is worth building?”“How do you validate a design?”
You can’t.You can’t.You can’t.You can’t.You can’t.
I mean you can, but not in spirit of the questions being asked.
What people are asking about is certainty ahead of time. But time doesn’t start when you start working on something, or when you have a piece of the whole ready. It starts when the whole thing hits the market.
How do you know if what you’re doing is right while you’re doing it? You can’t be. You can only have a hunch, a feeling, a belief. And if the only way to tell if you’ve completely missed the mark is to ask other people and wait for them to tell you, then you’re likely too far lost from the start. If you make products, you better have a sense of where you’re heading without having to ask for directions.
There’s really only one real way to get as close to certain as possible. That’s to build the actual thing and make it actually available for anyone to try, use, and buy. Real usage on real things on real days during the course of real work is the only way to validate anything. And even then, it’s barely validation since there are so many other variables at play. Timing, marketing, pricing, messaging, etc.
Truth is, you don’t know, you won’t know, you’ll never know until you know and reflect back on something real. And the best way to find out, is to believe in it, make it, and put it out there. You do your best, you promote it the best you can, you prepare yourself the best way you know how. And then you literally cross your fingers. I’m not kidding.
You can’t validate something that doesn’t exist. You can’t validate an idea. You can’t validate someone’s guess. You can’t validate an abstraction. You can’t validate a sketch, or a wireframe, or an MVP that isn’t the actual product.
When I hear MVP, I don’t think Minimum Viable Product. I think Minimum Viable Pie. The food kind.
A slice of pie is all you need to evaluate the whole pie. It’s homogenous. But that’s not how products work. Products are a collection of interwoven parts, one dependent on another, one leading to another, one integrating with another. You can’t take a slice a product, ask people how they like it, and deduce they’ll like the rest of the product once you’ve completed it. All you learn is that they like or don’t like the slice you gave them.
If you want to see if something works, make it. The whole thing. The simplest version of the whole thing – that’s what version 1.0 is supposed to be. But make that, put it out there, and learn. If you want answers, you have to ask the question, and the question is: Market, what do you think of this completed version 1.0 of our product?
Don’t mistake an impression of a piece of your product as a proxy for the whole truth. When you give someone a slice of something that isn’t homogenous, you’re asking them to guess. You can’t base certainty on that.
That said, there’s one common way to uncertainty: That’s to ask one more person their opinion. It’s easy to think the more opinions you have, the more certain you’ll be, but in practice it’s quite the opposite. If you ever want to be less sure of yourself, less confident in the outcome, just ask someone else what they think. It works every time.

A few weeks ago we launched a new marketing project for HEY.com at dumpsterfire.email. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s a flaming dumpster with a printer and conveyor. You email [email protected], it prints out your email, and drops it into the rolling flames on a livestream. Simple, right?
What follows is far more than you ever want to learn about building an internet-connected dumpster fire.
Keep reading “The Making of a Dumpster Fire”
HEY uses a branch deploy system that I’ve written about here on SvN and talked about frequently on Twitter. Plenty of other companies have implemented their own version of branch deploys (typically under a different name), but this was my own implementation, so I’m proud of it. First, a primer on how it works:
Developer makes a code change in a git branch and pushes it to GitHub.An automated build pipeline run is kicked off by a GitHub webhook. It builds some Docker images and kicks off another build that handles the deploy itself.That deploy build, well, it deploys — to AWS EKS, Amazon’s managed Kubernetes offering, via a Helm chart that contains all of the YAML specifications for deployments, services, ingresses, etc.alb-ingress-controller (now aws-load-balancer-controller) creates an ALB for the branch.external-dns creates a DNS record pointing to the new ALB.Dev can access their branch from their browser using a special branch-specific URLThis process takes 5-10 minutes for a brand new branch from push to being accessible (typically).
Keep reading “How to waste half a day by not reading RFC 1034”
Earlier this year, we announced that Basecamp was committing to getting to carbon negative for our cumulative history and moving forward. Today, I want to share an update on that commitment.
Note: I edited this post on Nov 5, 2020 to include the prices paid for all carbon offsets and explain a little more about the 7,000 tCO₂e cumulative carbon footprint following a question from a reader. Thanks!
Keep reading “Basecamp has offset our cumulative emissions through 2019”
We’ve run a private security bug bounty program since 2014. Invited testers reported numerous security vulnerabilities to us, many of them critical. We investigated and fixed the vulnerabilities they reported and thanked them with cash rewards. Before 2014, and concurrently with the private bounty program, we ran a public “Hall of Fame” program where we accepted vulnerability reports via email and thanked reporters with credit on our website.
Since the day we launched it, we’ve aimed to take the security bug bounty program public—to allow anyone, not just a few invited hackers, to report vulnerabilities to us for a cash reward. We want to find and fix as many vulnerabilities in our products as possible, to protect our customers and the data they entrust to us. We also want to learn from and support the broader security community.
We’re happy to announce that we’re doing that today. The Basecamp security bug bounty program is now open to the public on HackerOne. Our security team is ready to take vulnerability reports for Basecamp 3 and HEY. Bounties range from $100 to $10,000. We pay more for more severe vulnerabilities, more creative exploits, and more insightful reports.
Here are some of the high-criticality reports we’ve fielded via the security bug bounty:
Jouko Pynnönen reported a stored cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in HEY that lead to account takeover via email. We awarded $5,000 for this report.Hazim Aslam reported HTTP desynchronization vulnerabilities in our on-premises applications that allowed an attacker to intercept customer requests. We awarded  $11,437 in total for these reports.hudmi reported that the AppCache web API (since deprecated and removed from web browsers) could be used to capture direct upload requests in Basecamp 3. We awarded $1,000.gammarex reported an ImageMagick misconfiguration that allowed remote code execution on Basecamp 3’s servers. We awarded $5,000.
Check out the full program policy on HackerOne. For information on what to expect when you report a vulnerability, see our security response policy. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to [email protected].

A few weeks ago, we needed some hardware fast. After some back and forth with the vendor, they promised “expedited delivery”. That sounded like a good thing, but it meant nothing.
To us, expedited delivery meant overnight delivery. That’s what we had in our head. Our experiences elsewhere equated expedited as o

[H3] November 2015
Basecamp HQ Mural by Nate Otto
Chocoholic Anonymous by Wailin Wong
Building Basecamp 3: Mobile Prototypes by Jason Z.
I don’t want to be a winner by David
Natasha “The Robot” Murashev joins Basecamp by Jason Z.
A new episode and a big milestone by Wailin Wong
Video: I discussed the origin of Basecamp, the myths… by David
RECONSIDER by David
Launch: Basecamp 3 by Jason Fried

[H3] October 2015
What would it take to prove me wrong? by David
The Scientist by Nathan Kontny
Connecting the dots: How we put a smile on the Basecamp logo. by Jamie
Grave Matters by Wailin Wong
Remove the stress, pick a deadline by David
Poaching is for animals, not employees by David
Meet the Bales Girls by Wailin Wong
Quote: Studies of conversation both in the laboratory… by Jason Z.
Video: REWRITE: Why Basecamp 3 is a brand new code… by David
Why Basecamp? by Jason Fried
Don’t base your business on a paid app by David
A preview of what's new in Basecamp 3 by Jason Fried
“Sometimes you just have to see it” by Conor Muirhead

[H3] September 2015
Ancient history, modern family by Wailin Wong
What’s more important: An extra gig of RAM or 3D Touch? by David
Quote: The fact that employees are now always reachable… by David
Service sunsets aren’t the least bit pretty by David
Back to Basecamp by Nick
Cargo Culting by Nathan Kontny
Making money along the way by David
How we lost (and found) millions by not A/B testing by Noah
Disruption is better when it's other people’s jobs by David
Work in Progress by Nathan Kontny
Introducing Mercedes De Luca, Basecamp's first COO by Jason Fried
Farm Wisdom by Wailin Wong
A Love for Legacy by Eileen Uchitelle
Optimizing Site Performance via Anycast Routing by Eron
Putting on the shipping goggles by Jason Fried
Growing our audience for The Distance by Wailin Wong

[H3] August 2015
Go at Basecamp by Noah
Something's coming 6 by Jason Fried
Can old world be more modern than new school? by Jason Fried
Extra Drawings for The Distance by Nate Otto
A chart a day keeps the data in play by Noah
Grit is for cowboys by David
Less than perfect by Nathan Kontny
What kind of company are you? by Claire Lew
Something's coming 5 by Jason Fried
The difference between time and attention by Jason Fried
Better Half by Nathan Kontny
CEOs are often the last to know by David
Pipe Dreams by Wailin Wong
Video: Ryan teaches product management at Mind the Product in San Francisco by Ryan
Something's coming 4 by Jason Fried
Link: I talk about starting to program 'late' in life, unlearning business school, and more on The Unmistakable Creative podcast by David
Graceful goodbyes by David
Something's coming 3 by Jason Fried
How much are we worth? I don't know and I don't care. by Jason Fried
Q: How do you seek out mentors/teachers? by Jason Fried
What’s the biggest feature you’re missing in Basecamp? by Shaun
You’re a product and your job application is a user interface by Jason Z.
Good Notifications: Project Fi by Jamie
Something's coming 2 by Jason Fried
Something's coming by Jason Fried
It Soothes, It Heals, It Tingles by Wailin Wong

[H3] July 2015
"Is it too early for me to start a pay-per-click campaign?" by Nathan Kontny
A mountain of salt for the Apple Watch satisfaction numbers by Noah
How an idea comes together for me by Jason Fried
Cheesecake, the Chicago Way by Wailin Wong
What are people reading on SvN lately? by Noah
Quote: An organization, a social artifact, is very… by David
Hiring: Basecamp iOS developer by David
Trying out Character Animator with Happy Camper by Shaun
Behind the scenes: our staff performance widget by Noah

[H3] June 2015
Empty stomach, poor decisions by David
Finding the voice of The Distance by Wailin Wong
Please allow me to re-introduce myself by Nathan Kontny
Moto XOXO by David

[H3] May 2015
The stories we tell ourselves by David
A Year of The Distance by Wailin Wong
The homescreens of Basecamp (2015) by Jamie

[H3] April 2015
Poison by Nathan Kontny
Programming with toys and magic should be relished, not scorned by David
Quote: Would you hire the last Delta representative… by David
Link: Shhh... Made by Few 2015 by Jason Z.
Constrained by Nathan Kontny
Imagining Basecamp on Apple Watch by Jason Z.
Look and Feel and Feel by Jason Fried

[H3] March 2015
Our favorite stuff by Emily Triplett Lentz
The Coffee Test by Shaun
Taking off the developer goggles by Jason Z.
Reproducible research isn't just for academia by Noah
Welcome Jay Ohms, programmer by Jason Z.

[H3] February 2015
Video: Did y’all know you can share stuff… by Shaun
Behind the scenes: From Herding Cats to Finishing a Project Together by Jamie
Solo by Nate Otto
When Disaster Strikes by Taylor
The Big Rewrite, revisited by David
Why the hell not? by Jason Fried
Deploying to production is stressful for 12-14 year olds! by Nathan
Easy Listening by Wailin Wong
Lend me your ears: Introducing The Distance podcast by Wailin Wong
Are we making it better? by David

[H3] January 2015
Lead Android at Basecamp! by Nick
Effort in the Application: sites that got our attention and got Basecampers their jobs by Mig Reyes
Sometimes there really is an easy button by Noah
One of Basecamp's Water Coolers is a chatroom dedicated to pets by Kristin
Do you have to love what you do? by Jason Fried
Photo: Comparing warning labels on gym equipment… by Jason Fried
Basecamp is hiring another Marketing Designer by Mig Reyes
Design Discussions: Having fun with Basecamp business cards by Mig Reyes
Combine by Nathan Kontny
Bots are boring by Nick
Photo: Playful touch spotted on the Cloudpipes invite… by Michael Berger
Forecasting support response times with the Support Simulator 4000 by Noah
Ta-da List – Until the end of the internet by David
How we achieved 24/7 support without compromising our culture (too much) by Kristin
Against the Grain by Wailin Wong
Introducing the 5x12 by Jason Fried
Google shows you a good time by Jason Fried
2014 was a good year for Basecamp support by Noah
Why are some people so good at persisting? by Nathan Kontny

[H3] December 2014
A New Year's theme: More questions. Less me-talk. by Emily Triplett Lentz
Photo: Shaun Hildner, our resident filmmaker, open… by Basecamp
Video: As one who is usually the loudest, especially… by Nick
The Sweater Song by Wailin Wong
The curse of compressing reality by Noah
Stuck again by Nathan Kontny
A Slice of Small Business Life by Wailin Wong
Shipping Basecamp for iOS 2.0 by Nick
Basecamp the Infomercial by Shaun
An ecosystem, fragmented by Nick
REWORK Stickers by Jamie
Accepting the worst by David

[H3] November 2014
Basecamp Stickers by Shaun
Sharing a first draft by Jason Fried
A Glimpse of Artificial Intelligence by Jamie
Art and Craft by Wailin Wong
Photo: A quick lesson on branding—via @gewqk. by Jamie
Photo: Less works. by Nate Otto

[H3] October 2014
Monsters and Thieves by Nathan Kontny
The Distance: Fantasy Costumes by Wailin Wong
Basecamp Meetup: October 2014 by Basecamp
Basecampy? by Nate Otto
Google made one of Android's jokes into something clever. by Jamie
iPad Spinners by Shaun
How Basecamp helped the Golddiggers get our act together by Emily Triplett Lentz
Finding Apps: a Personal Experience by Jamie
Extra Drawings by Nate Otto
The joy (and a good dose of pain) of my first few months at Basecamp by Conor Muirhead
Photo: Kathy Sierra’s Featuritis Curve helps… by David
Are you using your data to write a reference book or tell a story? by Noah

[H3] September 2014
Video: Apple has quite a few more rules than the… by Shaun
The other side of version-less software by David
Faith in eventually by Jason Fried
The Music Man by Wailin Wong
Acquisitions is where good ideas go to die, part 457 by David

[H3] August 2014
Video: Amanda Lannert from JellyVision interviewed… by David
Jack Mallers: from dropout to Starter. by Jason Fried
Big news for Highrise by Jason Fried
Hamburger Helper by Wailin Wong
Quote: Clutter is taking a toll on both morale and… by David

[H3] July 2014
Photo: Just took an Uber Black Car to the office… by Jason Fried
Hybrid : How we took Basecamp multi-platform with a tiny team by Jason Z.
Our favorite recent reads on the web by Emily Triplett Lentz
Why we don't speak up at work by Claire Lew
The Distance goes tiki by Wailin Wong
Contest: Two Free 3-Day Passes to Pitchfork Music Festival by Jamie

[H3] June 2014
Talking with a UbiDuo by Jason Fried
Crossing Streams by Jamie

[H3] May 2014
One-hit wonder by David
What Jamis left behind... for us. by Jason Fried
Video: My brother made a video tribute to one of… by David
Photo: I really like Jeep’s text-based 7-bars… by Jason Fried
Captured by quality by David
Drive development with budgets not estimates by David
Responsive design works best as a nip'n'tuck by David
Hybrid sweet spot: Native navigation, web content by David
Introducing THE DISTANCE - the business magazine about businesses that haven't gone out of business by Jason Fried

[H3] April 2014
Photo: Great UI in Chrome here… I had about… by Jason Fried
Reading the difference by Claire Lew
My door is always open... Whatever. by Jason Fried
Looking into The Distance by Wailin Wong
Basecamp at C2E2 This Weekend! by Shaun
Dragons on the far side of the histogram by David
Marketing around situations by Mig Reyes
Another Chapter by Basecamp

[H3] March 2014
Basecamp network attack postmortem by David
Basecamp was under network attack this morning by David
Finding your workbench muse by David
Drawing Trouble by Nate Otto
Yelp's nice settings toggle by Jamie
The Category Moat by Ryan

[H3] February 2014
App Store Ratings Mystery by Jamie
Join our team: We're hiring a product designer. by Jason Fried
Giving less advice by Jason Fried
Google Play Banner Design by Jamie
Prophet: My first commercial web site design project (1996) by Jason Fried
Big news by Jason Fried
The 5 most common Basecamp workarounds by Emily Triplett Lentz

[H3] January 2014
Photo: The 3 1/2” floppy disk as the go-to… by David
Canceling eFax by David
Photo: We’ve got something cooking and we… by Jason Z.
The person you could be hiring by Emily Triplett Lentz
Everyone does everything by David
Photo: Guess what these Google domain icons do.… by David
Healthy benefits for the long run by David

[H3] December 2013
Remote Works: It Collective by Emily Triplett Lentz
Insight: Picked up a great lesson from the book Turn… by Jason Fried
Lessons from Frank & Oak’s Support by Mig Reyes
Big: Know Your Company grows up and moves out. by Jason Fried
The feature that almost wasn’t by Emily Triplett Lentz
December 4th Basecamp Classic, Campfire and Highrise Outage by Taylor
Quality Assurance by Michael Berger
Server-generated JavaScript Responses by David
Photo: The silhouettes and imagined dystopia of… by David
Evaluating a redesign by Jason Fried
Basecamp's cache-friendly local time by Javan

[H3] November 2013
The performance impact of "Russian doll" caching by Noah
Customer Spotlight: Aardvark London by Emily Triplett Lentz
Quote: I think we sometimes overlook things we don’t r… by Jason Fried
#GetItDone vs #WorkCanWait by David
What has Basecamp helped you make? by Shaun
Microsoft's dystopian pitch for remote work by David
Everyone on Support by Emily Triplett Lentz
Behind the scenes: Designing the REMOTE book cover by Jamie
Unapologetically cheap by David
The home screens of 37signals (2013) by Jamie
Video: Vooza CEO takes on Jason Fried about working remotely. by David
Our new job board: WeWorkRemotely.com by David
Read sample chapters from REMOTE in Inc. Magazine by Emily Triplett Lentz

[H3] October 2013
Remote Works: Lincoln Loop by Emily Triplett Lentz
Customer Support Needed in Asia or Australia! by Kristin
Link: A New Workplace Manifesto: In Praise Of Freedom, Time, Space, And Working Remotely by David
REMOTE: Office Not Required is now available by David
Your shitty commute stories by Emily Triplett Lentz
Link: Why Face-To-Face Meetings Are Overrated by David
Tom Ward & Zach Waugh join 37signals by David
What a narrow definition of success by David
The person they’ll become by Jason Fried
Video: Great speech on the need for a rockstar environment… by David
Cabin fever by David
37signals Works Remotely by Shaun
Comments ≠ Engagement by Emily Triplett Lentz
Remote Works: BeBanjo, Spain by Emily Triplett Lentz
Rally cry for sinking companies: “All hands on deck” by David
Remote Works: Shack Co., India by Emily Triplett Lentz
Customer Spotlight: Pitchfork Media by Michael Berger
Try, try again by Mig Reyes
Tell us about your shitty commute by Emily Triplett Lentz
The worst thing about Android... by Jamie
Bootstrapped, Profitable, & Proud: VoiceBunny by Emily Triplett Lentz
Rethinking Agile in an office-less world by David

[H3] September 2013
Spoiler Alert! by Shaun
Customer Spotlight: Wildbit by Emily Triplett Lentz
Using Gifs for More Than Funny Cats by Shaun
Quote: Peace of mind produces right values, right… by Travis Jeffery
Design Decisions: Basecamp for iPhone iOS 7 by Jason Z.
Bootstrapped, Profitable, & Proud: Draugiem Group by Emily Triplett Lentz
The next Switch Workshop: September 27th in Chicago by Jason Fried
Photo: What a great ad. Via my favorite Twitter… by Jason Fried
Worse is human by David
Share everything by Emily Triplett Lentz
Video: Bertrand Russell’s message to future… by Travis Jeffery
Quote: “All businesses need to be young forever.… by Jason Fried
Better is the enemy of best by Chase

[H3] August 2013
Bootstrapped, Profitable, & Proud: LegitScript by Emily Triplett Lentz
Letting employees make the most out of their own fitness by Emily Triplett Lentz
Why did you switch to Basecamp? by Mig Reyes
Video: I forgot my phone. by Travis Jeffery
Video: A very patient Frank Zappa defending freedom… by Jason Fried
Keeping it in-house by Nick
Bootstrapped, Profitable, & Proud: ServerCentral by Emily Triplett Lentz
Customer Spotlight: Give Kids Your Instruments by Emily Triplett Lentz
Quote: Endlessly and persistently. That is the only… by Travis Jeffery
Bootstrapped, Profitable & Proud: Rapid LED by Emily Triplett Lentz

[H3] July 2013
Quote: What I cannot create, I do not understand. by Travis Jeffery
Photo: Embroidery scissors from Dovo. by Ann
Becoming remote by Kristin
Why we're doing things that don't scale by Jason Fried
Bootstrapped, Profitable, & Proud: Huckberry by Emily Triplett Lentz
Quote: [On Apple’s integrated organizational… by Ryan
Quote: A design has to start with some initial conditions… by Ryan
Quote: Shipping beats perfection.
Be open. Share… by Nick
Using Information About Our Network to Remove Monitoring Noise by Taylor
Video: What a recipe… A seed, some water,… by Jason Fried
How much water can you sell? by Jason Fried

[H3] October 2006

Sunspots: The migration edition
"Craft doesn't come through filling out forms."
Battle of the blades
Netflix nails it
Fly on the Wall: "Eggnog just sounds disgusting."
Finding fresh inspiration
Jobs: $300 to get to the Top 100
Screens Around Town: The Morning News, Original Signal, Wize
We have a mailing list too
Omakase
Beware design fatigue on long projects
The casino experience
The meet market
LAUNCH: Gig Board ($100 for a 3 week ad)
Wordless pancake recipe
The ins and outs of 37signals
Sunspots: The bubble dome edition
Screens Around Town: Microsoft, FontLab, & Jeteye
New in Basecamp: Simple file versioning and lump sum payments
Fear, shark attacks, and "Will it scale?"

[H3] September 2006

Sudo sandwich
Fly on the wall: "What does this button do?"
The start of the Backpack calendar API
Crazyegg = crazy good
Jitterbug and the Cellphone Simplicity Derby
Audi R8
Cha-Ching gets real
Fall foliage
"Make it work"
Launching soon: Gig Board
Charting freedom vs. oil
Sunspots: The wildfire edition
Buzzwords say all the wrong things
Thinking diagonally with multiplication grids
And then there were 8
Fly on the Wall: "We are breeding a whole new generation."
Conflict is good for business
Campfire: Flare joins Pyro
Screens Around Town: Ugly on purpose
Dieter Rams: "Less, but better."
Spread good vibes with karma reminders
Screens Around Town: Moo.com Flickr MiniCards
The HP Diet Plan: Buy our cameras
Sunspots: The racetrack edition
Confidence in people, process, and purpose
"The man behind Apple's design magic"
Reactions to new iPod, iTunes, Jobs, etc.
Kottke joins the Job Board
Fly on the wall: "Fix what needs fixing."
Sunspots: The pong edition
Michel Gondry's happy accidents
Reflections are the new drop shadows
Fireside Chat: John Maeda and Diego Rodriguez
Getting Real Workshop: Less than 10 seats remain
Link It Up: Podcast
John Maeda: The Master of Simplicity
Inventing a way to shoot bullets through a propeller
Recent job postings on the 37signals Job Board
Diego Rodriguez: "Empathy is the wellspring of value creation."
Screens Around Town: NYTimes.com
Sunspots: The balustrade edition
Point and shoot software
Fade Technique tee
Opinionated hospital design
A transaction makes a customer
TR35: Technology Review's Young Innovators Under 35 for 2006
Paradox of choice vs. limiting human freedom
How Lotus Outreach uses Basecamp to change lives
Fly on the wall: "We can tune afterward"
"Even with primitive materials, one can work small wonders"
Sunspots: The nautilus edition
The false fight between fun and business
In-store good or at-home good?
Link It Up: point and shoot digital camera
Steve Irwin, the Croc Hunter, dead at 44

[H3] August 2006

Complicating simplicity
Penguin's Great Ideas = great design
Double cover & Approval Matrix at New York Magazine
John Sawatsky and the power of simple questions
Lingo: Chrome
Recent job postings on the 37signals Job Board
Thanks to The Deck advertisers
On a grand scale: information design and science
Sunspots: The blood sport edition
It's a beautiful thing
Cooper's office phone concept
Jobs Boards: A shotgun or a rifle?
Fly on the Wall: "Noodage"
A tale of two job ads
Picasso, Paula Scher, and the lifetime behind every second
Signal vs. Noise chat room
Screens around town: three sidebars
The long road to simple: creating, debating, and iterating "Add an event"
The Price is Right is an excercise in clarity
Browser stats
Define your own success
Fireside Chat: The Long Tail
Sunspots: The punk edition
How long is a startup a startup?
Getting Real Workshop update
Fly on the wall: "Go down to a coastal village and all of a sudden you are in a Talking Heads video directed by Michel Gondry."
Google does not render resistance futile
37signals is looking to hire a System Administrator
Designed: Hangzhou teahouse, StarFlyer, SwissMiniGun, Khukri, Crevasse Vase
Getting Real Workshop, Oct 9, Chicago
Why big version trains are always late
Lodge cast iron
Sunspots: The acquired taste edition
Follow up to "Link It Up: Laptop Cases"
3 ways to make money with your software
Fly on the wall: "It doesn't matter right now."
An Introduction to Using Patterns in Web Design
Pimp cups and other bling needs
Late projects are late one day at a time
Copy big copy small
Sunspots: The no big fuss edition
Apple includes Rails with Leopard
Don't believe BusinessWeek's bubble-math
Turning pomegranates into gold
Amber MacArthur and Leo Laporte interview David for the Inside the Net podcast
The cell phone is still up for grabs
Stomach Virus
What Web 2.0 means to 500 random Basecamp customers
Recent job postings on the 37signals Job Board
Sunspots: The Nixon-to-China edition

[H3] July 2006

Less Car: The Ariel Atom
July's Deck
Link It Up: laptop case
Screens Around Town: G24, Tickspot, Workopolis
Fly on the Wall: The week in photos
Sunspots: The boardwalk edition
LAUNCH: The Backpack Calendar
Fireside Chat: Richard Bird, Jim Coudal, and Carlos Segura
A world of difference between writing and word processing
My Business Magazine: The Next Small Thing
It's business time!
When is the last time you were a client?
Tibor Kalman: "We don't talk about planes flying. We talk about them crashing."
Voicenotes for Backpack
Most businesses self destruct
Sunspots: The flatfile edition
Writing words vs. writing software
Best Buy, Bad Design
Volvo C30: A pretty new design
Screens Around Town: The new Yahoo!
Problem with comments
Consistency (Yahoo) vs. 'Wow' (Google)
The Filter (week of July 21)
What Steve Jobs is like in a meeting
Sunspots: The optimism edition
Bezos Expeditions invests in 37signals
Fly on the Wall: "37signals. They rock the party that rocks the body."
Getting Real book sales update and new free chapters
Ta-da List gets drag and drop
Browser selectors in CSS
Retro radios, calculators, etc.
No more "more" pages?
Drama vs. information
Sunspots: The modernist edition
Fireside Chat with Khoi Vinh and Jeffrey Veen: "In-house vs. on your own"
Recent job postings on the 37signals Job Board
Screens Around Town: CrossConnector, Dandelife, and Wufoo
Chinese logo look-alikes: BMW and BYD
Beautiful interface: Newshutch
The Filter (week of July 14)
Fly on the Wall: "Other people's data is extremely boring"
New in Basecamp: Significantly improved print layouts
Outsourcing choice
Pretty Propaganda: USSR in Construction
Sunspots: The fourth wall edition
Experience design at Nokia
Screens Around Town: New looks for summer
The Filter (week of July 7)
Woodflame grill, highly recommended
Designed: wallpaper, windmill, sand sculpture, etc.
Fly on the Wall: "The magic is that everything has a center of gravity. You just need to find it."
The dance of people in public spaces
Sunspots: The knife skills edition
LAUNCH: Campfire and Basecamp integration
Recent job postings on the 37signals Job Board
The disease of giants
Screens Around Town: Google News and Newsmap

[H3] June 2006

The Filter (week of June 30)
There's no such thing as the one-hour meeting
Olivo Barbieri's aerial photographs
Fly on the Wall: "Fire, aim"
37signals coupon codes
Reality vs. drawings and words
Air guitar solo
Growing in vs. growing out
Edward Hall: The perfect group size = 8-12
Sunspots: Umami Edition
Marshmallow, the (unofficial) Campfire API, is hot
Videos from the CTC conference in Boston
Scheduled maintenance notice
Recent job postings on the 37signals Job Board
Business 2.0 says David Matters
Getting in too-much touch (interruption is not collaboration)
How to Choose a Designer
Gates plans his exit from Microsoft. What's next?
Why there are virtually no fat Japanese people
KFC Famous Bowls: Well, at least it's white meat chicken
Sunspots: The corn syrup edition
Recent job postings on the 37signals Job Board
Screens Around Town: stacked texty navs
Design Observer redesigns and joins The Deck
Backpack Calendar teaser video
Sunspots: the travel light edition
Field Tested Books, 2006
Museum of web headline design
Basecamp API update and Basecamp for Tablet PCs
Amnesty's Amazing Ads
Google Flares?
$10 off Campfire upgrade coupon
Screens Around Town: Usability.gov, Google, Opensuse
Bloomberg Gets Real
Sunspots: the ant nest edition
Douglas Coupland agrees that meetings are toxic
Changing your phone number vs. changing your credit card

[H3] May 2006

David makes the cover of LinuxJournal
A List Apart joins the Job Board
Screens Around Town: Windows Vista, Weather.com, Boden
Google's best acquisition to date: Doug Bowman
The Crown of Royalty
The Museum of Modern Betas has been updated
Type inspirations
The Filter (week of May 26)
Pyro 1.04b for Campfire is out
Where's the killer screencast app for the Mac?
Fly on the Wall: "Excelsior!"
37signals lingo: cheap/expensive
How to shoot a bullet through your startup
When big groups really want to get things done, they make the group smaller
Recent job postings on the 37signals Job Board
Bloat is a function of time, people, and money
Getting Real workshop update
Is Don Norman right about Google?
Sunspots: The sculpting edition
Co-creating with customers
Gamma Flickr
Screens Around Town: Inspired #2
Problem Resolution Process
The Filter (week of May 19)
Fly on the Wall: "You always Schopenhauer late"
The next Getting Real Workshop: June 26, 2006
"Professional" is a buzzword
75-day Getting Real book stats update
Studio shot
Small Biz 101: Digg is Your Marketing Secret Weapon
Dealing with comment threads at blogs
Campfire now has permissions
Don't scar on the first cut
Sunspots: the horsepower edition
Real world Getting Real: Navy Seals, hurry up offenses, Shakespeare, etc.
What the software industry is missing
Screens Around Town: Inspired #1
The Filter (week of May 12)
Seen any inspiring web design lately?
American Idol and American Politics
Keep your ambitions in check
Mr. More
Shin, tree branches, x-ray, giraffe legs, scouring rush
Fly on the Wall: Pleasant River
The first business built around Basecamp
Sunspots: The camel clutch edition
Push optional data entry as far back as you can
Signal vs. Noise Job Board dashboard widget for OS X
No, by BMW
The importance of instant feedback
Screens Around Town: One-page sites
Backpack's first birthday
Fly on the Wall, Esq.
Make Tsingtao, Guinness, or Sam Adams...not World Lager
A great demo, a bad product
Building a Web App? Don't Forget the Premium Plan!
Latest Rails: New book, new RailsConf
Screens Around Town: Last.fm, TCF Bank, Danger Graphics, Whitespace
Sunspots goes to the movies
Next Generation Solutions
Welcoming new advertisers to The Deck

[H3] April 2006

Crain's Chicago Business cover story
The Blue Vein, Secret Zen Garden, etc.
It's all the same
Wallet roundup
The venom of put-downs is rocket fuel
SvN Job Board: Finding good people
Sunspots: kick in discovery edition
Palais Ideal
Screens Around Town: Mightyv, Windows, Project-On-Demand, AmEx, CRN
Netflix mailers over the years
The Filter (week of April 21)
GoDaddy hosting now supports Rails
Simplicity is profitable
Fly on the Wall: "I'm running into a problem with HumanTime"
The right tool for the job
Skirts/Flowers
The Onion: Beaver Overthinking Dam
Fighting the top reply
Less financial options in your pocket
Rubber ball lessons
Illusion of agreement
Sunspots: The full moon in the Trades edition
Kottke joins The Deck
Screens Around Town: Yahoo, Sproutit, NY Times, Mobber, Campfire
Follow the herd
Microsoft Origami: "Too revolutionary"
Backpack survey results
Pyro: Chat around the Campfire
Fly on the Wall: "the Himalayas is an orogenous zone"
Calexico, Garden Ruin, is out
Designed
Sunrise artifacts
Useless, absurd, must, need, appalled, just, infuriating, essential, etc.
How Don embraces constraints
LASIK advice?
Sunspots: the Gestalt edition
Sunk Cost
Nice design from Hunter Douglas
How the Basecamp API saves Futuretrack5 two hours a day
Screens Around Town: Google, Adobe, Flickr, IE
Many iPods, one design
The Filter (week of April 7)
Make tiny decisions
More ports
Fly on the Wall: "too many Web developers are swatting flies with bulldozers"
The new Audi TT
Three diagrams
Epicenter software design: Building features from the inside out
Find a font by form
Good stuff to hear/watch
Photos from Friday's Getting Real workshop
The unknown architect
Veen/Google Getting Real?
Lose a little at a time
Sunspots: The Interface Tan edition
GEL Conference 2006
Does this company respect me? Try the sticker test.
The Filter (week of March 31)
Screens Around Town: Cars.com, ESPN, InDesign2, Adium, and MyFonts
30-day update: Getting Real, the book
Airtrax omni-directional "wheels"

[H3] March 2006

The Fordham Spire was approved!
Less Lawn
Fly on the wall: "serene but unforgiving"
StressEraser and SleepTracker: Tech that can make your life better
David Greiner talks about focusing on a small core market [a Getting Real excerpt]
Campfire: Sharing code snippets just got easier
Rails 1.1: Loaded with 37s extractions
Sunspots: The Feng Shui edition
Stunning insect photos
Screens Around Town: Bookmarks with character, Delicious Days, a pretty hover, and a Firefox update
Announcing the Basecamp API
It's a great time to start a business
Dissatisfaction / Please yourself
The Filter (week of March 24)
Beautiful code, test-first
Morningstar.com: The best designed information-heavy site on the web
Quark logo, take 2
Fly on the wall: "if the scientists ever cross a rat and an octopus, we're screwed"
Screencast: One-minute mockup with Photoshop
The Morning News joins The Deck
Andrew Hunt: "Leave room for emergence" [a Getting Real excerpt]
Forbes: The 20 Most Important Tools
Eureka: We're editors
Sunspots: The cattle prod edition
Screens Around Town: Blogger, DropSend, etc.
Embrace Obscurity
$10 off Campfire coupon
Less Phone: The Moto PEBL
The Filter
Amen to Mark's new outlook on technology
BusinessWeek Cover Story featuring 37signals
Fly on the wall: "pony integration is a deal breaker"
Innovation is not proportional to money spent
Functional specs subvert the hierarchy of nature
Sunspots
Campfire update: Free-for-life plan, higher plan limits, and more
Iron Sudoku
The New Visionaries video interview
Backpack Premium now $14/month
ID Partitioning
SxSW Opening Remarks Podcast
Screens around town: Firefox vs. Safari tabs, NFL, NY Magazine, Isaac Wardell, and a Backpack portfolio
The Cost of Bootstrapping Your App: The Figures Behind DropSend (part two)
Fly on the wall (week of March 10)
What Google's acquisition of Writely means
BoA Bill Pay now offers "deliver by" date
Art statements, Pitchfork, and fancypants analysis
Entrepreneurial Proverbs
Knitting complaints
White/red/black color scheme, creepy facial hair,