Blog: Fresh Tilled Ideas

Improving on great: Gmail meets Basecamp

Posted On: April 29th 2008
By: Richard Banfield

My email application of choice is gmail. My personal task management application of choice is Highrise from 37Signals.com. Our company also uses Basecamp for all our design and search marketing clients. One of the things I'd love to see is a way to add my gmail messages directly to Highrise or Basecamp. Basecamp already lets you email replies directly to the messages in projects and Highrise has a email dropbox so this can't be an impossible task. I imagine that after clicking on the "Add to Highrise" or "Add to Basecamp" button a popup would appear with the email contents formated like a new message. The new popup would ask "Here is your new message/task, would you like to add it to Highrise/Basecamp now" or provide an edit function but showing all text as editble.

If you're a developer with the skills to solve this problem let me know and we can figure this out together.

 

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The Present Catches Up To Science Fiction

Posted On: March 19th 2008
By: Richard Banfield

Remeber that cool touch screen that Tom Cruise used in Minority Report? Well it's here. Watch the BIGVIZ INTERACTIVEA 30 second video demonstrating the use of multi-touch technology to display the idea sketches while they were being created on-site. This technology experiment, a collaboration between Autodesk and Perceptive Pixel at a recent TED conference, illustrates a history timeline (or memory mode) as well as an interactive digital corkboard (or meaning-making mode). This video has no audio track.

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XM Makes Signing In Tough

Posted On: February 19th 2008
By: Richard Banfield

I have XM Radio in my car, which I love. However, when I tried to signup for my online account I encountered something from the Internet Dark Ages. Why must my password have "7 - 12 characters, one numeral, one upper case, one lower case and not contain my name"? That level of encription is unnecessary.

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Tufte comes to Boston again

Posted On: January 29th 2008
By: Richard Banfield

If you haven't already attended one of the Edward Tufte one-day seminars find the time to go to the next one. His next trip to our home town of Boston will be on the 3rd, 4th and 5th of March. Regardless of whether you are a designer or not, Tufte will blow your mind with his intelligent approach to displaying information in almost any environment. Here are some of the topics covered in the one day course:

evaluating evidence used in presentations
statistical data: tables, graphics, and semi-graphics
business, scientific, legal, financial presentations
complexity and clarity
effective presentations: on paper and in person
use of video, overheads, computers, and handouts
multi-media, internet, and websites
credibility of presentations
design of information displays in public spaces
animation and scientific visualizations
design of computer interfaces and manuals

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MIT live sketch board

Posted On: January 28th 2008
By: Richard Banfield

This is what happens when you leave a bunch of geeks in a room for too long. Now if only we could get this user interface experience in the classroom instead of just in the hands of MIT's professors. Watch the whole video to get a sense of how smart this sketchboard really can be.

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