Dave Caolo » 37signals

Highrise for iPhone

Dave — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:42:39 +0000

The folks at Overcommitted have made the official iPhone app for Highrise. It’s simple and effective, as one would expect any 37signals product to be. I like that the app’s main toolbar matches itself to the color scheme you’re using with the browser-based version. They’ve also made the initial synchronization fun, but I won’t give away how.

Highrise lets you manage communications you’ve had with contacts and customers as well as tasks and appointments. I’ve been a happy customer for years. Look for my review at TUAW this week.

37signals introduces new file type icons to Basecamp

Dave — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 23:48:22 +0000

They look great.

DIY Basecamp with Drupal

Dave — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 21:32:12 +0000

A few enterprising Drupal developers have built a convincing copy of 37signals’ project manager Basecamp, and they want to tell you how to do the same. It definitely looks and feels similar. We’ll see how long this lasts.

Portable Wiki mimicks Backpack

Dave — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:01:04 +0000

Tiddly Backpack lives on a USB flash drive and mimics 37Signals’ Backpack.

Automatic WordPress backups to Backpack

Dave — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 21:41:02 +0000

I manage 8 WordPress blogs. Creating timely backups for all of them is a pain. So, today I put an automatic solution in place that results in hands-free, off-site storage of weekly backups. Here’s how.

You’ll need a paid Backpack account (the free account does not offer file storage) and the WP-DB-Backup plugin. First, we’ll set up Backpack.

One of the cool features of Backpack is that each page has a unique email address. Anything sent to it gets posted to that page. We’re going to take advantage of that feature. First, create a new Backpack page with a name like “WP Databse Backups.” Note the email address in the page’s footer. That’s the address we’re after.

Now it’s time to install the WP-DB-Backup plugin. As usual, just drop it in /wp-content/plugins on your server. Next, activate it via the “Plugins” page of your WordPress control panel. After that, click “Manage” and then “Backup.”

There are several options for you to fiddle with. For our purposes, look at “Scheduled backup.” Select “Once Weekly” (or whatever schedule you like) and place the email address you got from the Backpack page in the field labeled “Email backup to.” Finally, click “Schedule backup” and you’re done.

There you have it! Automatic, off-site backups of your WordPress database. Since each backup has a unique name based on its creation date, you needn’t worry about overwriting anything. Have fun!