The 37 signals guys created a post where you could ask them anything.

I decided that I would asked them something that has been bugging me a little bit after reading “Getting Real” about how they manage multiple products.

You guys have a number of products and a small team. How do you prioritize the work on your products? (How does Getting Real apply to multiple projects ?)

Their response…

There’s no real science behind it. Different people are working on different things all the time. One person usually works on one product at a time. If it’s a bigger update or requires additional expertise then two or three people may pitch in. Sometimes a designer and programmer work together. Other times it may just be a designer and other times just a programmer.

Sometimes some products go untouched for a few months or more. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s often good to let things just be the way they are for a good while. Then we’ll come back armed with a lot of good longer-term feedback and decide what to work on next.

Well, that all makes makes sense and fits in with their whole approach.

So if there is anything you want to know about Getting Real or 37 signals, now is the time to ask !

Business

•  Of Startups and Girlfriends
• Marc Anderssen on eleven lessons about blogging
• Recruiting a Co-founder for your startup
• Tyranny of the pageview nearly over
• 10 habit of highly effective founding
• Corporate vs Startup behaviours
• To those about to hack
• Scott Adams on how to be creative
• User experience isn’t just visual design
• Three types of ideas
• Reinventing Hot or Not

Tech

• What motivates programmers
• Real time 3d javascript using divs
• Design choices can cripple your site
• PostgreSQL posts first benchmark
• The case against Ruby on Rails

We’re moving the main ProjectX website to our production environment, away from our office network. This should help speed up the site, so it doesn’t get hammered by our office trafiic.

The DNS should have propagated, so everything should be fine.

A couple of amateur safe crackers in Colarado Springs were struggling to find out how to open the safe of a business, so they used one of the office computers to find out how to crack the safe.

The burglary at Bigg City, formerly Mr. Bigg’s Family Fun Center, turned into a comedy of errors early June 10. The burglars tried to disable a security camera by repeatedly spraying it with WD-40 — it only cleaned the lens — and spent an hour and 15 minutes trying to open three safes, apparently unaware that some types require the dial to be turned two or three times.

They finally did a Google search for “how to open a safe” and “how to crack a safe” on a computer in the next room.

“They’re not professional safe people,” said Colorado Springs police detective Chuck Ackerman. “No, they’re not.”

On the other hand, the Google query apparently worked: The burglars haven’t been caught, and they did get about $12,000.

Full report ….

Classic!

We’ve been a bit quiet on what we’ve been doing, so here’s a run down on what we’ve been working on over the last few months.

• US Maps: We been building and rendering maps for North America (USA and Canada) for one of our clients. We’ve designed and rendered a large part of the US using mapserver and Teleatlas data. After maxing out 8 machines and some serious RAID kit, we’ve clocked over 10K CPU hours on the project so far and got a way to go yet.
• NZ maps: We been working on updates and upgrades to the NZ maps.
• New API: We’ve just in the final testing for a new API to compliment our mapping and geocoding API’s.
• Demo websites: We’ve been working on a new map concept with a couple of Wellington companies.
• New tools: We have a bunch of tools exiting the R&D phase entering production development. More info on those later.
• Oh yeah, and we’ve been planning Summer of Code 2.0.

So what’s with all the secrecy???? We want to get a bit of a headstart before Wises and et start copying us again!

There is a really good post from ZDNet suggests that the 80:20 rule of software development needs to be changed for SOA (Services Oriented Architecture).

Here’s a snippet from the article.

At first the amount of needed customization is high — maybe 80 percent (a perversion of the old rule) — either because there are not many services available, or because the services are too general and not specific to a specialized vertical industry or niche function.

Then, over time, with investment, the balance shifts toward the 50-50 point, and reuse forms a majority of a composite applications or business process, even for highly specialized applications. These composited functions then become business-focused service frameworks, to then be reused and adjusted. Those architects that gain experience within business niches and verticals to create such frameworks can make significant reuse of the services.

Google have released an open source app called telekinesis to convert an iPhone into a remote controller for your mac.

Now you can use your iPhone for :

* Stream music and videos from your computer (0.9.8) learn how
* Screen capture with mouse click and basic typing support
* Simple iTunes Remote control
* Browse your files
* Run applescript remotely
* iSight image capture
* Easily create and add more apps

Hey Rod, now you can use your ordered iPhone for more than use listening to music and browsing Xero