This is Signal vs. Noise, a weblog by 37signals about entrepreneurship, design, experience, simplicity, constraints, pop culture, our products, products we like, and more. Established 1999 in Chicago.

Jamis says Gmail has been “dog slow” recently. Jason kinda agreed and said that lately he’s found it working faster in Safari than Firefox.

Sam posted some code:

    def file_is_gif?(filename)
      File.open(filename) do |file|
        return false unless file.read(6) =~ /GIF8[79]a/
        file.read(4)
      end
    end

    def account_logo_dimensions
      return [0, 0] unless dimensions = file_is_gif?(account.complete_logo_path)
      dimensions.unpack('vv')
    end

Jason marvelled, “jesus I can actually READ that code and understand it! amazing.” Sam answered, “the unpack part is kind of cryptic, but yeah, i love ruby :)”

Everyone thinks these swatches Sam added to Basecamp are hot.

Jason, the email gatekeeper, makes a point of spreading positive feedback, like this note…

Campfire ‘just worked’ for me this morning, and I wanted to share my story about how it saved my ass.

My sister called me in a panic due to the fact that she had to submit a law school paper and her network wasn’t working. It turned out she could read mail and surf the web, but couldn’t send mail. Either her router, ISP or firewall was blocking the traffic. A problem she wasn’t equipped to handle technically, and there wasn’t time to spend on the phone with the cable company.

After trying literally every possible method of transferring the word doc from her computer to mine, via email, MSN Messenger, AIM, ftp, telnet, bittorrent, and even file upload services such as rapidshare, it became clear that something was blocking the ports and short of reconfiguring the router or contacting the ISP, this wasn’t going to get resolved.

I then had the epiphany. “Let’s try Campfire!” And you know what? Of course, you do. It just worked! And it was the only thing that worked. Within two minutes of signing up and creating the chat room, she was able to join and upload the word doc to the room from which I then grabbed it and sent it to her recipients. Literally, two minutes, after about half an hour of frustration. It was just that easy.

So I don’t want to know what non-standard ports you guys are using, what file uploading mojo you sold your souls to employ, I’m just amazed and inspired. It’s great engineering.

Jason did this video interview with Stowe Boyd earlier this year and it just went up this week. It involves a beret and bricks. And Stowe says things like this: “The impact they’re having in the world is much larger than simply the success of their apps like Basecamp. It could be that the larger legacy for 37signals will turn out to be the promulgation of this set of design and life principles…”

We chuckled at this comment at thinksecret.com: Adobe needs to Get Real.

Marcel and Jamis like Fred Astaire (Jamis’ kids watched “Royal Wedding” where Fred dances on the walls and ceiling). When it comes to dancing on ceilings, Jason prefers Lionel Richie. (OK, not really). Fred’s great, but I recommend checking out Cyd Charisse.

Ryan had another reason for not using functional specs: “there’s more room on a blank sheet of paper for features than on an interface…there’s room on the document for all kinds of ideas, but there is only so much room in the actual screen for something new…so you have to decide how to use it…you can’t take 100 sq. feet and build a super wal mart.” Marcel said, “I dig that.”

Sam found this approach “very useful in arriving at a solution”:
1. write down the problem
2. write down why it’s hard to solve
3. write down what would make it easier
4. write down possible ways to implement things that would make it easier
5. write down why those ways suck
6. then make it not suck
Ryan’s response: “yeah. in early Christopher Alexander-speak, that process pulls the forces apart so you can see the dependencies…you can evaluate all the forces that push on the problem and solution.”

Marcel offered up this crazy menu.

We checked out Google Mars and Google Moon. Jamis: “zoom all the way in with google moon…the surface turns into cheese.”

Jason enjoyed this story: Now THERE’S a couple that knows how to fight! (“A Mexican couple were recovering separately after a marital spat got out of control and saw them firing guns, throwing knives and hurling homemade bombs…”)

Remember the upload bird? Sam was eating some fruit and a strawberry bled onto a pineapple wedge and said it reminded him of the upload bird. Ryan cracked, “sam is seeing birds in his fruit…no more LSD for you.”

Ryan bought the Virginia Tufte (Edward’s wife) book, “Artful Sentences” and said it’s beautiful. “it’s like 90% examples…and they’re grouped based on the principle…like “Short Sentences,” “Dependent Clauses,” etc…her commentary is extremely tufte ish.”

Campfire lets you set a room’s topic to whatever you want. We usually put in a quote we like. This week, Sam changed it to this one by Paul Rand: “Art comes in the ingenuity of a designer who is able to, in a way, conceal art as a service to business.”

Marcel said, “I learned recently that during labor mothers produce some hormone (oxy-something) that makes them feel strong affection for their child. Its release is suspected to help insure the child survives (on account of its mother taking care of it). Humans as well as other animals produce it during labor (for example, elephants). But, it is also produced when looking at your child’s face. Furthermore, humans produce it when looking at most any child, not just their own and it is not limited to human children. Looking at most any animal’s child will make you produce it. Maybe this in part explains how people react to cutenessoverload…” I mentioned this article on the topic. Jamis, the only 37signaller who actually has kids, said, “I think I produce that hormone when looking at rails code.”

Marcel labelled the Aerogarden cool. “roots grow in the air…no dirt, no soil…NASA baby!” but then countered himself: “i welcome innovation and increased efficiency but the lit major in me is borderline resistant to the loss of aesthetics of hands-muddied-in-the-backyard…i was growing tomatoes once. babied them for over a month. was surprisingly prideful of them, as though they were my children. and just as they reached full “bloom”, as it were, a slug decimated them…in certain ways it was fitting…i didn’t have the heart to eat them anyway :)” Sam just liked the photo of the woman going WOW on the Aerogarden page.

Marcel thinks the guy who wrote this post rules (excerpt: “large companies could isolate themselves from the best tools because the best toolmakers don’t want to deal with them”).

With all the various product requests we get, we think that someone will ask for a pony soon. This is how we imagine it might go…
Sam: i want a pony with campfire integration
Ryan: hot_pony pony.hot?
Sam: how can you possibly reconcile not offering that??
Matt: campfire is useless w/o a pony
Ryan: yes, Pony integration is a deal breaker for our enterprise