Republished, but that’s OK!
October 6th, 2008 • Mentions • No comments
Summize (er, Twitter Search) is awesome. I like to keep tabs on whether or not Periscope Gadget is being mentioned on twitter, and even to see if I missed any messages that were directed at me, using it. This morning I found a republished version of the piece Scott did last week. It’s over at elsterama - thanks for the note!
Public Beta Now Open & Periscope on WebWorkerDaily
October 2nd, 2008 • Everything else, Mentions, Releases • No comments
Yes, it’s true: Periscope Gadget is now open to the public. Go on over to the registration page, sign-up for an account and start using it immediately. What more can I say?
Also, thanks to @scoblitz for his piece about Periscope Gadget in Web Worker Daily! A great review where Scott points out how Periscope “lets you quickly and easily log activity and time towards your Basecamp projects” while also mentioning that new features are coming soon! Stay tuned, more to come!
Transparency on Basecamp Usernames and Passwords
October 2nd, 2008 • Everything else • 1 comment
I’ve always thought that complete transparency is a virtue. It doesn’t matter what we’re talking about here: whether it’s inter-personal relationships, coach-team relationships or client-vendor relationships. If you’re reading this, you might be a little concerned that we’re storing your Basecamp username and password. Quite frankly, I would be too! Read on…
First of all, right now, there is no way to get around not storing them: the iGoogle framework simply doesn’t support POST nor HTTP AUTH. As a result, the Periscope backend acts as a pseudo-proxy taking requests from the gadget and doing all the necessary integration and logic to get data from your Basecamp account and serve it back to the gadget. And since your Basecamp account is password protected, Periscope needs to know those passwords to get at your data and serve it back to you. The nice thing about letting Periscope do all the heavy lifting is that it can do cool things like integrate more than one Basecamp account for you, do some time-tracking and even let you have access from things like your iPhone.
For the record, Periscope does not store any data that you request from the Basecamp servers. It merely proxies the data, filters and sorts and does whatever else you asked it to, and then serves it back to you. Periscope keeps logs of your activity in so much as it knows that you logged in and looked at the Recent Activity tab: but that’s about it! It does not know the content of the tab. It also counts clicks to various links you may click on. Periscope also leverages Google Analytics for other statistics.
What about the actual storage of passwords?
Your Periscope password (different than your Basecamp password) is not stored at all: we store a one way hash of your username and password. That way, if you forget your password we’ll have you reset it: we don’t have the ability to remind you what it is.
As for your Basecamp username and password, we store this information in a database and do so with the greatest amount of care: the username and password is encrypted using the MCRYPT_RIJNDAEL_256 cipher and stored in a physically different server than the encryption key. We are currently hosting with pair Networks who have an excellent track record and with whom we have been very happy. We also allow you to change your information from your My Account page at any time.
We built Periscope for ourselves and are glad to be able to share it with you. If you’re still concerned that your Basecamp username and password is being stored on an unknown server somewhere in the digital cloud, the best thing you can do is add a new person to your company in your Basecamp account (call it “Periscope User” or something similar), and use the credentials for that person in your Periscope stored account. That way, you’re not storing your own personal username and password, but rather a throw-away user that could be changed at any time. And remember to give it less than administrator privileges too, if you want to be even more careful!
Preferences, Time Tracking & Hotlinks
September 22nd, 2008 • Progress, Releases • 1 comment
Just a quick note for those of you that are paying attention: last night I deployed some new features:
- a new preferences tab: lets you control the number of items being displayed on the recent activity or recent time tabs. More control over other aspects coming here in the future
- updated time tab: visual layout is now different than the sneaky-peaks that you’ve seen before. Save your description and time to Basecamp from within the gadget
- timer and controls available in the top right hand corner of every screen
A more in-depth post to follow, and special updated news for the Beta group as well.
Periscope supports Open ID
September 5th, 2008 • Progress • No comments
Just in case you were having trouble logging in or were just wondering if you could use your Open ID with Periscope… the answer is: you can! Just log in to your Basecamp account and under the “My Info” link you’ll see information about what username and password to use with third party applications like Periscope. Configure those in your Periscope account and you’re set. There’s also a more detailed description in the Periscope Gadget Help Center.
Periscope listed in iGoogle directory
September 5th, 2008 • Everything else, Mentions • No comments
Periscope Gadget is now officially listed in the iGoogle Directory. Unfortunately, there are no ratings yet, no users are showing up as making use of the gadget and no-one knows about it. But! You can help change that!
If you have a spare moment, visit the Periscope Gadget listing on iGoogle and leave a comment about your experience so far: good, bad or otherwise. You will receive good karma points when you do.
Periscope Gadget on your Windows Desktop
August 31st, 2008 • Everything else, Screencasts • No comments
That’s right! Thanks to the wonder of Google Desktop Gadgets and its support for iGoogle gadgets, you can now also use Periscope Gadget on your Windows Desktop. Sorry Apple fans, for some reason this is not yet possible with the Mac version of Google Desktop. Perhaps it will be in a future release?
Here’s a screencast showing off very basic login and project list capability on a Windows desktop.
Update: the URL for the Windows Desktop gadget, pointed out in the comment, is http://ui.periscopegadget.com/ig/periscope.xml
Enabling API Access in Basecamp
August 31st, 2008 • How To, Screencasts • 2 comments
To allow Periscope Gadget to function, your Basecamp account needs to have API access enabled. This is really easy to enable and only requires you to log in to your Basecamp account and navigate two pages. I’ve created a screencast how-to, so have a look at that for reference as well. Here are the steps:
- Login to your own Basecamp account. Your URL will be something like http://yourdomain.updatelog.com/ or any of the 5 domains that 37 signals owns (updatelog.com, grouphub.com, clientsection.com, seework.com, projectpath.com) and you’ll need to use the username and password that you chose when you signed up with them.
- Click on the Account (Upgrade/Billing) tab.
- Scroll all the way down on the new page.
- Close to the bottom is a “Basecamp API” section. Click on the check box that is labelled “I’ve read and agree to the Basecamp terms of service…” — you should actually click on the terms of service and read them.
- Click on the button that says “Yes, please enable the Basecamp API for this account” — wait a few seconds, and voila! You’re done! Basecamp API access is enabled!
Also, be sure to checkout the screencast for a more visual walk through of how to accomplish the steps above.
Beta closed, live announcement list open
August 28th, 2008 • Everything else, Progress • No comments
I’ve had more than enough interest in the gadget (over 150 of you subscribed) and it feels like the right amount to move forward. So, I closed the beta signup on the main page and opened an announcement list subscription that you can be notified when Periscope goes live. Don’t worry beta users, you will be notified too!
So go on over there and signup for the announcement if you haven’t registered for the beta.
Periscope Gadget is iPhone Friendly! One more screencast…
August 22nd, 2008 • Progress, Screencasts • 2 comments
Greetings! I just finished some tweaks to make Periscope Gadget even more accessible. Thanks to Google’s wonderful iPhone accessible personalized homepage, you can now take Periscope Gadget with you, on your iPhone! Sure, it’s not an iPhone Web App or native iPhone App, but if you need quick and fast access to get your Basecamp fix, then this is the thing for you! Everything you’re used to in the desktop version is on your iPhone!
Go ahead, watch the screencast! And stay tuned… big things happening next week!
