BETA

Highrise Authentication Token (API) How To

January 15th, 2009 • How To, Screencasts
Tags: api, api token, authentication token, highrise, howto, Progress, screencast

For Periscope Gadget to work with Highrise, a step needs to be taken in addition to supplying your username and password. As with Basecamp, an API switch needs to be flipped. In this case, the Highrise Authentication Token needs to be copied from your Highrise account and inserted into the settings for Periscope. The Token is 40 characters long and hexadecimal (numbers & letters A through F) — it’s an easy copy and paste. As always, we try to be as careful as possible when storing your sensitive information.

Here are the steps you’ll need to take, or just view the screencast below:

• Login to your Highrise account using your customized URL. It’ll look something like http://your-account.highrisehq.com/
• Click on the “My Info” link in the top right hand corner. You’ll be presented with the “User Account” tab of your own account.
• Click on “Reveal authentication token for feeds/API” which will show you a yellow highlighted 40 character long hexadecimal string.
• Copy this string to your clipboard.
• Login to your Periscope Gadget account at http://periscopegadget.com/login using your Periscope email and password.
• Add a new account by clicking on the “Add” link, or click on any of the pencils to edit a Highrise account that has already been setup.
• Paste the token from your clipboard into the field labelled “Highrise API Token”.
• Save your changes — you’re done!

Upcoming release, a sneak peek…

January 7th, 2009 • Everything else
Tags: basecamp, highrise, Progress

I’ve been working hard on a number things here, one of which is very close to being ready for release. After talking with a power user for a little bit, I couldn’t help myself and I have to post about it. I’m not going to say anything, just provide a screenshot…

Forgot your Periscope password? Password reset now live

December 27th, 2008 • How To, Progress
Tags: password reset, Progress

I’ve received a fair number of password reminder or reset requests lately. To help speed things along, I’ve added functionality now that allows you to reset your password. Remember, we store a one-way hash of your password (combined with some other goodies) so we’re not able to remind you of your password, since we don’t even know! If you have forgotten your password, just go to the password reset page, enter your email address, and we’ll reset it for you. We’ll then send you an email with more instructions…

Mini Messages Now Live

December 26th, 2008 • 1 comment Progress, Releases
Tags: affiliates, holidays, mini message, Progress, referrals, update

This is a fairly small update in terms of a feature set for Periscope Gadget, but it is an update nonetheless. I’ve added mini-messages to both the iGoogle and Gmail gadgets which now let me communciate with users directly within the gadget. It’s an unobtrusive little yellow bar at the top of the gadget with a link to more information for whatever is being communicated. And, ofcourse, there is a little red x that will let you close the message indicating that you no longer wish to see it. If there’s something new that pops up, it’ll come back with the new message. You’ll never see more than one message at a time at the top. You’ll start to see the messages just as soon as your local cached copy of the gadget gets replaced by the new updated version from the Periscope Gadget server…

I’ve also added some affiliate love for Basecamp, Highrise and Freshbooks in the side bar of the blog pages for those of you that may not be familiar. Click on the referrals and if you sign up as a result, it helps feed my kids. So, thanks!

And finally, happy holidays to everyone!

GMail welcomes Periscope Gadget

November 12th, 2008 • 2 comments Everything else, Releases, Screencasts
Tags: gmail, gmail labs, Progress, Releases

Wonderful news this morning: Periscope Gadget is now available in your GMail!

Thanks to Gmail Labs & the ability to add a gadget to GMail, you can now add a special GMail Edition Periscope Gadget to your sidebar in GMail. Periscope for GMail is now just one of the other ways to interact with Basecamp, in addition to Periscope for iGoogle, for the iPhone and for Google Desktop for Windows. Awesome!

You’ll need to enable GMail Labs within your GMail account (see the screencast) and also add the Gadgets for GMail extension. Once you’ve done that, you’ll need the Periscope for GMail gadget URL, which is different that the iGoogle URL:

http://ui.periscopegadget.com/gm/periscope.xml

It’s all detailed in the Periscope for GMail screencast — so have a look at it, and add Periscope goodiness to your GMail. No iGoogle needed.

Screencast: Add Basecamp accounts to Periscope

November 1st, 2008 • Everything else, How To, Progress, Screencasts
Tags: add account, feature, Progress, screencast, ui, update

If you’ve logged in to your account on the Periscope Gadget home page recently, you will have noticed that the look has changed and a new feature has been added. I moved the information around a bit on the My Account page so that it made more sense to me and so that it was a little cleaner. Hopefully, you’ll agree.

I also added the ability for any beta user to now add a second and a third Basecamp account to Periscope on their own. When you log in it tells you exactly how many accounts you have left to add, and clicking opens up the New account block. Punch in your Basecamp details, hit Add account and the new account will show up on your list of accounts on the right. It will also be immediately available to your gadget, so a gadget refresh will result in the new account showing up there as well. Be sure to enter your credentials carefully, or you will run into issues displaying the data!

Checkout the screencast for a full demo of the new layout and account functionality.

CMS Wire posts about Periscope, writes honest, detailed entry

October 28th, 2008 • Mentions, Progress
Tags: Mentions, Progress, transparent

The folks over at CMS Wire posted an entry about Periscope last week. Somehow, we missed it. Note: please let us know if you’re writing something about us, we’d love to know and also let our users know about what’s being said, good, bad or otherwise. If nothing else, we’ll link to you :)

They make some excellent points, especially with regard to usernames and passwords — the more people who use Periscope that know about what is and isn’t stored, the better — and also offer up some kind words for us. Thanks, guys! And the post certainly goes a long way in educating readers about the facts.

Full Gadget Tour Screencast with Functionality Showcase

October 24th, 2008 • 2 comments How To, Progress, Screencasts
Tags: functionality, preferences, Progress, Releases

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while now: a screencast of someone (me) using the gadget, attempting to show all the functionality the gadget has at this point. This means a few things… firstly, that the screencast is loooooooong: around 11min. It also means that it runs the risk of being boring and of having you lose interest. Nevertheless, I thought it would be a good idea to do it anyway, so enjoy.

In the screencast I go through filtering by project, by Basecamp account, what each of the tabs does, submitting time with descriptions, starting and stopping the Periscope clock, as well as the preferences tab. I haven’t really pushed this tab very much but I hope to be putting even more things in there that will make Periscope even more useful. Right now you can control the number of items displayed as well as “compact edition” visibility — checkout the screencast, you’ll know what I’m talking about. (Compact edition was inspired by Rob Colburn’s note to me about a quick CSS hack that Gmail uses to do the same thing. Thanks Rob!)

Full screencast.

ReadWriteWeb: “design for the Periscope Gadget is simple and effective”

October 19th, 2008 • Mentions
Tags: beta, design, Mentions, Progress

Periscope was referred to by Corvida over at ReadWriteWeb as having a design that “is simple and effective, with hover-over link effects to keep the interface as simple as possible without leaving out important details” — what a succinct way to describe it! Many thanks for the post and nice words about Periscope Gadget. Read the whole post here.

Republished, but that’s OK!

October 6th, 2008 • Mentions
Tags: beta, Mentions, Progress

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!