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Backpack is the latest Web-app info-management tool from the gang at 37 Signals (Basecamp, Ta-da Lists, etc.), and it is a winner, I think: I've already taken it past the "I'm playing with this to see if it's any good" stage into the "I'm using this quite a bit and considering whether to move some part of my life into it" stage.
The 37 Signals approach involves not trying to do a million things but doing a few things really well. Backpack offers a smart, usable Ajax-style interface for storing random data in Web pages that can be loosely structured as lists and notes. You can (if you upgrade to a paid version) also store files and photos. You can flip a switch on a page to make it "shared" (essentially, public) and others can then not only read it but modify it (wiki style). The final, most unusual innovation here is email integration: No, it's not an email client at all, but each page is addressable by email -- you can send stuff to a page at its unique email address -- and each page can be set to send out reminders via email. It's a relatively small, contained application, but I haven't even begun to explore all the possibilities.
Oh, it's also been developed on the same much-buzzed-about software platform 37 Signals has used for its other products -- Ruby on Rails. It serves as a pretty fine advertisement (in the best sense) both for that technology and for its company's philosophy. Congrats, and thanks, to all involved.
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Time Management for Anarchists: This little flash slideshow does a good job of summarizing the principles of the faddish-yet-sensible David Allen "Getting Things Done" philosophy using imagery drawn not from the warrens of corporate America but instead from Emma Goldman and Mikhail Bakunin.
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If you haven't seen it already -- it made the blogosphere rounds a month or two ago -- They Might Be Giants' "Bloodmobile" song and (as animated by Dave Logan) video is a thing of beauty. "A delivery service inside us!" For fans of "Why Does the Sun Shine?", which definitely includes our household's younger echelon.
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For starters, don't miss the amazing piece John Heilemann contributed to New York magazine this week, which tells the saga of a lawsuit about child molestation at a famous choir school in Princeton, New Jersey. The lead lawyer was also a victim; his name is well known to the world that pays attention to the intersection of technology and law: Lawrence Lessig.
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I've got a ton of backlogged stuff to post about, links and comments, both from D and elsewhere. So tonight, I've decided that, rather than try to perfect little posts on things, I'm just gonna start posting stuff in a random flood. Which is sort of what blogs are meant for anyway. I'm still fighting the decades of training in linearity!
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