Chances are if you’re a seasoned web developer at one time or another you’ve needed to insert Flash into a website but you have no idea what the dimensions of the movie are.

Previously there were basically three options for solving this problem:

1. Go directly to the person who created the flash and ask them the dimensions.
2. Open the .fla file in Flash (if you own a license) and get the document dimensions yourself. Chances are you’ll end up getting a cup of coffee at the same time because Flash takes so long to start up.
3. Shistily try to take a screen shot of the open Flash movie and measure the dimensions in Photoshop, usually ending up 1 or 2 pixels off and forcing you to go back to option one or two.

Or… browse to the .swf file in Finder and drag it into your TextMate file window. Wala! Now you have the flash insertion code right along with the exact dimensions of the movie. No more annoying hassles.

In their perpetual quest to index the World’s information Google has now started a health record service. Users can add medical conditions, allergies, procedures, test results and drug interactions. Partnerships with Walgreens, CVS and Quest Diagnostics allow users to import current records into Google Health.

Google Health aims to solve an urgent need that dovetails with our overall mission of organizing patient information and making it accessible and useful. Through our health offering, our users will be empowered to collect, store, and manage their own medical records online.

The service was officially announced in February of 2008 and tested via a pilot program with Cleveland Clinic with great success and acceptance. Personally, I’ve never seen my full health record. I have zero clue as to how many, and what people have seen it so far, so the fact that Google is holding this data is perfectly fine with me.

Just when I was starting to knock Google’s track record of innovation they roll out GrandCentral. While it isn’t truly a Google “innovation” what they will be doing with it sure is innovative. I’m not a user of it – yet, but it sounds like an awesome idea and I’m very excited about getting into the application.

If you never heard of GrandCentral, it’s a phone aggregator…. in a nutshell it will allow all your phones and voicemails to be managed under 1 account.

Here are just a few of the features I’m excited about:

• One number, rings everything
• Let people call you from a Web pageClick2call from your keyboard
• Call Record. Yep… record your calls… this will be fun to see the lawyers debate
• Voicemail notifications via SMS
• Mobile Access, similar to the iPhone visual voicemail

I can just hear the telecos whining about this latest invention by Google. But why are they doing this, I’m only guessing at this point but let’s follow the money for some clues.

• Phone based ads using AdWords
• Click to Call, perfect for tracking AdWords conversions over the phone
• Planting the seeds for the Google Phone
• Searchable Voicemail

OK, I’ve drank the juice and I haven’t even used this yet. I encourage you to visit the site and sign-up as well.

By default OSX has a nice screen capture feature which is invoked by hitting Shift-Apple-4. Sure, it isn’t the most intuitive key set but now you know. The default is set to capture all images as PNGs which is fine in most cases but sometimes a hassle if you are capturing the image for quick posting to a blog, in which case GIF or JPG would be useful and the file conversion is just another step.

So here goes:
Open up Terminal ( under Applications / Utilities )
Enter the following command into the Terminal
defaults write com.apple.screencapture type *FILETYPE*

Where the command says *FILETYPE* replace it with JPG, PDF, TIF or PNG.

Hit enter and you’ll be good to go!

In the beginning we loved working with Basecamp. We were early adopters and Basecamp served as a point of differentiation between us and our competitors. Most of our clients loved the system purely out of the simplicity of the overall experience; however there has always been a small undercurrent of our clients who either are confused by it, find it to simplistic or hate something about the system.

… and this is OK, according to 37Signals.

37Signals has made it clear over the years that their products aren’t meant for everyone and some people will eventually outgrow their system, we’ll I guess we are heading down that path. Let me explain our experience with Basecamp, and I’d be interested in hearing who else has outgrown the software and why.

The Good

• The simplicity of use. I guess I can’t see why customers are confused by the system, it’s pretty easy to use.
• Lack of clutter. Visually, Basecamp is easy on the eyes which makes it more likely to stay up on my screen all day.
• I find the FTP integration useful because it allows us to store customer data on our own server where it’s backed up and portable.

Critiques which fall on deaf ears.

I would submit these ideas to 37Signals but after reading "Getting Real" I’m pretty sure they aren’t going to give a damn about what I have to say.

• The Dashboard. Interesting idea but it really falls short when you have multiple projects. Especially if your projects all follow the same general outline. For instance, if we have a Web site redesign project going for 4 clients then my Dashboard calendar is useless because it doesn’t clearly tell me which project a milestone is due for.
• Email flow and usage. I can’t tell you how many clients reply to the email which says "DO NOT REPLY". However, can’t 37Signals modify Basecamp to track and thread my messages. For instance, if I send an email to a client and cc a unique email such as myaccountid@basecamphq.com then Basecamp would permit us, and our clients the freedom to work from our email accounts, while Basecamp tracks the volley.
• The Calendar. Why on Earth does the calendar slide to the current day? To me this is a big break from common usage. My iCal on my computer doesn’t shift me to the current day, it stays on the week and highlights today’s date. Basecamp just removes the previous day and starts the 2 week calendar on the current date and time. Uh?
• Templates. If I have a new project I’d sure like to be able to apply a milestone template which dropped in default project goals. For us, the current "to-do" template is entirely useless.
• Milestones. If I set a milestone to be completed on Feb 7th, 2008 and it isn’t completed until Feb 14th, 2008 then why doesn’t Basecamp track the date it was completed and who checked it complete?
• To-dos. Where is the functionality of "Ta-Da-List" and why isn’t it used here?

I can keep going but I’ll stop here.

Now, the things which are a huge turn off.

• The lack of support and the general F-U attitude of 37Signals. We wanted to build a Basecamp Hours Widget and we found that the 37Signals team was both unresponsive and kind-of unfriendly when we tried to use their API.
• Their general attitude towards new features. Why not encourage feedback from the customers? I’d love to see the top 10 most requested features and 37Signals’ stance on why or why not those features would be integrated.

That’s the extent of my rant. I think 37Signals has also done alot of good for the Web-based software movement, and I don’t want to minimize that contribution. We are still using Basecamp as of today but the plans are in the works for a new system to replace it before the end of the year. I’m interested in hearing the experiences of other Basecamp users out there.