Basecamp gets SFTP & timezones with Jamis
We just launched a major upgrade to Basecamp to coincide with the plan revisions for 2005. It includes a big push for security with SSL being available to both Premium and Plus plans and SFTP being available to all paying plans. It also makes it easier to use Basecamp if you're not in Central Time as its now possible to specify time zones on a per-company basis. Oh, and we finally added "Remember me for 2 weeks" back.
So launching a big upgrade is good, but getting the feedback from happy customers is even better. The thread on the launch is already filled with congratulations, like:
Thank you for kicking tremendous amounts of ass... My God, I love you guys. I think I'm going to cry... I seriously treasure the day I discovered Basecamp!!! So many amazing updates! Basecamp Forever!
The outburst of joy is even more welcome after we've been battling with a couple of extremely rude and totally unreasonable customers the last couple of days. One guy wanted to "DESTROY YOUR COMPANY" if we didn't refund his six months of usage. Yikes! So a huge thanks to the vast majority of our customers that are liking what we offer and are not afraid to say so.
This release is significant in another way too. It includes, for the first time, the work of another programmer in the core Basecamp code base. We've brought on Ruby master Jamis Buck as a moonlighting consultant and both the SFTP and timezone support are to his credit.
I've been impressed with Jamis work on sqlite-ruby, Needle, and Net::SSH for a long time, so when we had the opportunity to engage a working relationship with him, it was obvious that this would be a great fit. And it has been. I can't believe that a Ruby programmer of Jamis' caliber isn't doing it full-time, so we'll see what are in the cards to change that.
UPDATE: Jamis shares a few more details.
