* Delving into BackPack, the online organizer
Every now and then, a Web application comes along that surprises me. These “Eureka!” apps are always the result of a set of sound design goals that have been well-executed and provide easy to use, elegant functionality in the process of doing something really useful. Such is the profile of BackPack (see editorial links below) another product from 37signals (I discussed its Ta-da list product in a previous newsletter).
BackPack is an online organizer – as another reviewer noted – with the “flexibility and simplicity of a spiral bound notebook.”
After you create an account (which takes all of 30 seconds if you are a slow typist) you will be presented with a “page” where you can add a text body, list, notes, files, images and links (they always appear on the page in that order), and optionally enable the page for sharing. You can create reminders that will send you e-mail messages at set dates and times.
Each page has a unique e-mail address, and you can add notes, list items, images and files to pages simply by posting.
Pages can be tagged so they can be categorized, and each page in your account will include a list of all tags – clicking on a tag in that list will show all pages using that tag and you can then click on any list entry to jump to that page. Another useful feature is that all pages under an account are used to generate an associated RSS feed that tracks changes.
Text in the body section, in list items and in notes can be styled with bold and italic attributes or formatted as Web links, as blockquote, and in tables, as well as including inline images. A couple of nice touches are the ability to reorder list and note items using drag-and-drop and export of all of your content in XML format. There’s even an API available.
Sharing of a BackPack is either public and/or private. Public sharing allows read-only access by anyone while private sharing allows an authorized user (who must have a BackPack account) to not only view the page but also modify its contents (pages can have both types of access enabled).
BackPack is a unique service and an outstanding ASP product. Free accounts (with ad-supported pages and no support) allow you to have up to 5 pages and 10 active reminders. Pricing for other options (all ad-free with e-mail tech support) are $5 per month for Basic service (20 pages, 100 reminders, 40M bytes image and file storage); $9 per month for Plus service (100 pages, 200 reminders, 100M bytes storage and SSL access); and $19 per month for Premium service (500 pages, 300 reminders, 250M bytes storage and SSL access).
