One-stop homepage for all my current projects?

July 21, 2004 11:36 AM

I'm looking for an application or web page that I can use as a start page when I get to work in the morning. Ideally, it should have current projects, documenation, links, etc. What would this "something" be called and does it exist?
posted by grefo to Computers & Internet (19 answers total)

I use a wiki installed on one of my computers.
posted by Sirius at 11:47 AM on July 21, 2004

Try Basecamp. They have a free version which is what I'm setting up for myself for the same reason.
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 12:11 PM on July 21, 2004

I use PHPCollab - downloaded from Source Forge.
posted by annathea at 12:24 PM on July 21, 2004

Perhaps Trac?
posted by AmaAyeRrsOonN at 12:30 PM on July 21, 2004

QuickBase

(disclosure: I am employed by the company that owns this, and work in the same office as the developers, but I am *not* directly involved with product. I do use it in the course of my work, however, and would recommend it even if I weren't employed there.)
posted by briank at 12:34 PM on July 21, 2004

Strangeleftydoublethink, Basecamp offers a free trial; not a free version (from what I can see). Those are two different things.
posted by kchristidis at 12:48 PM on July 21, 2004

Basecamp's free version (limited to one active project).
posted by ajr at 1:22 PM on July 21, 2004

As you can tell already, there are bunch of products available like this--just Google on something like "intranet solution web" or "online groupware", and you'll find a million of them.

I did a survey for my own internal use at my outfit a little while ago, using a bunch of the free trials on different smallish projects, and some of them looked pretty good--HyperOffice and TeamSpace, but that's not any kind of ringing endorsement. (Wasn't crazy about BaseCamp, but that was because it was really wired for a specific type of interaction, and not as general--could be perfect for someone else.)

We still haven't settled on a solution yet, ourselves. (Big "buy vs. build" debate going on internally.)
posted by LairBob at 1:58 PM on July 21, 2004

Another vote for Basecamp. I use it at work & love it. The free version is limited to one project, as already stated, and lacks FTP support (to your own server, so you can upload files and link them to posts. the rest of basecamp resides on their server).
posted by Sangre Azul at 2:23 PM on July 21, 2004

We have IBM QuickPlace here at work. It's not great, but hey, what can you expect from IBM?
posted by PWA_BadBoy at 3:34 PM on July 21, 2004

My only problem with all of the solutions suggested here is how much scrolling there is. You've got to scroll for ever and ever and ever to get anything done, even if the most vital information is at the top of the page.
posted by SpecialK at 4:03 PM on July 21, 2004

I personally refer to it as a "dashboard" page, a term I stole from some commercial organization with a clue. What it would seem to want to be attached to the front of, from your phrasing of the question, is something between a project management system and a full workflow-management system.

*Good* instances of these can prioritize things based on their importance to the originator and your statement of your priorities.

Everyone else is giving you instances. It sounded to me like you wanted the definition of the class. :-)
posted by baylink at 4:08 PM on July 21, 2004

Voodoopad lite for OS X is beyond cool.

I think this thing should be called a microportal (tm).
posted by mecran01 at 4:17 PM on July 21, 2004

Outlook.

[ducks]
posted by scarabic at 4:45 PM on July 21, 2004

Duck is right, scarabic...I'm a huge fan of MS (don't hate me), and I have used MS products including Office for many years, but I am absolutely baffled/angered/confused by MS's inability (or lack of desire) to make Office *better* and incorporate some of the features that we're discussing in this thread.

(shrug)
posted by davidmsc at 6:25 PM on July 21, 2004

I think Office 2004 supposed to feature a project workcenter to address those issues, looks neat, makes me wish I could buy just the Entourage component, since otherwise I'm fine with Office v.X.

Since you mention it, baylink, Apple is working on an app called "dashboard", it's supposed to be one of the new bells and whistles in Tiger. Looks like a good thing to start your day.
posted by tetsuo at 6:33 PM on July 21, 2004

We've had a great time using silverorange's intranet. Jacob Neilsen gave them best intranet of 2001, honorable mention in 2003 and gave the 2004 award to one based on it.
posted by will at 9:42 PM on July 21, 2004

Yeah, I'd never advocate Outlook in seriousness. But the need expressed here seems too broad to really serve with any products I would recommend.
posted by scarabic at 11:56 PM on July 21, 2004

With any *single* product, I should say.
posted by scarabic at 11:56 PM on July 21, 2004