This is Signal vs. Noise, a weblog by 37signals about design, business, experience, simplicity, the web, culture, and more. Established 1999 in Chicago. Visit the Product Blog for more information on our products.

I don’t really know what Daring Fireball is, but that’s the best looking site I’ve seen in a LONG time. Wow.

Where’s my basecamp translation? (yes I have decided to bug you guys until you trnaslate).

I didn’t get the hug one, maybe I got lost in translation or something.

Loved the shoe one!

Karl – Daring Fireball is a blog/journal/website written by John Gruber, a long-time authority on Macs and computing in general. A while back John went out on his own to see if he could make a living just by writing on Daring Fireball. It’s a plan that’s worked thus far…

Holy shit, $2000 for a table! And I thought Aeron chairs were expensive.

Oh my! If Google doesn’t buy that tech off Motionbox they are CRAZY .

If you like the scrolling thumbnails from Motionbox, you may want to check the way Quickeo content (http://www.quickeo.com) is assembled and presented to recipient. Similar video sharing concept, but with a focus on making it easy for user, and with a much nicer way to present the content than other services. I am interested in feedback if you give it a try…

Someone stole my identity and returned it within a week.

The identity company seems like the company that you see on the news because they forgot to shred their documents and they were recovered in the dumpster.

I want a Dordoni table so bad!

from the lifelock website..

You will stop receiving pre-approved credit offers and your junk mail load will be reduced dramatically. Many people tell us that if nothing else, that alone is worth the price.

This is alone is why I will sign up..

If you mainly want to stop the deluge of junk postal mail, you may be interested in GreenDimes. It’s $36/year and they’ll stop your junk mail and use the money to plant trees. Additional names in your household are only $1 each.

I actually just signed up a few days ago but I’ve read some pretty good reports. I can’t wait to see the results.

Aren’t the shoe puns inspired by Shakespeare; Julius Cesar?

“The value of the content is more important than the last 10% perfection.”

I wonder if the folks at Apple would agree. ;-)

Are you nuts? 2,000$ for a desk?

Yes, the Dordoni desk is beautiful, and I immediately wanted one too. But at $2000, I have to say that the site’s name, “Design Within Reach” is a big fat misnomer.

You want a table?! I’ll give you a darn table! http://www.milk.dk Since the site doesn’t mention a price, I’m sure that the Milk table is at least $2,000 as well. It’s still kinda cool, though, with its rigidly geometric and antiseptic look (typical contemporary Danish design, actually)

Oh, and the LifeLock marketing thing made me think of home shopping infomercials for some reason; “I use this myself and look how buff I am/how great a chef I am/how much hair I’ve regrown”... which in turn got me thinking about when those arguments are defeated by the product: http://youtube.com/watch?v=DmRUaxq-QhU

A bit off topic I admit, but I thought I’d share

“Holy shit, $2000 for a table!”

Ikea had a nice ‘dordoniesque’ desk for a while. I don’t see it on their site anymore, though.

‘“Design Within Reach” is a big fat misnomer’

Indeed.

Lifelock is an interesting idea, but at $40 a month for our family, it certainly seems like they’re just shifting the burden of proper identity checking away from the lendors back to the consumer themselves.

Complaining about the price is a piece of furniture or a car or a painting or a computer or clothes or a condo or whatever is so lame.

Everyone can afford different things. Everyone sees value in different things. Some people spend a lot of money on beer, some people spend a lot of money on clothes, some people spend a lot of money on furniture. To each their own.

You guys sound like a bunch of whiney jealous punks. Get over it and find something else to do instead of bitching about how much someone else wants to pay for something.

@BF: Woah, easy now. I don’t think anyone’s complaining about how much someone else wants to pay for something. You’re quite right is saying that everyone sees value in different things, and I’m fairly confident that the people here just think that X dollars for product Y is too much for them. I didn’t hear any whining, just differing opinions. To each their own, as you put it.

As for “Design Within Reach” being a misnomer: Yes and no. They never say who’s reach it’s supposedly within. Assuming they mean me, then yes it’s a misnomer. Assuming they mean Bill Gates; not so much. To each their own.

“don’t make a post a project”

For me it’s “don’t make this email a project”.

I needed to hear that just now.

@darrel: My thoughts exactly. Seems like yet another out for the system. “Your identity was stolen? You don’t have LifeLock? What’s wrong with you?”

If you need to pay a private company $10 a month “protection” money from the identity theft goons, the system is horribly, horribly broken. Time to live in a cave and pay cash.

The other day I got a privacy notice update to my account ending in XXXX from Bank of America. I’ve never done business with BofA in my life. A couple days later, I get an Amex offer from BofA. So I call them, and the only way they can verify whether I’ve actuallygot an account with them, or if someone’s attempted to open something in my name, is by giving them my social sec. #. Why?

Turns out I had an old MBNA account (that was closed) and MBNA has absorbed by BofA, which I guess means BofA gets to inundate me with paperwork now. So it’s now on us as consumers to keep track of the world of bank mergers to know who’s got our data? Bleh.

From Lifelock:

You have the right to do everything we listed above yourself for free. It’s the details of actually doing it, then re-doing it, then dealing with any problems that arise, then keeping up on the changes in the procedures of the bureaus, the new databases that are coming online, and the laws that become ponderous for most people and the reason that tens of thousands of people have turned to LifeLock.

Whoa.

1. They’re honest. They aren’t doing anything special, so why hide it? That’s a big plus for any business and even more so for one concerned with ID theft. Big Brownie Points there.

2. That’s a huge opportunity for a web start up, no? They’ve basically automated tasks, and offered it as a service. Half of the $40 probably goes to the insurance they have as a protection if they goof up (another wonderful service). Push that out for $20 without the guarantee and the you will win the geek community over.

3. If anyone from LifeLock is reading… are you planning on offering this in Canada? I’d love to use this.

Go ahead, rip me off. I only have one credit card with a $500 limit and that is full. . . .

I couldn’t handle the Dordoni table, lately any desk that’s not an “L” style corner desk just makes my wrists ache. As much as I try straight on desks just aren’t as productive for me. It’s a pity because there are some really great basic desks and finding a quality “L”/corner desk is a pain.

The funny thing about Lifelock is the first paragraph of their terms and conditions, which includes “you will not publish your Social Security Number”. Of course, I’d guess Mr. Davis got a different agreement than all the other customers.

Andrew’s comment above is along the same lines as buying “uninsured motorist coverage”.

Also, Andrew, I got the same letter from B of A, but it was preceded (by several weeks) by a letter from MBNA telling me it was going to happen.