If you frequently use 37Signal's Backpack web software, then chances are you don't like having to open a new web browser tab/window each time you wish to update your Journal. Logbook hopes to ease your woes by updating your Backpack Journal directly from your Mac OS X Menu Bar.

The application gives you a simple user interface with which you can update your status and add completed tasks. If you're having a hard time remembering to update your Journal, have Logbook remind you every x number of minutes, and only between certain hours. In addition, you can set a keyboard shortcut for showing/hiding the application in the menu bar. Your updates are sent using 128-bit SSL encryption.

You can purchase Logbook from the developer's website for $12.99. A demo of the application is also available.

Backpack by 37signals is a terrific online organization and collaboration tool (we've written about Backpack many times). Those wanting a desktop application that works with Backpack have used the popular Packrat. This week, Lars Steiger has offered a solution with more Macintosh style, called Backboard.

Aside from a Mac-like appearance, Backboard also adds a few features to Backpack, like the ability to attach dates and priorities, support for multiple accounts and a nice overview of tasks.

Backboard is currently in private beta, but if you ask nicely, perhaps Lars will put you in the queue.

[Via 37signals' product blog]

Saul Rosenbaum sent us the tip on this one, and he points out that we're a little "Quicksilver centric" around here at TUAW. He's right, we do love Quicksilver, but it's not the only launcher on the block. Launchbar is another good one (and actually, I've been playing with Sapiens a lot lately, so look for a post on that one soon, too).

If replacing Finder with Quicksilver isn't your thing, maybe running GTD apps with Launchbar is more up your alley. Saul has a short writeup on how to get Launchbar running a trigger (he uses "TD") that you can throw short notes into to work with the GTD system. It's a simple process-- since Launchbar already supports shell scripts, you can create a script, hook Lauchbar up to it, and pretty soon you're taking down tasks and notes at a moment's notice.

Rod over at Infinite NIL is looking to test the latest version of Packrat (the offline client for Backpack, 37 Signals' online organization software), and if you turn out to be a "useful" tester, there could be a free license in it for you.

The new version will synch right up with the latest build of Backpack, and Rod says that it will now display your data from Backpack in the same order inside Packrat, a feature much called-for by its users. There's no release date on the new version, obviously, yet, but if you jump in as a beta tester and get issues noticed and fixed, we could be looking at it sooner than later.

Rod's email is over on the site. Drop him a line and be as helpful as you can-- he's offering free license to folks who help him even out the seams in the new software.

My favorite offline synching client for Backpack, the web-based personal information manager, is 40% off today at MacUpdate Promo. Whether you toss a few snippets of your daily information into Backpack or you're a heavy user with 20+ pages for all your projects, PackRat is a killer desktop client that allows you to work with your Backpack information while offline, then synchronize it all once you get back on. PackRat even offers a number of features that Backpack doesn't, such as deleting all completed items at once, a visual calendar when creating reminders and AppleScript / Automator support and more.

I have to admit, while I was happy to buy a license at $24.95, I've always thought PackRat's price would hit home with a lot more customers at $15. If you agree, today's your chance - the MacUpdate Promo 40% off sale for PackRat places it right at $14.95, making it an even better deal for Backpack users.

Unfortunately, a few of the Backpack updates - such as reordering items anywhere on the page - haven't made it into PackRat simply because 37signals doesn't allow external applications to do this through their API. Rod urges users to contact 37signals and request this ability, and hopefully in time the company will listen and open up this functionality. Other new Backpack features like search are probably coming with a future PackRat update.

As with the the recent change to PackRat's trial period, a 30-day demo is available, while a license costs a mere $24.95.

Going on vacation to see your just-born nephew and family will do funny things to you, like missing a handy update to a dear, dear application. Rod Schmidt's PackRat, the killer desktop client for the online PIM Backpack that we've mentioned once or twice, has been updated to v1.2 with some great new list management features. First up is yet another feature even Backpack itself doesn't have: a new 'Delete all completed items' option that appears below lists with items you've checked off. Second is another PackRat-only feature: condensing of your completed items. Instead of allowing checked items to take up more room than they should below a list, PackRat will automatically hide them and only reveal the top 5, with the option to reveal all just in case you need to double-check or recover a few.

In addition, Rod has also switched to a 30 day trial period (instead of limiting to only 4 usable PackRat pages), after which PackRat will restrict access to 5 pages until the user purchases a license. At $24.95, PackRat is an easy purchase for anyone who needs a powerful, feature-packed offline and synching client for 37signal's exception Backpack service.

Author Nils Werkmeister (great name!) writes in to tell us about his QuickPack, a Quicksilver Action that makes it very easy to add entries to a page on 37Signals' Backpack online organizational tool. We've mentioned a number of Backpack tools in the past, including various widgets and Packrat, but Nils' solution has the nearly insuperable advantage of integrating so well with TUAW's favorite utility: Quicksilver. After entering text mode in Quicksilver (generally with a period) you're able quickly to insert calendar entries, ToDos, notes, and reminders to any of your Backpack pages by prefixing your entry with one of the various supported tags (e.g. "+todo" and "+note"; see the QuickPack page for full details). Once you select the QuickPack action it will bring up another dialog box asking on which page you want your new entry placed.

Rod Schmidt, developer of PackRat, has issued a call for AppleScripters who are interested in automating his rocking Backpack client. PackRat, to my knowledge, doesn't have AppleScript support yet, but that does seem to be at the top of the request list and would mark another powerful feature PackRat has over Backpack's own web UI: OS integration. I would love to be able to, for example, right-click some selected text in a Cocoa app and click "Send to PackRat," which would then sync up to Backpack all without me ever having to touch an actual webpage.

If you have some AppleScripting skills and are interesting in making PackRat even cooler, be sure to drop Rod a line by heading over to his announcement post or contacting him from his company's site, infiniteNIL.

PackRat, the killer syncing and offline Backpack client that does even more than Backpack itself, has reached an official 1.0 status. After more than a year in the oven, developer Rod Schmidt posted an understandably excited announcement on his company's blog, complete with some new features that round out PackRat's abilities. New in v1.0 are Growl reminder notifications, printing pages as well as searching them (via the Find command), a revamped 'add item' dialog, contextual menus and a full-on Help file. Of course, you can't forget about features that are already baked in, like Reminder creation, re-ordering items within and between lists on a page and automatic syncing.

As a thoroughly satisfied customer, I highly recommend PackRat if you've been looking for a way to take your Backpack account with you. A fully-functioning demo limits you to editing 4 pages is available, while a license costs $24.95 from infiniteNIL.

We sure have gone kookoo for iPod syncing lately - what with tips and scripts for syncing GTD info, Yojimbo and now even the TUAW-approved online PIM, Backpack. I honestly don't remember how I stumbled across this tip, but it hails from - of all places - a public page of Backpack user dchadwick. Through the use of a Mail.app filter and some clever Automator actions, dchadwick walks us through using Backpack's "email this page" feature, and then running an Automator script to export said email (once you receive it, of course) to your iPod. It isn't quite easy-breezy, but it's the best (read: only) solution I've seen for achieving such Backpack + iPod nerdery as this.

The Backpack Dashboard widget, which many of us here at TUAW have known and loved since we found it, has been updated after a long hiatus to v1.2. Unfortunately, I can't find any documentation describing exactly what is new, though I can say that the 'login error' messages I often used to get when waking a machine from sleep have disappeared. I tried contacting the widget's developer, Matt Pennig, for details, but haven't heard anything back from him.

[Update: Matt just got in touch with me to confirm that the big change in this version is an update to the login code. Anyone experiencing the problems I mentioned should be pleased with their disappearance in v1.2. Matt has also set up both Amazon and PayPal donation links at his site, so drop him a few bucks if you enjoy his Backpack widget.]

Either way, this is still a great widget for working with Backpack, and remains available from Chipt Productions, LLC.

On Sunday, software developer Rod Schmidt, author of PackRat, the Backpack service client, posted a request on his blog. He's interested in creating a PackRat-like client for project collaboration tool Basecamp. PackRat, if you recall, is an OS X tool that lets you work offline on your Backpack data. Schmidt is looking for feedback and suggestions for a similar Basecamp client. He writes, "I think this product has even more potential than PackRat and I'd love to get some feedback." If you have some ideas, pop by his webpage and leave a comment.

Rod Schmidt has released an update to PackRat, quite possibly the only offline Backpack client, that brings a major new and much-requested feature: the ability to add, edit and delete reminders. Now I've mentioned PackRat once or twice before here at TUAW, and this rockin' new feature almost completely rounds out what I think is the killer offline and syncing app for working with Backpack. About the only thing missing now is calendar editing, and in a blog post announcing this latest version (0.94 to be exact), Rod and gang offer a glimpse of PackRat's future, with a promise to take your Backpack data into a realm of Mac OS X integration that 37Signals could never accomplish (due to their service being 100% web-based). Coming down the pipeline are features like Spotlight and AppleScript support, Address Book and iCal integration, iPod syncing, and "whatever else makes sense." Sounds like this handy little app is in for quite a ride.

PackRat has a fully-functioning, non-expiring demo that allows you to edit up 4 pages of your Backpack info (the free default Backpack account offers 5 pages), while a license costs a mere $24.95 which unlocks full editing of all pages in any of the paid accounts that offer more pages.

Nike's C.O.R.E. Audio iPod Backpack won't track your workout data like the Nike + sport kit, but it does have a "padded media pocket" with a dock connector for iPod stowage and an integrated remote control keypad on the strap that allows you to conveniently control your music (play/pause, change tracks and volume). Apparently it's been available in Europe for a month or so, but there's no sign of it on the US Nike website yet - although a Google search did reveal it being sold by many online retailers selling it for $85-$100 USD. At roughly half the current price of the Burton Amp iPod Backpack (which was even more when it was introduced), that seems like a good deal. Personally, I found the Burton backpack to be uncomfortable for every-day use when toting lots of gear, so I might give the Nike Core Audio version a try.

The backpack features ergo-friendly straps, a padded laptop compartment and a convenient earbud storage pouch. The built-in 30-pin dock connector is compatible with 4th generation iPods, the iPod mini, iPod nano, iPod photo and iPod with video.

iPod-fun.de has a few more pics if you're interested.

[via MobileWhack]