This is what utilities look like with the new windowing system.

One of the more obvious changes are utilities. We’ve launched our first two: a message center utility, and a centralized task list. Both of these aggregate information across all your accounts, and let you work with that information from anywhere in Smibs via the navigation bar. This magic is performed by the windowing script I wrote about a few months back. You can drag, resize and adjust columns. We even carried over some tricks like holding down shift to select multiple messages. After working with desktop browsers, our interface should be really intuitive for users.

The next trick is less obvious, but even more useful. While Ajax is great for loading data from the server without reloading your webpage, the back button stops being useful. Doorbell used to jump back to the Dashboard when you pressed the back button. I am now proud to announce that we no longer suffer from this annoyance. Thanks to a handy tool called HistoryKeeper, we can now use JavaScript to add items to the browser history in the form of anchor tags. This may result in a messy url, but now Doorbell keeps track of your history for more that 4 items. Once you have browsed through several contacts, groups, or opportunities you can use the back button to search through a true history of your browser.

We’ve had a lot of fun building Smibs and Doorbell, and hope that you’ll have as much fun using them. Login, check it out, and let us know what you think. We love feedback.

Corresponding with our launch into Public Beta, Smibs has sent the top venture capital firms a copy of our ‘Un-Business Plan’ for our application, Doorbell. This is a business plan like no other, in that we are not seeking investment or raising capital. Recently Smibs has been receiving some interest from investors to which we respectfully decline.  The ‘Un-Business Plan’ is our counter-offer, signifying our intention to remain independent and focused on helping small businesses rather then maximizing the bottom line for potential investors.

 

The Un-Business Plan

 

At Smibs, we are dedicated to the growth and development of small businesses. We take pride in the software we produce and we have seen the applications save our current users’ time and the frustration associated with routine business processes. We know that there are hundreds of business tools on the web, all vying for attention and your money and we hope that our ‘Un-Business Plan’ shows our commitment to the owners and employees of small business. 

Take a look at the ‘Un-Business Plan’ yourself and know why we truly believe in our motto, to help your business ‘Grow Smart’.