So much for keeping on top of the blog posts! We’ve been really busy lately here in Fairfax, yet we still haven’t made the decision to hire full-time staff. I think we’re getting there, but there’s a lot of logistics issues to work through. We do have some additions coming to our portfolio soon, though. We’re nearly finished a project that was of personal interest to both me and Brandon, as it deals with the potentially controversial issue of the huge Fallsview Casino being located so close to Niagara Falls in Ontario, Canada, a so-called Great Natural Wonder of the World. Our client, Skip Allen, decided to take on this issue for the sake of the environment. He has two main goals: to bring about the closure of the Fallsview Casino, restoring the great natural beauty to the surrounding area, and to keep other conglomerates from similarly exploiting Natural Wonders for profit (particularly at the expense of the environment and local economy). You can find out more by going to his new web site: http://www.closefallsviewcasino.org. It’s the first time we’ve ever dealt with a controversial project, as a business, and we’re looking forward to seeing the response.

Anyone reading should feel free to get in touch with Skip, and let him know what you think of the web site. We’ll soon be launching a .com version of the same domain. It will sell CFVC merchandise–t-shirts, hats, stickers, etc.–from which the proceeds will be used to cover the costs of the site, hosting, and cause.

I’m currently working on several other projects (a veterinary management practitioner and a grant consultant for non-profits), and am bidding on a bed & breakfast site development project, which I’ll hear back about soon. Also, we’ve launched cunninghamcontractinginc.com, which is a site for a local contractor, serving the Northern Virginia/Southeastern Maryland area. Brandon’s been busy working on our larger contract, developing an internal system for NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. We’re also looking into the possibility of doing iPhone Application Development, which Brandon is super excited about. Whether or not we’ll pursue it, we haven’t yet decided, but we’ll be sure to post about any exciting updates!

Last week Kevin and I were invited by Carey Cole to come speak at James Madison University for a second time. Mr. Cole was a professor of mine at JMU when I attended and we were honored to be invited back to speak again. We presented to four classes all within the College of Business Computer Information Systems (CIS) department and had a blast. The general focus of our presentation was our web development process (because they were CIS students) with a large focus on client management (because they are also College of Business students).

I wanted to thank the students and Mr. Cole for being great hosts. The feedback and questions we received from the students were great and always make these types of presentations a lot of fun for us. To the students – if there is anything else you wanted to ask or discuss, feel free to email us at info@transeffect.com. Thanks again!

My name is Kevin Frey, and I’m co-owner of TransEffect, along with my business partner Brandon Jones. We’re almost into the new year, and we’ve been preparing for it by making some major changes here at TransEffect, not least of which begins with the new look of our web site.

We opened on January 1st, 2005, so this will actually be the beginning of our third year in business. Throughout our first two years, we’ve been been relying heavily on word-of-mouth advertising, and we’ve seen much success, but we plan on expanding our business as soon as possible, and so we’ll probably start advertising more heavily via tangible media, starting with the yellow pages, and working our way up from there.

We also plan on updating our web site more frequently, in order to keep the mood in line with seasons and holidays, as well as to keep the most up-to-date content accessible to everybody. The latest update sets the mood for the winter season, consisting of a snowman as our holiday mascot, and snowflakes of varying sizes. Soon we’ll be streamlining content for those of you who like to read everything, because right now there’s a lot of information there, and we think it can be just as effective if it were condensed a bit.

This is just the beginning of the changes we plan on implementing for the coming year. Stay tuned for more updates!