If anyone else has this issue, here’s the quick fix. In iTunes, go to the Store menu item, click it, then click on Deauthorize Computer. Enter your password to deauthorize the machine. Then do it again. That’s right – deauthorize your computer a second time. Then go back to the Store menu item in iTunes, and click Authorize Computer. Enter your password to authorize your computer, and voila, the count is back to normal. At least, that’s how it worked out for me. Good luck!

I was playing with my new iPhone 3Gs the other day, when a thought occurred to me. It would really save me some headache, and save my phone some major battery life, if we could have a profile manager for the settings app. Then I could keep 3G, Wi-Fi, bluetooth, and GPS turned off (to conserve battery life), then activate them on-the-fly (in any combination I wish via different profiles) when I’m out and about.

Even if it’s a pain for Apple to do this as a general feature request, doing it, then pushing it as a way to potentially have the phone’s battery last more than a day, will probably result in a very positive user response. Apparently, battery life is an issue for many 3Gs users.

Even cooler would be a way to let people rearrange their home screen app icons based on the profiles they choose. Thus, if they have a work profile, maybe any apps they use for work can be placed on the second page, whereas with a home profile, maybe games would be placed on page two. Something like that may appeal to fewer users, but the bottom line is, with this sort of device, we should be able to make use of profiles for the myriad settings the iPhone already lets us control. I think it would make life a lot easier for many of the users.

What do you think? Is this a feature you would use? If you’d like to second my idea, or have an idea of your own, you can not only comment here, but submit it to Apple yourself, by going to http://www.apple.com/feedback/.

The site uses the MODx content management system and sports an original clean and simple design. This is just one of the many sites currently featured in our portfolio.

Speed dial is usually boring – you either click a number that you’ve assigned to a phone number or you click on a person’s name to call them. I’d rather scan my contact’s photos (complete with their name as a caption) and tap their icon (or if you’re really mad at them, you can mash their face with your finger).

Quick Connect not only allows you to call a contact, but also works with the Google Maps, Text, and Email applications. With the Google Maps application a pin will be placed on the address you have assigned to that person. With the Email application a new email will be addressed to your contact. And with the Text application your text conversation is quickly opened (or if there’s no ongoing conversation, a new one will be started).

Personally, I’m excited about a secondary function in Quick Connect – the ability to sync your photos with your friend’s Facebook photos!

For more information visit the official Quick Connect page or check out Quick Connect on the App Store. Check it out and let us know what you think!

• Small interface updates
• Stability fixes
• Updated default colors
• Pinch Analytics from Pinch Media

The biggest confusion in the Color Drop user experience was whether or not photos taken through the application itself were saved. In fact, all photos taken within the app are saved to the camera roll, but that wasn’t obvious. Now, after taking a photo, a small message will appear on the screen and fade away to unobtrusively let you know the photo is saved.

Pinch Analytics allows us to see the number of unique, active users, as well as the length of time Color Drop is being used. Your privacy is safe! Pinch Analytics does not capture any personally identifiable information and is used only for our internal statistics on Color Drop usage.

Apple, the Apple logo, iPod, and iTunes are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. iPhone is a trademark of Apple Inc. iTunes is for legal or rightholder-authorized copying only. Don’t steal music.

One thing to note while watching the video is the reviewer mentions that images can’t be saved through the app itself. This isn’t true. Every image that is taken with the camera is saved to the camera roll for easy access in the future. We should make that more obvious and possibly give the user a choice of whether to save it or not. Definitely something we’ll address in the next release.

For more information visit the official Color Drop page.

This is our first foray into mobile application development and hopefully it won’t be our last (we’re working on something new as we speak blog)! Feedback is welcome (just go to www.transeffect.com/contact/) and if you feel compelled, please review Color Drop on the App Store. For more information please check out the official Color Drop page.

Apple, the Apple logo, iPod, and iTunes are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. iPhone is a trademark of Apple Inc. iTunes is for legal or rightholder-authorized copying only. Don’t steal music.

Another project we are working on is the Cakelove online store. While not completely live yet (the current store has a limited selection) the store will soon contain a variety of cakes, shirts, snacks, and more available for pickup or delivery from all 6 Cakelove locations. On this project we have been building the PHP and MySQL back-end of the store working closely with Big Wonderful Inc to integrate with their web design. This project is shaping up nicely and we will sure let you know when the new store is live. For more information about Cakelove, visit cakelove.com.

In Kevin’s last post, he told you all about Skip Allen and closefallsviewcasino.org. We’re now working on a companion commercial site located at closefallsviewcasino.com. On the new site, a number of items will be available for purchase including shirts, hats, and bumper stickers. A portion of the proceeds will go towards Skip’s causes relating to Niagara Falls and the Fallsview Casino. The new site isn’t live just yet, but check back soon.

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!

Not much will change for our clients, as we are still supporting and accepting new customers from the Winchester area. We can be contacted on our original phone number (540-754-1599) but we also have a new phone number (703-991-1599) for those of you who are local to the Northern Virginia (NoVA) area. We will still be in and out of Winchester so feel free call or write us to set up a meeting, or you can come to our new office if that is convenient.

We want to thank you for your patience as we transitioned to our new office over the previous few weeks.

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!

• Web Monkey
  • HTML experience required (we follow strict W3C standards)
  • CSS experience required
  • Duties: Converting mock-ups to HTML, web maintenance.
• Code Monkey
  • PHP experience required
  • MySQL experience required
  • MODx experience a plus
  • oscommerce experience a plus
  • Duties: CMS integration and maintenance, custom application design/maintenance.
• Design Monkey
  • Photoshop experience required
  • Web-design experience required
  • Flash experience a plus
  • Duties: Web site mock-ups, random graphic design needs (logos, buttons, images)

If you fit into one or more of these categories, send resumés/portfolios to info@transeffect.com. Ideally candidates will live in the greater Washington DC metro area for easy access to our office and our clients. However, we anticipate much work to be done from a location of your choosing with most communications via email, phone, messenger pigeon, etc.

And finally our new promotional photo taken as we were climbing mountains in New Zealand. If you would like your very own TransEffect hat conversion kit, feel free to contact us and we’ll send you the directions.

Original photo by Joseph Younis CC

We’re still in the process of decorating our walls, but web development is in full swing at the new office. All are welcome to stop in and visit. Below are a few photos of the new locale:

The site is designed to be simple to navigate, aesthetically pleasing, cross browser compatible, standards compliant, and search engine optimized – you will notice that all images that contain meaningful text also include that content as plain text somewhere else on the same page (specifically, the left side navigation, and brand names in the footer).

The site is relatively small itself (just three pages) but it is easily expandable, should the client choose to pursue an e-commerce solution, or add additional content pages.

Here is a sneak preview of the logo created by Kevin for Winchester Discount Audio:

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!