3 Years old

It's been far too long since the last Blog post but things have just been so busy.

However, last month marked an important date which we can't let slip past and that is we're now 3 years old!

It has been an amazing journey and we're still here having worked our way through some of the most economically challenging times the UK (and indeed the world) has seen.

iOS development requests continue to explode, and rails application development is also increasing.

We're solidly booked and working with some excellent clients. If you are interested in working with us then please feel free to get in contact.

We'll hopefully update the website with some of our latest work in the future as there has been a lot happening.

impatex - a work in progress

Hot off the press a re-vamp of the impatex.com website.

Powered by associateMe and other ruby on rails goodies...

More to come and further site-advances as time goes on...

Cupcakes By Jane

Here's a quick plug for a mini site we put together for some friends last year:

www.cupcakesbyjane.com

Providing really cute, really cool cupcakes (and other cakes) for folks in and around Southampton, if you need something special - you know where to go.

Weekly Planner

Here's an older community project that's moved along and now in use.

This is a ruby on rails based weekly planner.

With simplicity in mind, weekly planner lets you create labels (be that people, objects, events - whatever works for you). Once created you can assign those labels to blocks of time spread over.... a week. This is great for rotas, groups etc. and removes much of the bloat from a fully-fledged calendar app.

Printing, email reminders and uber drag-and-drop coming very soon.

Happy Christmas!

Flash

Enough said....

utopian work update

Here's a few things that have been keeping us busy...


Finalised Boomeco website:

3D Timeline animation for Polypool:

Simple 1 page 'catch-all' website:

Updates to 4itGirls, including animated flash header graphics, sale features and super-zoom:

With another couple of website previews coming very soon, a rails based intranet App and 2 iOS applications.... we'll get some screenshots done real soon!

Update iPhone to iOS 4.2 installation Error

If you are having some fun and games getting iOS 4.2 onto your iPhone then the following may help.

It seems the quick'n easy way to get the new OS onto your device for testing your Apps will no longer work. You'll find that downloading the updated OS and then restoring the phone in iTunes will partially complete, but right at the end you'll receive an error (often error 10) which leaves your iPhone in a state that needs fixing (restoring back to iOS 4.1 in iTunes).

Here's what you need to do:

- BACKUP your device.

- Ensure you have downloaded and installed the latest beta XCODE.

- Run XCode and connect your iPhone.

- Click 'USE FOR DEVELOPMENT'

- You may need to authorise with Apple using your DEV account.

- Once you are done, you'll get the option to restore the iPhone in XCODE. Ensuring the right OS is selected in the drop-down (other > select OS 4.2 that your downloaded from Apple), click restore.

- Once restored, fire-up iTunes and restore your backup. You 'may' have to try this a couple of times as sometimes the first time fails (don't panic!).

- Test away.....


Personally I think what we have to do now makes sense, it was too easy previously for anyone to hack-about and play with the new OS (non-devs just to get the latest features). Bringing it into XCode somehow makes me feel happier.

NOTE: no guarantees, do at your own risk!

Why the App Store rules are good (mostly)

To some, they are a complete pain - 'big brother', 'just let us do what we want' and 'you are stopping our creativity,freedom & choice'.

I disagree.

There are bad people out there, that like to do bad things. As proved with Windows when it's on millions of desktops, that's a heck of a lot of data that someone can capture, use and profit from.

We now have millions of iPhones - which is a real possible boon for the savvy hacker to exploit so they can steal your data. At-least they would if the App store was an open system like Android. It's not perfect (take for instance the flash-light app that made it through the gates with a little 'easter-egg' which allowed you to use your phone as a proxy server), but the vetting process does do a good job and protects its users.

Some feel they do not need protecting - I say go buy another phone.

To prove my point, Android the 'open' system has a lovely wallpaper app out there (Jackeey Wallpaper), downloaded by millions of users. Lovely stuff - until you find out that whilst you have been enjoying the wonderful imagery it has been sending your data off to some servers in China (browsing history, text messages, phone’s SIM card number, subscriber identification, and your voicemail password). This is just screaming 'windows spyware'!

Enjoy your freedom.

Jumping on the iPhone bandwagon

There is a right hoo-ha going on right now in the blogosphere... It revolves around the iPhone 4 and it's serious problem with reception (cough).

Yes people, we have a problem - if you are into holding your phone in a really awkward way, if you are into being awkward then this is truly a massive problem.

I'm ambidextrous (great for drumming or doing a 'Ronnie' on the snooker table), so without thinking use my phone in either left or right hand mode. Guess what, I don't get any problems. However, I can recreate the reception issue if I hold my phone at a certain angle, in a certain way... and do you know what my thoughts are?..... it's really not a problem at all.

If you want to make it a problem then buy a bumper.