Unexpected Downtime

Transferr was unexpectedly down for around 15 mins this afternoon. An electrical fault in a household dryer tripped a safety switch which provides power for the same circuit as Transferr's dedicated server. Due to a lack of available technicians at the time, the server was delayed in being put back online.

Mobile Transferr issues

Mobile Transferr users may have issues registering, we are working to resolve this issue but in the meantime please register on a computer and then log in using your newly created account on Mobile Transferr. 

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

Update: The issue was resolved. You can now register and use Mobile Transferr as per usual.

New look is live

Just a post to let you know that if you use Transferr now you'll see a new look for the site.

We've also added a few features, including the ability to refresh a screenshot to either fix an error with the previous one, or to update it because it was so out of date!

We've also included a new-look pink icon which fits more closely with the style of the rest of the icons.

New look Transferr launches this Saturday

The new look Transferr will become active for all users on Saturday  September 20th at 9:00pm AEST. 

The new look introduces an improved homepage and settings interface, while retaining much of the interface of the previous version.

Basically the site has been redesigned to be more inviting for constant users, who find the previous design to be quite harsh and intrusive after extended use.

The look also allows easy updating of the site, so we can add new features faster and more efficiently.

For a full view of what Transferr (1.4a) will look like, check out our Facebook image gallery. 

Pink is now actually useable!

The horror of what was the old pink icon is now gone in a firey explosion of magenta paint. Introducing the new pink!

Above: Oooooo, purty!

Contrary to popular belief, use of the pink icon will not donate money to breast cancer research. Nor will the green one give money to Greenpeace. *writes down idea on list of future features*

New look Transferr, coming soon

We're changing the look of Transferr (again), but don't worry the interface is still exactly the same.

The new look combines a fresher, cleaner looking page which is more inviting to use as your homepage.

Besides, I have to have something to do.

Advanced Transferr: Toggle List View and Icon View

Did you know that you can switch between icon view and list view (as seen on iPhone) on your Transferr page? Click the two links below to add an icon for List View and an icon for Icon View to your personal page, you can simple click each icon/link to switch between views.

List view is useful when viewing long lists of icons that you have saved to your account. Remember to add both links or you won't be able to switch back!

Add Icon view to my Transferr Icons and Add List view to my Transferr Icons.

Transferr for iPhone (Other phones as-well)

Transferr now has a mobile site (iPhone site) which is optimised for use on EDGE or 3G networks and is also very dear to those of you with such limited data, wherever you may be!

Simply visit Transferr.com in your mobile browser and you'll be able to use our new mobile site, you can also add the site to your Homescreen on your iPhone, for quick access to your bookmarks.

Email links to a Friend

You can now email Transferr users and non-users alike right from Transferr's options box to share an icon. Users can enter an email address and send a shared link to that address. Emails contain both a direct link and a TrURL so users can add that link to their Transferr icons straight away, try it out now!

Transferr 1.1 Updates

Just a note about our new site updates, we've got a new 'Manage Tabs' design which helps keep your tabs separate from your 'Manage Tabs'. We've also changed the backgrounds for large boxes of text to improve readability for some users.

Arnos Grove update

A small update was today made live on Transferr - Arnos Grove version 1.1. This update contained a few alterations to the site design and some minor bug fixes. Hopefully it will make some of the text around the site easier to read and improve the user experience.

Love it? Hate it? Let us know - post a comment, or email us.

Our Bookmarklet awaits!

Don't forget to install your Bookmarklet for use with Transferr, it's really easy to add and it works like a treat.

To use it, just drag the appropriate image on the Tools page (or right click it in IE and some browsers) to your Bookmarks bar in your web-browser.

Add the image to your bookmarks.

Visit any web-page, if you like it all you need to do is click the 'Add to Transferr' link in your browser bookmarks bar, and Transferr will add that site to your icons page. You can then add a title and choose a color and tab for your icon.

This is really cool for browsing the web because previously you had to visit Transferr whenever you wanted to add a link, now you can add the icon in only a few steps and keep browsing straight away...

Enjoy!

Advertising on Transferr

You may have noticed that every options popup on Transferr now has a Google ad at the bottom of them, and I think now is the time to explain why we felt we needed to advertise.

As with any business, there are certain costs involed in running the site, while ours are currently low, it is forseeable that in the future we may require funds to pursue future developement or to pay for running costs (like bandwidth and server upgrades for example).

We are also both spending a considerable amount of time developing Transferr, and at the end of the day it would be nice to get some reward for all our hard work. We're not expecting to become millionares overnight, but a small amount of funding from advertising would be a welcome reward.

We are very concerned with advertising affecting the look and feel of the site, so we've tried to make them as subtle and unobtrusive as possible (while still making them visible often), we think that the popup is the perfect location for advertising.

On another note, today I discovered that the adsense referrals run by Google will be discontinued at the end of August, referrals is the system we currently use on Transferr.com, so we are expected to remove the advertising from our site before that date. We are looking at alternative options, but there may be a lack of advertising for a while.

Icon creation delays

There will be some delays in creating icons for sites, while we upgrade our icon images for the new site, Arnos Grove 1.0b. Icons which are added in the next few days will take up to 24 hours for a screenshot to appear, please be patient while we upgrade the site. Some icons which have experienced issues with the icon creation service (namely have big black boxes over the sceenshot) will be fixed soon, again we ask for your patience.

Arnos Grove updates may look really weird if you don't refresh your browser, or clear your web-browsers cache, if the site looks broken then you may need to do this...

Edit: Icons are finished for the most part!

Transferr Arnos Grove Launched

We're still facing some technical difficulties, but for the most part the new version is here.
Can you spot the difference?

Arnos Grove Launch has begun.

20:00: We're off! The site is down and within the next 4 hours we'll be rolling out our brand new version of Transferr.

Please be aware that there will be no Transferr services available from 20:00 to 00:00 (GMT+10) Today. 

We'll be blogging in this post as stuff happens, in case you're wondering what's going on.

20:07-We're having some difficulty with our temporary page, so you won't be able to see anything of the site while we are down. 

20:10- Our temporary page is now active. Apologies for the 10 minute delay. 

20:23- Some transferr services available, TrURL images being served, TrURL system not functioning as of yet. Creating icons. 

20:28- Blog images broke, they're fixed now.

20:30- Site is ready for major upgrade, server given very hot cup of tea.

21:05- Update beginning...

21:44- Update continuing...

Epic. Failure.

Blunt, but true. Our server upgrades went off with a hitch... they didn't work. 

Transferr is still operational, but don't expect any improvements in stability or speed. We'll be looking at other options in the near future in order to keep improving the site.

Downtime is still scheduled for tomorrow evening, please be patient as we shift our services across to the Arnos Grove site, this should take approximately 4 hours, and we'll be ready for our launch at 0000 on July 1st. 

Downtime is scheduled for 2000 June 30th, AEST (GMT+10), 1000 June 3oth GMT. Please mind our gaps.

Scheduled Downtime for the week.

This week is Upgrade week, which means there will be some scheduled downtime whilst we upgrade our hardware and make the new site live. 

We are expecting the servers to be down at the following times: 

Server Updates: Sunday 29th June: 2100 AEST > 2300 AEST 30th June

Site Updates: Monday 30 July: 2000 AEST > 0000 AEST 1st July

We'll be blogging as it happens, so if you can't get onto the site, check the blog for more info. 

Transferr 1.0b Arnos Grove will launch at 12 Midnight on July 1st.

TrURL

With the new TrURL system, web site owners can add a piece of HTML code which can be pasted onto their site and users by Transferr users.

Every time a Transferr user who is logged in clicks the TrURL button, an icon will be created and added to that users page by our server, you will then be re-directed to Transferr so you can edit, delete or move your icon accordingly.

Keep a look out for TrURL icons on webpages, they'll help you add links to Transferr much, much faster!

Oh Noes! Please mind the (development) gap

If you've been using the Alpha version of Arnos Grove you'll notice that as of today the site is closed for non-Transferr developer dudes. 

This is because we're done testing and we're going to make some last minute changes which mean the site will be unavailable for long periods of time, which would be annoying. The official, and current, release of Transferr is still available at Transferr.com and you will only have to wait until the 1st of July, when Arnos Grove launches.

We're sorry about the site closure, but we'll be back soon, better than we were before. And you'll get a free... stuff.

1.0 Features, 2.0 Days: Sharing Icons

With Transferr 1.0, Arnos Grove, you can share icons with your friends or colleagues. Every icon has a unique sharing URL which you can copy and paste from each icon's options box.

All your friends need to do to add that shared icon to Transferr is to click on that link, and we'll do the rest!

Boom! Your friends icons can now be emailed, sharing in a chat program or shared online and everyone who clicks on them will have an icon added! 

This sharing ability goes even further with TrURL, which will be explained in our next post. In short, TrURL lets people who own websites, blogs or anything that uses HTML integrate with Transferr.

1.0 Features, 2.0 Days: Custom Icons for files

Transferr's icon maker now recognizes when you're adding a document and will automatically show a document icon specific to the file type.

Let's pretend I'm using a lot of PDF documents for my research project, I can add a link to that PDF document on the web, in this case it's a paper about ethics, and Transferr will show me that i've bookmarked a PDF:

Transferr does this for hundreds of file types, including .doc, .xls, .css, .xml, .gif, .png, .jpg, .mov, .avi, .swf, .mp3, .m4a, .aiff, etc. Try it out for yourself! 

1.0 Features, 2.0 Days: New Drag and Drop interface

In the past you've been able to re-arrange your icons on Transferr by entering edit mode and dragging and dropping, but this has been time consuming and if you're doing it regularly, having to enter edit mode is a pain.

No longer! With Arnos Grove drag and drop is built right into Transferr's main page. To drag and drop an icon, just drag the top of the icon around with your mouse.

You'll notice that when you start re-arranging icons a 'Save Changes' button will appear, be sure to save your changes after you've finished re-arranging your icons.

The Tranferr Blog has a new address!

You can now access our blog at blog.transferr.com

1.0 Features, 2.0 Days: Become a Fan of us on Facebook

The Facebook group 'I'm a Transferr Alpha Member' is no longer the active way for Facebook users to get info on Transferr and to meet other Transferr users. You can now visit our Facebook product page and become a Fan of Transferr. 

This is part of Transferr's product rollout of Transferr version 1.0b, Arnos Grove, please mind the gap.

Introducing Arnos Grove

What have we been doing in the last few months? We've been creating a brand new version of Transferr! Arnos Grove, version 1.0b will launch on July 1st, 2008 at 22:00 AEST. 

Users will be automatically updated with the new site, all their data intact. 

Arnos Grove introduces some great new features, as well as bringing in some great tools for developers and website owners/bloggers etc. beginning today, we're featuring one new feature on the blog every 2 days, so subscribe or visit us for cool new features and updates on the July 1st release.

Is our logo a bucket of fried chicken? No, it's the Arnos Grove London Underground station.

An end to the outages

Over the past week and a bit the server has been periodically freezing at around 7:50 in the morning and then again around 10:20. These caused the server to stop functioning until it was restarted, which was often not possible to do until 4ish each day. After replacing numerous pieces of hardware and performing a clean install of the server software and operating system, the only thing left to do was to put it onto another computer. This looks to have fixed the problem, as Transferr has been functioning freezeless for the past 24 hours.

Thank you for your patience while we sorted this problem out. You can now use Transferr at any time again without interruption.

Plugging the cracks in the icon creation service

Gone are the days when one foul website sends Transferr's icon making service into chaos. Through disabling certain crash handling features on our server, the service no longer spits chips when it cannot create an icon, but simply ignores it. A secondary icon service (windows based) has been created to run occasionally to create icons for those troublesome leftovers which the main service cannot handle. This two tiered system ensures that very few websites will be able to escape icon creation.

How to use Transferr to optimize your research on the web

Transferr is great for when you're browsing the web and researching a particular area. Often when researching the web, I used to find myself with multiple word documents open, with hundreds of links in each. Unless I clicked the link, I had no idea what it was or where it was going.

That's where Transferr's icon system shines. I can browse the web with Transferr open, and anything I think might be useful just goes right on into my research tab. It is so much nicer to be able to see exactly where my research has gone, re-arrange and categorize the icons I have, so when it comes time to compile information, reference it or re-visit it, it is just one or two clicks away.

I have been looking for good software that aids research for some time, and Transferr takes one part of project management and makes it easy.

To start optimising, you'll need a Transferr account. Register and log in. You should always create new tabs for specific projects or parts of your projects, because this makes it far easier to manage the icons later on, when you may have hundreds of icons all in your 'My Icons' tab.

Keep Transferr open in a window or tab, and then get researching. Transferr is great because you can save your Google Searches or specific news articles that had info you wanted to keep, so you can start researching right where you left off.

Browse the web and when you find a link you want to keep, just add it in Transferr. Color coding is a great idea also.

After a while you will build up a great set of icons, all which reflect the path you followed to research. The best part is that wherever you go, your icons follow!

New 'Add an Icon' interface

if you, the loyal reader, user and worshipper have been to Transferr recently, you would have noticed a change in the way icons are now added.

The 'Add Stuff' link is gone, and now we've introduced a far quicker and easier way to add icons. Look out for more UI changes in the next couple of weeks.

Love it? Hate it? Drop us a line about it on Facebook.

Tabbed Favourites

Everyone loves tabs, be they a bureaucrat or a casual filer/browser. That's why we're pleased to finally give you all what you want: Tabbed bookmarks. 

As of today you can add Tabs to store icons in, Tabs have 5 different colors and you can customise their titles. Tabs are great if you want to split your work bookmarks from your fun and games bookmarks, or whatever it is you want to organise.

We'll be adding features soon, hopefully the ability to edit, delete and re-arrange tabs will become available in the near future.

Users when they log in will see a tab labeled "My Icons" along with a "New Tab" button. Users can create new tabs, click them to switch from the current tab and then use the standard Icon adding controls to add/edit/delete icons in other tabs.

Observe (and enjoy) your new, tabbed interface and remember to keep it holy.

Facebook Group

If you are as hip and sassy as we think you are, you'll be more than familiar with Facebook! 

That's why we've set up a Facebook group for Alpha Testers of the site, anyone is free to join.  The group's main goal is to give the users a place to give feedback and report bugs in the site. 

While the group's, and Transferr's membership numbers aren't huge, we're pleased to connect with the users and know what they want. If you have any feedback at all, you're more than welcome to join our group and get active in the Transferr community.

Editing Icon Names

As with any javascript which gets added to the site, teething problems abound. Through clicking on the 'edit names' link, text boxes appear to change an icon's name. To enter text, however, only users (so far as we know) of internet explorer can click on the text to rewrite it. Using the tab button repetitively will get there, but it's definitely not ideal. We're currently trying to disable the dragging and dropping when the edit names link is pressed as a workaround.

Color Issues

We are experiencing issues with a color transition on Transferr. This issue affects some Apple computer and Apple display users. Please note this is not an issue with your screen. The issue has been noted by transferr staff.

Icon Colors

Today, we are pleased to announce the introduction of Icon Color options to our Alpha users. You can now choose the color you wish your icon to appear in when you add a link.

At the moment the colors available are Blue (Default), Red, Green and Yellow. We hope to add heaps of icon colors in the near future.

The homepage and Login features have been re-vamped. Their design now reflects that of the rest of the site. Simple click [Login] on the home page to view the Username and Password boxes.

Today, we are also pleased to announce a new icon checking feature, which will help to check Icon links and make sure they are functional before creating the icon. This new feature will save time if a URl is misspelt.