The problems I faced were two-fold. One, if you try to setup a standard GMail account using the iPhone’s GMail setup process, it forces you to use the gmail.com domain, which doesn’t work with a GMail Hosted account. The second problem is that if you try to setup a mail account using the “Other” option, it won’t save the settings because you can’t specify the ports for the pop/smtp servers in the account setup screen.

Here’s what I did to work around these obstacles.

1. Create a new POP email account that IS NOT a GMail hosted account. Something that uses the standard pop/smtp ports, etc.
2. Go to Settings>Mail>Accounts and select the account that you just setup.
3. Change the Address field to your hosted gmail account.
4. Change the POP server to pop.gmail.com, and change your POP user/password to your GMail hosted email address and password.
5. Change the SMTP server to smtp.gmail.com, and change your SMTP user/password to your GMail hosted email address and password.
6. Click the “Advanced” button and make sure the “Incoming Uses SSL” and “Outgoing Uses SSL”. Also make sure that “Authentication” is set to “Password”.
7. There is no “Save” button, so if you click the blue button in the upper-left corner with your mailbox name in it, it will return to the account settings page. Then click the blue “Mail” button in the upper-left to return to your mail box. Then you should be able to sync.

Also – Make sure you have your GMail Hosted email account setup for POP access. Just Google “How do I enable POP?” to find out how to do that.

Good luck, Matt

First things first – we developed the ecommerce shopping experience.  It was fairly complicated in that we weren’t just adding products to a shopping cart.  We had to mach certain phones with plans, and plans with certain options and add-ons, so the whole process had to be aware of what the customer was trying to do.  In addition, it had to accommodate “Family Plans” where there can be up to 5 phones on one plan, each with their own custom options and add-ons.  Conceptually we had it figured out – the trick was implementing it in a way that was obvious to the customer just what they needed to do.

Secondly, we had to make the site flexible enough to accommodate multiple businesses – so if an employee of Anheuser-Busch visited the site, they would see AB’s logo and receive he AB discount, and if an employee of Panera visited they saw the Panera branding and discounts, etc.

In the end the shopping experience and co-branding solution we developed was very flexible and easy to use, and the co-branding and product catalog was simple enough for the staff at Preferred Wireless to maintain on their own, without requiring any special technical skills.

My best memory of working on this project was the day after we went live, I received a voicemail from Angie at AE that said, “Oh my gosh Matt, I love this site. I love it… I can’t stop looking at it!” That was a good day.

The resulting site had a great landing page that beautifully showcased the product, as well as highlighted the big brands that they serviced and targeted.  A simple “call to action” button made it easy for them to decide to go further into the site and learn more about this great company.

In order to achieve this, we had to put simple tools into the hands of the people in the field that allow them to get their stories, photos, and videos on the site easily.   Utilizing many free services, such as Flickr, Vimeo, and WordPress we were able to do just that. Teams in the field can upload content directly to the site by simply sending an email to a private email address – the system automatically posts the body of the email to the site as a new page, and embeds any attached images or videos in the page automatically.  No special technical skills needed – if you can send an email, you can keep the content  up-to-date, and in real-time.

The latest MasterCard Project was an e-commerce website that allows customers to order customizable gift cards and travel cards online.  When MasterCard decided to outsource this project, they requested us specifically because of our ability to design software that looked great, and was intuitive and easy to use.

We won the bid for this project, and partnered with Technology Partners to complete the job.  Technology Partners is a fantastic firm that is on a short list of firms that MasterCard will work with.  Because of Technology Partners great working relationship with MasterCard, and our history with MasterCard, we were able to come together and make it happen… on budget and a week ahead of schedule!

As you can imagine, keeping track of 3000+ kids requires a great plan and even better execution.  The JUMP administration system we developed allows staff to manage all of the registrations, medical information, group assignments, and even camp scheduling from a single secure website.  There is even a built-in system for managing a gift certificate/scholarship module which allows people to purchase JUMP gift certificates in advance to give as gifts — or scholarships to give to those unable to afford to send their kids to JUMP.

By far, our favorite feature of this entire system is the iPad/iPhone Admin Web Application.  This secure system allows authorized administrative and medical personnel to pull up information about a child in a snap, right from their iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch.  All of the screens are formatted specifically for these devices, and provide a truly simple user interface that is true to the iPhone look and feel.

By putting all of this information into the hands of the administrators and medical personnel, we were able to save over 20,000 pieces of paper used in the reports and medical information pages that needed to be printed and distributed.  In total, we are saving approximately 20,000 sheets of paper every year.  This is not only a savings in paper costs, but also all of man-hours of printing, stapling, and distributing the reports.

The previous SLFC site had a nice design, but like so many sites it had the same header and footer that sandwiched the content of each page.  Which is not only boring, but it prevented each page from having its own look and emotional impact — e.g. we didn’t want the “Kids” page to have the same look as the “History” page.  So we developed a custom WordPress theme which allows for multiple headers, footers, sidebars, colors, etc. to be shared – so when they add a new page, they can pick-and-choose  the a look that fits the content of the page.  The “Kids” page has bright colors and fun fonts, while other pages have a clean and dramatic, high-impact design — but all have similar design elements that maintain uniformity throughout the site.

Other features of the SLFC site is an integrated podcast, e-commerce bookstore, a blog, and registration forms visitors can use to sign up for newsletters, etc.  All of which is being maintained easily by SLFC employees – no technical skills needed.