OCC database expert Julian Fletcher describes how SQL’s ForceSeek can be used to combat database deadlocking and blocking. One particular way of using tables in a SQL database can make them particularly prone to deadlocking (and deadlocking’s sickly cousin, blocking). This is where ‘working data’, generated by and used in a complex set of calculations, is temporarily stored in one or more tables. Whereas any one process will probably access only a very small percentage of the rows in a[...]

The most successful apps and products generally have something in common: as well as meeting a need, they are a pleasure to use. They provide the features a user wants in a clear and intuitive way, and create a satisfying journey that anticipates and focuses on user needs at every step. So how do you get it right? How can you be sure that the interface presenting your innovation to the marketplace is providing great usability?

Software consultant Matthew Clarke shares his experience of moving to version 2.5 of Xamarin.Forms. Despite only being a minor version bump over Xamarin.Forms 2.4, version 2.5 has made some rather radical breaking changes. These are currently only “Obsolete” warnings but I’d advise you to act now before they become build failures. The most disruptive of deprecations affect Android but they touch all parts of your code. The chances are they’ll affect you, as they touch some fundamental areas of Xamarin.Forms.[...]

The TAB is OCC’s Technical Advisory Board, made up of representatives from OCC’s project and product groups. The TAB’s role includes reviewing technology developments and their impact on the company’s software development. Articulate.js Articulate.js is a simple, free (MIT license) jQuery plugin that uses the Web Speech API to speak the content of a web page. This could be useful in a broad range of circumstances, but particularly as an assistive technology for those that have problems reading text on[...]

The TAB is OCC’s Technical Advisory Board, made up of representatives from OCC’s project and product groups. The TAB’s role includes reviewing technology developments and their impact on the company’s software development. Xamarin & .NET Standard (Core) .NET Standard is now supported by Xamarin. The .Net Standard is the specification of which .NET APIs are available on all .NET runtimes – including the full framework, Core and now Xamarin. The upshot is that if you use a library or assembly[...]

The TAB is OCC’s Technical Advisory Board, made up of representatives from OCC’s project and product groups. The TAB’s role includes reviewing technology developments and their impact on the company’s software development. Security in the news Data breaches are on the rise and the media is increasingly publishing news stories on the subject. Some of the breaches happened years ago and are only just coming to light. For example, Yahoo had two hacks three years ago that have only recently[...]

The OCC Innovation Delivery teams – Fusion, Trilobites, Puffin and the OCC UX Design Studio – hold regular Technical Chapter meetings to help advance cross-team knowledge sharing. The meetings cover a wide range of topics, usually around technologies used in on-going project work, but also on tools and techniques that benefit the development process. Docker Compose [Fusion]​​ Compose is a tool for defining and running multi-container Docker applications. Operando has lots of modules, each one being a Docker container and[...]

OCC Innovation Delivery hold fortnightly Technical Chapter meetings to help advance cross-team knowledge sharing. The meetings cover a wide range of topics, usually around technologies used in on-going project work, but also on tools and techniques that benefit the development process. IIS ​ARR (Application Request Routing)​​ Greg told us about his experience with ARR. This IIS component is required when you want to forward requests to another machine on a port that isn’t port 80. One of the settings is[...]

Pharmaceutical companies spend millions developing new drugs but around half of all candidates never make it to market because they are discovered to have an adverse effect on the human heart. The most common problem is arrhythmia – abnormal beating – which can occasionally prove fatal, so pharmaceutical regulators demand strict testing standards and clinical trials before new medicines are released. Even then, a significant number of drugs are subsequently withdrawn because of previously undetected side effects. Researchers at the[...]

In 2003, a software engineer named Eric Evans, who had spent many years guiding large businesses through the process of building software, published a groundbreaking software design book in which he introduced an approach he called domain-driven design. The idea was the result of thinking about what actually led to success in his business projects: fruitful interactions with the client, analysis of the business problems being solved, building teams which thoroughly understood both the business and the software, and the[...]

Much of today’s most innovative software is created by academics, pushing the boundaries of computer simulation to explore, for example, ever more detailed models of scientific and medical phenomena. Often during this academic journey, potential commercial applications become apparent. Helping a client meet the many and varied challenges of commercialisation is a key role for OCC’s Innovation Delivery Team. ‘The process of commercialising research software is very broad,’ says Dr Reynold Greenlaw, Director of the Innovation Delivery Team. ‘Some research[...]

We use a number of tools to help us design products that meet accessibility standards. These are some of the tools we use to quickly test our software for conformance against common accessibility problems. Colour Contrast Analyser The colour contrast analyser from The Paciello Group helps designers determine the contrast of text and other visual elements. This allows us to determine the legibility of these elements, provides a pass/fail assessment against WCAG 2.0 colour contrast criteria and also simulates several[...]

OCC’s product development team is currently working on new web-based components to extend our existing ContrOCC product to provide specialist corporate finance functionality tailored to local authority requirements. Each new component is being written from the ground up, and we are taking the opportunity to review our technology choices even where we have some prior experience. A particular area of interest is document generation. Although our products are based on core financial, contract management, and case management features, each of[...]

When we plug in an appliance or flick a light switch, we take it for granted that electricity will flow safely and reliably. Industry and businesses, too, expect power to be available on demand. Yet the high-voltage electric power transmission network across Great Britain, owned and operated by National Grid plc, is today an ageing system. Computational models to optimise its efficiency are becoming increasingly important. OCC is working with National Grid to provide the innovative software solutions its operators[...]