Geode Software

Easy Books is a fully functional double-entry accounting application for the iPhone and iPad.

We have been developing Easy Books since late 2009 in response to customer feedback. In 2011 we decided the app deserved its own web site over at easybooksapp.com.

This iPhone app was created by Geode in 2010 for a publishing company based in Bristol, UK. Specialist UK produce company branded content for in-house magazines, websites and newsletters.

The Brief

This project was to develop the iPhone app code from a storyboard using standard Objective-C and Cocoa, with Specialist providing all the visuals. It was undertaken on a fixed price basis, which lowered the financial risk for Specialist and we worked hard to provide feedback to Specialist using email, screen-casts, and early beta versions of the app to selected staff.

Our first meeting with Specialist was at their offices in Bristol. The project development was then managed by Geode from our own office. All the staff at Specialist UK were a pleasure to work with, and together we have produced a useful and good-looking app.

If you've ever wondered, you can find out with the Do I Snore? app. This app runs on the iPhone, listening to you through the night, recording clips of any snores it hears.

Do I Snore? listens for those tell-tale snoring signs and records the top three snores each time the app is run. You can listen to these back in the morning.

This app is literally taking the world by storm, selling hundreds of copies in only a few days. It is a real asset to the users who have bought it. Excellent support and a good detailed description of how it works all add value to an already very well priced product.

In January 2009 Accenture approached us to provide a short training course on developing within the Lodestar ASP framework.

We provided a couple of days additional support for the more difficult pieces of work in January, all remotely via a VPN.

Later in April, Accenture approached us again to provide a full-time developer to work on the project site in Brussels. Our developers are specialists in Lodestar development, and we have been working hard during the systems integration and test phase to deliver the client's requirements. The project has now been completed and is live.

In April 2009, EDF Energy's Lodestar implementation moved into "Business As Usual". From then on, any issues became production support issues dealt with by an EDF support team.

The project has been tuned for EDF and is capable of pricing over 50,000 sites per day to generate energy prices for EDF's largest customers.

During the hand-over period, Geode was involved in troubleshooting issues such as fast track problems. These were investigated, and if there was an underlying problem, we suggested a fix by documenting the problem itself together with the changes needed.

In March 2008 EDF Energy asked us to help with performance tuning their production database. We were able to identify where in the code the poor performing queries were defined, and to develop more efficient versions of them using the Oracle plan tables (explain plan) to reduce overall cost, physical I/O and ultimately time taken to execute.

Geode was asked to set up the web site for a new Resourcing company called Captura Resourcing. This was done using the Drupal 6 Content Management System. Using Drupal meant we were able to create the web site in a matter of just a few hours.

Each job posting can be tagged with existing or new tags, allowing "featured" jobs to appear in their own black in the sidebar as well as regional tagging, such as South-West. Users can also use the built-in search functionality to search for key words. When users find one job they might be interested in, they can easily navigate using the tags to other related jobs, either by skill or area.

During autumn 2007 we were involved in ASP training for the Lodestar framework. Many aspects of the ASP framework were covered, with best practices, including stored queries, dictionaries, custom screens, tabs, dropdown actions, XML data, XSLT transforms, debugging and more!

End clients are keen to make use of the Lodestar applications, and see the flexibility the software provides. Custom ASP work should "fit in" with the framework, and we have successfully trained staff in the best way to go about developing for Lodestar.

Harrier LLC provide mail-order photo processing and online digital printing. The company has recently begun supplying photo gifts such as mugs, calendars and photo books though the online Truprint site as well as fulfilling these gift orders for numerous partners. Their current I.T. system tracks orders as they progress through the production process, but it is increasingly difficult to maintain. The project requirement was to create a new system based on new technology to take over the process. Geode was asked to plan the project and in the initial part of the project, to design the database.

Geode Software has been working for Oracle Utilities on a number of projects in the UK and now supplies a number of ASP developers to work on site. We worked to extend their web application to provide a detailed breakdown of all the costs involved in a gas supply contract. The web pages were written in Javascript ASP, linked to an Oracle (10g) database and the Lodestar framework. XML technologies were used heavily to manipulate the data for display.

LODESTAR's PricingExpert was customised in order to satisfy the requirements of a large energy company. Geode Software was invited to join it in order to extend their web application by providing additional screens and database functionality. The web pages were written in Javascript, linked to an Oracle (9i) database and the LODESTAR COM object framework.

The Geode Website was upgraded from a series of dynamic PHP pages over the first few weeks of 2006. The content was preserved, but the engine that now serves the pages has been completely scrapped in favour of a full Content Management System (CMS).

The existing Truprint EPOS (Electronic Point Of Sale) system was enhanced by moving from multiple MS Access databases to a single SQL Server 2000 database. We implemented a VPN to link each shop to Head Office and used "merge replication" to synchronise the databases. Next we integrated the EPOS system with Harrier's ERP/ERM system (Microsoft Navision) to make it easy for them to add new products, set the selling prices and so on.

The RDL was developed by Geode in 2004 for a specific customer, although the development effort was funded by Geode. We retain the rights on the electronic hardware, firmware and software. This product is no longer available for sale as we now concentrate on producing software. Consequently, the complete design is now offered for sale. If you are interested, please contact us.

This project was a cost-cutting exercise to reduce the cost of a product while keeping the same functionality.