Recent Desktop Applications

As it is mentioned on the Services page of the website, a lot of Disclosure's work falls into the area of web development but in fact our biggest and lengthiest projects were related to desktop development. We have experience developing database management and ticket processing systems, network tracing and report generation tools, as well as time tracking applications. Disclosure has also gained sufficient expertise allowing for building sound processing algorithms (VST, or Virtual Studio Technology plugins) should some clients be looking for such applications. Below we are listing two of the projects that we found most interesting to work on.

  • HLDB GUI screenshot

    ISPAI's Report Management Facility

    Our specialists have worked on ISPAI's public report database management system which turned out to be a fairly long 8 months project that has had some very convincing success. ISPAI, Internet Service Association of Ireland has been running a hotline since the late 90s that takes reports from public about illegal content hosted online and that amounts to several hundred reports a month.

    The original data has been stored and managed in an Access database dating back to 1999 and over the years the consistency and quality of the database structure degraded severely and an urgent overhaul was required. The underlying database structure (as well as the interface) was completely redesigned to the modern standards but the most complex task of the project was to reconcile the old data which turned out to be the hardest part and it alone took several weeks to complete.

    After completion of the project the consistency of all the data was restored and the database also got a brand new data management interface with MS SQL Server as a back end, which allowed to increase the speed of report processing tenfold in some instances. Despite a number of difficulties this project turned out to be an overwhelming successes.

  • TRC tracing tool screenshot

    Advanced Network Tracing Tool

    Another quite a successful project that our specialists worked on was TRC, a network tracing tool. This application is used by INHOPE, an international organisation of Internet hotlines of 38 countries from around the world. This software resolves an IP address of a URL provided and fetches a wealth of information about the resource specified. The tracing tool fetches:

    • Registration info about the domain name from a high number of official top level domain whois servers.
    • Information about the IP address, including the geographical location, the abuse contacts, owner's name and managing ICANN registry.
    • A full network trace to the IP address of the web resource link provided presented in an easy to read table format.
    • The trace function additionally fetches information about the AS (Autonomous System) the IP address in question belongs to, its name, number and IP address range from Cymru's Internet research project.

    You can find out more about the tool in this blog posting.

  • Tape-o-lizer main interface.

    Tape-O-Lizer Sound Effect Processor

    This is not exactly a desktop application but a VST (Virtual Studio Plugin) type an application that is used by sound engineers and musicians alike in their sound design work. It means that it does not operate as a standalone application but rather is run inside of another program called a DAW, or Digital Audio Workstation.

    Tape-O-Lizer is an audio effect processor that takes any track, or sound in a digital form and processes it in a fashion that resembles the wobbly saturated sound of an old tape recorder. Apparently, it is an effect that many modern users miss in our age of high bitrate mp3s. The effect produced by the processor is a nostalgic analog feel of an old semifunctional cassette tape recorder.

    In this blog post you can find out more about what this piece of software does. It is also available for a free download for both Mac and Windows platforms.

Latest Web Projects

There are a number of Web related projects that Disclosure had pleasure to work on, two of the recent ones are listed below in order to keep the list short. At the moment we provide support, maintenance and consulting services for a number of other web sites and services to a full satisfaction of the clients who run them. We are also engaged in on-going development of several other web projects, we will post more information about them at a later stage.

  • The main interface of the Intyper application.

    Intelligent Typing Tutor

    This was a non-commercial project carried out by Disclosure as a proof of concept for a statistical analysis and machine learning algorithm. The idea behind the project is simple—training the machine to learn from the input of the user and react by providing some feedback conditioned by the history of interaction with the user.

    A good playground for testing such an algorithm turned out to be a touch typing tutor, since in order to teach touchtyping in the most efficient fasion it is necessary to track the performance of the user and supply them with custom exercises to put stress on the areas the user is having difficulties with.

    This is what exactly the Intelligent Typing Tutor (or Intyper for short) does: it constantly analyzes the errors the student is making and generates custome exercises for the training session accordingly. As the result the user engages their typing capabilities to a fuller extent. There is some additional information about the algorithm that you could have a look at in this blog entry.

  • Tshirtcompany front page.

    Tshirtcompany.ie Web Outlet

    Tshirt Company is one of the leaders in custom tshirt printing in Ireland, who also do printing on bags and apparel. The outstanding design of the website was developed by one of country's prominent branding studios Octopus New Media and what we did here is to implement the web application in code, or, in fact, re-implemented it on a brand new hosting platform that Tshirtcompany had to move to.

    The original installation of the website was getting dated and required an urgent upgrade and that is when Disclosure was contacted. During initial assessment it turned out that due to a high number of accumulated issues a complete overhaul of the back end of the website was required, and which was carried it in a prompt and efficient manner by us.

    There was a very interesting noteworthy aspect to this project related to the base page layout. Apparently it turned out to be unexpectedly difficult to recreate the original graphic design in an html template without a number of trade-offs when using established CSS constructs. The best way to create the layout in the most efficient manner turned out to be by using a rather new HTML5 <flexbox> construct. At Disclosure we like to be at the cutting edge of the progress. You can find some more details of our involvement in the project in this blog post.