On a recent project, we hit upon an interesting problem - the SQL indexing uniquifier.It seems to be one of those deep, dark SQL secrets that's been tucked away down the back of the sofa and forgotten about over several years; an obscure journey into SQL's data storage and indexing mechanisms!What is the SQL Uniquifier?In a nutshell, if you have a non-unique, clustered index on a SQL table, SQL server will automatically "uniquify" this for you! It does this by adding a hidden integer column that acts like an auto-incrementing identity ...

GAME Reward App wins the Wirehive100 Best Mobile Project AwardBest Mobile Project Thursday 13th October, 2016 was an exciting day at 3chillies. The Wirehive100 awards were taking place that evening, and we were hopeful that our work would walk away with a medal under the Best Mobile Project category!Months earlier, we had submitted the work we did for GAME as our flagship mobile creation. If you haven’t yet had the chance to read up on the GAME Reward app, it’s a Continuum compatible app, built on the Universal Windows Platform. It has a ...

Recently I've been looking at implementing caches in Sitecore, and in my current project I've had to do this a few times; let's have a look at my general pattern. I've just been caching strings; although other objects can be cached, mostly all I need are strings or, sometimes a few IDs.First, I defined my cache class:public class MyCache : CustomCache{public MyCache() : base("Example.MyCache", StringUtil.ParseSizeString(Settings.GetSetting("Example.Cache.Settings.Size", "20MB"))){Sitecore.Events.Event.Subscribe("publish:end", ...

A host of different Content Management Systems use the .NET framework, and each of them have different advantages depending on your business requirements. If, like most, you've boiled your choices down to either Sitecore or Umbraco, this post should provide some helpful insight into which of those platforms will best serve your organisation in it's current form. Similarities between Umbraco and Sitecore: DATA-SOURCED COMPONENTS Suppose your website is littered with one particular promotional banner which contains outdated information. ...

For many organisations, the days of direct mail campaigns are a distant memory. The relatively expensive and comparatively slow method of communication is considered to be so outdated that, to some, even the term itself is enough to cause a cringe.When email was introduced, it quickly because the fastest and most cost effective method of communicating with prospects, and whilst every organisation uses email, not every company has completely thrown the towel in on their postal efforts…and rightly so!A large number of organisations are ...

The base result item for the Sitecore content search is called SearchResultItem and is located with the Sitecore.ContentSearch.SearchTypes namespace, this by default has quite a fair few useful properties attached to it out of the box such as:1) TemplateName2) TemplateId3) Content4) Language5) PathsThe properties above are available for use within queries against the index to refine your result, you can read more on writing these here. You’re not limited to just the out of the box properties, you are able to create your Models that ...

If you have had the luxury of getting your hands on the Sitecore content search, I'm confident that you'll join me when I say that it can be described using one word..."AMAZING"!  There are many ways to approach writing LINQ queries within the content search. I'll cover two here: One quick and easy "static queries" approach and the other, an open dynamic query using the Sitecore PredicateBuilder class. I commonly use both. Here they are: 1# the quick easy way The example below is fairly simple, it’s going to search the web index for ...

On 30th Jan, a few of our code-junkies locked themselves in a meeting room and set up their battle stations ready to take part in a 24-hour Sitecore hackathon!For those unfamiliar with the term, a Hackathon (also known as a hack day, hackfest or codefest) is an event where computer programmers collaborate intensively on a software project.(Above: Picture of team preparing for hackathon)The team of 3 arrived with Beacons, which were given to us by our partners at Localz!A beacon is a device which harnesses the power of low energy Bluetooth ...

There’s nothing more interesting than sitting down with an industry expert and picking their brains on their specialist topic. So for this particular blog post, we interviewed Dr Jon Dodd, CEO and Co-founder of the well-known UX design agency, Bunnyfoot.                 Jon holds a DPhil. in Visual and Computational Neuroscience from Oxford University. As an academic he researched how the human brain judges attractiveness, distinguish the shapes of shampoo bottles, and make decisions when shown visual illusions (he can also tell you a ...

This time 6 months ago I was handing in my university dissertation, titled “Improving the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Service Management for Mars IS”, wondering how I might implement my learnings in a full time career. A few short months later, I found myself with the fitting position of Support Co-ordinator at 3chillies!After joining, it quickly became apparent that 3chillies operated a strong support system. I suppose that much was already obvious from their impressive client base, but the transition towards issuing a fully managed ...