Thanks Jeanne. I'm using the Tomcat JDBC connection pool, https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-7.0-doc/jdbc-pool.html. There is a setting here, setMinIdle, which I imagine can be set to zero. I'll try this and let you know how I get on.
I use the Tomcat JDBC Connection Pool to connect to an Oracle Database run by an outside organisation. This was working fine until this outside organisation changed their timeout setting to 40 minutes to accommodate another application. Problems occur in the evening when the database has not been accessed for more than 40 minutes - What changes should I make to the configuration settings to prevent the connection being lost?
I'm following an online Android Development course which recommends an 8GB machine to develop apps using Android Studio. Do you agree that this is what's required? if so, would you recommend any laptops with 8GB of memory?
Thanks very much Dave. If I don't win a book in this competition I'll definitely buy your book. I'm hoping to also write an application using NFC to read a MiFare classic chip. I've googled this and have come up with some useful links but none that i've managed to successfully implement in my own application - have you any advice for writing such an application?