ECats - Internet Engineers

From concept through design and programming to hosting - we can do it all, and we look after you and your software afterwards.

WordPress , Drupal, Javascript, ASP and ASP.Net

Microsoft Office automation, Access and SQL databases

 

ECats - stands for Electronic CATalogueS our first concept for an internet service.

Now offering 3D printing

 

Why use ECats?

A small but experienced company, we listen to our clients needs to produce a solution that fits their needs.

Creative Design/

Whilst we often produce an intial design, the final look and feel of any site or app is the result of much consultation with the client to arrive at a product that they are happy with.

CMS or StaTic?/

Our solutions vary depending on the client's need to update the site themselves. Some sites require little updating and so a simple more traditional solution is used of static HTML pages is used. If a lot of updating its invisaged then CMS is used.

Custom Code/

Sometimes the clients requirements ( and budget ) mean that a dynamic database driven web site is required but with custom written code. This we can do using either ASP or ASP.NET technologies.

/Web Site or App?

With the advent of HTML5 and CSS3 it is quite possible to design a responsive web site that works as well on the much smaller screens of mobile devices. There are occasions that a custom mobile App would suit the needs better and ECats can deliver these as well.

/Responsive Ready

All our new sites are fully responsive. We try and advoid using javascript tricks to acieve this. We would much rather rely on CSS to provide the required changes in layout needed.

/Hosting Control

Almost all our sites are hosted on our own servers, this gives us the ability to use what ever technologies we need to arrive at a solution. Some of the sites we look after are hosted on other ISPs often because of historical reasons. We are happy to work either way. You don't have to use us to host your site, we are happy to implement, design and if required maintain your site at any ISP.

www.ecatsbridge.com

www.marketingtrendtracker.com

AtoZ

MatchlessFirePrevention

www.plastart.co.uk

orkneyliving.co.uk

robot.wbfmasterpoints.com

Sites developed by ECats

All our servers are located in secure premises in Huntingdon UK the connectivity is provided by our business partner Merula We can offer most hosting solutions to our clients as well as email and anti spam filtering.

  • World Bridge Scoring - The World Bridge Federation asked ECats to score the World Wide Simultaneous Pairs taking place on 02 & 03 June using the ECats Dynamic On Line Scoring System. The design was done our design house Untitled Media .
  • WBF Photo Viewer - This is our first full Silverlight Web Application. It uses 'Deepzoom' to enable users to view 500 images ( some 200M of data) with full scolling and zooming all in a 'steam punk' application designed by Untitled Media.
  • Bridge in Britain - BiB began development because of Anna's own personal interest in bridge and because we felt it would be a useful testing ground for some of the technologies. As it happens it has turned into a core business site for ECats' Dynamic On Line Scoring system. We also have an e-commerce section with bridge items for sale using our credit card facilities. The site has been developed using Active Server technology which means that, apart from the current Sims section, the whole site only has about 15 pages. Because of developments using SQL server, even the Sims site will be using ASP technology in the very near future.The design was done our design house Untitled Media .
  • MarketingTrendTracker - Site for a client displaying News articles relevant to the future of Marketing uses ASP .NET 3.5 and AJAX.
  • A-Z Maps - ECats has developed a new e-commerce area for this site, so that all the maps can be purchased on line..
  • Engineering OnLine - We developed the eCapacity search capability for this site which is one of the foremost sites dedicated to serving the Engineering trade.This site also recently had a re-vamp to use ASP .NET 2 technology - CLOSED
  • Matchless Fire Protection - Done for a local fire preverntion company, showcases what can be done with a single web page.
  • Plasart - Manufacturers of bespoke ring binders
  • World Bridge Teaching - ECats and the WBF have developed the English part of an Anglo / French teaching program as a resource for bridge teachers
  • DiamondBridge Holidays - ECats developed this site for a company who offer Cruises and Holidays.
  • Asthma Free World - We built this one for free after Mark's sons, who both suffer badly from asthma, went on a Buteko breathing course. The transformation the Buteko breathing techniques made to them has enabled them both to become almost free of attacks and reduced their medication. Their doctors were surprised and pleased!
  • WBF Master Points - Enabled Bridge players to access their World Masterpoints over the web for the first time.
  • Orkneyliving - A personal blog in Word Press about our move and life in the far north in Orkney
  • PSA Pensions - ECats developed this site for Paul Smith Associates. The site is sponsored by Scottish Widows, CGU Life, Sun Life and Legal & General, all of whom have an active involvement. The site has a "public face" which can be viewed by anyone and a "private face" for subscribers only. A CD was also produced, using Internet technology, and distributed to IFAs throughout the country - CLOSED.
  • www.bermudabowl.com - we assisted with the detail and designed the overall look behind this site for  Orbis Investment Management Ltd.. ECats also developed the database technology used for the Orbis Hand of the Week competition which ran in the weeks preceding the Orbis World Bridge Championships.
  • Debrief - a specialist site dealing with below the line marketing, with archive and full search capability developed for Debrief by ECats. This is considered a powerful searchable resource for the Marketing Industry. The Debrief site is now owned by NTC.
  • Cam Code - ECats developed the e-commerce side of this website, which sells a product that is a "must have" for statisticians.
  • British Bridge League - a simple site detailing the work of the British Bridge League. This site is no longer updated since the BBL devolved on 01 January 2000.
  • BakerPet - sadly this site was withdrawn when the original company was taken over by an American company, but it is one of the first sites we developed.
  • Cityscan - was a company set up to develop and produce a resource for London. Fed from databases, this resource contained almost all the businesses and services available within London. Literally thousands of companies advertised on the site and the information for the resource was distributed on CD as well as on the Web. The CD version was distributed free on the front cover of the Evening Standard and at its launch distributed in one day more copies of Microsoft's browser than Microsoft themselves have achieved in a single day! At its peak the website was receiving three-quarters of a million hits a day and ran without hitch from day one. Mark was contracted to develop a web version of the product that would look and feel just like the windows application on the CD, and to set up and maintain the web server. All the original, complex database and frames technology on the web version was developed by Mark. The company CityScan has now been taken over by another web-design company, and we understand that the whole structure changed in line with their new ideas. We now notice that the site no longer exists at all,which is even sadder because in its day it was a brilliant and innovative concept.
  • Consultancy Work - ECats was contracted to set up database driven web pages for the Intranet of the international design company Tequila.
  • ECats was contracted to design a proof of concept for a document management system for Guinness using web technology on their Intranet. Further development of this was taken in house by Guinness.
  • ECats undertook all the IT consultancy for the World Bridge Federation for ten years and other International Bridge organisations. We do an initial site inspection, advise on all connectivity-to-Internet matters and then attend the Championships to set up both an Intranet and Internet connectivity for the provision of the results / bulletin services using the existing WBF Web site (www.worldbridge.org ) which is managed by a Member of the WBF Executive.
  • ECats has also undertaken consultancy for the BBC. Some of the consultancy work undertaken by ECats is done under the terms of a non disclosure agreement and thus we are unable to publicise either this type of work or these client's names.

Sports Scoring

  • The concept of sports scoring across Internet was developed by ECats in the first instance to cope with specific Bridge events
  • In Bridge, people in clubs world wide get together to play the same hands on the same night; traditionally this was scored by the club locally, then the score sheets sent to a centre point for re-keying and re-scoring across the whole field. We felt this was a waste of time and energy, and developed an on-line system to take the scores, by ftp, from the local club and re-score across the field on the server, with the results then being displayed immediately on the web site.
  • Unsurprisingly, this attracted a great deal of attention - instead of having to wait for results - in some cases, several months, people could see how well they had done within about 5 minutes of their scores being uploaded from their local club.
  • Because of the nature of bridge scoring, the scores change constantly as more clubs upload and this just adds to the excitement - and to the number of hits on the web site of course, as individuals log on regularly to see how they, and their friends, are getting on.
  • Further development of the Bridge Scoring Site came when the World Wide Simultaneous Pairs ran on 2 & 3 June 2000 and the MSO Charity World Wide Pairs take place on 22 & 23 August 2000. These events will see the results as before, but there will be a great deal of additional information available to participants.
  • Past World Wide events have gone into the Guinness Book of Records as the largest single sporting event in the world, with some 100,000 participants.
  • ECats with the fantastic support of bridge players all over the world runs an on-line scoring event for the BBC Children in Need appeal each year. ECats has raised over £800,000 for this charity.
  • For information about either of these events, please email anna@ecats.co.uk
  • ECats was asked to spec, develop and run the World Bridge Federation Robot Masterpoint system which is at http://robot.wbfmasterpoints.com

 

Articles

Mark has written numerous articles which have been published mainly in PcPro. He has also done reviews and written for other publications both on-line and printed. He has gathered these articles in a Blog and also added to this with new content that attracts his attention. All these articles are in a Drupal CMS at ECatsBlog.co.uk

Some of our sites

There are too many to list here and some of the sites we have designed are no more such is the fluid nature of the web. But here are a few.

About Us

ECats Ltd has two Directors, Mark NewtonAnna Gudge.

The company also works closely with other experts in order to provide a complete package of web development. This team includes Untitled Media,Peter Scott-SmithJon HoneyballDave MossSteve PrattHarvey Fox,Mike Amos, and Karen Baker. ECats also has many close contacts within design houses and software houses.

Mark Newton, Managing Director (mark@ecats.co.uk)

Mark has been involved in IT since 1983. He started his career as an electronic engineer, but found that he had a particular interest in computing, building his first personal computer in 1974. 

The interest in computing developed and he moved to Switzerland to work for Cern at around the same time as Tim Berners Lee was putting the first ideas together that would later become the World Wide Web. On returning to the UK Mark started his own computer company selling hardware and writing application software for individual clients.

Mark became involved with Internet Technology, in the early '90s, long before the current explosion of interest in the Web was generally envisaged. He has never lost the interest and enthusiasm for the technology involved.

During the early part of his career he developed considerable expertise in database work with particular emphasis on the use of databases in conjunction with Direct Marketing. He has continued to build on his early experience and is considered by many to be an expert in database structure and management.

The expertise in databases was put to good use during the course of a contract with Infernet, one of the first companies to interface databases to web pages. Infernet developed mapping technology, which interfaced to the database via spatial queries and thence to the web with Mark working on the initial project, this was before Google exsisted. The first site Infernet developed was Leisurehunt, a major database driven web site of hotels and guest houses in the World with on-line booking. This grew and Infernet now has arrangements with Yahoo for providing geographically driven databases. Mark was involved in the setting up and running of the web servers and developing this software in the early days. He left to form ECats.

In addition to developing applications for the Web, Mark is a Contributing Editor for PC Pro Magazine, writing a regular column on Web Applications in the Real World Computing section as well as the odd feature and review.

Mark recognises the importance of thorough research into new products, assessing their capability to achieve their stated aims. He keeps up to date with all the latest technology in the field and has a very important network of contacts from whom he can seek additional advice when necessary. 

It is vitally important with such a fast moving industry as Web Development that an eye is kept on changing trends in the use of Internet by companies and individuals, as well as potential new areas of development, so that these can be utilised when they become available. Mark always tries to stay ahead and maintains an overview of the way the future may become as opposed to the way it looks at the present time.

Mark has particular skills in the realms of client/server applications and the adaptation of database information to the Web, as well as a very clear understanding of all the technology required for e-commerce. 

It is probably inevitable that, of all the sites that ECats develops, the one that rarely gets updated is its own!

 

Anna Gudge ( anna@ecats.co.uk )

Anna is well known in the world of International Bridge as an experienced and competent administrator as well as being very skilled in DTP and document production.

Anna is the laison Officer for the World Bridge Federation

Anna has an enviable quality of persuasion both over the 'phone and face to face, as well as the ability to design attractive web sites with an enthusiasm for technology second to none! These skills make her a vital member of the team.

Peter Scott-Smith

Peter has three decades of hands-on marketing experience at board level. Before he retired, he was Managing Director of Prolog Ltd., a major Direct Marketing Company. Following his retirement, he started a Direct Marketing Journal, Debrief, (www.debrief.co.uk) a monthly marketing newsletter for blue-chip subscribers including the Automobile Association, British Gas, Cellnet, Norwich Union, Rover Group, Tesco and Whitbread.

In the Direct Marketing Industry, Peter is widely recognised for his breadth of knowledge, and his contribution to ECats in this field cannot be over stated. He is in touch with all the Direct Marketing news and information and is in an excellent position to foresee trends and enable ECats to take full advantage of them.

Jon Honeyball

Jon is an internationally known expert on computer technology with a considerable insight into what is happening within the IT world. He is a good friend and a consultant to ECats. Visit Jon's site at www.woodleyside.co.uk

Harvey Fox

Harvey was IT manager for the English Bridge Union but now works as database administrator and software developer for a major UK jewellery company. He has helped a great deal with the ECats Sports Scoring System, and his continued support is always apprieciated.

Mike Amos

Mike is a Bridge Tournament Director, and has been working with ECats on the bridge side of the Sports Scoring Program. His knowledge of the vagaries of frequencies and the esoteric side of bridge is unparalleled.

Karen Baker

Karen is Financial Consultant to ECats. Her interest in the company has led her to develop her Internet skills and she is now a valuable member of the web production team.

Contact Us
askus@ecats.co.uk
Tel: 01856 230010