(…or rather a lake in Milton)

Realnet took to the water with a splash this Saturday in support of the Arthur Rank Hospice. Competing in the second annual Wacky Races event at Milton Country Park, our kayaking web wonders never found themselves out of depth with the opposition.

Ahoy, me hearties!

Arriving for the team briefing, we were faced with a tough pack of local businesses, ready to do battle on the chilly waters of Todd’s Pit. Last year’s winners from the Cambridge News sat confidently in their purple headbands, ready to take on all-comers. The guys and girls from Method Creative (whom we suspect had been training vigorously for weeks beforehand) sat close by, along with a worryingly young and energetic looking crew from the JCI. Cooper Lomaz, Borney UK, and Januarys all looked ready to shiver some timbers, along with our fellow techy sea-dogs Adept. And ready to heave-ho at the back of the room were team Arthur Rank. (more…)

It’s time for an ‘It’s a Knockout’ style team building, networking, raising money for charity and probably getting very wet on Saturday 1st June 2013 when Realnet will be taking on 9 other local companies in the Wacky Races obstacle course for the glittering silver prize trophy, as pictured.

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The Leisuretec homepage showing their marketing messages, calls to action and brands

Clubs, Venues, Events and Exhibitions – Snap up your sound, video, lighting and effects here.

Leisuretec goes live!!! – A Realnet website providing Leisuretec the style and flexibility to take large trade orders from companies in the entertainment technology industry.

A solution that integrates with Microsoft Dynamics NAV (formerly Navision) as their internal stock, order and CRM.

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Taking payments online is a basic element of an e-commerce website, but which online payment system is right for you?

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Following on from Web Trends Part One here are a few further thoughts on trends for 2013…

Fixed / Locked Page Navigation

Another popular technique (often combined with parallax) is vertical scrolling of menus and buttons, where navigation or functional elements stay locked in their positions on your screen as you are scrolling the page with mouse, pen or finger.

Keeping your navigation on the page with you as you scroll, gives the visitor navigation support on-screen. Some visitors are comfortable with this, some are not. It can encroach on the page and obscure some elements, break your train of thought. But with a little design thought, care and process to encompass the navigation the effect can be seamless and usable. (more…)

A bright and exciting future

From desktops and laptops to tablets and smart phones, surfing the web and sending and receiving information on the move is now part of everyday life for all ages, lifestyles and at all times of the day globally. These are exciting and fast changing times.

Fashions chop and change in all industrial, manufacturing and entertainment areas. Sometimes they move on in leaps, sometimes they pull from effective past influences and there are steady evolutions rather than revolutions. The internet is no different and is now an integral part of our fashion ether. (more…)

- competition takes a dive.

Mamboats is a unique concept in luxury boat charters, and is part of a globally recognised Ibiza club brand. They approached us with a requirement for a site that was not only reflective of their upmarket status, but that also offered some very specific back-end functions, and we are pleased to announce that www.mamboats.com is now live!

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We are running a festive competition to win either an hour of free support or a two hour free website consultation. (more…)

Why Replicate?

Replication can be a very useful tool, which when done properly, can provide benefits such as Availability (e.g. reducing server load by distributing users to multiple servers), Performance (e.g. enabling users to access the database with the least latency, usually enabled by providing an instance which is geographically close to them), Network Load Reduction (e.g. providing a local version of the database for the user to connect to as opposed to making external connections over the web) and Redundancy/Backups (e.g. keeping a complete running version of a database in the event something should go wrong). (more…)

You need to get a lot of information from an enquiry, but first of all you need to get the enquiry, so don’t make that form too long.

Realnet have been working with a client Cambridge Language & Activity Courses (CLAC) and they know the importance of keeping a form easy to use and to the point.

CLAC provide English Language Courses to overseas students. Registration requires some in depth  information, not only for legal reasons, but also so they can provide the best service, like collecting students from the airport, ensuring correct nutrition needs are met etc.

However, what is essential is that the form is easy to complete – especially as the form may not be in the native language of the person filling it in.

Long or complicated forms can put people off as the expectation of the web is that ‘things should be easy’.

People fill in forms because they have to or because they choose to. (more…)