Tech | Youseph Tanha

North Sound Safety’s Website Redesign

Occasionally I get ask to do some website work. It does not happen all that often, but I am happy to do it when it comes in. Recently I finished the redesign for North Sound Safety’s offical website.

North Sound Safety is a motorcycle training company located in Washington state. They are professional at teaching riders young and old, beginner or seasoned, the importance of Motorcycle safety.

Their old website was very consistent with it’s navigation. However, the pages (the homepage particularly) had a lot of stuff going on and could make it hard for the user to focus on what he or she was looking for.

My first redesign design attempt was to just clean things up and tighten the over all look and feel of the website. I do most of my design work exclusively in PhotoShop.

My client really liked the new look and feel of North Sound Safety’s new design. He had a few changes he wanted made before I could go forward with writing out the HTML for the site. The finished product looks like this image below.

The final product incorperates Google Maps, as well as Flash. The whole top banner graphic is a Flash animation. I need to thank Jason for givng me some lessions in flash so i could create that rotating banner. The completed website can be viewed at www.NorthSoundSafety.com. Take a look around. Let me know what you think.

Office Phone

Back from my vacation and working in the new company office. Things are really starting to fall into place and my work space is starting to feel like my own. One of my friends and co-workers Henrik, configured my office phone to know me as Optimus Prime the leader of the Autobots, a faction of sentient robots from the planet Cybertron.

This is a great Friday.

Voted Down

In 2005 our investment club manager e-mailed us asking for our opinions on how to invest the money the group had been collecting. I wrote what I felt was the best suggestion I could have made at the time. Below is a copy of the e-mail I wrote our investment club along with Chris’s wrong and inaccurate response.

Now, Back in November 2005 when this e-mail was written Apple’s stock price reach a high of $69.34. Today, Apple’s stock price is valued over $180. Now for thoughts keeping score, this means that Apple’s market value of $158 billion is now four times that of rival PC Macker Dell’s $38 billion.

Whats that Chris? I can’t here you. Cat got your tongue?

I Don’t Own A Printer

Office Space Printer

Yup, thats right. I don’t own a printer. It cost so much to own a printer in my opinion.

Actually, a printer itself is not that expensive. You can get a really nice printers these days for cheep. It’s just the outrageous cost of printer ink that keeps me from owning one.

I don’t have things I need printed everyday. From time to time I do have documents I need to printed. Sometimes I even want to print photos off for myself or friends and family. It’s not all that often. Maybe once, maybe twice a month I have something I want to print.

When I have something I need printed I will take it to a local print shop. I can print documents and photos for pennies compared tot he cost of buying a printer and ink, and hopping I use it often enough that the ink does not dry up before it’s empty. It’s just not worth the hassle or cost.

The Power Of Google Maps

The other day at work, I was preparing to meet with a new client here in Juneau. The client is located in downtown Juneau, but I did not know exactly where they where. So I loaded up Google Maps to help me figure out where their office was.

Now, Google Maps does a really great job of helping you find where your going and giving you directions to where you need to go. After I put in the companies address, Google Maps showed me where they where located. I still was not 100% sure of their location or how to get their.

Now normally when this happens I just have Google Maps generate directions for me from my office. But this time was different because I noticed for the first time a new button at the top of Google Maps,”Street View”.

With Street View, you are able to see a 360 degree view of any street in Juneau. I was so blown away by this. I mean, I knew Google has a small fleet of cars setup to take photos of cities like this but i did not think Juneau was going to be on the list anytime soon. With street view I was able to see the actual office of where my meeting was to take place and as a result of seeing the street view picture I realized that I knew where the office was located and I knew out to get there with out any directions.

After my meeting was over and I was done with work for the day I got back on Google Maps to see if I could find my house. I did!

Home On Google Mpas

That’s my truck in the drive way!

Glacier on Google Maps

You can also see the Glacier

Airport on Google Maps
Our Little AirPort.

Govs on Google Maps
Governors Mansion

In using Street View and looking all around Juneau I can tell that all these pictures where taken just over a year a go. This is a pretty cool new feature they have added and I know I will be using it quite a bit. Not every city in the world has street view just yet, but I am sure they are working on it.