National Lampoon's Vancouver Vacation

Ah, Vancouver. It’s the city we all love to live in and it’s the city we love to complain about. It snows for a day and the city comes to a standstill. On the other had, if it snows for a day down here, it means big dumps of snow up on the hills. Grouse Mountain is open, Cypress is open, and Seymour should open any day. What’s not to love about this city?

Well while some of us love to see the snow because of our love of skiing or boarding, winter of 2010-11 promises to be colder and snowier than average in B.C., as the frosty weather pattern known as La Nina moves in for a long stay. Remember winter 2008? How horrible was that? Getting anywhere meant a difficult trip by any mode of transit. For now we’re safe from the snow as the rain has started to fall and a mild wet weekend is forecast. So then we’ll get back to our usual–complaining about the rain!

Other negatives include recent news about a Vancouver real estate bubble. Sure, property prices are high, but this isn’t Ireland. Our politicians know what they’re doing, and our banks are rock solid. Right??

Our economy is something to feel happy about. Is it wrong to feel good because others are miserable? Europe seems to be struggling at the moment. Countries and economies there are getting hit hard by the global recession. Iceland, Greece, Ireland and soon possible Portugal and Spain are all needing help due to economic mismanagement and bad leadership. The Euro, worth $1.60 Canadian a few months back is now worth $1.34. If you invested in Euros you might not be too happy right now, but if you are going to Europe any time soon you dollar will go further.

Back to the city anyways, Vancouver has a famous guest in Hollywood actor-turned-asylum seeker Randy Quaid. It sounds like a sequel to National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, but Chevy Chase isn’t anywhere to be seen. Randy and his wife will be able to enjoy Christmas in Vancouver after an immigration adjudicator agreed to postpone the hearing on his admissibility into Canada until sometime in the new year; this is the third time it’s been postponed. Randy’s wife is apparently a Canadian citizen. As he left  the Immigration and Refugee Board offices in downtown Vancouver yesterday he told reporters “I hope it snows.” He got his wish.

Check out a few of our favourite sites from the Vancouver, BC area. Some sites are good examples of design, and others are good examples of functionality. Some are recommended because they give good information about Vancouver and about British Columbia in general.

We have just started compiling this list, so we have really just scraped the surface. We will be adding more Vancouver websites to the list over the coming weeks, so we would love to hear your suggestions. You can send us a tweet @WebsitesVancouv or else just send us an old fashioned email.

On our list of potential local BC websites: sports sites, best Vancouver pubs, restaurants and places to go, things to see etc. Send us your favorites @WebsitesVancouv

real estate websites

The Vancouver real estate market is super hot in comparison to the rest of the world. While the US real estate market has tanked in the last year or so, the BC property market continues to buck trends. Because of this there are hundreds of real estate websites fighting each other for search engine domination. Getting to the top of the SERPs means big money for these companies and individuals.

Customized real estate websites are the way to go and Ubertor, MyRealPage and WordPress customized sites leading the way when it comes to functional, attractive websites. Interactive features such as property listings, maps and slide show photos are amongst the standard features of real estate websites these days.  Every realtor wants his or her own site to have a unique look and feel while incorporating their brand and imagery.

If you Google ‘Vancouver Real Estate’ you will see that there are dozens of great customized sites in the top listings, and others that don’t look quite the part.

As with any business, having an attractive, functional website is really important. In this game, having a good website can be the difference between a boom and a bust.

Vancouver website design wins

I was just having a look at the ’2010 Regional Design Awards’ for the BC and Yukon areas and I noticed that the Web Design category winners were from Vancouver. The winners were a company called Switch United. The award is from the ‘Best of Region’ winners of the ’2010 Regional Design Awards’ produced by Design Edge Canada magazine, covering Graphic Design News & Trends. It is published six times a year and delivered to the largest audience of professional graphic designers in Canada.

The winning website design was for the TV show Ice Pilots that runs on History Television and several other cable networks. You can check out the site here: http://www.icepilots.com/

The site is pretty slick, has lots of features and has a very cool interactive ‘Story Map’ section.