Google has just unveiled it’s own web browser called Chrome.  It’s lightening fast and packs a punch from the novice user to the web developer.  It’s based on the same rendering engine that Safari is so if your site is working in Safari then you should be good to go.  If you need help checking though or would like to update your code for any reason just give us a call at 801-560-8812 or email us at sales@halfnutdevelopment.com.

Download the new Chrome web browser today to see if your site works and looks good!

Today I found The Wilderness Outpost at Bedwell River. The lodgings are in Tofino, B.C. and yet another stop on our trail through the great white north of Canada.

Just like Rockwater Secret Cover Resort the main lodgings are tents, but the tents are as immaculate on the inside as the outsides are common. What appears to be a common canvas tent on the outside is a lavishily adorned room on the inside.

What overshadows the beauty within the tent is the area around the tent. One look out the tent flap and you have a front-row to all the beauty that nature affords. The glass-like lake surrounded by wondrous mountains and the evergreen sentinels of trees make you feel as if your on the edge of civilization in some undiscovered territory. Red flannel shirts are optional.

- 174 HTML errors
-19 errors.
-Failed accessibility test

Overall I would give the site an C- for form and a C function.

Today I found Sooke Harbout House, a little gem from the National Geographic Stay List. It’s beautifully situated near a jutting peninsula that I dear you to not walk once you’ve seen in lovely Victoria, Vancouver Island. This continues my recent infatuation with the many beauties all around Canada as of late.

The property and location look awe inspiring as do some of the enormous photos on the main page. I understand they want to convey the beauty of this site, but the image sizes are way overboard. This is especially important as the main site navigation is only visible below this image once you scroll to find it.

If we look a bit at the usability of the site to review the accomodations, rates and photo gallery, we’ll find that Sooke Harbour makes you work a bit to see the beauty of the property. The site is dated and a little scattered in it’s navigation. There’s also an annoying JavaScript alert that shows up each time I go to the main page to tell me that I need to update my Flash Player, even though I already did that.

First if we look at accomodations, there is a link for guest rooms. These rooms really do appear tranquil and each room has a magnificent view of the ocean harbor. When I click on this menu item I’m greeted by a high quality, but too large image of one of the rooms. The rest of the page has the booking engine and information sprinkled around rather haphazardly.

One item I noticed that must be a misguided attempt at search engine optimization is that not only on the accomodations page is the title “Ocean view accommodations, fine dining seafood restaurant, art gallery and spa on Vancouver Island, located 45 minutes from Victoria”, but
the rest of the site shares the same title as well. As I go throughout the site I would expect this to change and be varied for my bookmarks.
Rate information is the next item that I don’t seem to be able to find. It must be only available when you search for a room.

Last but in no way least important is the photo gallery. While there are breathtaking images in the photo gallery it’s not readily accessible from the main page and navigating through it is somewhat of a chore. First, we loose all the main navigation and links to the rest of the site (if you hunt and peck you’ll find a home link). Next it’s difficult to know how to scroll through the thumbnails as there are now forward and back directional arrows. A better layout would be for smaller thumbnails in a side by side view.

The menu for the different room types could use an overhaul as well as it’s not very usable to have to keep going to the various sections and hover over an area and then select a room. I’m just so eager to see the superbly decorated rooms I don’t want to have to work so hard to see them.

This site like the property has some amazing views, they just need to be put together better. If we next look at the code we’ll see it is out of date and needs to be updated. The code is deprecated and filled with errors.

- 140 HTML errors
-CSS passed.
-Failed accessibility test

Overall I would give the site an C- for form and a C function.

The other day I had an email pop into my Yahoo account about a hotel called Viking. My first thoughts were of the old Norse sailors and a rough and tumble meager lodging. On discovering the Hotel Viking all my thoughts were changed.

According to the hotels web site, “The award-winning Hotel Viking situated atop Newport’s Historic Hill neighborhood with breathtaking views of Bellevue Avenue mix in your mind’s eye with sightings of notable guests gone-by. There have been a few, since 1926, Will Rogers, Ella Fitzgerald, John and Jackie Kennedy.”

“The Hotel Viking opened to an awestruck public in May 1926. As a member of the prestigious Historic Hotels of America, the hotel holds a special place in history. From the clock above the Front Desk depicting ancient Nordic Runes to the original 1926 brass letter box in the Lobby, the hotel offers a wonderful combination of style, comfort and modern amenities.”

This is a beautiful property with wonderful colors, patterns and textures. If we take a look at their web site we can see that someone has not only updated their lodgings, but their web site as well. They have moved to a more modern web development using semantic markup. While they’ve gone to this effort, they still have a number of errors to overcome to validate.

If we look a bit at the usability of the site (accomodations, rates and photo gallery) it was easy right off to find their link for rooms and suites, rates weren’t readily available, but they had a nice photo gallery of images.

- 58 HTML errors
- 203 CSS errors.
-Failed accessibility test

Overall I would give the site an A for form and a B- function.

Billed as Canada’s Secluded Romantic Mountain Getaway the Emerald Lake Lodge is nestled in Field, British Columbia, Canada. Originally built in 1902 by the Canadian Pacific Railway it’s grown to become a winter wonderland and a secluded summer lodge that is a jewel in the Canadian crown of lodgings. This is absolutely one of those properties where I have the internal struggle trying to decide which season I want to visit it in first, summer or winter…decisions, decisions, decisions.

As of late I’ve been discovering and rediscovering the beauty that Canada holds. Around each corner seems to be another amazingly decorated lodge or Inn. This property simply is stunning with the amazing backdrop of the Canadian Rocky Mountains and the near by Emerald Lake. One look at the photo gallery will having you wanting to call to make a reservation right away.

I’m definatly sold on staying at this lodge one day, so let’s jump right into the code. One glance at the code and file names and you can tell that someone has spent some time using semantic markup with tableless design and optimized the file names for search engines. While great effort has been taken with the code there are still a few markup errors on the main page, but overall this site is to be applauded.

- 9 HTML errors
- 1 CSS error.
-Failed accessibility test

Overall I would give the site an A- for form and a A- function.

Last night I happened across the Georgetown Inn in Washington D.C. It’s acclaimed to be one of the most recognizable establishments in D.C. and has been so for the more than 40 years. One look at their web page and your transported back to colonial times when things were a lot simpler. It’s conveniently located on Wisconsin Avenue within a couple miles of the Capitol, White House, National Mall and most other major monuments.

The obligatory Flash photo gallery infuses you with stately images of local monuments, the hotel itself and the Mall. I like how the images fade from black and white to color almost as a representation of changing from the past to the present. The site is laid out well overall with nice clean lines and soothing colors. The site like the hotel gives you a air of sophistication like you’d be a better, higher class of person just by walking through their doors.

A quick glance at their menu reveals a bit of a split personality. There appears to be two main menu’s with a possible third. This is a bit distracting, but manageable. Fairly quickly I find a guest room link that takes me to a nice view of the different room types, however I don’t readily see rates. This is assuaged a bit by the ad for $119 summer rates. I know right away if it fits in my budget. Next I look for the hotel photo gallery and I wasn’t disappointed to see a hotel photo tour on the menu.

Rather disappointingly I look at the code behind this properly adorned site and I see a raft of deprecated code. There is no semantic markup or tableless design, only old bloated code. Their search engine optimization is nowhere to be found as there isn’t a single header in the main page. There’s so much potential here for improvement in the usability, accessibility and search engine ranking of the site. They just renovated their 96, European-style accommodations, too bad some of that didn’t go to improving their web site as well.

- 15 HTML errors
- 13 CSS errors.
-Failed accessibility test

Overall I would give the site an B+ for form and a C function.

I ran across Tu Tu’ Tun Lodge today. It interested me not only because of the locale but the name sounded a bit Mayan (it is however an indian name after the Tu Tu’ Tune Rogue indians). It’s quite the opposite of Guatemala and the Mayan Riviera however.

The lodge is located in the rural southwest corner of Oregon, 40 miles from the California border. It’s perched on the Rogue River 7 miles from the Pacific Ocean. If you wanted a location to get away from it all and have a life altering experience I’d say that this is a place that could make that happen. While it doesn’t appear to be a typical theme room it makes you want to stay and experience each room.

One I’d specifically like to take in is the Chinook Suite as it has a row of windows that meet in a corner that overlooks the Rogue River. This would be a wonderful place to soak in the area or just sit and read a book. The Inn isn’t for the thrifty traveler as a King room with a fireplace will run you from $180-$300 a night depending on the season. If you have a special occasion coming up however this would make a great romantic getaway or even if you just wanted to treat yourself to a day or two without any ringing phones or pressing deadlines.

The hotel and web site appear beautiful, however the ugly Flash quickly shows it’s head as you try to view each of the impeccably adorned rooms. When you drill down far enough to see one of these beautiful rooms and you try to click back as you loose the room navigation you go back to an outdated splash screen. Instead you can do some index finger calisthenics by clicking ‘Rooms > One King Bed > Room Name’ and then going through the process all over again. This is really such a shame as I’m so eager to look through each room.

- 38 HTML error
-CSS passed.
-Failed accessibility test

Overall I would give the site an C. It’s really too bad as it wouldn’t take much to make the site more usable and accessible. It’s just another case of Flash being miss-used. The whole site is done in Flash and prevents me from bookmarking or adding links to various pages. A little semantic markup and tableless design along with a restructuring of the site could make it much more user friendly.

As always I look for three navigation items when reviewing a site, accomodations, rates and photo gallery. While there are no links for rates or photo gallery. It did however have a link for lodging which seems to fit better than accommodation for this more rustic getaway.

A couple of years ago I was able to get a little taste of the beauty that is in Canada. I drove from Bathurst , New Brunswick to Halifax, Nova Scotia. It was a beautiful drive with a stop in Shediack for some crab cakes and planked Salmon. Not only was the food wonderful but the scenery was breathtaking.

All those memories came flooding back as I found this amazing inn called the Wickaninnish Inn in Tofino, B.C. Canada which is on the west coast. The first shot of the inn’s website transports you to a cool, crisp mountain resort surrounded by awe inspiring scenes everywhere you turn. You see an imposing mountain range ringed by a pristine forest of pine trees. Then peeking out of the forest edge is a storied resort overlooking the waterfront. To the each side is a beach that whispers of kayaks and watercraft trailing through the nearby waters. Your imagination runs wild and the tombs of stories that could be told about this area rush to your minds’ forefront.

The Inn’s web site is very attractive overall with a nice clean layout and soft colors. There is a tendency to get a bit wordy at times and you have to guess at times at what text is a link. The main Flash image is beautiful but can make you feel a bit dizzy at times.

For some reason the chose to go against the norm with their navigation as well. A rule for all lodging websites are that the main menu should contain accommodations, rates, and a photo gallery. While they do have a rates links they’ve substituted an explore the inn for accommodations. Remember Steve Krugs’ addage, “Don’t Make Me Think.” The main Flash video seems to substitute for a photo gallery as well. As a potential guest I want to see what the options are for room and board as well as the price associated with each. I shouldn’t have to wonder where these are and how to get there.

Looking into their code I can see they’ve gone the extra mile to make their markup standout as well as the front-end images. Their site does use nicer tableless markup however they haven’t got things quite nailed down to where the pages will validate.

- 12 HTML error
- 1 CSS error.
-Failed accessibility test

Overall I would give the site an B.

Even though Ive spent years living in Idaho I’ve never had the opportunity to venture up into the pan-handle of Idaho. Coeur d’Alene is a beautiful place from pictures I’ve seen and people I’ve talked to. It looks like an amazing, somewhat untouched area with still a bit of pristine beauty about it.

Nestled on the lakes’ edge is the Coeur d’Alene Resort. It captures your imagination at the first glimpse and you’re wisked away to enjoying a peacful afternoon on a whitewashed adirondack chair wrapped in a woolen blanket next to your someone special reading a book and sipping a warm drink. You notice the clouds sweep across the sky and a deer peer out of a clearing surrounded by grand pine trees.

If you’re a golf fan you’ve got to check out their local golf course as it is the only course I’ve seen where one of the holes is on an island in the middle of the lake. You enjoy a leisurly boat ride over to the island to sink the put if you’re good enough to be able to land your ball on the green.

Their web site is layed out as well as their property. It’ very fresh and simple to view and navigate. I also viewed their source and while their code is older and depricated there is only one validation error on the main page. This is a great chance to make an excellent web site nearly perfect. Out of all the travel/hotel sites I’ve evaluated this has got to be one of the cleanest outside and in. Kudos to The Coeur d’Alene Resort and their web staff!

- 1 HTML error
- 1 CSS error.
-Passed accessibility test

Overall I would give the site an A-.