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.

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-.

The Reef Playacar on the Mayan Riviera looks like a wonderful place to stay with plenty of suna dn fun. Like many resorts they cator to the all inclusive crowd as well as pay as you go. Their property has two cerulean swimming pools a jacuzzi, a kid’s pool and club house, with all kinds of activities including dance lessons, water basketball, water polo, tennis cours, sailboats, kayaking, scuba, windsurfing, snorkeling and bicycles. You name the activity and chances are The Reef can accomodate you.

Now if only their web site was that accomodating. Before we start looking at ways to improve the site, they get kudos right off for having an image gallery available right from the top of the page. From there though you get lost as the page navigation is only at the bottom of the page. The site has some wonderful images, but it needs a visual and code overhaul to make it easier for people to find out about their lucious property.

After quickly reviewing their site they weighed in with a number of issues on the main page.
- 45 HTML errors
-CSS passed.
-Failed accessibility test

Overall I would give the site a C.

There is so much potential that I hope someday is realized with this site.

Typetester is a simple yet useful tool for testing your typefaces.
Checkout http://www.typetester.maratz.com/.

Cheers!

Today I found a new place that I’d like to explore, it’s called Tween Waters Inn on Captiva Island in Florida. From the views painted on their web site Tween Waters is a place you could loose yourself in. Forget all the nagging bosses, ringing phones and screaming children, you can just go lay on the beach and sip fruity drinks, read a book and forget the rest of the world existed. However if you crave a bit of adventure they have a wonderful spa, beautiful golf course, all the standard water sports or sea plan rides to explore the area.

Their site is one of those that looks pretty good on the outside, it’s light and airy and makes you feel as if your almost there.

When we look at what’s inside that counts their site needs an overhaul as there is table based layout and old deprecated code. They could increase their search engine rankings, reduce their file size and load times with a good overhaul of their front-end code.

They weighed in with:
- 38 HTML errors
-CSS passed.
-Failed accessibility test

Overall I would give the site a C+.

I’ve been using sprited images for about three years now and they’ve worked very well for a number of reasons including ease of maintenance and fewer http requests.

Here’s a good article on how some of the big guys are using sprited images.

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/speed/tweak/css-sprites/

In the wee hours of this morning my 11 month old son was in bed with us and in an effort to squeeze a few more minutes of sleep out of the night I was showing him the photos on my iPhone. I would use a simple swiping motion with my finger and he’d mimic the action until he was going through the photo album. Now either my child is extremely talented which may be a given or the iPhone is extremely easy to use, or both. I’m partial to both with my son edging out the phone by a ways.

Now I know this may not seem as interesting to you as it was to me, but I’ve owned several phones over the years and none of them could be used as easily by my infant children at 5:30 in the morning. Maybe I’m sleep deprived or something else, but I think this would make a great selling point and commercial for Apple to use. So easy even an infant could use it!

Low cost carrier Vueling Airlines appears to be in a bit of troubleas they’ve now canceled their orders for 3 new Airbus A320 aircraft as well as postponed delivery of six others to 2009 after reporting a 73 percent fall in profits in the third quarter of this year.

Google Page Rank 5/10
Alexa rank of 1,539
YSlow rank F(35)
132 HTML errors on front page
90 CSS errors on front page
Failed Section 508 tests
Half Nut rank F

Overall I think they’ve got a decent site with a strong brand. Their code needs some updating for speed, accessibility and complying with the standards.

On a positive note they have a cool feature where you can download their toolbar to view information about flights. http://www.vueling.com/EN/latest/toolbar.php?language=EN&idMenu=5