East of Seattle in Issaquah Washington is a spectacular place to stay. The Dream of Pete and Judy Nelson , Treehouse Point has a variety of options for experiencing the outdoors.  This is a definite must visit and great addition to my collection of tents, tent house suites and yurts.

“The THP team is committed to a vision of sustainability while providing opportunities for lodging, education and connection in a unique and natural environment. Whether it’s hosting a wedding, planning a corporate retreat or implementing new practices, green principles are always at the forefront of daily operations. Please contact us with questions, to schedule a site tour or plan an event.”

The property hosts two tree house rooms with two more on the way. There is also a lodge as well as more rustic tents.

“During the summer months we set up the miner’s tent and create a romantic “Out of Africa” experience. With a queen size bed, side tables and a few eclectic curiosities placed about, one feels like true adventure is just around the corner. Miners never had it so good!”

My first choice would be to experience one of the two tree houses, Temple of the Blue Moon and Trillium.  It is the largest of the two tree houses. Built in 2006 the room is patterned after the Parthenon in Athens and supported by an ancient Sitka Spruce and Western Red Cedartree.  It sits 16 feet off the forest floor and is only a short walk to a raging river and ten minutes from Snoqualmie Falls.

The interior is immaculately appointed with natural wood features, two classic leather reading chairs, a writing desk, a book case and a beatufifully hand-crafted armoire.    Topping it off is one of the Treehouse Point’s signature queen size beds.  The walls are well insulated with Golden fir to keep your toes nice and toasty year-round.  It also has a number of modern conveniences like an iPod/CD player.

Rates range from $110-$215 per night with an included continental breakfast.  If you’re looking for a unique getaway or a romantic escape with your favorite someone, this is a great place.  If you can imagine how much fun you’d have think of it as the ultimate family friendly kids getaway.  What a way to make a dream come true for your kids to sleep in an actual tree house that’s not in danger of being spied upon by the backyard neighbors.

The website is a bit clunky with few picture of the actual property, but what I saw I liked.  The limited photo gallery took forever even on a fast connection to view a few of the photos.  The photos are high-quality, it just takes a while to see them.  I’m missing a few common links that most pages would have, rates, getting here, etc.  Things like that to really make the web site useful and freindly.

Today I was searching for What old Cameron Moll was up to and searched for Authentic Boredom and one of the top results that came up was via Designers Who Blog.  In their own words here is a description for what Designers Who blog is.

Designers Who Blog is about blogging designers.

Due to the slopover in the industry, included are: Graphic Designers, Web Designers, Illustrators, Typographers, Logo Designers, Artists, Photographers, Marketers, Writers, Branders and Podcasters and more. Much more.

They have a nice clean interface to their blog and a lot of links to various design related information.

When Google Chrome first came out I was excited because it was new and hoped it would receive more wide-spread adoption or at least help kill IE 6 so we don’t have to deal with design and development issues with it.  I’ve used Chrome sporadically  ever since if was released and followed it’s acceptance.  I can’t say that I’ve switched to it though as I just don’t like looking at the thing.  In other words, you can take away my Firefox when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.  I use Firefox for development since there really is no substitute for it for a developer.  Firefox has changed the way web development is done.  With Firebug, Yslow and the myriad of other plug-ins you just can’t beat it.  Also for my off-work hours not quite sure when those are but when I browse for fun it’s with Firefox as well as you just can’t beat it for a browser.

Okay, now after having heard my testament to Firefox there can be no speculation that I’m just a Google fan boy.  I can say right now that I love Firefox, heck I even have my black Firefox t-shirt on right now.  Any positives I have to say about Chrome from this point on would be in comparison to Firefox which I believe is the best browser, so the bar is set very high.

So let’s give Chrome another try today and see how it stacks up. Here is what Google says about its product.

Fast start-up
Google Chrome launches in a snap.

Okay, fast start up.  Yep, it started fast, but then again just about every program I have starts fast unless you’re looking a Photoshop is this really an issue.  Any difference in the start up time is really negligible and unimportant. For fast loading I’ve got to say it was a tie.

Fast loading
Google Chrome loads web pages quickly.

I tried out a few heavy pages like ESPN and others with video content and there wasn’t perceptable difference.  So I then Googled browser speed tests and found the following.

The visual test – navigating the 3D JavaScript world

I love this simple speed test and you can quickly see the difference if you have multiple browsers installed on your system (you should if you consider yourself a web developer). Go to Canvascape – “Experimenting With Textures” developed by Ben Joffe. Change the resolution to High (click on the “Apply” button) and visually compare how fast the web browsers display the textured 3D world (inspired by Wolfenstein).

Running against the latest Firefox I’ve got to say Google out performed Firefox in this test.   There is a noticeable difference in the smoothness and speed of walking around the maze.  Google Chrome is the clear winner of this point at least for this test.

Another test I ran was to see how the JavaScript engines in each browser compared.  To do this I ran the benchmark tool at http://jsbenchmark.celtickane.com.  It wasn’t even close.  Chrome was at least 2-3 times faster.  So applications that run a lot of JavaScript like web based email clients I think this would make a substantial difference.  Google Chrome is the clear winner again.

Fast search
Search the web right from the address bar.

This one is pretty clear cut,  Google has search integrated into the url location so you can type an address or search right form that box.  Okay, I guess this is a fraction of a percent better as with Firefox I have to click in the Google search box right NEXT to the url box.  Is it a big deal, probably slightly more than the start up issue but not enough to get me to switch browsers.

I have two problems with Google Chrome that will keep me from using it as my browser.  The first is that I’m a designer/developer and can’t live without Firebug.  There’s no way I could use Google Chrome to develop with.  Now if you’re not developing and just want to use it to browse YouTube , blogging or your favorite sites I could see this.  I’d recommend it to my family, wife or children as it is a very fast browser and has some nice functionality.  For development though there’s no question.  I wouldn’t feel bad for Chrome though, this is one of the same reasons I don’t use Internet Explorer anymore to develop (only for testing).

The second issue I have with Chrome is that like all Google tools they’re just not as visually attractive as other products.  This is an important issue but not the most important or I’d be using  Safari for Windows.  For me Chrome and Safari are neck-and-neck for my back-up browser.  I use them about equally the same, which is about 5% of my time.  I do think Chrome has come a long way though.  I mean if you compare it to any version of Internet Explorer it’s much cleaner and nicer to look at.

To sum it all up I don’t think using Chrome again today has changed how I’ve felt about it.  I know its a good browser, it’s fast and search engine friendly but for a development environment I just can’t leave Firefox behind.

Okay, sorry I missed yesterday on my list of Google products to test.  I have to admit I’m turning into somewhat of an Apple junkie.  With the release of Apple’s iPad yesterday I got a bit sidetracked.  I don’t know if it’s the form or the function I love best about Apple products, but they catch my eye.  Having said that I do seem to have a certain monetary threshold for my addiction.  I ponied up for the iPod, the iPhone and Apple TV but I just can’t seem to buy a Macbook when I can get a rather nice HP Notebook with a large screen for a third of the price of a Macbook.  Who knows, maybe the iPad will be my first step towards a bigger Mac machine. I am finding the price of the iPad a bit daunting even though they noted the price as a selling point, it’s hard to pay that much for a non-vital piece of hardware.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m dreaming up uses for the thing as we speak but we’ll have to see if I can actually justify it.

Now to get back focused on the reason of this posting I do have an interesting antidote about Google products.  I think I fairly open minded about trying new technology, so I’ve been trying to use the Exchange to search for messages and the Windows search to search for files.  I’ve got to say that I find using these tools like showering with my shirt on.  It just doesn’t feel quite right and I’m never really sure about the results.  I finally got fed up with it the other night and went back to using Google Desktop.  I think we’re pretty safe at saying up until Bing that Microsoft just has not understood search.  I don’t think I’m going out on a limb here, but time after time I’ve been disappointed by Microsoft search results.  On more than one occasion I’ve been forced to use Sharepoint as a corporate web site.  If you’ve ever used this you know the search and menu system suck to put it bluntly.

I was in the need to get my 1099 information to my accountant and was busily searching nook and cranny for information and finally got fed up.  It took me a few seconds to remember that Google is a web company and that the interface is of course any browser.  It doesn’t even have to be Chrome, I can continue to use my beloved Firefox browser and all is right with the world.  I can search Google and or my desktop to find content.  It was like riding a bike, within minutes I was back in the saddle searching and “Finding” content I needed.   Chalk one up for Google Desktop.

One complaint that I do have about Google Desktop and it seems like Google products in general is that they are a bit too minimalistic.  I mean can you think of images that represent their products?  Microsoft has it’s colored flag, Office has it’s puzzle pieces, Apple has an…wait for it…apple on ll it’s products.  What does Google have to represent their products or even Google as a brand, two O’s possibly.  I was looking for an image to liven up the post as images catch the eye better than text and what could I really use, the icon?

My Month-long Google Products Experiment: Google Books

Now were on day three of our Google Products experiment.  To give a quick recap of what we’ve covered thus far, day one saw us revisiting Google Alerts.  I’ve got to say that I’ve actually anticipated checking my email each day.  I might mention that this has been one of my Gmail account.  Now before anyone starts crying foul I’ve had a gmail account for three or four years and never used it.  I got it first as it was something new but didn’t like using it and still don’t, but we’ll save the details of that for another day.  It was quickly abandoned in favor of my Yahoo Mail account.  I kept the Gmail account as a spam catcher and it’s remained that way until this day.  Anyway, I digress.   The point is that I’ve actually been interested in checking my mail to see just what Google Alerts had scrounged up for me today.  So far Google Alerts have kept my interest.

Next up was Google Blog Search.  As opposed to Google Alerts I don’t feel the same excitement to revisit the Blog Search.  It seemed superfluous the first time I used it and I still feel the same way today.

Now for today’s product to evaluate, we’ll take a look at Google Books.    At first glance Google Books looks like a ho-hum portal for Jr. Highschool book reports.  I see old copies of Life Magazine, never-before heard of “classic” books and old rag magazines about Don Cheadle.  Yawn…  Maybe it’s me, maybe I just don’t get it.  Maybe it’s the same reason I don’t own an Amazon Kindle or read books on my iPhone.  I never want to read an entire book on line.  Reading is a sacrosanct act for me and you just can’t beat a physical, tangible book in your hands and the smell of a new book.

There’s got to be something more behind having these books online.  I don’t think Google would go through the effort to create and maintain the site without a reason.  I dug deeper and scrolled to the bottom for the About Google Books link.  Here Google provides five reasons why the have added these resources to the internet.

1. Search:  This makes sense for all those jr. high school book reports, little Jonny needs a resource to quote.
2. Browse Books Online:  Let me drop my smug persona (we write what we know, right)  for a bit and I guess I can imagine that there are people unable to visit their local library or afford to purchase all the standard classics for themselves.  This could be a dream come true for many people to have access to all these tombs.
3. Learn More–Fast:  Not only have they made it possible for little Jonny to read all about Don Cheadle, they’ve provided all sorts of meta data about each work like references and maps. Okay, that’s a good thing too….I guess.
4. Buy the Book …or Borrow it from the Library:   Ah  now we’re getting somewhere.  We can actually purchase the magazine about Don Cheadle.  At last!  Surely I jest, I’m a proud American capitalist, why else would I be writing this…;-)  We can leave number four without mentioning the last part of this item, the … borrow it from the Library portion.  Now I this is a great tie in, I love it when something serves more than one purpose.
5. Where do the Books Come From:  This is the kick for me or what makes the whole thing worth while.  I love libraries and history, this project is joining the two for the best of both worlds.  In number five Google tells us where the books come from and about their Partner Program and the Library Project.

Overall Grade: C

Pros: Documenting some of the best works for all time.  Making content available to millions of people around the world.

Cons: I have to read about Don Cheadle. ;-)  I don’t like to read books on-line.  What’s the longevity of this product for me.  Honestly I’ve never used it before and will probably never use it in the future.  I have many of these works available for me for free as well on my iPhone but I don’t read them there either.