The year 2011 brought about a few great accomplishments, some disappointments, and finally some big changes for me. Lets review some of these.

Job Change

One of the biggest changes was a job change.  I left Sogeti USA in May to take a new position at a local start up. Initially I was hired to do some Ruby on Rails development, but have since migrated to doing mobile application development. I’m sure I’ll do more Ruby on Rails at the company, but for the moment they have me focusing on the mobile side of things.  This job change was a good one. I needed a change of pace from doing .NET/C# development, and this job afforded me the opportunity I was looking for. Note, that I have nothing against C# or .NET, it’s more about the fact that I had been doing it for almost 10 years and I needed to do something different.

Accomplishments

Just for Bands

In January, my partner and I launched Just for Bands and the first application in the Just for Bands suite, LiveShow.  This launch was a summation of a good chunk of work done throughout 2010. This application was the basis for our foundation in doing Ruby on Rails development, and my reintroduction into doing web development.

The Noows

In July I launched version .5 of The Noows, a news voting site that I had been sitting on and pushing off for about 3 years.  Written in Ruby on Rails, it was my reintroduction into doing HTML, CSS, and Javascript, as if you couldn’t tell.  This website will probably get more work in the coming year, especially in the user interface portions as I spend some time learning HTML, CSS, and Javascript.

Objective-C & iPhone Development

The programming language I had originally intended to spend time learning this year was Clojure. But that got put on hold for various reasons, and at work I started doing iPhone development. As a result, I picked up the Objective-C language. While, not an expert in the language by any means, I am some what fluent enough that I can create decent working applications to run on the iPhone.  I’ll need to expand this skillset more in 2012 so that I can not only write iPhone applications but also iPad and OSX applications as well.

Disappointments

Weight Loss

This was a big let down for me. Not because I didn’t reach my goal weight for the year, but because I did so little to try and reach it. I did practically nothing this year in the area of weight loss. I’m overweight and it’s really starting to bug me when I look at myself in the mirror.  As a result, this is going to be one of my primary focus areas for 2012.  My goal for 2012 will be the same as it was in 2011, to lose one pound a week.  This goal, is not only mostly achievable, but is a healthy weight loss goal.  Sure there will be plateaus, but the general average is doable.

Blogging

I slacked on my blogging this year. I hope to remedy this in 2012 with at least a post a week. Blogging was one of my initial avenues for self promotion and I need to start using it again, especially to focus on areas such as programming and technical commentary.  These are the areas I feel I have a lot to say and I should say more on the subject.

Reading

While I managed to read 11 books this year (not counting technical books), I only managed to read three books from what some of my friends and I have dubbed “The List” and that’s a disappointment because I wanted to read a full 12 books off that list. Next year the goal is 6 books off the list (double what I did this year) but also 12 books total, making it at least one a month.  My eventual (long term) reading goal is 2 books a month (not counting technical books).

Goals for 2012

So if you were paying attention you noticed that I mentioned many of my 2012 goals above. There will be a heavy focus on weight loss, reading, and blogging in 2012.

But missing is a technical goal. That technical goal will be to build and release two mobile applications, on both platforms.  I want to make two applications and release them to iPhone and Android platforms.

Also, there will be some more minor goals for things like Just for Bands. I’m hoping for big things there in 2012, including at least one marketing campaign of some kind.