by Brian on January 26, 2012
We spent ten days in Florida, from January 6th to the 16th, and I took a few photos while we were there. I felt like I had a really hard time taking decent photos on this trip. I think the big problem was that I had to use my cheap telephoto lens a lot out of necessity and it’s just not good enough to take quality photos. Anyway, here is a small selection of my favorites:
You can see all of the photos I took over at flickr. They’re broken down into sets by the location they were taken at:
by Brian on January 22, 2012
It’s now time for my list of professional and career focused things I’d like to tackle in 2012. This is going to be edge of your seat exciting for most of you so I’ll understand if you need to take a few minutes to catch your breath after each of these items:
- Set Fore Score free. Several years ago I wrote a web application for tracking and monitoring your personal golf performances. Since that time I’ve let it slide to the wayside as more important things, like projects that pay the bills, came along. This year I’d like to either sell off the site entirely or swap it from a limited demo/upgrade system to a free for everyone application.
- Use Amazon Web Services more. I have a lot of programs and processes that would be much better served running in the poorly named “cloud” than on the servers they currently live on. Plus, I’ve always wanted to learn how to use things like EC2 and S3 but never got around to it. [Spoiler Alert: I actually started using EC2 before this post was published and things are going well.]
- More iOS Apps. I’m going to try and get back into iOS programming this year. I would like to release two or three unique apps instead of cheating like I did in 2012 and releasing multiple apps based on the same codebase. It was clear I needed to learn more about Objective-C and iOS programming so I’m working through some books and tutorials to get up to speed (I posted a review of one such book earlier this month).
- Less client work. After eight years, both full and part-time, in the client services business I might be starting to get worn out a bit. Freelancing isn’t the best long-term career solution even when disregarding the fatigue factor. It’s difficult at times to be so reliant on a client base that can dump you at any given moment. I’d like to create more revenue opportunities outside of freelance client work in 2012 to help provide more financial stability.
by Brian on January 3, 2012
I’m a web developer by trade but in 2011 I started to get the urge to do some “real” programming again. What I condescendingly mean by “real” is writing software that you compile and run outside of a web browser.
I had brief affair with iPhone Apps last year but I ultimately felt uncomfortable the entire time I was making them. So for Christmas I asked and received a copy of Aaron Hillegass’ Objective-C Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide.
My bookshelf has six books about C++ on it but they were bought and read back when I was in college. And, for reference, I was a freshman back when the calendar year started with the number 19 so to say that I was a bit rusty probably goes without saying. The Hillegass book is thankfully written for people with little to no knowledge of how C works so I was grateful he spent so much time going over concepts that had collected dust in my brain for so long.
Once you get through the basic C portions of the book things move smoothly into Objective-C and the differences and similarities. If you have any kind of programming background heading in to reading this book it basically breaks down into learning the syntax of Objective-C and making sure you’ve got a handle on how pointers work. Side note: if you want a brief swim in the waters of Computer Science then check out that Wikipedia entry on pointers.
The book itself is composed of 37 chapters of varying length but most of them are between five to seven pages long. This was especially nice because slogging through a programming book, with all of its dense terminology, can get a bit tiresome. Short chapters make progress seem quick and it doesn’t discourage you into taking breaks.
You’ll spend most of your time making command-line tools in C and Objective-C but there are two short chapters on making a simple task management program for the iPhone and Mac. If you’re looking to jump right in and make iOS or Mac OS X applications then this book is the first step in that process. You won’t know learn enough from this book alone to become a full-time application writer but there are other books you can buy after finishing this one to get you on your way.
If you’re a nerd who wants to learn Objective-C and, eventually, start writing iOS Apps or Mac programs then this book is highly recommended.
by Brian on January 1, 2012
The Shelly Beach made a list of things she wanted to do last year and I thought I’d try something similar myself for 2012. This list isn’t “career” related so hopefully those that get really sleepy reading about nerdy things won’t be bored. I’ll make those folks suffer through that list in another post.
Here is my 2012 list of things to do, in no particular order:
- Take one photo a day. Either with my fancy SLR or just my phone. Sharing them on the social Internets is optional.
- Facebook. I really don’t use Facebook so I need to either get active with it or just dump it completely. I’m leaning towards a dump because, quite frankly, the whole thing kind of gives me the heebie-jeebies. (Editor’s Note: I knew that word was hyphenated without having to look it up. It appears I don’t need to add “Confirm how smug and smart I think I am.” to this list).
- Survive the Mayan Apocalypse. Or really any other apocalypse be they of Mesoamerican or zombie origin. I think years of playing video games has prepared me pretty well for any zombie scenarios but I’d rather not have to test that theory.
- Write more. I think the word “blog” is stupid when used as either a noun or a verb. So I resolve to write more “posts” on this site and we can just ignore the irony of it all being done on the back of popular blogging software. I want to release a Kindle Single just so I can impress strangers by calling myself an author so I need all the practice I can get.
- Move my legs in a high tempo fashion. I have $90 running shoes, a big treadmill and a FitBit so there’s really nothing else I need.
- Become less bitter about being crushed by a professional athlete. LeBron James broke my heart but 2012 is the year I learn to love again. I’m looking at you, Kyrie Irving. This does not mean I will avoid reading The Whore of Akron though.
- Read more history books. There once was a time when I would read over a dozen history books a year. I feel like one book a month is a nice average that falls somewhere between unthinkable to high school dropouts and pathetic to librarians and I’d like to get back to that spot this year.
There you go. Some of it is obviously a bit tongue in cheek; except the part about the zombie apocalypse which I couldn’t be more serious about.
