2006 – The Year Behind

Freelancing

Work this year was all freelance. It was a new experience for me, and not a bad one at that. I got to work on some different projects for different organizations, which was definitely interesting. The projects ranged from simple web site upgrades/maintenance, to building databases, to working on custom software. There was a good variety of projects this year.

There’s much to be learned when working freelance, or being self-employed. A big thing is managing your time properly, so work gets done when it is supposed to be done. There’s also client management: keeping current clients up to date, and keeping in touch with previous clients, so as to ensure they are aware of your availability in case of any upcoming projects. Referrals from current/previous clients to new ones are also nice.

As a flip side to time management, when working from home, you can do what you like, when you like. As long as the work gets done on time. I enjoyed that flexibility, especially in the summer when I wanted to be outdoors more. Plus, there’s the benefit of working at home in a comfortable environment.

Disneyland

I finally made it to Disneyland! In March, my family stayed in Anaheim, California, for several days while we went to Disneyland. It was so great. For my siblings and I, it was our first trip ever, and the first in a very long time for my parents. We all enjoyed it.

We had three days split between the actual Disneyland, and the newer California Adventure theme park. We went on nearly all the rides inside Disneyland. I particularly enjoyed the Matterhorn Bobsleds, Indiana Jones, and Thunder Mountain. There were many more of course, but those ones I really liked. Paradise Pier in California Adventure had several rides, including a ferris wheel and roller coaster.

We also spent a day at the Universal Studios theme park, which was excellent as well. There were any number of rides ands attractions based on numerous movies from Universal. There were rides for Jurassic Park and The Mummy, short movies based on Shrek and Terminator, a walking trip through Van Helsing, and a tour of the backlots.

It was a great several days down there, and I hope to do it again sometime.

ASP.NET

November last year, I started dabbling in ASP.NET. From then through this year I did quite a bit of experimenting with the technology, and a very large amount of reading. The web is a very good resource – it’s just a matter of finding the information you need, but when you do, it’s usually very helpful. Besides being part of the .NET framework, ASP.NET had so many improvements over Classic ASP that I couldn’t imagine going back. ASP.NET automates – or otherwise greatly simplifies – so many things that had to be done manually in Classic ASP. I’m still learning, but it’s been a very worthwhile undertaking.

When I first started started with ASP.NET, it was using 1.0, as I had Visual Studio .NET 2002 (which itself is a great tool). Right there was a powerful combination, and it worked. But .NET 2.0, along with Visual Studio 2005, have been available for over a year now, and I decided to take the plunge, so to speak. I installed VS 2005 Standard, and started with some tutorials. I was immediately impressed with the improvements ASP.NET 2.0 offers over 1.0. Things like master pages, site navigation, and improved data binding for controls are incredible. I suspect I’ll now be going through another cycle much like I did a year ago, with learning a new technology (or a newer version of one). I suspect that any new projects I start with ASP.NET will be using 2.0. Time to move forward.

IE 7 Released

Hell nearly froze over late this year. A newer version of Microsoft’s web browser, Internet Explorer 7, was released in October. This is astonishing as version 6 was released 5 years ago! That took quite a long time, and was about time too. IE7 fixed numerous problems present in IE6, such as support for web standards. But it seems like a partial fix, as many gaps in support still remain. IE7 also added tabbed windows, a feature that other browsers such as Firefox and Opera have had for a few years now. Better late than never…

Blogging

I’ve done quite a lot of reading blogs this year, on any number of subjects. Writing, not so much. Including this post, my post count for 2006 comes to 15…15 posts in twelve months?!? *hangs head in shame* That’s a far cry from other blogs such as Snook or 456 Berea Street.

Now that that’s over with, I did get to write on some different subjects. I did a number of posts based on my learning experience when moving to ASP.NET, comparing techniques with Classic ASP. I’ve actually got a couple more posts on the sibject in various states of completion, so they will be posted soon enough. I also wrote a bit about database abstraction in .NET (not specific to ASP.NET, but .NET in general). I’m actually going to be writing a bit more on this subject in the coming weeks (months? We’ll see). There’s also a post on photography, a number of assorted (general) subjects, and some talk about web browsers as well.

2007 – The Year Ahead

Web Directions North

In February, I’ll be attending my first-ever web developer’s conference in Vancouver, BC. I’ve been interested in other conferences such as South by SouthWest, but didn’t have the means to attend. But I do this time around! I’m really looking forward to it – I hope to be able to meet other people that work in the web development industry.

Web Standards Take Hold

Up until the last few years, web standards were virtually unheard of. But more recently, sites have been developed using standard markup and styles, so they look more or less the same in different browsers (every browser does things a little differently). Unfortunately, the vast majority of sites are still using design and markup from yesteryear. Nightmarish nested tables for layout. Spacer GIFs. FONT tags everywhere. Sites that only work in Internet Explorer…Sigh. People don’t seem to be getting the message of standards. I hope 2007 will be the Year of Web Standards, where people building new sites do so with standards in mind, and/or take to time to redo old sites with new standards. For the record, any new site I start is built using the current web standards, so the site should be accessible, consistent, and USABLE by virtually all web browsers and platforms.

Windows Vista Sees Light of Day

The other much-overdue software package from Microsoft is Vista, the new version of Windows. Like with IE, the last release was 5 years ago. Vista has been released to businesses and corporate customers, but will not be available to the consumer until February, which I think is where it will matter. Personally, I won’t be moving to Vista. There’s nothing in Vista that I don’t already have or need with XP. Aero? Sounds nice, but it needs a separate video card, and isn’t critical. DRM? No thanks, you can keep your DRM. 7 different versions? I thought the Home/Pro split with XP was bad.

The way I see it, Vista is looking like another Windows ME, which was released after Windows 98 and was more of an update than an upgrade. As long as I can do what I need to with XP, I’ll be happy. And I’ve actually been eyeing an eventual, possible move to either Mac or Linux. Whether it will happen is something else, but that’s more likely than me moving to Vista.

IE 8

I previously wrote that IE7 was recently released. It’s progress, but why stop there? There’s more work to be done! I hope that we will see an IE8 next year, or at least a point release (7.1,7.5, etc), with several updates rolled in. What I’m interested in seeing is more support for current standards, so IE can catch up with the other modern web browsers out there today. It’s my hope that now that Microsoft has released IE7, they’ll see the benefit in keeping the browser current, and release upgrades more frequently than 5 years apart! Everyone will benefit from this.

Build a CMS

I think Content Management Systems are pretty neat. They allow users to easily add or update online content without having to manually edit and upload individual files. This also reduces the need for technical knowledge of things such as editing HTML or CSS. Finally, a good CMS will provide a wide variety of functionality, such as news, calendars, photo galleries, and more.

I was at a presentation some time ago where I saw demonstrated a CMS produced by a local IT company, and had an inspiration: why not try building my own CMS? I wouldn’t be doing it to compete with other commercial packages; it would be more of an exercise, giving me a chance to learn and practice my development skills. I’ve already sketched out a very rough idea for such a system, and I think it would be doable. I’ll have to do more design work, figuring out individual sections of the overall system, so there’s some work ahead before I get down to programming.

Blogging

As mentioned above, I do plenty of reading of blogs, but not enough writing, in my opinion. I’m hoping to be more frequent with my postings in the next year. I’d like to write about a number of subjects actually, but largely towards programming or web development. I do have a new interest in photography, so there may be some babblings (err…writings) on that subject as well.

Redesign

There have been many site redesigns around the web this year…some sites are looking quite excellent. I’d like to get a new face onto this site, and try to establish a sort of personal brand. The portfolio section needs some work, I should create a section for articles, and so on. I’m no designer, so this will take some time to do. But once I get an idea of an overall layout, I can set that up pretty quickly. It’s things like graphics, logos, colour schemes, and typography that I have trouble with.

Conclusion

Well, that’s my list done. I explained the big events for me in the last year, and shared my hopes/expectations for the next year. It will be interesting to look back on this post a year from now and see which of my hopes were actually confirmed.

Well then, that’s the end of 2006. Time to see what 2007 will bring.

Happy New Year!