Saturday, August 22, 2009

Coming Up for Air

So much for posting once a month...

I've been extremely busy in my life lately, mostly due to work, which is a good thing given the state of the economy. But I'm finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and I think my schedule will be a little more normal in the coming weeks.

July was my one year anniversary at Art & Logic. And what a year! I've worked on 13 different projects throughout the past year, all of which I've really enjoyed. I've programmed in C++, Java, Objective C, ActionScript3/Flex, Javascript and C# (including ASP.net). I've written desktop programs, BlackBerry apps, iPhone apps (2 in the store, 1 pending approval, and some others still in progress) and a web application targeting the iPhone (and BlackBerry in the near future).
Needless to say, I'm having a blast and working as a consultant is providing me the variety I crave in a job.

One of my most recent projects, hinted at above, is an ASP.net application targeting the iPhone and BlackBerry platforms. This was my first production-level web application, although I've spent a little time on my own learning Ruby on Rails and a little bit of time at work learning TurboGears. It's been a lot of fun, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed using ASP.net.

What I've realized during this project though, is that I really need to come up to speed on Javascript/CSS. This project was small enough that I didn't run into too many issues, but if I want to continue doing web applications (and I do), I really need a more thorough knowledge of those two technologies. I'm planning on buying some books in the near future that should hopefully give me the basics I need to build a stronger knowledge base.

I'm also hoping to provide some updates to the Grader program I developed for my brother. The deadline on that is pretty tight as his football season is rapidly approaching. So there may be a couple of late nights for me coming up in the near future.

One other project I have in mind is a simple application written on top of the Google app engine. I am a secretary for a local organization, and I'd like to create a web application that allows people to submit information to me, aggregate it, and resend it out to concerned parties. Sifting through separate emails to gather the information and compose a new email is taking up too much of my time. And it's another chance to get some web development experience.

Code Kata and Learning Math have been on hold for quite a while, but I'm hoping to get those back on track also.