I know, there are a ton of apps out there that handle project management – but I can’t find one the works for what I want it to do. Do I start settling or start hacking something together!? It’s almost like I want a project managing/journaling/note taking type thing that I can email ANYTHING to and it would just take care of keeping stuff around for me. I’m pretty sure evernote does something like that but still, not exactly what I’m looking for…sigh.

I thinking to hack something up but what’s going to prevent it from winding up in the graveyard of half finished apps sitting in my documents folder?

BTW – ran across this awesome little note-taking app today – very nice stuff! Go Paprika!

Julie just had a baby shower for our son Joshua – here’s the picture I drew for her. Love you Julie! You’re the best!

So, I’m thinking it’s time for an information detox. I need to lay off the continuous stream that seems to be clouding my life and instead opt for things that bring results and satisfaction. So, starting now until March 1st, I’m going to abide by the following rules:

1. No blog reader. If I’m searching for info that’s one thing, but to sit down and read everything that spills out of there is really quite the chore. When I’m done, I feel like I need to trim that thing down…

2. Podcasts are ok – but the list needs to be trimmed.

3. No digg, reddit, popurls, failblog, or other junk media sites. I don’t think I’m going to miss these – I can’t remember more than one of the things I saw on there today despite having just spent 20 minutes checking them all out.

4. Sitting down at the computer needs to require a plan and a purpose. No idle surfing because there’s nothing better to do.

5. Facebook is ok, but only once a day.

6. Books are ok too, but try to read something fun and not necessarily educational.

This has been a long time coming – I’ll post some updates to let you know how it goes. I’m off to delete some often used bookmarks…

Learned to Type
Learned C#

I’m certainly no master of either but having spent the last 6 months with my face buried in Visual Studio has really helped loosen some of my previous bias toward other languages and technologies. Plus, it has really done something to help my long standing problem of not having a solid, server side language in my toolbox to rely on. Granted, I can sling some php and coldfusion when needed but it usually starts with a few google searches to remember how to perform the most basic of functionality.

On the learning side, this year I feel like I want to learn a few new things. I don’t expect to be great at any of them but I do want to learn each and actually create some kind of product with each so that my experimentation is not just academic in nature. I also find that with a project or end goal I can really learn what a platform can offer. So, in no particular order, here is the list for 2010!

Silverlight
Now, I realize I’ve given silverlight some crap in the past, and I still think the platform could use a few more designers but the time to snub my nose at microsoft in this area has ended. I don’t believe that being exclusively a flash developer is going to cut it anymore and I can really start seeing a day where it’s just not going to matter which one is used. Silverlight is really compelling in some area’s – the tooling, which I’ll write about someday, include really top notch products like Visual Studio and Expression Blend 3. The file size seems to be dramatically small (3k for the sample video player that I made.) And, since I feel comfortable with C#, includes a development language that I can jump right into. There are some drawbacks for sure – one being that some of the simplest actions are incredibly verbose. Second being that player detection doesn’t appear to be a solved problem (I can’t tell you how many times I come across a silverlight example that is only a blank square on a page) but those things aside, Silverlight (version 3 in particular) can no longer be cast aside as a platform that just “doesn’t get it.” Also, the rate at which new versions are being released with entirely new feature sets is simply astounding – version 3 was released in the summer and 4 months later the beta for version 4 was released. Sweet Georgia Brown that’s fast! Anyway, I see a lot of good things happening in this area and it’s time to lay down arms and start seeing what can be done with this platform. Oh, did I mention sketchflow? I don’t know why this doesn’t get more press, it’s a slick little feature in Blend that allows you to rapidly prototype apps without really having to get into the guts of the design…

Jquery
I was going to say “javascript” but really, it seems like learning jquery will accomplish 100% of the learning I want to do in this area. It seemed my last foray into javascript ending with frustration with browser checking, poor debugging (aside for the hundreds of alert boxes I would use at any given time) and still accounting for the people who just had javascript turned off. It doesn’t seem to be that way anymore with the browser having robust javascript tools and the requirement that javascript be enabled for a site to work properly. Javascript is here to stay and not knowing it is like not being comfortable with HTML or CSS. All the difficulty has been abstracted away and now-a-days, programming web applications and not knowing how to wield jquery beyond a few simple actions is kind of a handicap. I don’t need to be a drag-and-drop using mofo here but I do need to be able to use it to whip out some front end goodness here and there to really make my applications for interactive and less kludgey. Plus, it’s the only item on the list here that doesn’t require a plugin. I need to have something to use when proprietary software is not an option. I’m finding all the polish that jquery can provide an app is invaluable and not every single action in an app requires a page load. Granted, I can use jquery but I’m just not comfortable with it yet and I really need to be.

Unity 3D
Hardware accelerated 3d content in the browser (or mac, pc, iphone, or wii) is not something to take lightly. The IDE is incredible (with a free version to boot), the rate at which content can be created is staggering, and you can literally sit down and make a game in a red bull fueled night of awesomeness. The thing about unity is that it’s the one thing on this list that does not compete with the others. It’s in a world of its own, sure there are examples of true 3d being done with the other platforms but nothing like this. No joke, I seriously want to make a fogbugz app with this thing that will show cases and workload in full 3d goodness.

Flash
Having said all that – this is not the year I give up on Flash. There is still A LOT of awesomeness in this product and the community supporting it is frankly incredible. I will admit, I’m finding myself becoming more and more of a flash purist – Flex is great but the focus on complexity (I’m looking at you cairngorm) and development frameworks rather than, well, just plain awesome stuff is kind of a turn off. Flex 4 is exciting but it’s not holding my interest like I thought it would and Catalyst is something I really just don’t even want to get into. In my Flash world I’d like to see less applications and more fun. Games, programmatic art, and animation are all things that drew me to flash and I’d like to revisit those initial feelings again. Last year, one of the most entertaining projects I worked on was a little game that didn’t really go anywhere but was a total blast to put together. I’d like to have more of those experiences this year – not just with Flash but with all of these tools. At this point, I’m certainly most comfortable with Flash though, and want to keep sharpening that edge throughout the year.

So, it seems like it’s going to be an awesome year for learning. I’lll post my updates here and if I crash your browser with one of my ridiculous experiments I apologize/warn you in advance.

But this is one of my new favorite photos – now I just need one with Julie on the other side.

• My withdrawal wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. Frankly, it was pretty pleasant. I drank lots of water, ate a good breakfast, I even exercised some. Oh, and I stayed heavily medicated with tylenol for most of the weekend. I premedicated that is. I think you could have shot me and I wouldn’t have really felt it. It was cool though, no headache (which is really nice because I become a total girl when I get the slightest twinge of any type of head pain.) I was totally lethargic for most of the day though.
• I can tell my mood already is a lot more stable, no morning blitz, no early afternoon crash, no mid afternoon blitz no late afternoon crash, no laying awake at night wondering when I might fall asleep. It’s subtle but I never really realized what a roller coaster I was riding throughout the day. I’m hoping it’ll only get better.
• I have realized that I really like coffee. I like the smell, I like the cups, I like taste, I like everything about it. Quitting is really hard and I don’t know how well it’s going to work as a long term thing. I could see going back but it would certainly have to be decaf.
• I’m trying to give (decaffeinated) tea a chance but we’re not there yet. I know it’s complex and all that stuff and I really want to like tea but I don’t know yet. I’ll keep trying but it is just not doing it for me.
• Water is great but I don’t know if it works in every situation. Sometimes you just want something with some taste you know?

All in all, I happy with the decision I made. Anything that makes life simpler right now is a plus in my book. We’ll see how it goes.

I’ve been trying to do some new things this year that either a.) simplify my life or b.) make it better. First it was learning how to type – I don’t need to belabor it here (as I have in other posts) but it was obviously a step in the right direction as I no longer need to stare straight down at my keyboard while attempting to type even the most mundane of sentences. Granted, it may not have helped any of you as I now have the ability to crank out way more words than I could have before but still, I thought it was a good move.

Next up – I stopped drinking sodas, mainly coke and pepsi. In 2009 I have not had a single coke or pepsi whereas before, I would consume at least one or the other daily (not counting when we would go out to eat where I would probably down 5-6 refills…I’m a nervous drinker I guess. ) Overall, this wasn’t too hard because I was still drinking coffee so I didn’t have any caffeine withdrawals…which brings us to today:

I going to stop drinking coffee, like right now.

I have a pretty solid coffee regimine where I probably drink 5-9 cups of coffee a day (assuming a cup of coffee is about 6 ounces.) I carry around one of those silly stainless steel thermo-mug things (the ones that look like Robocops missing forearm) full of coffee in very much the same way my son carries around his sippee cup full of milk…except he’ll grow out of that, and I’ll still be carrying mine around. Mainly though, I found that coffee has provided me some pretty adverse side effects:

• My breath smells like coffee – which is, well, it’s pretty gross to be honest with you. Maybe some people can drink coffee and have the breath of a spring unicorn eating a bush full of Listerine bisquits but I’m certainly not one of them. I’d like to stop it with the coffee breath.
• I’m nervous it’s staining my teeth. Well, I’m actually sure it is….
• It’s expensive. I make coffee at home but it only takes one or two large coffees from just about anywhere to destroy any savings you have from making it at home.
• I need coffee. Like, if i don’t have it soon after I wake up I start having withdrawals like some common crack fiend. Now, there are some comparisons to crack fiends that could be favorable, like: “He saved that guy from a burning building like he was a crack fiend saving his crack!” but for all intensive purposes – having withdrawals on Saturday morning when I should be playing with my son is not cool.
• The energy from the caffeine is a lie. Sure, it amps me up pretty good – but honestly, it’s a muddled energy. I’m jumpy, excitable, and edgy and I find it really difficult to focus on any given task.
• Drinking all the coffee means I keep a lot of gum on hand…and now I’m developing an addiction to gum. This one isn’t that bad though because gum is freakin’ awesome.
• My sleep patterns are all messed up. I have a hard time going to sleep, and not having a good night of sleep just totally sucks.

So there you go, tomorrow I will wake up, exercise, and then take an exorbitant amount of tylenol to fend off the massive headache that will be attempting to pound my skull into bacon grease by about 11 in the morning. Hopefully, by Tuesday I should be somewhat coherent and I’ll try to update the blog to let you know the aftermath. Just the fact that I’m going to have to go through this is almost enough of a reason to stop drinking coffee…