First of all: for all my readers who aren’t on twitter yet: a Happy New Year and I send you the best wishes for 2011. And of course thanks for following my posts for another year.
In my opinion every year has to bring something new. Last year brought a lot of new things to the community and myself. This year brings a first annual review blog post.
What you all know
The year 2010 was a year full of new releases, some of the most important:
- Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0 (with plenty of changes to ASP.NET, WPF, …)
- Silverlight 4
- ASP.NET MVC 2 and ASP.NET MVC 3 up to RC2
- SharePoint 2010
- Dynamics CRM 4.0 / xRM
- Lots of changes in Windows Azure (see this post)
- IE9 and HTML 5 support
- Windows Phone 7
- … and plenty of other releases.
What changed for me
Last year wasn’t only a busy year for Microsoft, it also brought a lot of changes for myself. In March I changed from a small local SME to Capgemini, one of the world’s largest consulting companies, looking for new challenges. I also focused more on SharePoint development to complete the career move from in house development to consulting. I also had the chance to go to SharePoint Connections in The Hague, the Netherlands. It was a very interesting conference and a wonderful opportunity to meet some great people of the international SharePoint community.
Another big change in my life, although not technology related, was buying an own place to live in. Did I know how much time it takes to search, do paperwork, the planning and the actual moving … But after all it’s worth it.
Some resolutions
New Year doesn’t go without resolutions. One of last year’s resolutions was to improve my connections with the Microsoft community. Exactly 1 year ago I opened a twitter account and I’m very happy with this way of meeting people and communicating with them. I’d like to thank all my followers for their interest in my tweets and the feedback that I got from them when needed. Next to twitter I’ve continued with my blog (although I had a few quiet moments) and the Belgian user groups (VISUG, BIWUG, BESUG).
But that was last year. For the next 365 days I’d like to spend some extra effort on following points:
- Improve my Silverlight skills, for integration with SharePoint 2010 and some nice applications on Windows Phone 7.
- Write an application for Windows Phone 7. I’ve had my WP7 for 2 months now and it’s a great device! I’ve made a few concepts, but finishing a real application is one of my greatest wishes for this year.
- Continue building my network in the community and hopefully do another lecture this year. I’ve done one 2 years ago and it was a great experience. Lacking the time (because of moving) kept me from doing one this year. But I know the Belgian user groups (and maybe others) are always interested in speakers.
- Keep up with the blogging, as a reference for myself and hopefully for you too. With my recent switch towards SharePoint I’ve noticed finding myself in the situation of “I’ve seen this before” a few times. It’s always easier if you know where to find the solution to your problem.
Let’s make the best out of 2011.