The beginning of a new year means a little bit of reviewing of last year.  Read on (if you care to that is LOL) to see how I evaluated myself on the dev goals I set out to accomplish.

HEY!  I completed one year of this "what I'm going to do to become a better code" blogging-thing!  And I have to say, I'm quite pleased with what I accomlished and YES!  I am going to do another one for THIS year.  But before I do that, let's review. 

Completed?	Goal	Notes
May 02	Present at Ottawa Code Camp 2009	Presented my Windows Services Down'n'Dirty presentation to about 25+ people.  It didn't go off without a hitch, BUT the hiccups made it all the more personable and interactive.  I was lucky enough to be able to give away four cool books, plus my Windows Service book to someone who was truely keen!
Mar 09	Get my next MS certification (Web Apps)	YAHOO!  I'm done and officially recognized by Microsoft that I can take a Microsoft exam! :>  But seriouly I learned a boat load of cool things about asp.net.  Ya, there were some dud info in there too, but the people were great in the study group!
	Learn WPF/Silverlight/XAML so much that I become the Markus Egger of Ottawa (if you're doing WPF and haven't heard of this guy, you're missing out on some great info), ya, I know this is a "reach for the stars" kind of goal but nothing ventured, nothing gained (any other clichés I can mangle? :>)	I think this one's gonna always be WIP.  Here's what I've done lately.  Attended Samedi.NET in MTL, doing a lot of personal reading, looking forward to giving a presentation about Expression Blend 3 at TechDays. Although I did present at Tech Days Ottawa 2009, there was certainly room for improvement.  I also am not where I want to be with WPF/SL/XAML experience.  This will certainly make it onto my next year's list.
May 5	Start another study group, I have a bit of a training bug, this let's me fulfill that side of my personality	We have 19 fully commited and participating members!  Very cool!  Check out our progress and code on CodePlex! We're nearly done this one, two more (optional) sessions and then it's up to the individual people to sched, write and hopefully pass their exams! Charlie Wiebe is starting the next Web Study Group!  I did an information session last week, and applications are flowing in.  They start up the first week of Feb, if you're interested, read the blog post and get crack'n!  Time's a wast'n!
June 2	Create a blog entry for creating/debugging/delivering a Windows Service (some juicy, time saving tips here!)	I JUUUUUST finished this one tonight!  This was two plus weeks in the making, it's long but VERY complete!  It has screen caps, (hopefully) straight forward and easy enough to follow
	Create two screen savers (just something I've always wanted to do, boring I know, but these will be slightly different, stay tuned!)	I have created one SCR,namely for the Numb3rs tv show (I'm a BIG fan).  I still have one more to go to complete this ///todo item but so many other things come up.  Life gets in the way I guess eh?  Just have to keep plugging away. I did create one Numb3rs screen saver, but there wasn't an MSI/setup.exe, nor was there any custom code in the installer, there isn't any network communication, nor mashup capabilities.  Although, the scr DOES have a preview window and is properly displayed on multiple displays!  And I haven't had time to create a blog post to give out all those secrets (yet!).  This will certainly make it onto next year's list.
	Learn about unit testing with C#/VS	Still....... juuuuuuust starting to scratch the surface with this one. This just flat out didn't get done and it does tick me off a bit.  This one will make it onto next year's list.
	Help people via blogs (something I'm starting to see now and I LOVE it when someone posts a comment saying my entry helped them, I LOVE THAT!)	I've had a few people post and email with positive feedback about the site and posts!  I love that! :> I had someone call me up a few weeks back telling me they were looking into Exceptions and they say a comment from PCHenry, followed the blog and low and behold, they knew the guy (me! haha) who wrote them!  COOL!  I love to hear about that stuff, means I'm on the right track. I have been getting ongoing comments, yahoo!  And to my surprise, I was even contacted by someone running the Microsoft TechEd bloggers site to be included there!  Now, I can't let it goto my head, cause well, it's on the 2008 bloggers page!  HAHA!  DOH!  I HOPE it was an oversight?  Maybe?  Please? LOL  I also had someone contact me to purchase a domain name I owned and paid some nice compliments about my approach to blogging (learning and showing).  Now maybe that was to grease the wheels, but who knows? LOL
	Learn more about patterns	Still, no explicit progress on this one. Unfortunately this didn't get any traction.  There was just too many other things more important than this one.  The focus group I guess I was hoping to participate for this didn't materialize.  This may or may not make it on my list next year.  I will be an ongoing concern, but it might not be SO important as to make it on next year's list.
Jan 09	Install and expose sample code via SVN	Update (March 2009): I've since exposed some of my code via SVN. Code from/about/for my blog: http://www.pchenry.com:8080/svn/Blog/ Personally for my website: http://www.pchenry.com:8080/svn/PCHenry Update (Jun 01) Starting to rethink this one.  I've created two "projects" on CodePlex (ODNC Study Group andOttawa Code Plex) and after dealing with that learning curve, I'm growing more and more convinced for sharing blog code, that's the best way to share it.  Why not let someone else manage the IT/hardware/resources for me?
	Learn to better recognize negative personalities, then to avoid them, to not let them sway my convictions and to seek out positive people to surround myself and family	I am so lucky!  I'm around people who are awesome and a huge source of positive reinforcement and energy!  When things are going tough/wrong/slow a good laugh is literally just over the cube wall or in the lunch room!  You know people are a fun loving bunch when everyone in the lunch room is laughing at lunch time! Still very lucky, the people at the study group, Samedi.NET, ODNC, work, gynmastics, swimming, all very nice and positive people.  Love it (I just hope I can keep it up!) I worked VERY hard on this one.  I was even tested TWICE in the past month, and I have to say, I passed with FLYING COLOURS, if I don't mind saying so myself!  Yes, I'm tooting my own horn!!!!!!!!! LOL  But this is never going to be a battle that'll finish for me.  I have to continue working on this one.  I also have two little ones I have to show how to do this too! Just before Christmas, I had someone comment on THIS very series of posts (SP), saying it helped them refocus for their next learning push!  I was very proud to help out, even in a small way.
Updates to the list (as things get completed I plan on adding new things to it, very Agile-ish :> sort of like a Product Backlog? :>>>>)
	Learn MVC	hhhhmm, this one's kind of taken a bad seat lately. The more I learn about MVC and WPF, the more excited I get about WPF and the less interested I am with MVC (sorry PB).  I know it's gaining in popularity and maturing at break neck speeds, but WPF is where I want to be focusing my attentions next year.
	Look into having a Saturday.NET Silverlight workshop in Ottawa	Seems like there's some interest in having something like this.  Any takers? There seems to be some interest in this, but with Ottawa IT Days, VS 2010 release, summer vacations, study groups, exam schedules at Algonquin college, there are an increasing number of challenges to overcome with actually pulling this one off.  I'm thinking this will be better served in the fall timeframe in the next ODNC season.  But this is still WIP.  Keep an eye on this blog for further developments.

So the count is, Yes/Smileys = 8, Nas/Frowns = 5, which is a 62% of my goals.  hhhmmm not so good.  hhmm I guess I thought I was further ahead than that.  BUT, I did learn something from the "avoid negative feelings" goal, and I'm going to focus on the future!  So keep your browser on this site ready to catch the next installment of what I plan to do this year to become a better coder!  Until then, grab a coffee and get coding!

Past Progress: Nov 08, 2009, Jun 03, 2009, Mar 18, 2009, Jan 27, 2009, Jan 6, 2009

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