Just a quick post to wrap up my year.
Work
2010 was incredibly exciting for me. A year ago, I was working full-time at a digital advertising agency doing Flash production. It wasn’t a bad job, but I wasn’t thrilled about agency life and in April I decided to finally take the plunge and go into business for myself – and honestly, I haven’t looked back. I prefer the consulting lifestyle over the salaried lifestyle in almost every way, and it’s allowed me to cast an incredibly wide net in terms of extracurricular activities and side projects. Having a girlfriend who is also a talented designer made this something of a no-brainer for us, and it’s been great to be able to collaborate on large projects working to meet our own deadlines. Some of my consulting has been done on-site, as has some of hers – but our most exciting projects are the ones we’re working on secretly. Hopefully in 2011 we’ll have some cool stuff to share!
Activities
As far as extracurriculars and side projects go, I took over running the Columbus Digital Adobe User Group, provided technical feedback on not one but two books from O’Reilly Press (The Flex 4 Cookbook and Getting Started with Flex 4), and went to my first industry conference (RIAUnleashed). I also submitted a talk to 2011′s Flash and the City.
Additionally I’ve become much more active on Twitter (hit me up at @mykola) and I’ve started updating this blog with almost alarming regularity (this is what, like, my fifth post this year? That’s huge for me!)
Technology
2010 was going to be the year I switched to an Android phone. I mean, come on – I’m a Flash developer. I’m supposed to hate Apple and Steve Jobs, especially after that Flash stunt he pulled! So in July, I put a bullet in my trusty iPhone 3G and bought an HTC Evo 4G.
I returned it inside of a month. I know this is a highly polarized field right now, and I don’t want to make any enemies – but I hated almost everything about the Android platform as a user. Inconsistent UI, a convoluted phone OS (“Oh, no, you should download the process manager to let you know what’s running!” – really?), a terrible app store experience. You name it, going down the list I felt like Apple simply cares more about providing a great user experience – and so I’m back on an iPhone. Maybe I’ll switch in 2011 – but honestly, Android has a lot of cleaning up to do before they can begin to compete with Apple’s user experience.
I also picked up an iPad this year. I like it okay, but honestly the novelty wore off quickly. I’m just not entirely clear what I’m supposed to do with it. Right now it kinda just lives in the bathroom, which is a constant source of amusement for guests. Still, I suspect I’ll buy an iPad 2 this coming year.
Robotics
2010 is the year I bought my first (four) Arduino microcontrollers. This has been an incredible way to spend my downtime, and I’ve learned so much I can’t stand it. Currently I’m working on developing a custom stack for robotics projects – it looks something like this:
- Robot Structure – VEX frame, with VEX motors and wheels etc. It’s a bit like Lego – everything is designed to fit together nicely.
- Microcontroller – This is going to be Arduino. It doesn’t take that much effort to make the VEX components play nice with the Arduino, and the existing support out there for open-source hardware projects using the Arduino system is fantastic.
- Communications – Right now I’m using Python to handle my serial communications, because it works so nicely. I can rig up my serial connection using USB, BlueTooth or XBee and it doesn’t make any difference – Python is able to read/write with like 2 lines of code. That said, I still haven’t resolved the difficulties I’ve been having integrating python into the final layer of my stack…
- User Interface – Adobe AIR. This is a no-brainer – it’s incredibly easy to build amazingly detailed user interfaces using the Flash Platform, and I’m almost able to get complete integration between my Python layer and my AIR layer. I’m confident that with a bit more tweaking I’ll have it down.
So yeah, that’s that. Vex -> Arduino -> Python -> AIR creates a VAPA Robotics Stack. If I can iron out the kinks, I’m going to have an incredible project to show off in a few months!
Looking Forward
2010 was a great year for me – I’m expecting 2011 to be even better. I’m going to keep learning, keep playing and keep doing cool stuff. Please reach out to me on Twitter of any of this sounds interesting to you, I love to talk shop!
In 2011, my largest focus is going to be on completing my robotics stack – my big goal for the year is to present at Adobe MAX 2011, controlling a variety of cool ‘bots from a Flash-built interface. It’s much easier than you probably think, and it’s incredibly satisfying! Like I said, I have a few kinks to work out – but it’s 80% of the way there, and I’d love to get other people to join in!
So, from me – Happy New year, and I’ll see you all in 2011!
Tagged 2010, 2011, consulting, programming, robotics