Everyone’s talking about their 2009 goals now, I guess the New Year tends to do that to people. Not to feel left out, I’m posting my 2009 goals. As a freelancer and a software developer, a lot of them are about building new software applications and learning technology. One thing I learned in 2008, was it’s best to phrase future goals as past tense. Something about how the brain is wired subconsciously.
1. I earn 20% more Revenue than in 2008
2008 was a pretty good year for my business but I’ve still got a lot of room to grow in 2009. The great thing about this number is I’ve already mapped out how to get there, I just have to take action now.
2. I created $2,000 passive income
I’ve decided to start working on generating some passive income in order to separate my income from my time. Given a year, I figure I could make $2,000.
3. I doubled my followers (RSS, Email, Twitter)
I don’t see the difference between RSS subscribers and Twitter followers so I’m going to work to have more people interested in what I’m doing in 2009. If you haven’t yet subscribed to this blog or followed me on Twitter, could you?
4. I wrote an ebook
I have two niche ebook ideas that I think will be really useful. I’ve found a lot of my favorite books last year were smaller books, so I’m going to keep the ebooks on the short side.
5. I invested $8,000 to IRA
I’m not getting any younger so it’s time to start reinvesting into my IRA. With the US stock market being so cheap, it’s a good time to start dollar cost averaging again.
6. I created an application with Sinatra
I’ve used Sinatra a bit but I want to get some more experience hacking on it. And according Jason Seifer, Sinatra will be assimilated as part of Rails 5 (or was it Rails 10)…
7. I created an application with Datamapper
I enjoy working with ActiveRecord but I think Datamapper will let me be a bit more flexible with how I structure my applications.
8. I created an application with Merb Rails 3.0
I also have a few ideas where a slim Merb Rails 3.0 application would work quite nice. Plus it’s enjoyable to try out another non-Rails Ruby framework now and then.
9. I created an application with Cucumber
Cucumber has a good syntax for writing integration tests. I’ve already done a bit of work on a Redmine plugin using Cucumber but I’d like to create another.
10. I used memcached with an application
My personal applications haven’t had a need of anything more than page caching so far but I’d like to build an application using memcached so I can learn how to prepare for some heavier caching. It might also be useful to start implementing some caching into Redmine.
11. I created a jQuery plugin
In 2008 I did quite of bit of JavaScript development and fell in love with jQuery. I’d like to solidify that knowledge by building a jQuery plugin. It doesn’t look that hard and I’ve even found a few tutorials on how to do it.
12. I created an application with jQuery UI
jQuery UI is a set of libraries that enhance jQuery to add several visual elements. I’ve worked with a few of them in 2008 but I’d like to get some more experience with them by building a more interactive application.
13. I know the Erlang syntax
One language I want to pick up in 2009 is Erlang. Not having a lot of experience with concurrency or functional programming I think this will be a nice stretch for me. It probably will not replace Ruby as my favorite language but I’m positive I could learn several concepts from Erlang.
14. I created an application with Erlang, web
Since I specialize in web development, it’s only natural that I try to build an Erlang powered application for the web. I’m not sure what I’d want to build but I think a web service server might be fun.
15. I created an application with Erlang, database
I’d also like to get Erlang talking to a database. Ideally this would be a ActiveRecord type database so I can have Erlang and Ruby on Rails coexist. Like the goal above, I’m still thinking about what I want to build specifically.
I’m interested in seeing what other people are working on so if you’ve posted your 2009 goals, please add a link in the comments. Also if you happen to have a project on one of the technologies here and need some help, please contact me.
Eric