</2010> Much Belated Yearly Recap
- published:
- 2011.02.06
The year 2010 was crazy and busy, but 2011 has started out even crazier and busier! Already in 2011 I've been to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), been out of town for a project at work several times, and also I submitted my video game Re-Infiltration at Dusk to the Mozilla Labs Game On competition, making it to the finalists list.
But better late than never, I'd like to do a review of 2010 while it is still somewhat fresh in memory. This timeline is mostly for my benefit so that when I look back at 2010 it seems like an actual year of my life went by. I find it comforting to feel like last January was in fact 12 months ago, and didn't just happen last week.
I got pretty bad about posting to my blog in 2010 because of the chaos. A lot of my projects ended up going direct to @zacharyjohnson on Twitter. So there could be some things below that may be new to you:
January
Launched a custom touch screen building directory for Coffman Union at the U of MN
February
Created a game concept for the Experimental Gameplay Project theme: Rejection
March
After 5 years leading a web team at the U of MN, I started a new job as UX Developer for Worrell
Created two text effects with CSS: the iPhone lock screen's shine effect and a smoke effect
Posted a 3D perspective iPhone app experiment to YouTube
April
Created my own CSS3 ring pulsers and map markers
Presented the session "Improve User Experience with Informal User Testing" at MinneWebCon
Got an iPad, and created a zachstronaut-themed multitouch web experiment
May
Blocks Box, a simple physics toy for kids aged 2 to 102, approved in iPad app store
Took a very lovely trip to San Francisco to see good friends
June
Made myself a zachstronaut-themed iPad wallpaper and iPhone4 wallpaper
July
Created the JavaScript video game Infiltration at Dusk, featuring music by Tettix
MinnPost ran an article about my game
Infiltration at Dusk wins 2nd place in Boing Boing's Games Inspired by Music contest
Exploited Safari 5's features to make an interactive 3D CSS3 galaxy
August
Created Jackalope for the Node.js Knockout competition with Paul, Andy, and Nate
Jackalope is one of TechCrunch's favorite Node.js Knockout apps
Made a Firebug parody called Firebomb with less than 10KB of code for the 10K Apart contest
Created a new version of my 3D galaxy using HTML5 canvas, and squeezed it down to less than 10KB
September
Worked on a film for the Body Computing conference at USC, covered by Fast Company
October
Developed full-on Minecraft addiction
Visited Sleepy Hollow, NY for my friends' wedding (yes, that Sleepy Hollow)
November
Used Mobile Safari's 3D CSS3 and new accelerometer access to make an iOS physics web demo
Speaker for Marc Grabanski's Evening of JavaScript series, presenting "Canvas Geek Time"
Made a classic Artificial Life emergent behavior demo with HTML5 canvas
IE9 added HTML5 canvas so I created an asteroid smashing physics demo
Abused Safari 5 heavily to make random 3D CSS3 voxels, oh and an iceberg, too
December
The book The Web Designer's Guide to iOS Apps was released; I was Technical Editor
Got snowed in
I'd say 2010 was a really great year for me, but even more so it was a fantastic year for the web. I made the resolution at the beginning of 2010 to spend more time on interactive development and games. I think I definitely accomplished this, thanks in no small part to the fact that all the major browser players now have a very, very fast canvas implementation.
I also resolved to dig into the mobile web, and I had a ton of fun playing with the continuous stream of new functionality appearing in Mobile Safari on iOS. But Android has a Webkit-based browser, too. The new job I started in March in particular gave me many opportunities to explore and exploit the multitouch web environment on Android and iOS. I'm truly excited for what 2011 will bring to the mobile web space, and I also look forward to the role that Mobile Safari will play in my upcoming iOS app development. It's an amazingly rapid and versatile tool.
I think I met more people and had more opportunities to collaborate in 2010 than I have in a really long time. Maybe ever. I found that to be tremendously valuable and rewarding. I look forward to continuing that trend in 2011. You all do some really amazing things, and the web community now surprises and thrills me at a daily pace. Have a great 2011! It's going to be elevenz.