1. My desktop is littered with different todo lists (Work, Home, Consulting, etc…). I’m going to get these cleaned off my desktop and into a comprehensive list where I can then focus on completing one of these tasks at a time.
2. The open source community has a saying “Release early and release often”. I’m going to take this saying to heart but in the form of communication. I’m going to communicate early and often. Expect to see a lot more blog posts, tweets, status updates and the like from me in 2011. My goal is 1 blog post and 3 tweets a day.
3. I want to work more. This seems like a strange goal since most people make resolutions to work less. I plan to work an extra 14 hours a week for the next 4 months. There are a couple of really simple explanations for this goal:
   • We are in the process of building a new house and I want to make sure to cover the expenses until our old house is sold.
   • I have a couple of personal projects that I’ve been meaning to work on but just haven’t found the time to do.
   • I want to finish up some of the projects I’m working on so I can focus on my next resolution.
4. Spend more time with my family is always a perennial resolution for most people and it’s made my list as well. If I can pull off my previous resolution then I’ll have more free time. That free time is going to be spent with my wife and kids. I’m going to take those extra 2ish hours a day to play with my kids.
5. I’ve lost close to 40 pounds before. I’m about 15 pounds heavier now then I was after that first weight lose. My next goal is 4 fold and must go hand in hand to achieve it.
   • Walk on the treadmill at least 3 times a week.
   • Eat at least 2 fruits and vegetables a day.
   • Decrease my portion sizes by 1/3.
   • Lose 40 pounds by the end of the year. Sticking with these first 3 goals will get me down those 40 pounds. That would put me on or about where my original weight lose goal was.
6. At this point in my life I’ve been a smoker longer than I haven’t been. Once we’ve settled into the new house and things have calmed down it’s time to come up with a working quit plan that I can stick with.

These are some lofty goals for the next year, but they should be eminently doable with a strong commitment on my part and support from friends and family.

• I’m removing the tweet digests. These tweets can be found on Twitter and they don’t really add anything to the site.
• I’m shortening up the list of categories. The new list of categories will be:
  • Me: About me.
  • Family: About our family.
  • Work: About my work.
  • Around: Issues around the house.
  • Media: Photos, Videos, Books.
  • Editorial: News, rants, and editorial content.
• Each post is getting cleaned up. I’m removing any hard coded styles on photos and videos and using classes to size them instead. Tags are getting added to each post also.
• To make things easier to update in the future, I’m removing my modifications from the theme and using plugins to replace the functionality. A list of the plugins I’m using are:
  • Disqus comments: The DISQUS comment system replaces your WordPress comment system with your comments hosted and powered by DISQUS. Head over to the Comments admin page to set up your DISQUS Comment System.
  • Executable PHP widget: Like the Text widget, but it will take PHP code as well. Heavily derived from the Text widget code in WordPress.
  • Google XML Sitemaps: This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com to better index your blog.
  • MyOpenID: MyOpenID plugin allows you to use your blog as your OpenID identity by delegating it to an external provide such as myOpenID, myVidoop, and claimID.
  • PuSHPress: PubSubHubbub plugin for WordPress that includes the hub
  • ShareThis: Let your visitors share a post/page with others. Supports e-mail and posting to social bookmarking sites.
  • Twitter Tools: A complete integration between your WordPress blog and Twitter. Bring your tweets into your blog and pass your blog posts to Twitter. Show your tweets in your sidebar, and post tweets from your WordPress admin.
  • Ultimate Google Analytics: Enable Google Analytics on your blog. Has options to also track external links, mailto links and links to downloads on your own site.
  • wp-cache: Very fast cache module. It’s composed of several modules, this plugin can configure and manage the whole system.
  • WP Simple Adsense Insertion: A simple WordPress plugin to insert Google Adsense into posts, pages, sidebars.
• Even with these plugins, there are still things on the site that require me to modify the theme. Instead of modifying my new theme I’ve picked I’m going to use theme inheritance and put all the modifications in a child theme.

This was big year for the family. Back in May we found out we were going to have another child. In August we found out we were having a boy and at the end of December Jackson was born. Both Noah and Wyatt are loving being big brothers. Noah turned four this year and started preschool. He goes three afternoons a week and he is really loving it. Wyatt is also enjoying every minute of his brother being gone. He turned three this year and is getting very big. Rachel continues to become more involved in the community. Along with her deaconess duties, she has also become a member of the Warren County Child Abuse Prevention Council. This year was my fifteen year high school reunion. Planning was much smoother than the ten year reunion and we had a pretty successful turn out.

Even with the recent layoff announcements by AOL, I am still gainfully employed with them and really enjoying my work. KwiClick development continues to go well and has gotten quite a bit of good press recently. Although Forecastfox has slipped slightly in it’s ranking on Firefox, we were able to rewrite the code from scratch this year and get a version out for Chrome (which has been very warmly received). This new code base should allow us to iterate faster and get versions out for Firefox, Fennec, and others. I started the company Web Tech Studios this year to cover the contract work I do. To celebrate the creation of the company I created the "Near Me" add-on and entered it into the Extend Mobile Firefox contest. It was chosen as one of the winners and I received a Nokia N900 as the prize.

Now with three sons and lots of work to do, 2010 looks like it’s going to be a very exhausting happy year.

The application basically installs a biometric gauge on the phone’s camera. Like the accelerometer already built into the iPhone, the application is a kind of motion detector, which can “read” specific body movements.

Check out the article here and the original blog post.

Since I’m in the social media business, it really made me think about the situation. I belong to somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 different sites. What is the appropriate thing to do with these profiles when someone passes away? Do you leave it open and allow people to continue to post to it? Do you close the profile completely, or do you turn it into some sort of memorial?

I think I lean toward leaving the profile open and allow people to continue to post to it. What are your thoughts?

Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click post.)

1. I make my living as a software engineer, however, I’m mainly self taught.

2. I’m currently working 3 jobs and putting together an estimate for a 4th.

3. I hope that I will not lose any of my jobs due to the current economic conditions. Although, I’ve been in this industry for over 10 years and I have never felt like my job was safe.

4. When I was a teenager I used to do odd construction jobs with my dad. I’ll always be grateful for him teaching me about a strong work ethic, how to hammer a nail, dry wall a room, or try to do something even when you don’t know how to do it.

5. I hope to instill the values in my sons that my dad instilled in me.

6. I regret the fact that I’m not closer to my dad, but I can’t imaging every hugging him or telling him that I love him.

7. I still have lead in my leg from being stabbed with a pencil in the first grade by Jennifer Tyler.

8. I believe that I was a fairly broken person after dropping out of college and finding Rachel saved me.

9. Rachel is the love of my life and I hope to spend all my remaining days with her.

10. I have an INTP personality type and I’m proud of it.

11. I grew up in the country and I’m ready to move back there so my children can have the same experience I had.

12. Rachel and I have bought 2 acres out in the country, but because of the economy, we are debating when to build our new house.

13. My most embarrassing moment occurred when I was swimming at Lake Ahquabi. A female life guard was pulling me up onto the raft, and my swimming suit fell down around my ankles. I don’t think I came out of the water for the rest of the day.

14. My favorite quote comes from the poem Ode on a Grecian Urn. “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;”

15. I’m a huge fan of mashups, the stranger the mashup the more I like it. I especially love “Acoustic Rap”.

16. I don’t really have a favorite movie or song anymore. It’s sad but for the most part I listen to podcasts or watch new releases on Netflix.

17. I’m registered as an independent but most of my political leanings are more libertarian than anything else.

18. Yes, I will cry at sad movies. I even cried a little at the end of Wall-E. Other than right now, I will never admit to it and you need to erase this fact from your memory.

19. I played football from second grade through junior high (middle school). In elementary I also wrestled, played basketball, and baseball. Football is the only sport I’m still a fan of and like to watch. I’m not a sports junky and I could care less about watching ESPN.

20. I’ve never felt like I was a good big brother. I sometimes wonder if the issues Randy has faced come from that fact.

21. I wish that I was closer to my siblings. It’s funny Chris is the farthest in age from me, but I’ve always thought I had the most in common with her.

22. I always have faith that things will be okay. Whenever, I’ve struggled with an issue I’ve held onto that faith and things have turned out to be okay.

23. While I was in college: I was a founding father of a Fraternity, I was the sergeant at arms, I was the recycling chair and president for my dorm floor. However, I was never able to make it to my class.

24. I’m a procrastinator. Why do anything today that can be done tomorrow?

25. I hate talking about emotions or myself. That has made putting this list together extremely difficult.

10 random Wikipedia URLs out of 129…

1. Susan B. Anthony
2. A/B testing
3. U.S. Ballooning Hall of Fame
4. Ann Landers
5. Iowa
6. TWiT.tv (network)
7. Atmail
8. Emma Verona Johnston
9. Preterm labor
10. Portuguese Man o’ War