2010: My year in review (a personal view)

Paul Kinlan
As always, I am a little late getting a blog post out, but here is my year in review (a very quick summary).  I am going to post a "Tech Review" of my thoughts next.

The most important thing that happened this year for me is the birth of our second boy (Benjamin) on the 28th of June - he is doing well and is a very cheeky chappy.  It is pretty amazing watching kids grow up and learn to do things.  This will sound pretty silly, I was watching Benjamin rotate his hand the other month and watching him watching him do it - it was pretty amazing.  His older brother Jack loves him to bits, and it is awesome to see the bond that they have already, you can see Benjamin looking for him in the room when he is about.

Google
I joined Google as a Developer Programmes Engineer in February 2010, the first month was entirely based in Mountain View and was an amazing experience.  I met a lot of very talented engineers and made a lot of really good friends.  I then slightly adjusted my role to a Developer Advocate - it is essentially the same role, but is better suited to working in a remote country ;)  

I have been fortunate to do a lot of travelling this year and I have worked with a lot of amazing developers since day one (literally I have met thousands of Developers from all over the world).  I will talk about it a little more when I have my 1st anniversary on the 1st of Feb (this should be a good post).

But in short, it has been awesome, I love it and I have never worked at a place like it.

Projects
I am in a very fortunate position, I get to work on the Web, Advocate HTML5 and work with amazing developers across the world.  I also get to work on a lot of web based projects.  Nearly all of my projects are on Github (https://github.com/PaulKinlan) - take a look and follow me.

I created an app for the Chrome Webstore that helps you get your existing Web-apps in to the Chrome Webstore in seconds.  I have also created a several Chrome extensions that show you how to use the Management API in Chrome.  (I also managed to submit a patch to Chrome about this API - Woot!)

I have worked on a few tutorials on http://html5rocks.com, mainly around databases including WebSQL and IndexedDB.  If you haven't checked out HTML5rocks, and you are a web developer, do it now.  It is an excellent resource.

I started a project called WebIntents (http://webintents.appspot.com/).  The aim of WebIntents is to allow developers to build applications on the web that talk to each other using.  This is pretty important for me and it will be interesting to see how it develops.  I am going to do a couple of blog posts about it in the near future as it turns out there are a couple of projects that do similar things and there are still a lot of issues that I have to iron out.

I also still get to do a bit of .Net using the .Net client library for Google API's (http://code.google.com/p/google-api-dotnet-client/)

LCD TV
This shouldn't be a big thing, but it literally takes me years to buy new technology - I have been wanting a flat-screen TV for at least the last 4 years but I have never been able to afford one, not only that I convinced myself that the reason why I am rubbish at Call of Duty is that 13 year old Punks have an easy time seeing me on their big flats-creens in their bedrooms, where as my old CRT didn't have the resolution to allow me to see them clearly. It actually turns out that a bigger screen really does help, but I still suck really bad, so it must be lag... Fiber next for me I think.

Expense isn't the only reason why I don't always buy new technology.  I have a strategy for buying things which means I end up never getting anything, and it goes a little something like this: 
  1. Define a set of "must haves",
  2. Define a price I am willing to pay.....
All well and good, apart from the fact that by the time my "must haves"/price criteria is met, there is a new product that costs a little more, but with more "must haves", so I wait until that product gets to my price point...... you see a pattern.

Things to do more of in 2011
I am not one for resolutions, but rather progressive enhancement.  There are a couple of key things that I must do more of in 2011 (in no particular order).
  1. Code more.  For maybe the first six months of the year as I was grappling with my new role, the amount of coding and projects that I worked on dropped significantly, this changed in the later part of the year and will continue to do so throughout 2011.
  2. Release more Code.  Everything I do should be helping developers and help push the "web platform", if it isn't open and available it will not help developers.
  3. Meet more Developers.  Attending events has been one of the things that I have not been able to fit in in the last year, this will change this year as I hope to get out and about to meet more of you.  This could include working from @Techhub in London.
  4. Speak at more Events.  Nuff said, it is my Job.  Look for a post later this week.
  5. Get Home more.  I live in Liverpool and work in London, I am away from my family for most of the year (only going back at weekends) - I know I said no particular order, but this is the most important.
One final thought, if you need to get in contact with me - all my details are here:

e: paulkinlan@google.com
t: +447730517944
tw: @Paul_Kinlan
LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/paulkinlan
Blog: http://paul.kinlan.me
Skype: paul.kinlan