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Happy New Year Hacker News, what are your plans for 2011?

23 points by jacquesm ↗ HN
I'm curious what you're planning on doing in the next year, my plans are to (1) get a reprap and make some stuff with it and (2) to move to a place that is a bit more in touch with humanity.

What are you going to do?

39 comments

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zemanel
i'm gonna develop a facebook application that focuses on user engagement through positive reinforcement, get rich and buy a Porsche. And quit smoking.
Ryan_IRL
I lost my job a few weeks ago (company I was with went bankrupt). I'm planning to transition to doing more python contract work while learning haskell and more AI.

Wouldn't mind finding a start-up to work with if something interesting comes up.

AdamGibbins
Work my ass off to finally get a startup (my startup - not someone else's) fully off the ground.
mindcrime
Finish techpreview2 of Neddick (https://github.com/fogbeam/Neddick)

Finish techpreview1 of Quoddy (https://github.com/fogbeam/Quoddy)

Finish techpreview1 of Heceta (https://github.com/fogbeam/Heceta)

Get out of the office (well, my apartment) and get in front of some potential customers and start soliciting feedback. Use Steve Blank's Customer Development Methodology.

Spend some serious time researching the competition in this space; figure out how my vision fits in with Microsoft Sharepoint... am I building a Sharepoint complement or a Sharepoint killer (so to speak)?

Decide if there's going to be a SaaS model for this stuff, and - if there is - what goes into it, and start exploring building out the SaaS version (probably on Amazon's infrastructure, but we'll see.)

Depending on the results of some of the above goals: Maybe find a co-founder to work with. If things go bloody smashingly well, maybe look for investment dollars.

Eh, there are goals beyond that, but I don't want to project out to far, because I've never been terribly good at predicting the future. "Close a sale," for example, would be a nice goal. But I don't know if it's realistic for 2011 or not.

joeguilmette
- lose some of the excess fat on my body

- make more time in my life for the people i love

- take up a physically exerting, mentally calming hobby

- generate more income

- constrain spending

- position myself to leave the country for more than 50% of 2012

cnu
I am going to build and release an app/project every month in 2011. Have wasted enough time on HN and reading my RSS. Have read about lot of cool things that I wanted to build stuff with.

http://appamonth.blogial.com/

BenSS
Release 2 more iOS games, pay more attention to myself.
erreon
Keep learning to program.

Keep working on http://www.willitfreezetonight.com

Get rid of fatness on my body.

Find a way to mix my license in Real Estate with my love for programming.

Do some co-working at C4 Workspace in San Antonio.

Be more social.

Generate a decent income.

Do more things that scare me.

Learn to scuba dive.

catch23
maybe you can just use geo-ip by default, so you don't need to prompt the user for anything. (maybe provide a link to the prompt if the location is wrong)
erreon
I may have to play with that. My initial thinking was to leave it blank so that users could fill in the place they may be heading to. I tried to make it as easy as possible to type too with autocomplete of US cities and states. Also, the geolocation is pretty awesome on a smartphone. Is geo-ip very reliable on phones?

Edit: I'm making the geo-location button add zipcode as well to get a more accurate answer.

I love the feedback. Maybe I should add a feature suggestion box to the site itself. Thank you.

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barredo
Enjoy our new born and work
thingie
I'd like to improve my language skills so I could much easily move somewhere else.
jacquesm
Neat one :) Which language do you want to learn next?
thingie
German and Finnish. (I've already had some classes at high school and college respectively, but that weren't even basics.)
jacquesm
Finnish eh? You pick your battles, that's a tough one, next to Hungarian probably one of the toughest you could pick.

That's pretty brave, I hope you succeed in making significant headway with it.

indrekj
Get a girl
jacquesm
Suggestion: stop thinking about it as 'getting a girl' start thinking about it as 'find someone to share and do stuff with'.
ptio
finish learning python, build a project and ship it!
rbreve
Keep working on my startup class.io, travel more and get married I hope :)
follower
Are you specifically planning to get a RepRap or are you considering one of the MakerBot line?
jacquesm
Which would you pick and why ?

I was thinking of starting out with a makerbot and then using that to build something a bit more ambitious.

I've had a 3D milling machine/plasmacutter with an 10'x5' bed so I'm a bit spoiled in the size department (cutting 3/8" steel from full size sheets to assemble your prototypes with is a really nice capability to have) but I currently can't house a machine that size, also plasma cutting is not safe without a lot of precautions so that's why I've decided to approach this from the other end of the spectrum.

follower
Yeah, my impression is that the MakerBot line is a much easier way to get started, so that makes sense. What you are thinking of was essentially the approach I was going to suggest. :)
michaelty
Learn Node.js, learn RoR, learn CoffeeScript. Read the Dragon Book. Lurk moar.
georges023
Have atleast 1 MVP out for every 3 months (for-profit or non-profit)

Get more social

Learn to get "wired in" <- Social network ah!

Program more!

Learn other tricks (marketing is very high on that list)

And, most, importantly make sure to stay on track with my plans!

waterlesscloud
1. Launch a social game project I've been working on a for a bit now.

2. Produce another short film, this one based on a Hugo nominee short story.

3. Climb Mt. Shasta.

I started on all of these in the last few months, 2011 is just when I'll complete them!

famblycat
My #1 goal for 2011 is to put the house in order.

I'm a good programmer. You'll just have to take my word for it, as I have no proof. I have no links to offer to which I can say "I did this".

That's the problem. I've spent the last 10 years toiling away as a random code monkey. A well appreciated code monkey who can solve problems and learn new things quickly, mind you. But not so outside the hours of 9-5.

A recent event has led to an epiphany where I've realized that I'm not working to my (albeit perceived) potential and that I should stop wasting my evenings and weekends and work toward something more fulfilling. I've spent the last 3 months working hard on ramping up on relevant technology and beginning work on my first startup.

2011 will ideally see me release this thing to the world at large. Wish me luck.

noodle
hey, sounds like me. good luck.
aslamnd
1. Grow my company - FrontCube 2. Getting married 3. Launch our non-techie start-up 4. Launch our first Saas app 5. Work more on products and fewer clients’ project. 6. Burn my fat 7. Blog more often 8. Produce More Screencasts 9. Buy a new house 10. Release Speedy 2.0 supports Mac and Linux distors.

My complete list of plans and the 2010 review can be found here http://aslamnajeebdeen.com/blog/it-was-a-good-year-the-best-...

sandipagr
1. put on some weight 2. meet lot of people 3. launch my startup
naba
Work on a product with another dev at office and hope it takes me closer to being self employed. Fill the gaps in my CS skills due to a lack of formal CS background
maguay
My goals for 2011,originally posted in another thread - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2035432:

- Top 100k pageviews/month average on my tech blog

- Write first book

- Write first webapp or mobile app

- Create something for sale (eBook, tutorials, etc.) for passive income

- Graduate from college

- Spend more time with family and away from the computer

- Something exciting and unexpected ... that's what makes life special, after all!

ct
- Learn Python and GAE and make a simple MVP one page website just to get some web dev experience (since I'm mainly a desktop C#/WinForms/WPF dev at work)

- Learn more about fundamental analysis and incorporate that with the current technical analysis style trading I currently do to get a better return in 2011 than 2010 (if it weren't for that speculative BP catching-a-falling-knife trade I would've beat the S&P)

- Learn more functional programming like F# (which might also help with starting up on automated trading again)