The year in summary

Another year is almost over. And as I did last year, I am making a blog post summarizing 2010. This excludes the events and meetups I had attended and been part of, for I had already posted one about it.

This blog turned one last May 12. A lot has changed in my use of Blogger compared to last year. I was able to make more blog posts, most with longer contents. The design and layout has been improved by updating the existing widgets, adding a lot more, and using Blogger Draft. These changes has been made because of the inspiration I gained after having a look at my blog's statistics (using Blogger Stats).

This year also marked the first "anniversary" of my accounts in Twitter (June 22) and Plurk (September 3). Last July 27, I already created an account in LinkedIn, a business-oriented social networking site. My LinkedIn profile is at http://www.linkedin.com/in/jomartigcal. I also made an account in Delicious and signed up for Google Adsense, Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools.

This year, I continued studying about Android, Grails, Facebook API, and Twitter API. I also studied Plurk's API and Google APIs like Google Buzz API, Google Maps API and many more. However, I haven't really studied advanced topics yet. In the fast few months, I have been more focused on Facebook and Twitter. Now, I am developing a Facebook app, Post This, that allows users to post status updates in their Facebook wall and/or in their Twitter timeline. Also, I am still thinking of an app idea that will allow me to study, learn and develop "something good," like a nice Facebook or Twitter app.

Speaking of projects, I started a personal project, CvSEA (CvSU Student Election App). It is an open source app for student elections in CvSU (Cavite State University). It is based from Halalan, the open source voting system being developed and maintained by the UP Linux Users' Group (UnPLUG). I have started the development on the project while the talk with CvSU Naic Campus is still being done. The project is also hosted in Google Code. I also started doing a Google Chrome extension for GTUG Philippines while studying the advanced topics of the tutorial for making extensions.

I also have been more active in mapping using Google Mapmaker. There were some schools, establishments and places that I had mapped. I plan to continue doing this in the future. It is my goal to map at least one or two places every week, especially in my home town and province.

In the early part of the year, I became one of the group managers for GTUG Philippines. I'm one of those who post in the group blog and tweet using the group's Twitter account. As a group manager, I am also a member of the group for the worldwide managers of Google Technology User Groups. Now, I am listed as an organizer for GTUG Philippines chapter in the GTUGs directory page. This gave me a gtugs.org account and access to the chapter page, which I should update frequently.

It seems a lot has happened (and did not happened) this year. As 2011 comes closer, I will no longer make personal promises nor any New Year's resolution. I'll just do my best to accomplish my goals and make every day of the coming year the best day it could possibly be. So help me God.

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Events and Meetups of 2010

As a software developer, I am active in my membership in some developer groups and in attending their events and meetups. I have been mosty active in Google Technology User Group Philippines (GTUGPH) and in the Association of Filipino Java Developers(PinoyJUG).

I attended all the meetups of GTUGPH. The first was the February 19 Android meetup in Room 3302 of Smart Tower, Ayala Avenue, Makati City with Miguel Paraz and Marc Lester Tan. The group had another meetup last March 10 with Dan Delima, Software Engineer from Google Japan and Christine Songco, Technical Program Manager, Developer Relations, Google Inc. about Google Visualizations API, Google App Engine (GAE) and Google Web Toolkit (GWT) at the G2iX Techbar (5F Orient Square Bldg. F. Ortigas Jr. Rd., Ortigas Center, Pasig City).

I was also present at the August 14 chill-out meetup at Cafe 5845 (Mall of Asia) and the September 14 meetup with Dan Delima at Gerry's Grill Glorietta 5. Last October 14, another meetup was held at the office of Proximity Philippines / BBDO Guerrero (11/F Insular Life Bldg, Ayala Ave., Makati City with JP Loh (HTML5 Websockets), Miguel Paraz (Web Runtime Development on Android) and Allan Ortile (Google Apps). After the talks, there was a demo of the Android-powered smartphones and tablet from Cherry Mobile, courtesy of Reggie Ramos.

Finally, I attended the Geo 3D meetup with Google Geo product manager, Bruce Polderman, and Geo community advocate, Nicole Drobeck last December 1. It was held at the office of Orange and Bronze Software Labs, Inc.

PinoyJUG had four meetups this year and I attended only three. Its first meetup was the Selenium and Spring Technology meetup last January 29 at the G2iX Techbar with Aaron Tinio (a senior QA engineer at G2iX and specializes on test automation using Selenium and Ruby) and Jasper Blues (a software engineer at ValueCommerce Phils, and the founder and lead developer of Spring Ldap-ODM). The second was the February 26 JMeter meetup at the Orange and Bronze office with the topics "Introduction to JMeter" by Brian Tan Seng and "RMI Plugin for JMeter" by JM Ibanez.

The only meetup I was not able to attend, the April 27 meetup at the G2ix TechBar ("Profiling and Heap Analysis" by Franz See and "Client-Side Performance" by Alvin De Leon), was the third. On November 3, the last meetup for the year was held at the G2iX TechBar with the topics "Common Pitfalls Experienced in Java" by Julz Cutaran and "Dive Into Agile: What Your Scrum Master Didn't Tell You" by Michael Mallete.

Aside from these events and meetups, I also attended two developer events this year. The first one is DevCon Luzon at Function Room 1, SMX Convention Center last February 9. DevCon (Developers Connect) events are gatherings designed to facilitate interaction among the software and web development professionals. I was also a part of DevFest 2010 Manila. DevFest is a free Google-sponsored event where you can learn about Google technologies and other developer-related stuff.

There are some events I had missed due to various reasons. I do hope to attend more events next year, especially those that I haven't attended yet.

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Civil Service Eligible

Yesterday, I just got my CSC Certificate of Eligibility. I am now a civil service eligible under a special eligibility pursuant to Presidential Decree 907. It was filed last year but I only got time to update my application yesterday. I eventually received it on the same day.

Until now, however, I still don't know if I'll be able to use it since I do not have plans to work in the government. I just applied for it before because I no longer need to review and take the Career Service Examination. I only need to submit some requirements, pay a smaller amount and wait for the application to be processed.