Editor's Roundup
I have to admit it's the beginning of a new year and already I've been
naughty! I procured Shayne Tilley's diary and have hijacked some of his musings
looking back over the past year.
Some of last year's highlights:
-
In February, sitepoint.com received a brand new tab with the launch of the
CSS Reference site.
Masterfully written by Tommy and Paul, the content was transformed into a
beautiful hardcover
book.
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In March, our biggest competition of the year -- Project Avatar -- wound up
with a truly sensational winning entry by jdprgm.
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April brought two new forums to SitePoint, Industry News
and How to Buy
and Sell a Web Site.
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In June, the forums were upgraded, making way for the new SitePoint front
page in July.
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In November, SitePoint kicked off its first podcast, and members and staff
worked together to find ways to minimize fluff posting.
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In December, we held our Community Awards elections and chose our 2009
SitePoint Gurus, which brings us up to date as we forge ahead in January.
So let's get busy ...
Summary
Hornblower's Corner
SitePoint Community Awards -- the results are in!
The votes are tallied and the winners of the annual SitePoint Community
awards have been announced. Member of the Year is Shaun(OfTheDead)
and Staff Member of the Year is r937. If you've
yet to read of the winners, I'm going to keep you in suspense about the rest.
Instead, you can click on the announcement
thread to see the results and offer your congratulations!
More winners
A new addition to SitePoint's Community Awards was that members earned a
chance to win a SitePoint Kit just by participating in the voting. Kits were
awarded to:
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guido2004
-
linkin99
-
flash_freelancer
-
rozner
Simply Brilliant
Although nowhere near old enough to retire, Dave Maxwell
joined SitePoint way back in November of 1999, making him one of SitePoint's
admired senior citizens. As well as being a Design Team Advisor, Dave is active
in several SitePoint Social Groups:
Last year, Dave chaired two of SitePoint's biggest projects: Project Avatar
mid-year and the SitePoint Community Awards at year's end. Of course, he was
assisted by an able committee of our best staff members. But as chair, Dave
kept the processes in order and flowing smoothly to completion. Our kudos to
you, Dave. In our estimation, you are simply brilliant!
SitePoint Social
If there's a forum that has more freelancers as members than SitePoint, I'm
unaware of it. So, it looks like Jimmy P had a
great idea when he started a social group for us, The Freelancers
Association. Freelancers from all industries are welcome to meet and
socialize here, and it looks like a great place for forming associations that
will help your freelance business grow.
Now Showing:
The latest and greatest in SitePoint threads, books, and blogs.
One of SitePoint's newest books is dedicated to freelancers as well. The Principles of Successful
Freelancing by Miles Burke is a slim volume that's jam-packed
full of useful tips for freelance beginners, with some refresher info for
veterans in the field.
As one of those veteran freelancers, I'm always keen on finding new ways to
keep my business fresh to help it grow.
Right now, I'm all a-Twitter. It all started a while back with the suggestion
to follow SitePoint on Twitter.
I must admit I joined Twitter some time back, but failed to really see the value
in it. Lucky for me, somecallmejosh
started the thread, "Twitter --
Trying to Understand the Value." Member contributions to the thread
helped me understand how Twitter can work for me.
Another use of Twitter came from another Josh. In his blog post, 12
Ways to Keep Sane While Working from Home, Josh Catone compares
Twitter to the water coolers in work places. Now, those of you who work at home
may have a water cooler, but it's probably devoid of others standing around it!
Of course, the other eleven ways Josh mentions are equally helpful for
maintaining the cool of a home-based businessperson.
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Pathfinders:
Tips to help you achieve the best results from your SitePoint Forum
membership.
If you're looking for a script or online service, SitePoint's Scripts and Online
Services is the place to find it. To attain the best results for your
search, use these tips from one of the forum
stickies:
-
What programming language would you like the script to be written in?
-
Which operating system will the script reside on?
-
What is your budget?
-
Does it have to be open source, or can it be proprietary?
-
Can the source be encrypted?
-
What features are you specifically looking for?
-
Do you see any working examples of the script? Show us.
Shout-outs
January Shout-out: What's your geeky New Year's resolution?
In December, we asked if you kept your last year's resolutions and what you
resolved for 2009. I was looking for one myself that would be unbreakable, and
among the 54 replies found three possibilities:
mile-jerkovic:
2008 -- to have more free time and less work (I did). 2009 -- to have more work
and less free time.
I like the first resolution. I can accomplish that by working smarter and
following BrandonK's advice (although I'm unclear what OOP is!).
BrandonK:
Last year -- stop procrastinating. This year -- three simple letters: OOP.
I have to admit that number three is my favorite. Unmistakably unbreakable!
SearchBliss:
My New Year's resolution was to stop making New Year's resolutions. I did it, so
this year I'll keep it up.
Of course, there were a whole lot of great resolutions. Are you a late
bloomer like me? There's still time to stop by the
thread and add yours!
February Shout-out: What's your hobby?
Looking over our Social Groups, I saw plenty of work-related groups.
Networking is the name of the game in web development, but some of the best
associations are made between people who have interests in common other than
work. So my explorations caused me to wonder, "What's
your offline hobby?"
Member Of The Month Kudos
Molona interviewed DeenaEsq, who is
a bona fide lawyer that specializes as a litigator in Internet and new media
matters. Deena says "I stayed at SitePoint both because of the quality of
the questions that were asked and because people seemed genuinely interested in
what I had to say."
We say, "Thank-you Deena!" Her expertise has been a real help in Business and Legal
Issues, as well as several other SitePoint Forums. Be sure to stop by the
MOTM
thread and congratulate her!
Hot Handles
SitePoint continues to grow ... and grow. Already this month there are over a
dozen new members and some with very intriguing user names:
Be sure to stop by the Introductions
forum to make them and all our new members feel right at home.
Until February -- Happy New Year to all and thanks for reading!
Linda Jenkinson
crier@sitepoint.com
Editor,
SitePoint Community Crier
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