Now that this hype about the new year has gone down a bit, I have sat down and decided to make some measurable goals for myself in 2009 and try something different. So here’s a brief list of what I’ll do different this year.

1. Cut down on domain names - I’ve never labelled myself as an active domainer, but whenever I get a great idea or see a domain name too good to pass by, I usually acquire it. Over the course of several years I have created a domain portfolio of over 50 domain names. With this number and the recent ICANN prices my goal is to sell off any domains that will not be very beneficial in the long run and develop the ones that I have planned.
2. Develop my personal websites – This goes more in as part II of number 1 on this list, but will be something difficult to do. As the story has usually gone by, I would start working on a website in my free time and another client would pop out of nowhere with their project. So this year I will now be outsourcing much more of my work to my amigos.
3. Blog more – It has been fairly noticeable that throughout November and December I have had almost no productive posts and it has been very hard to know that you’re slacking off on blogging and losing visitors, yet not having the time to post something serious. My goal this year is to change all of this.
4. Refine my skills – Recently Lynda.com provided our college with free accounts and this has made me excited on learning some new and interesting software such as Adobe Flex(r) as I do think it will be the next big thing in the future – or at least something close to it.
5. Finish college faster - With the economy going into a slump, it has been my idea to add an extra class on top of the ones I’m already taking. This will allow me to graduate two quarters faster. Doing this gives me several benefits. Finishing college faster will:
   • Allow me to focus on web design full time
   • Give me an earlier opportunity to possibly look for a good job if needed.
   • No more college costs to think about
   • …and the biggie I’m hoping for is… FREE Time.
6. A few personal resolutions – get into a bit of shape physically and be more active with family, church, etc.

So that’s my short list of big things I will be focusing on. Hopefully I follow through with all of them, but if not, I’ll still be making the effort.

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This past year has certainly been a great one for myself personally as well as for our company. Looking back, this year there have been many accomplishments done, jobs completed, lessons learned, and friends made. Here are a few highlights that have happened over the year:

• In regards to AlloraWeb:
  • Our company’s performance has grew immensely! This entire year has been full of projects up until the last days of the year. As with most companies, there have been some peaks and valley’s particularly in the Spring (April, May) where we had very few projects and peak number of clients in the Summer months (June, July). We’ll see how this upcoming year will perform for us.
  • While before we would focus mostly on business and corporate work, this last quarter it has been an interesting experience getting into the arcade network. One client I will highlight is Mark Broad, the owner of ArcadePreHacks.com. This project has been both challenging for us, yet has been a great learning experience for myself as well as our coders. It was our pleasure to give this site a completely new design as well as do loads of backend work to make the website perform well for it’s 40,000+ members.
  • In addition, I have met some very talented and dedicated freelancers who helped us develop some of our projects. It is not always that you find a freelancer that not only has the skill, but also the talent to do the job. In particular these last several months of the year, I’ve enjoyed working with Akram, a very talented graphic designer and coder. I’ll be able to showcase his work with the release of an upcoming website we are developing. No further announcements until the site is released, but I can’t wait to make the announcement.
• On March 18, I wrote Askllora.com’s famous “Hello World” post and over the course of 9 months I’ve published 70 posts which I consider quite an accompishment taking into account all the clients and projects I deal with as well as time required for educational needs. This upcoming 2009 I hope to get a higher post count, however my goal will be to write quality posts and not ramble about miscellaneous things simply for the sake of more posts.
• In my personal life, I’ve greatly enjoyed my time with family and friends and have gone on numerous vacations to see my close ones. Other travels have taken me outside the country to Canada which I completely adore due to how beautiful it is. I don’t, for even one second deny that here in the US we have some extremely gorgeous places, but simply driving in Canada was a blast – aside from their low speed limits.
• This year also marked my third year of college, hence I am now a junior and also enjoy that. College has been a blast as well meeting new people and learning new things. This also means I have less than two years left of spending money on *cough* college related activities.

This year has been full of fun, excitement, and a whole lot of action. Although it is impossible to describe this past year in its full glory I’m sure everyone has something they can relate to and discuss. The several things I listed above were just a few brief things that came to mind and  decided to share. Not everything however can be shared online :d, but nonetheless I share my moments of happiness with those who I love and have fun. I hope you do too.

Happy New Year!

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I would like to personally wish every visitor, reader, subscriber, webmaster, and every person that visits this blog a very merry and blessed Christmas. Christmas is that time of the year when we are not just greatful for the things we receive, but that time of the year in which we are thankful for all the goodness that has come to us and for Jesus Christ who was born to help and save us.

I’m not someone who tries to force my beliefs on others, but I can say that looking back on this past year, only with help from above has it been possible for the things to happen this year tha have happened.

Whether you celebrate Christmas on December 25th, January 7th, or don’t celebrate it at all, I would like everyone to look back at their year of life that will never be relived and think about all the blessings that you’ve had this year and thank God for them all.

Merry Christmas!

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Woow! It’s been a long while since I’ve posted on this blog, and there’s obviously a lot of excuses and news on why that’s been which I might just share in these upcoming posts.

For now though, I would like to wish everyone a happy and joyous Thanksgiving so remember to give thanks to God for everything including the fact that you’re still alive, well, and have a chance to finally see another post!

For those who are working on Thaksgiving, shame on you!

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As many of you have probably noticed, I have not been actively posting for at least the last two weeks. I have at least continued to update our Extreme Designs of the Week postings, but that is not nearly the posting expectations that our readers come here for nor is it acceptable on my end as well. I mentioned in an earlier post that September kicked in and everyone is busier than usual so I have been busy like everyone else, working harder than ever on starting new projects, finishing old ones, and trying to balance that work load with blogging, website management, and hosting.

The last post that I wrote on titled “10 Tips to Being a Successful Freelancer” has got me thinking about giving this blog a more specific topic to write about instead of general web development and web design. So now instead of that we will be focusing more on the actual definition of web design and web development meaning we will be covering the topics of:

• web design
• print design
• coding: XHTML/CSS/AJAX/JS
• freelance tips
• business tips related to the web world

The above will be the topics the main focus of this blog will be. In addition, I will (re)do what bloggers are supposed to do when they begin blogging. I will outline our weekly posting routine from now on. So each and every week we will now try to:

1. Have our weekly ‘Extreme Designs of the Week’ post.
2. Have at least one design or coding tutorial.
3. Include 3-4 posts on freelance and business advice.
4. Keep our word.

I would like to also mention that I’m a guy that likes to be reminded a lot. So if you ever get the feeling that we’re slacking off with our blog, just shoot me a message and we’ll definitely respond.

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There’s an interesting saying going around that goes something like:

You can blog anywhere in the world where there’s a laptop and an internet connection

This past week I was on a trip to Canada and I did have a laptop, but when I got to the 56th latitude, an internet connection was nowhere to be found. So for the most part, almost nobody knew I was gone, but now that I’m back, posting will resume as usual in a couple days after I play catch-up for a bit.

On a side note… If you’ve never been to Canada or as far as I’ve went, it is definitely worth checking out. The nature and scenery is just gorgeous.

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