Last year on this day I wrote a post on the 5 things I want to do in the next year, I thought it seemed like a prime idea to take a look back and see if I actually achieved any of them and try to figure out what I want from the next year of my life.

1. Blogging and Social Media, I wanted to up my game with blogging and try to boost my social media profile and build readership.

I’d consider this a partial success, this year I launched GeekTechBlog.com which is aimed at being a Technology blog with numerous bloggers and much more focused on tech news and goings on than Dan’s Tech Blog (this one) which is often more personal.

GeekTechBlog.com has been and is a lot of fun and is growing in readership month by month to thousands of readers, gaining not only international interest from some of the exclusives we’ve been able to get, such as a hands on look at the Nokia Lumia 900 and our exclusive first interview with the new owners of TinyGrab.com. As well as attracting advertiser interest and ending the year with a few people offering to buy the blog, it’s a good start but I hope it will get so much better over the coming years.

I’d love to keep growing this blog and can see it going far, I hope I can keep building it and get more bloggers on board (if you’re interested, get in touch:- dan@geektechblog.com) with more content, more fun and hopefully more invites to those fun free bars & press events.

2. Focusing on projects, I wanted to focus more on my coding projects and sites and get more of them off the ground… This I completely failed at. In fact, I’ve added a few more on the pile of sites I need to finish. Hopefully I’ll have better luck over the coming year…

3. Learn a higher language, I wanted to learn a higher language and in particularly C# so could get into developing on the Windows Platform and developing Windows Phone 7 apps, this I have dabbled with and have started learning C with my University course and have also begun work on a Windows Phone 7 app in C# which I hope to eventually get finished, have many ideas for apps and programs I want to develop so with any luck will get some of these done over the next year and add get some solid Windows & Windows Phone development experience under my belt!

4. Get more involved in the tech scene, I wanted to dive in and meet more people, go to more events and just get myself out there on the scene a bit more. I’ve been to a few great events over the past year including the WebDevConf which was a great experience as got to see some fantastic people speak live.

Another fun little tech night was when I went to Unruly Media’s London base and made a cool little robot bug and had the opportunity to chat with a few other bloggers and the Unruly guys who create some of the kick-ass video ads on the blog.

The Imagine Cup UK Finals at Microsoft HQ also stand out as a particularly great tech event in which I met some great people in the web & tech industry, some of which have become good friends.

5. Building my business(es), as I’m sure anyone running a business hopes the next year will be better, and well it has things are moving forward and it’s great to see everything I’ve been working on growing and this past year has seen some exciting changes with hundreds of additional domain extensions now available, and hundreds yet to come as well as improving existing product lines,. It’s been a good year and I hope can continue to build on what’s been done here in 2012.

Looking forward…

Writing this I am forced to consider what I want from 2012, it’s largely the same as what I was looking for from 2011, however now that I am at university I do need to look at how that will change things, and how my perspective and aspirations have also changed with the past years events. I value things differently, and find myself being drawn towards different areas within the Web & Technology industries and I see the next year as an exciting period where things will really begin to take shape, and my career and business paths for the future will begin to really take hold, it’s going to be fun, exciting and scary. I can’t wait.

The new year is almost upon us and I can’t wait! 2011 will hopefully be a busy and exciting year, with many aspects of my life changing quite dramatically. I hope to be at University come September 2011, something which will no doubt change almost every aspect of my life with the leap in freedom, independence and surroundings. There are quite a few things I’d like to do between now and then however…

1. Blogging and Social Media, I would really like to make a conscious effort to take my blogging efforts up a notch and continue to make something out of it. Recently I have jumped back into blogging and already I seem to be getting some of those benefits, such as more people approaching me for advertising and reviews. I’d like to continue this with regular, interesting posts and build the readership!

2. Focusing on projects, I have a bad habit of starting things and not seeing the projects through, I have got a few projects to a good stage now and would like to see the development continue and get more products and modules in use, particularly my WHMCS Modules which I am posting over on WHMCSextra.com and of course finishing off the pile of websites I started and didn’t fully develop!

3. Learn a higher language, like C#. I am fairly well versed at the wonders of PHP and most web-based languages, and would like to get a grasp on C#, particularly as this should help me get some kind of foothold in developing for the windows platforms, and enable me to develop for the Windows Phone 7 as well as the desktop.

4. Get more involved in the tech scene, I would love to get more immersed in the tech scene, and meet more people and generally be part of the UK tech community. I am going to try and get to as many tech events in the UK as possible, and try and meet as many interesting tech people as I can get my hands on, particularly in Reading, with the Microsoft Events and Tweet-ups which I hope to be able to re-attend soon.

5. Building my empire business, I have been working on my business now for a few years and as with everything else I’d like to keep building and really ramp it up to the next level. I have been working on a new site for it for what seems like a decade and hope I can get it finished soon, I’d like to get this finished and launched along with a wide range of new and exciting products and of course working on some very exciting specialist products which will enable me to provide a unique spin and customisation to some types of products which many of my competitors cannot offer!

1st January 2009, time for regrets (i really ate too much sweet stuff this Christmas, although it was a lot less that previous years) and of course a time for the infamous new years resolutions.

So I will jinx myself and post a few of mine here

 Develop video production and presenting skills, this will mainly be done by the shiny new collab channel I have started – http://youtube.com/fiveawesomewebgeekswhich will hopefully get good but i may also do a radio show or podcast, not sure which I would prefer or which would be more beneficial :p

Lose Weight… HA! yea everyone has this :p does anyone ever do it?

Stop wasting time, sounds strange but i have had enough wasting my time with people, situations everything. I don’t care if it seems selfish, I am young and i need to do everything i possibly can with maximum return. Now this isn’t o i will stop volunteering to do stuff or i wont be sociable, in fact quite the opposite, spending quality time with friends, is a good use of my time, spending quality time working for other people is a good use of my time. However at the moment what volunteering i am doing is most definitely not worth while, I am not being given the opportunity to show anything close to my true potential, and that makes it not worth my time, there is simply no point sitting around for a day a week doing nothing productive – If i cant develop or learn, i don’t enjoy what i do and if i am not developing, learning or enjoying something there’s not much point in me doing it. I have alot I can and do do, so why waste that time i have.

Complete some of my projects. I have many many many many projects (last count 34) which i have started and become bored of or just not found the time, so this year i am determined to spend some decent time and get the projects knocked out to a degree where i can publish them in one form or another and get them out there so i can start getting user feedback, and hopefully money.

Do more business, sounds obvious but i would like to get myself out there more and start going for the jobs i have been letting pass me by on what seems to be a daily basis. If i can do it i will do it, if not i know plenty of others which can.

Confidence, get more!! I am often plenty confident online, but i need to build up this skill, throughout all of my work. Confidence in myself that what i am doing is good or at the least acceptable; i have a habit or keeping the work till the last minute trying to make it better and then miss the dead line completely. So i shall try and be more confident and I ain’t takin’ no sh*t this year! Move aside Dan is in the building!