After a bit of travel and consulting for my new company, I am reflecting on the skills that I have learnt that transferred and those that did not.

My knowledge of my former company’s products, for obvious reasons, is almost completely useless in my new job. However, the ability to acquire that knowledge - something I was expected to do rapidly at Atex - has proven invaluable. This has led to me having a very good understanding of Qtopia in a very short space of time.

The experience I gained in terms of interacting with customers as a vendor and also from communicating (dare I say selling?) our company’s offering has also been very useful. This recent trip saw me dropped into deep water, and it was disappointing to float without learning any new skills.

Some new challenges are definitely required - rumours of project management may help.

ps. at the moment, Oslo summer looks remarkably like Melbourne winter, drizzle and overcast, with an added bonus of more daylight hours to enjoy it

To be sure, people who need certainty are unlikely to make good entrepreneurs. But such people are unlikely to do well in a host of other activities as well …

In all such persuits decisions have to be made, and the essence of any decision is uncertainty.

But everyone who can face up to decision making can learn to be an entrepreneur and to behave entrepreneurially. Entrepreneurship, then, is behavior rather than personality trait. And its foundation lies in concept and theory rather than in intuition.

- Peter Drucker, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 1985

Ansel Adams’ instructional series (Camera, Negative, Print) was my introduction to photography. Over the last month or two, I found some wonderful other fonts of knowledge on the web. These have given me a more rounded understanding.

Alain Briot’s 11 part series, Aesthetics and Photography, is the best set of articles I have read. Starts at the beginning with an article on How to see Photographically and continues through general photographic theory.

The advantage of this series is that it is about photography as an art form, not specifically digital photography. The included artwork is inspiring and the focus on landscapes struck a chord. This is an artist who is able to write well. The series continues on to topics such as Personal Style and Being an Artist.

As a bonus, the rest of the Luminous Landscape site is packed full of helpful articles. Especially true if you have an interest in outdoor photography.

Digital Outback Photography is another site with a range of good content, including a simple tutorial that covers a little bit of everything. They also have heaps of useful reviews that are from the perspective of actually using the camera.

Their 350d review was helpful in deciding between the 30D and 350D. I ended up going for the 350d on the theory that I can then focus on useful accessories, such as lenses.

Strobist has been a recent find that has heaps of content on using light in photography. An area that I’ve not had much exposure to, I’m looking forward to reading more of this blog.

• General Theory - strive for layers of interest
• Lighting 101
• Strobist on Assignment - tips from real assignments
• Buying equipment

Darren, of Pro Blogger fame, has started a photography site: Digital Photography School. Contains useful information for beginners to intermediate. There are some strikingly obvious things that are useful to be reminded of, or to discover I didn’t know.

Some recent articles at DPS include:

• Silhouettes
• The Zoom Effect - games to play with a zoom!
• How to hold a digital camera - obvious, but always worth review
• Pets - useful if you just bought a kitten

To stay up to date with sites I find, watch my del.icio.us page (or feed).

There is a school of thought that a blog is a useful tool for personal development - a tool for change. Learning a new programming API is only part of what blogsphere participation has achieved.

A year of blogging has passed since I started this blog:

My initial aim for this site is to follow my progress of figuring out how to write a Cocoa application using Python.

I’ve gone through a lot of changes, largely motivated by a desire to discover what I’m passionate about. This led me from being a respected manager to a rookie employee in a new state with new peers and a new industry to learn.

This blog was originally intended to investigate a few things:

• A return to hands-on product creation; programming
• Learning Cocoa and Python
• Finding out about blogging
• Improving my writing style

These are on-going lessons to be learnt, and will remain in focus. However, I am also going to broaden my scope. This has been slowly happening over the last few months.

On the way to discovering what I enjoy, what I’m passionate about, I found light as a starting point. This has evolved into a fairly healthy photography hobby, and has kept my plugging away at Photoshop over the years. I think I am now considered intermediate. I’m going to focus a bit more on design too, of both software and everyday things.

My restated goals for the site are:

• Enhance existing programming knowledge: Haskell, web, Cocoa/Python, DB, QT
• New programming topics: OpenGL, and other graphics processing
• Communication, such as blogging and my recent Toastmasters experiences
• Things I’m working on at now: C++, Qtopia, Embedded Devices
• Design aspects: Photography, Photoshop, Software and User Interfaces
• Include more personal thoughts in my writing

This last point is a chance to include more of my life, and hopefully focussing on communication will keep the cliché count down.

With the revision of focus, the tag line for the site is changing. Gone is “Can a snake (Python) eat chocolate (Cocoa)”, and in is “Beauty through design”.

Has blogging been worth the effort? Totally! I’m very excited about where it will lead next.

Geoff

ps. I will be sparse on contact for the next few weeks as I journey through China and Norway.