In any case, it’s time for the yearly look back:

A year ago I left my job to start a new venture with a friend. We since grew to a 3-person team and by now we have a very early version of our product, while we’re still tweaking the requirements for the first release. Hopefully in a few months we’ll have something to show for. This is probably the year in which we’ll know for sure whether this project is destined to take off or not.

Being unemployed (and having no income) for so long is my biggest worry for the upcoming year. I was very willing to spend some of my savings on this project, but I was hoping it will be in a better place by now. Other than that, I don’t think there’s a lot to say about entrepreneurship that hasn’t been said before. The joys and sorrows of this road are well documented in countless articles. I’m otherwise happy with my life, something I wished myself a year ago on my birthday post.

Travelling: I was abroad twice – France/Germany and Switzerland. Both trips were great. Having already booked one trip for this year – to The Prodigy’s 3rd Warrior’s Dance Festival – I already made sure that I’ll keep “exploring the world” this year as well. Travelling has become one of my favorite things.

Side projects: I updated Dindy a few times in the past couple of weeks, hoping to address issues users have been experiencing for a while. I don’t plan to add any new features to Dindy – this was just to prevent it from rotting in the Android market. Unfortunately it hadn’t gained any new users for a long time now, yet it remains with a relatively high user score (4.2 out of 5.)

Another side project is my online will idea from nearly 3 years ago. I already have an almost fully functional version of it running on Google App Engine, but there’s still a long way to go as it lacks visual design (if you’d like to help me with that – let me know) and there’s still quite a lot of code to write.

Workouts: Having suffered some injuries I’m working out (running) only twice a week now. I’m not happy about it, but I’m still in pretty good shape so it’s not that bad. I hope my injuries will subside and that I’ll be able to get back to my 3-workouts-a-week routine at some point.

That’s about it, I guess. I hope you’re happy too.

To those of you who are interested, the difference is that Service.startService() started returning START_STICKY instead of START_STICKY_COMPATIBILITY.

I consider this very poor backward compatibility support on Android’s side. It also forced me to deal with Dindy’s service being killed by the Android platform at any given time. The solution wasn’t a trivial one – I had to add a new table to the database to save Dindy’s runtime state.

At least now hopefully (and excluding other bugs) Dindy will work on most phones, even those where the service is being killed for no reason.

I still haven’t managed to get my hands on a phone, on which Dindy doesn’t work, long enough to hook it up to my computer and figure out what the problem is. But since it works well on all base (“Nexus”) versions of Android and also on many other devices – I blame the changes made to the OS by phone manufacturers.

Hopefully I’ll figure it out. While Dindy is pretty much a finished and abandoned project, I would still like to know that it works well for whoever is using it.

The big challenge over the past 8 months of workouts was running outside instead of in the gym. Running outside is considerably harder for me, especially when it’s hot, cold or raining. At some points during these months I’ve considered going back to the gym but eventually powered through. As winter is getting closer, I might reconsider.

So here’s to another workout year.

Every time I stop running because of pain I start fearing that following the rest period I won’t be able to get back to running. Even worse, I fear that I’ll regain the weight I’ve lost since I started working out nearly 7 years ago. These fears may be illogical, but I can’t help it.

Hopefully I’ll be better soon enough to go back to my running routine.

• Making my own food – I’ve mostly been eating pre-made grilled chicken I buy at the supermarket, salad and whole rice, which I make in the new rice cooker I got as a gift. Luckily I don’t mind eating the same thing for long periods of time so it works for now. At some point, though, I’ll have to learn how to make other foods.
• Running outside – this one isn’t easy. I still run early in the morning and currently the temperatures are pretty low. I have a route of a little under 11km, which I complete in one hour – almost the same as when I used to run in the gym.
• Riding around on a bicycle – after many many years I’m riding a bicycle again. It’s not too bad, apart from the fact that I have to ride slower than I would have liked to avoid sweating.
• Using public transport – for the longer distances I’ve started using the train, buses and taxis. The train is the most comfortable, as I can use my netbook and time flies. Buses and taxis pretty much suck, but I get along.
• Giving up Diet Coke – my mild addiction to Diet Coke had to be stopped. From time to time I can still drink some, for example if I’m going to a restaurant, but generally I switched to tap water.

This is just off the top of my head. Getting up in the morning and “going to work” in my own desk at home also feels a bit unnatural. But it’s all about adjusting, and I think that after just one week I’m doing OK.

It was a year of starting and ending relationships. I’ve had some great moments of happiness along with big disappointments. Right now I’m happy and hoping to stay that way.

It was a year of travelling. I visited Paris and Berlin (same trip), Athens, Slovenia and Croatia (same trip), Switzerland and the US. I traveled more than I did during my trip around the world in 2009.

It was another year of Prodigy concerts. I went to a total of 3 concerts (two in Paris, one in Athens) with friends, which is even better than going alone – it’s an experience I love to share. My count of Prodigy concerts now stands on 12. Considering they’ve been around for 20 years, I think I still have some catching up to do :)

And finally, it was a year of tough career decisions. After working nearly 5 years in the same place I decided to quit and go on my own way, starting in a week’s time. It’s not easy giving up the comfort and security of being a hire in favor of an independent road, but I think it’s time to give it a try.

All in all, it was a year to remember. I can only hope for a similarly exciting 35th year.