One year and a day ago I posted for the first time over here. The first months I updated frequently, but very short and most of the times links to other posts around The shortest post did contain only a few words so the content was not very fantastic back then. Now I take much more time to write an interesting post.

The lat year was quite fun and interesting things happened. Back in February I set up my own business. Together with many others we started Fronteers, an association for front-enders. I also went to some cool meetings the past few months where I met many great web designers and developers. Also notable is that I’m a judge at CSS Off.

The next twelve months there are some things that will happen. First, I will turn nineteen next month. Also in November I might do several presentations related to front-end developing (all still pending). In may 2008 I hope to pass high school (I’m looking forward to University yet). Of course I’ll update my blog if there is something interesting.

By the way, I signed up for Twitter earlier today, so if you’d like to read personal stuff you might want to follow me.

Yesterday the founding congress of the Guild of Front-Enders was held in Amsterdam. I was in the audience to listen to a few great speakers. After the congress the general members’ meeting was held to vote for the ideas and the board of the Guild.

The congress

Stephen Hay (Cinnamon Interactive) was the first speaker, and held a great presentation about the Web Guidelines. He noted the importance, and gave a five tips to easily follow 80 percent of the guidelines.

Also, there were some code reviews. I saw two (there were three in total), the ones of Arjen Geerse (Lost Boys) and Tom Greuter (info.nl). Both they presented how they organize the front-end within the companies they work for. In my opinion they have clear and good ways to develop internally, and for me as freelancer it was great to see a bit of how it works in larger companies.

The two panels of non-front-enders (managers and clients) were quite interesting. Unfortunately I haven’t a summary of the thoughts (if someone has: it is really good content to publish, so don’t wait!). Bobby van der Sluis (Refunk) presented his ideas on how the GvFE could be there for Flash designers and developers.

The general members’ meeting

The general members’ meeting gave some new ideas and points on how the Guild will take its next steps. The name (Guild of Front-Enders) will be compared with other, new names. Members can vote for the name they want. There will be a working group for certification that will have a clear proposal before April 1st 2008 (no joke). And that was only the policy of the Guild.

The board was also a point. As there were rumors about the chairmanship, all members were allowed to also vote for the chairman they wanted. Peter-Paul Koch eventually made it to chairman.

So, what about me being the future?

The chairman is not the only board member, there were three candidate board members as well, and I was one of them. The three of us were all allowed to introduce ourselves to everybody. My introduction began with: ‘I am young, I am the future.’. I wanted to make clear that I do not only want to care about the future of the Guild itself, but also about front-end developers in general. There are many professionals, but there will always be a need for new talent. With my participation in the Education Commission, besides being part of the board, I think I can care about that. By the way, I was voted right into the board.

More photos can be found in my Flickr set.

I was pleased when Tony and JD mailed me a few weeks ago, and asked if I wanted to be a judge at the CSS Off competition. Of course I said yes, and just all judges were announced.

There are six other judges, including Tony and JD themselves. Together we will look at the entries people can build within 24 hours. Next Saturday is the first competition we’ll judge together, feel free to attend. All you have to do is pick the design and code your best markup and style you can.

More important than winning, is sharing the knowledge we and all participants have. All entries are being commented with good and interesting points we came through. Also thinks we didn’t like are added, with some ideas how we would do it. Have a look at the previous results to see how extensive the entries are being judged.

I passed my driving test! From now on, I can get everywhere much easier and faster than by cycle. Next Thursday my driving license will be ready to be picked up at the municipality house, so I have to wait a week.

The driving test wasn’t bad at all, I didn’t need to drive throughout many difficult area’s, so that was lucky for me. One time I was a little bit confused, but I could organize it well enough.

I can’t wait until next week… :)

Past Thursday and Friday I became a ‘one day student’ Artificial Intelligence at Groningen University. I have to select a nice study next year, so some orientation isn’t bad at all.

I liked the study very much, so it is definitely one of the options to pick. Many of my interests are part of the study, like language, technique, psychology, usability (they call it cognitive ergonomics) and robotics.