I've been a freelancer now for two years and things have been going pretty well. The start of a decade seems like a significant time and a good time to think about what I'd like to do in the next ten years.

Collaborate more on projects with interesting people

There's a perfect size job for a single freelancer, but I'd also like to work on more varied and larger projects. Collaborating with other skilled freelancers is a great way to do this. Plus, you get someone to bounce ideas off and you get to learn from the experience of someone else. I've done a few collaborative projects so far and I'd like to bring this to more of my work.

Work with clients more at the ideas stage

As a new freelancer I've found most of my projects have landed on my door at the build stage. Everything has been decided and they just need someone to build it. This has been a great way to start off my freelance career and develop my skills. As I become more experienced I'd like to contribute more to the specification and the design. I'd like to be known for my creative problem solving skills and sought out by clients who want help to improve their business.

Be more proactive about finding new clients and meeting interesting people

I've been very lucky so far and had plenty of clients. A lot of this came from the networking I did when I first set up shop. I met many interesting people, but I've been so busy lately that I've let this slip. I need to do more networking, but I also need to look outside of the web design community if I want more varied clients.

Bring more ideas to life – 50% of income to come from my own projects by 2019

I'm very proud of my ideas book: A little sketchpad I keep with me and jot down my ideas (even the daft ones) as they come to me. Somewhere in that book is a piece of gold just waiting to be discovered.

Remember to have fun

At times working for yourself can be a little bit stressful and feel very serious. It's easy to get bogged down in that and forget how lucky I am to be doing something I really enjoy.

Make time for friends and family

I can be a bit of a workaholic at times and I get so preoccupied with what I'm doing that I forget the most important things. My friends are busy people too, and I've found that I actually need to plan to see them rather than just bumping into them a lot. I will get better at this.

Be more like Pete

Pete was one of my closest and best friends. He also went freelance at about the same time I did. He died just over a year ago and I miss him more than I can say. Pete overflowed with enthusiasm and you couldn't help but be dragged along and be inspired by it. He was also incredibly friendly and genuinely interested in everyone around him. I always felt better about myself after a chat with him. If I can be half the person he was, then I'll do fine in this coming decade.

You?

If you've got any new decade's resolutions or thoughts about mine then please let me know in the comments.

This was just a little Sunday project inspired by the number of strikes we’ve been having and the isitchristmas.com website. Isthereastrike.co.uk lists organisations that have been experiences strikes and then has a simple yes/no page for each one.

As the site is very simple it was also a nice test bed for a few things I’ve been learning about lately. It runs on ASP.NET MVC (it may be the simplest MVC site ever), has an Entity Framework data model keeping track of the strikes and has a Dynamic Data admin section.

There is a small unit test for the project using xUnit and I’m going to try using an IOC container to allow me to test the data filtering. It’s overkill, but a good way to learn.

Perhaps people will even find it useful, but I’m really hoping that all the strikes (particularly Leeds Bin Strike) will be sorted out soon.

Light Night in Leeds is a great event and I'm really looking forward to this year. Partly because I'm a little bit involved, but also because some of my friends are doing really exciting stuff there this year. The talented Andy Sykes (aka ‘Hexjibber' for some reason) will be using FriiSpray at Ha Ha Bar to create audience generated animations that will get shown on the Big Screen in Millennium Square. I will be there helping him set up FriiSpray Virtual Graffiti and if possible taking most of the credit for all his hard work. We're going to be inviting passers by to paint using a virtual spray can on to the window of Ha Ha Bar and Andy is going to take their creations and bring them to life on the big screen. It's going to be a lot of fun, so please come down and see us.

Another project that I will be going to see is Pyramid of Art's sound web. I was involved in their project last year, but I managed to miss it being exhibited at last year's Light Night. I arrived just as they were closing the doors. So I'm hoping to sneak away from Andy (if he lets me) to go and see what they've done this year. It was created by the young people in the Pyramid of Arts Youth Group and will hopefully be as big a success as what they did last year.

Something I'm not involved in, but is happening at my office at Old Broadcasting House is something to do with electric pets. Got no idea what it is, but it sounds like fun and I will be checking it out.

Something I'm going to miss on the night is the work by my Jam Jar Collective colleagues Dave and Stuart at Temple Mill. Viewings of their light sculpture have completely sold out on the night. It's running through the week so I'm hoping I can catch it on another night.

There's literally another 100 things going on, so there's no chance of seeing everything, but it's going to be a fun night.

I love Brighton and I loved dConstruct last year when I came for the first time. So it was hugely exciting to get an unexpected email inviting the Jam Jar Collective to come and show off FriiSpray. The Jam Jar Collective are a group of geeks and artists interested in making interactive stuff and FriiSpray is an interactive graffiti wall that we made. The rest of them couldn't make it down, so my good friend Dave is helping me instead.

I always like to see behind the scenes, but when I arrived today with my suitcase full of projectors and laptops all the doors at the Brighton Dome were locked. Luckily I saw Jeremy Keith walking past carrying some bits of stage and he was kind enough to let me in. Everything seemed fairly calm inside and like they were pretty much ready for the activities of tomorrow. I set FriiSpray up between the O'Reilly book stand and a collection of Microsoft Surface tables. I really wanted to have a play on surface but they were doing a windows update.

I went to the pre party for a little bit, but I had an SQL problem on my mind (now sorted). Plus I really want to add some new features to FriiSpray for tomorrow, although it's getting late now. Anyway, really can't wait till tomorrow. Should be a fantastic day.