Mark Embling

This is a bit of a "me too" post, inspired by Mike Taulty's Hardware Lineup 2011 post and Plip's Hardware Lineup for 2011, but hey... why not, right? Now that we've entered 2011, this is the main kit I'm using as we start the new year.

I'm the first one to say that I think new year's resolutions are a waste of time, but at the same time I think its always important to be striving to learn new things, improving your skills and generally bringing as much awesome as you can. Since we're saying hello to a new year shortly, I thought I'd take the opportunity to note a brief list of goals to achieve in the coming year.

Spurred on by the excitement of the HTML5 canvas hack night, I decided to put together something of my own using canvas and generally have a good play around with it all, and throw in a few extra new-and-shiny goodies such as audio.

Often I find myself needing a convenient way to pick colours for CSS files and various other things, pretty much every single day. Unfortunately, it has always been a bit of a hassle, with no convenient tool for doing so — certainly opening up something like Photoshop just for choosing a colour is not ideal! I know there are hundreds of these out there already, but somehow none of them really worked for me. I decided to write (another) one, with the really imaginative name of 'Colour Chooser'.

Last night I attended Rob Hawkes' first hack night, focusing on HTML 5 canvas. Ever since Rob first mentioned this idea, it was something which appealed to me and it did not disappoint. It was an enjoyable evening of learning and hacking, fuelled by a supply of pizza generously provided by Microsoft thanks to Ben Nunney and Martin Beeby.

Yesterday I decided to join Rob Conery in disconnecting my hand from my mouse for 'International Mouse Freedom Day'. What's more, this was a full real-life day at work rather than just a little experiment at home. The idea was that ditching the mouse and embracing the keyboard would speed everything up, make me more efficient and probably save the world.