As I missed the date for wishing the Western world Happy New Year it seems appropriate to instead welcome in the Chinese New Year.  Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of dragons to post, so here’s a picture of the only snow we’ve so far had here this winter.

I’m aware that it’s been a few months since I’ve posted here, my online activities died down quite a lot towards the end of last year as significant events in my personal life kept me very happy and very busy.  This is not a promise to become a daily updater but hopefully now I will update more frequently than once a quarter.

My postings on #altdevblogaday also reduced but my latest article, Learning from the past, has now been live a few days and seems to have been well received.  I’ve now re-posted it on my articles page here too, and Gamasutra also picked it up.

It’s November 5th today, a date that, to us Brits, means Gunpowder Plot.  Or Guy Fawkes, or simply bonfire night.  There are many names for it, but it means the same up and down the land – fireworks get set off, fires are lit, and toffee apples eaten.  As it falls on a Saturday this year it gives us the chance to celebrate it properly on the actual night, rather than the nearest Saturday as so often happens.

It’s a fun time to be about if you like fireworks, and what better way to kick off the darker nights than by lighting up the sky?

It’s been a busy few weeks for seemingly everyone I know, and quite a lot of people I don’t. It feels strange writing about someone that I didn’t know, but equally it feels strange to write a post this week without at least some mention to the man behind the computer I use every day. MG Siegler’s article here sums up everything I could say on Steve Jobs passing, and shows that so many of us share similar thoughts: the world will miss a man that was just getting into his stride. Apple will live on, but it’s a shame that he isn’t here to enjoy its continued success.

As for me, the project I’m on is speeding onwards and there lots of events to keep me on my toes. I’m still writing articles over at altdevblogaday, and my next post there will take me into double figures. Gamasutra have now reposted 3 of those articles which is very cool, though I still wish they’d let me know so I could join in the comment threads in a timely fashion. I’ve spent a few hours copying them across to this site as well, and I’ve also updated my photography page – ditching the fancy javascript I spent many hours getting to work and going for a simple layout inspired by the recent changes to google’s image search.

Finally, for now, I’ve done what I never thought I would: changed away from the orange links. This, again, is influenced by google but this time the other way round – I have no doubt in my mind that google did not copy my orange colour, but I felt it was time for a change away from it before everyone thinks I copied google.

(note: the image used on this post is by Ron Garan).

Tomorrow is officially the first day of Autumn, already it’s the time of year again when condensation greets you in the morning, leaves of wonderful colour fall from the trees and a there’s a chill in the morning despite warm days. I think autumn (or, if you’re American, fall) is my favourite time of year – spring is full of promise, autumn full of reflection. The only thing I don’t like is that it points out how quickly the year has gone. There’s still plenty left, and the next few months are going to be very busy.

Articles wise, AltDevBlogADay continues to grow and I’ve been far better at keep my articles up to date on there – I admit I haven’t given my own website a great deal of attention of late. Gamasutra have been reposting many articles from AltDev, and have put a couple of mine up now as well – a double edged sword because we have to find them for ourselves: I missed contributing to a healthy comments thread in time on the last article of mine they posted. It is exciting to see your words up on a big website though, there is no denying that.