{"type":"blog","id":"2016/2016-12-29-2016-in-review","title":"2016 in review","url":"/blog/2016/2016-12-29-2016-in-review","summary":"2016 has been an eventful year in many, many ways. I don't want to dwell on big global topics in this post, but review what I got up to.","date":"2016-12-29","tags":["2016","Reviews"],"categories":["writing"],"body":"2016 has been an eventful year in many, many ways. I don't want to dwell on big global topics in this post, but review what I got up to.\n\n## Writing\n\n{% assign 2016posts = site.posts | where:\"date\",\"2016\" %} In 2016, I wrote approximately {{ 2016posts.size }} articles, blog posts and tutorials.\n\nThe most popular on my Medium account was '[A documentation crash course](https://hackernoon.com/a-documentation-crash-course-45006a85c15c#.790b6ze0w)', closely followed by '[Making Atom even more awesome](https://hackernoon.com/making-atom-even-more-awesome-my-setup-e7a89969a876#.s2yhf3joo)' and '[Tech your privilege at the door](https://hackernoon.com/tech-your-privilege-at-the-door-5d8da0c41c6b#.eemgzrjyd)' (which was only published a week ago).\n\nMost popular on my own site was '[Setapp aims to solve the app problem for Macs](https://www.gregariousmammal.com/setapp-aims-to-solve-the-app-problem-for-macs)' and '[Hands on with the Lenovo Yoga book](https://www.gregariousmammal.com/hands-on-with-the-yoga-book)'.\n\nMost popular on SitePoint was '[Create cross-platform applications with Electron](https://www.sitepoint.com/desktop-node-apps-with-electron/)', followed by '[The past, present and future of Swift](https://www.sitepoint.com/the-past-present-and-future-of-swift/)'.\n\n## Video and audio\n\n{% assign 2016media = site.posts | where:\"type\",\"podcast\" %}\n\nIn 2016 I doubled down on my audio and video recording efforts, but it was mostly an exploratory effort, in 2017 I will take it more seriously. Even so I created roughly {{ 2016media.size }} video and audio files, [plus 7 others with SitePoint](https://www.sitepoint.com/premium/users/ChrisWard). The most popular podcast was the '[pitching to the press](https://soundcloud.com/the-weekly-squeak/the-weekly-squeak-6th-august-pitching-your-idea-to-the-press)' episode.\n\n## Presentations\n\n{% assign 2016events = site.events %} I spoke at, or reported on approximately {{2016events.size}} conferences and meetups in 11 countries, not including the roughly 2 a week I attend locally on a regular basis.\n\n## Other activities\n\nWhat else did I get up to this year?\n\n- I started and nearly finished a book on responsive web design for SitePoint. It should be completed in early 2017. I was also technical editor for a book on Otto for Packt publishing, but as the Otto project was cancelled, so was the book.\n- I contributed to two Swift courses for the Flatiron school and CodeFoundry.\n- I taught a dozen Syrian refugees to program, and their project was featured in international media.\n- I helped fund two projects via the Berlin chapter of the Awesome Foundation.","links":[],"fields":{}}