Now that I'm in-between startups (aka, unemployed) I keep thinking if this isn't the right time to learn a few new things. Here is what's top of mind in terms of technologies and applications I'd like to learn better:
- Flash: I have a pretty good handle on HTML, CSS and AJAX, but there's just so much I can do with that. Sometimes I know there are things it'd be much easier to do in Flash, but I know nothing about that.
- Illustrator: I'm getting better and better by the day with Adobe Illustrator. I like it much more than Photoshop, but a lot of simple tasks I'm still struggling with and there is a lot more Illustrator can do that I'm not even aware of. I'm actually considering if I should attend some training or classes on Illustrator.
- Cloud Computing: When I started Sampa there wasn't a cloud computing as we know today, and that was just 4.5 years ago. I'd like to know more about Amazon EC2 and Windows Azure.
- MVC: Now we are getting into ultra-geek speak. Sampa was built with MVC (model-view-controller) even before ASP.NET/C# supported it natively. Now MSFT is shipping their own MVC solution and I'd like to learn that. And it should take just about a week, so I probably should just do it.
For me it's all about productivity, so I won't spend two months learning something to help me save a week. ASP.NET MVC is a no brainer, I'll just learn it. Cloud Computing is very much dependent on the project. I don't trust CC for high-availability apps, but for most Web 2.0 services it should be fine. Illustrator I'm just getting by and slowly learning the trade. Flash probably would take me several weeks just to get to the basic level and that doesn't add up because I can always find a good Flash developer to do it in a day or two what I need.
I'm the Co-founder & CTO of 
