2006 Highlights

• Thu, 04 Jan 2007 at 18:25:17 GMT
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For the fourth consecutive year, I'm going to try to record my personal highlights from the previous year.

To get things started, here are a few memories from 2006 off the top of my head:

• I had an amazing surprise 30th birthday party featuring the Sallymacs.
• I played Midnight Madness for the fourth consecutive year.
• I saw FC Barcelona play in New York.
• I played on OmniTI's inaugural football club, OmniTI FC.
• I began using a MacBook Pro (connected to a 30" display) as my primary desktop.
• Essential PHP Security spent a few days in Amazon's top 500 after being Slashdotted.

The most important event for me by far was when OmniTI acquired Brain Bulb. In some ways, I feel like I'm still settling in, but it has been a natural fit from the very beginning. I've got some new projects planned for 2007, and I think it's going to be a good year. Of course, there's always room for more. Maybe you'd like to join us? If you're a good PHP or Perl developer, we'd love to welcome you to our team.

One of my goals for 2006 was to speak at fewer conferences. I wasn't very successful:

• Spoke at PHP Quebec for the second time. (29 - 31 Mar)
• Spoke at LinuxWorld for the first time. (24 - 25 Apr)
• Spoke at php|tek for the second time. (25 - 28 Apr)
• Spoke at Boston PHP for the second time. (04 May)
• Spoke at ApacheCon Europe for the second time. (26 - 30 Jun)
• Spoke at OSCON for the fourth time. (24 - 28 Jul)
• Spoke at php|works for the third time. (12 - 15 Sep)
• Spoke at EuroOSCON for the first time (18 - 21 Sep)
• Spoke at the DC PHP Conference for the first time. (19 - 20 Oct)
• Spoke at ZendCon for the second time. (30 Oct - 02 Nov)
• Spoke at the University of Arkansas for the first time. (01 Dec)
• Spoke at Web Builder 2.0 for the first time. (04 - 06 Dec)

To be fair, not all of those are conferences, but everything that requires travel and preparation takes time that I'd like to devote to other areas this year.

Another goal for 2006 was to do more cool stuff. I certainly did some cool stuff (some was even work-related), but the primary projects I had in mind at the beginning of the year remain unfinished. That's a bit disappointing, but it gives me something to strive for in 2007.

Blogging more was another goal. In 2005, there were 93 posts. In 2006, that grew to 106. The 20 most popular posts were (in chronological order):

• addslashes() Versus mysql_real_escape_string()
• PHP Insecurity
• Secure Logins
• Ruby on Rails Fans
• PHP Easter Eggs
• Top X List of Mac OS X Annoyances
• Mac OS X Annoyances and Resolutions
• SERVER_NAME Versus HTTP_HOST
• Easy Cookie Hacking
• Who Practices Test-Driven Development (TDD)?
• Mob Mentality and Web 2.0
• Six Reasons PHP Sucks
• Cross-Domain Ajax Insecurity
• The Dangers of Cross-Domain Ajax with Flash
• The crossdomain.xml Witch Hunt
• Google Code Search for Security Vulnerabilities
• Using CSRF for Browser Hijacking
• Formatting and Highlighting PHP Code Listings
• Stealing Saved Passwords
• Google Web Accelerator Debate

I hope everyone has a wonderful 2007. Now it's time to get back to blogging. :-)