Study Frenzy

I really don't miss school/college, but I do love to learn. So it is not surprising that from time to time, I choose topics to study and can sometimes overdo it, much like I find myself this week. Because of upcoming changes in my work environments, I've found it necessary to spruce up some technical skills. So I am currently reading:

• Ext JS 4: a technology for rich web user interfaces and mobile applications. You can produce some nice-looking and responsive websites and mobile apps this way.
• Spring 3.1: a technology used widely in Java to wire various components of an application. For example, I use it a lot to manage how I use Hibernate (data persistence), security, website presentation on the server, and application configuration, to mention but a few.
• Hibernate 4.1: my preferred library to handle interaction with databases, abstracting a lot of the details and allowing me to use ORM in my apps.
• Mule ESB 3.3: in an enterprise with different kinds of applications and systems, you need a data conduit that can connect everything together. I use this enterprise service bus to achieve exactly that, enabling legacy and other proprietary applications to communicate.
• ActiveMQ: a better way to move data reliably using message queuing. This is part of what will be implemented on the ESB.

All the above studies are skill/tool upgrades except ActiveMQ. Usually when I find myself using older libraries and technologies (or newer ones offer attractive features or fix old problems), I conduct a study to learn what's new and end up upgrading my entire code base. So it looks like the rest of the year will be consumed with completing this upgrade.

Besides these studies, I am also primarily still developing LeafCompass, the portal for landscapers. The first release is out, to be followed soon by a mobile version and a comprehensive support site.

As if that isn't enough, I am in self-taught mode for business administration: I'm feeling the itch to start ramping up my small business Strive Consulting, LLC and taking on more jobs, and eventually becoming completely self-employed. So I am designing a new app that will help administer that business too (so I can achieve operational automation and efficiency through technology).

Talk of busyness, I am! But the study frenzy seems like a necessary step at this stage in my life. I know it will pay off, so I do it despite how boring it is and how tired I end up.