Less than two weeks, and we are ending the year 2022. It was an intense year personally, but there was also a lot of progress and a couple of achievements, of which I am happy and proud.
In life, you make choices that you believe are the right ones, but they strike you in the end. It probably happens to all of us, but I was not expecting this myself.
So lesson learned; the next step is to accept it and move on.
Besides bad choices, I made a couple of good ones. A couple of these turned out well.
My vertebrae
A couple of weeks ago, at the ESPC. A lot of people were asking me about my progress with my back. Some were surprised to see me walking.
It was a good reminder to know how lucky I was in 2021.
Until October this year, I have been going to my physiotherapist weekly. Some days I am still feeling some pain, but it is manageable. When it is not, it is a reminder to take a break and relax for a while.
I do my core training daily to keep my back and abdominal muscles in shape. How many dead bugs have I done in the last year? It must be about 150 each day, plus some other exercises.
Personal health
Besides my core training and cycling, I started to play padel.
Last year after my accident, I began to play with the idea of starting padel. Not sure if it would be possible, I first asked my physiotherapist, who gave me the green light.
I first started in December-January with training to understand the game and get some tips on playing.
In the beginning, it was challenging, not only because I had never played it but also physically. Luckily with the right exercises from my physiotherapist, I overcame a couple of the issues and can now enjoy multiple games a week.
Achievements
Congrats! You’re a GitHub Star!
That is what arrived in my mailbox on the 28th of January.
infoThe GitHub Stars program offers impactful developers an opportunity to showcase their work, reach more people, and shape the future of GitHub.
There are 101 stars, and I am proud to be one of them.
An extra Microsoft MVP category
Besides the GitHub Star recognition, I also got a new Microsoft MVP category. As I shifted gears to the DevTools landscape, I got awarded the Developer Technologies category next to my M365 Development category.
Working at Rapid
At the end of 2021, I joined Rapid to build a Visual Studio Code extension to test the APIs you want to consume or develop.
In July, we released the first version. Me being excited to see how the installation numbers were progressing, and installations increased quickly.
Today while writing this wrap-up, there are already 110k installations of the RapidAPI Client extension.
importantIf you have not installed it, you can find it here: RapidAPI Client.
Next year we will bring more features to the extension and new experiences. Keep an eye on our RapidAPI DevTools.
Front Matter is gaining a lot of new users
Another project of which I am proud is Front Matter CMS. It is a product I started investing more time in while stuck to my bed after the accident.
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It was also the product that got me on the radar of Rapid. At the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022, there was a momentum of more and more users installing it.
Early this year, we started with less than 100 stars on GitHub, whereas today, we have over 950 stars and over 20k installations.
Also, the first sponsors came on board. Thank you all so much! Although it is a free product, it is a project which keeps giving me energy and creativity.
One thing which I launched recently is a Discord channel for Front Matter CMS. Hopefully, we can grow the user base in 2023 and create a community around the product.
By the way, all help for Front Matter CMS is always welcome. Everyone is welcome.
Conferences
This year, I have not been talking a lot at conferences. Some events were still online, but nowadays, the in-person events are coming back, and I noticed how much people missed it in our community.
Collabdays Belgium
Our yearly BIWUG was finally back in person and was a success! The team worked hard to make the entire day go as smoothly as possible, and it was our best edition ever.
We had more than 350 attendees, 41 speakers, and 37 sessions.
Thanks again to the whole team! As always, it is excellent #TeamWork, and I am sure we can make another great event in 2023!
Hugo Conf
I had the opportunity to pitch Front Matter CMS at Hugo Conf. This was pretty exciting, as I love to use Hugo - Static Site Generator, and it was an opportunity to show the product to Hugo users.
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ESPC22
One of the last things I did this year was attending a conference and be able to present again. Oh, I missed that so much.
I had such a good time in Copenhagen. I saw so many familiar faces again, talking to so many people, getting the rush from speaking. I forgot how much I missed it. Thanks to the ESPC and program teams for selecting one of my sessions. Hope to see you next year in Amsterdam.
Visitor badges are still hot
One of the other services I created in 2021 became used a lot. In 2022, the visitorbadge.io service has generated over 4 million visitor badges.
Platforms and websites like Microsoft 365 Platform Community Blog and fullstackhero use it to show simple page stats.
2023 what will you be?
We will have to see. Hopefully, some things will fall into place.
I am already looking forward to speaking at some conferences in person and to being a judge at the Arctic Cloud Developer Challenge, as I have heard many great things about this event.
Letting the Front Matter CMS user base grow steadily would be a great achievement in 2023.
Have a great 2023!