Last month I finally decided to get an office near my new residence in Celas, Coimbra. The new office is also part of a joint project in which I’m participating: http://www.aulasdeprogramacao.com
My role in this new project is as Android and Objective-c instrutor.

Although risky at first, being independent has allowed me to make better use of my time often giving me the chance to learn new technical skills that get that important advantage over competition in the software development industry.

Leaving software development, 2011 was also an year when my martial arts schools’ project expanded. Around 70 students trained under me in either one of my schools or during the self-defense courses.

Unfortunately as a practitioner of martial arts I’ve had really bad luck injuring myself in two distinct unpredictable situations.

Despite the injuries, it has been a great year

Still not sure if I’ll have time to create a second Taekwondo class.

Also teaching a 10 member class on the subject: “Introduction to Self-defense” at Ginásio Desportivo de Coimbra. Special thanks to Nuno Coelho (a Taekwondo student who gathered the members) and Nuno Figueiredo (owner of Ginásio Desportivo de Coimbra) for making it possible.

Unfortunately, not everything is good news and during Karate kumite training I injured my right knee rather seriously. I’m currently unable to practice martial arts although I can practice less risky sports such bicycling, running or swimming to keep in shape until the knee fully recovers.

Finally, this slow August month I had the time to take care of this issue. Nothing too fancy, mainly because it isn’t necessary but also because September will be pretty busy and a quick fix was the best choice.

Now, when accessing http://telmoamaro.com you will start to see a redirection page. It’ll have my contact and links to three distinct places:

1) This wordpress blog were I’ll post my weekly activities and opinions. -> http://telmoamaro.wordpress.com
2) A specific website to promote my mobile/web development activities. A long required clean website with a lot of information. Plain HTML. I actually thought of going through the trouble of using ASP.NET but then I stopped to think and reached the conclusion it would be an overkill. -> http://mobile.telmoamaro.com
3) A specific website to promote my martial arts classes and activities. This one is still waiting construction. Since I require something more elaborate to show videos and other controls, I’ll use HTML 5. Hopefully, it’ll be ready by November or December of this year. -> http://artesmarciais.telmoamaro.com

The sections Curriculum, Services, Products and Support in this blog will also be changed. They are pretty outdated.

I currently have two on-going mobile projects as independent which, just like the martial arts website, will be place on hold due to urgent development requests.

The app allows users to read information from different newspapers, see the latest covers of Portuguese newspapers, check the weather forecast in Portugal and read their horoscope.

To get the app, just search “O Dia em 5 Minutos” at the AppStore (available worldwide). Release date is 29th August 2011 (two or three hours after this post ).

One is an utility targeting the international market. If I were an iPhone user, which I’m not since I only use iOS devices for debugging products, I would definitely use this app every day. Unfortunately, I’m a Blackberry user and releasing a Blackberry version isn’t a priority at this point.

The second iPhone project is a return to game development. There are some elements pretty well established such as game objective, options, screen flow, story, etc. One thing I’m still to decide is whether to make it 2D top-view or 3D.

Besides software, I’ve been looking into renewable energies lately. My work is software, but I feel it is time to look into other opportunities of engineering as well. Hopefully I’ll have something in that field ready to announce here by January or February 2012.

It took a few months, since I decided to start working as independent developer, to finally make a transitions from being mainly a third-party development service provider, to have the time and resources to start releasing my own products. Best of all, to make this step I didn’t need business investors and it was all from zero thanks to hard work, moral support from family and girlfriend, and… a lot less nights of sleep of course.

Nokia’s been a great device manufacturer for the last years and Microsoft is (despite all those hate comments from Apple fanboys, wannabe Apple fanboys and Linux geeks) one of the best software developers.

The first phones that benefit from this union should be released in October. Because of that, I have plans to release a game by then targeting the Nokias, once again.

After this one, I’ll focus on game development for the international market while continuing to work as a mobile development service provider.

Speaking of games, I’d like to thank Mr Zagalo for the interview and wish him luck with his research for a book about the history of game development in Portugal.

Leaving software and moving to sports and martial arts.

Although I’m currently living at Covilhã for the duration of two months, I visited Coimbra a week ago to lecture a class on the martial application of Taekwondo. The class was part of the training for Taekwondo assistant instructors and was sponsored by ADTC (Coimbra District Taekwondo Association). Special thanks to Mr Machado for the invitation.

I’ll be staying in Covilhã for a while working, but also enjoying learning new martial arts techniques and tactics in a great environment to workout in open air.

Classes will be held at Santa Clara Club in Coimbra during the morning.

The topics of the class are a review of fundamental technique, vital points, stages of training from technique learning to actual combat application, mental preparedness, training methods and different teaching approaches between adults and children.

Of particular interest is what can be done with piezoelectric materials, so I’ll likely start testing some projects that use them.