Aaah summertime… The best time to take some time off from work and to disconnect. I recently came to realize that it had been a long time since I last took some time off and with recent changes in my personal life I thought it would be a good idea to take some serious time off this summer.

So… The next 4 weeks I’m going to try and disconnect. I want to try and not read email, stay off Twitter and Facebook and really relax. Some of my Twitter followers were already taking bets on how long I would last ;) But I’m serious about this… I want to catch up on reading, catch up on gaming and just recharge my batteries… How long do you think I will last? ;)

Anyway… This post was really just to say that my blog, Twitter and Facebook pages will be a lot quieter than usual the next 4 weeks. Enjoy the summer!

2010 was definitely a year with some spectacular roller coasters… I’ve been thinking all morning about which highlight I would pick if I had to choose one. Adobe MAX was definitely a huge highlight for me this year. The keynotes, MAX online, meeting Martha Stewart and William Shatner, the amazing buzz and meeting some amazing people at the MAX Bash, … It’s going to be tough to top that this year! But the biggest highlight is probably seeing how great the Flash community is. From the people that organize great events like FOTB, FFK, AUGXL, FITC, Flash Camps, user group meetings, … to the people that share code / help others and the people who read my blog and/or follow me on Twitter and Facebook. You guys are truly amazing. Wow… This is starting to sound like some acceptance speech for some award or something… Ehr… Before it gets too mushy… ;-) Happy holidays! 2011 is going to rock!

“Hey Serge, what happened to that blog design contest winner? When is that theme going up?”. Aaah yes… I got that question a couple of times in the last few weeks. Sadly Marten (the winner) mailed me with the message that he would not be able to finish the actual WordPress theme… Since that was a part of the contest, I could not just ask someone else to transform the PSD in to an actual theme. I couldn’t really cut the prize in half and so I decided to keep it for a future contest.

Around the same time, I came across Canvas by WooThemes and decided to build something on top of this framework theme. February has been really busy so I didn’t get around to building it yet. But… Tonight I noticed that someone/something inserted a link to a malware site (If you’re on Windows, please double check if the malware link didn’t install anything on your machine. I apologize if it did.). From the first investigation, I noticed some weirdness going on in the theme files and thus decided to expedite the theme switch. It’s now using a default Canvas theme but hopefully the code injecting security hole is now gone.

If you still see something weird, it would be greatly appreciated if you could let me know. Thanks!

I know this is extremely off topic but nonetheless I think it’s well worth pointing your attention to. I’m sure you’ve heard about the devastating earthquake in Haiti. According to the Red Cross, 3 million people (1 in 3 Haitians) are affected by the earthquake.

While Haiti is definitely not around the corner for most of us, you too can help. You can help by donating to the Red Cross, Unicef, Oxfam or other help organizations. Even the smallest amount can help. I’ve donated €25/$36 to the Red Cross which will be matched by Adobe.

You can also help raise awareness by adding this little widget (as seen on the right) I created this morning to your site. It’s extremely easy! Just click on the “grab and share button” and add it to your social network page, blog or site. After you’ve added it to your site, ask your friends to do the same.

Happy holidays! Hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a spectacular New Year’s eve. 2010 is going to be amazing with some really exciting new releases. Just trust me on that one ;-) I’m taking some time off so the blog may/will be quiet for a few weeks. See you in 2010!

(In case you were wondering, I created/rendered this image with Blender and did some color adjustments in Photoshop CS4.)