HN user
Yup. It's a very good plan. The key is Accelerated C++. Just lock yourself in a room with a computer and a coffee machine and get through that book. It's short, well written, and contains examples throughout that you should be typing in as you progress through the book.
For pretty much everywhere the MS --> Mac move is considered, isn't the big sticking point Exchange Server?
AFAICT, everything else has a good replacement. It's the email server that has everyone locked-in, right? I'm not a Mac user though, ... maybe OS X can talk to exchange?
A lot of interesting projects listed there.
Do you form some sort of business entity (like an LLC) to own such projects, or do you simply put them up on the web yourself?
What if one or more of them start making money?