Tag: TampaBLAB

 

So this is what it's like running the local blogroll…

Almost a year ago, Tommy over at Sticks of Fire and Brett Glisson worked out a deal where Tommy…  well, he bought / took over Brett’s brainchild TampaBLAB.  For the uninformed, uninititated or the plain flat out uncurious (helloooo Bush family!)  the TampaBLAB is an aggregator / blog reader.  It shares new posts from blogs in the greater Tampa Bay metropolitan area.

It sounds really complex but really, it’s not.   It’s simply like this:  You have a blog, most (if not all) blogs provide feeds — ways to syndicate or share their content with other web sites.  If you’re a  blogger living in the Tampa Bay area and you wanna’ share your blog with the rest of the Tampa Bay blogosphere, you submit it to TampaBLAB and lo and behold — every new post you write gets published at the BLAB (not in it’s entirety, mind you, just a lead in).

Of course, someone has to be in charge of the BLAB (acronym for Bay Local Area Bloggers).  Tommy didn’t have the time to update the theme and add newly submitted blogs, nor maintain the main blog page on the BLAB.  That’s where I’ve come in…  Running the day to day and keeping an eye on things…  Dropping defunct blogs that haven’t updated in a long while…  Adding newly submitted sites.  Occasionally posting on the BLAB Blog and fixing technical SNAFU’s that show up from time to time.

…Well, more often than not with thanks to the number of upgrades WordPress has gone through in the last few months and compatibility issues that arise because of it.  But that’s techno-jargon you could do without.

So it’s been good so far, a little slow. Know someone who blogs in Tampa Bay and wants more readers? Suggest they submit their site to the BLAB. Brand spanking new blogs with no posts need not apply, though… Sorry. Blogs come and go so quickly that we can’t accept the newest of new kids on the blogging block.

Also, I’m trying to figure out if I should make the Skyway theme that’s employed at the BLAB available to the general WordPress-blogging public for download. It’s cute but not cutting edge, you know?

Local WiFi meeting places?

I’m looking for local Wi-Fi establishments in the Tampa Bay area (specifically Tampa, St. Pete or Clearwater).  Mind you, when I ask, I do not mean franchise establishments such as McDonalds, Starbucks or the UPS Store…  I mean restaurants, Café’s, bas, etc.

There is one place I know of for sure, and it is a good place at that — but well away from the population center of the Bay area.

There is a method to my madness, so I encourage anyone who comes across this post (on Tampa Blab or one of my friends browsing my site) to give input through comments.  Everything shall be revealed soon enough….

What the Flock?

You know, I heard about Flock a few weeks ago when I was browsing around the Tampa Blab and came across Sarah In Tampa’s post about the browser. It was – in essence – a browser that was built for blogging from what I was reading… I wanted to see exactly what the hub-bub was about the minute there was a released version of the browser.

Well, the developer release version of Flock is out and I did go ahead and download it… And wasn’t really able to accomplish jack with the thing. I tried simply integrating one of my blogs onto Flock and followed the directions and was met with errors every time I tried to log in.

Not totally dismissing Flock just yet but I do think I better just forget about it for another couple of months…

Featured!

I’m officially the father of “the definitive online source for local hockey news.” So Sayeth the St. Petersburg Times in their online blog list which puts the spotlight on Boltsmag this week.

I almost expected this featured status last week, with the opening of the Hockey season on Wednesday but it was for naught — damn you TampaBlab! 😛 🙂 ) — suffice it to say, I am fine with having the featured status this week instead…

…Well, except for the fact I am going out of town and my focus is not on hockey this week. 🙁 Oh well, I’ll live… And so shall Boltsmag!