dedicated.

After a good 3 or so years, Critical Miami bites the dust... but in some ways it keeps on giving.

Blogging ain’t easy, and blogging something of quality with dedication, even less, that’s why my hat goes of to Alesh, and Rick, and Steve, and the tons of other bloggers who put in the time to update their blogs for my enjoyment. =] Lord knows I’ve tried, but in the 3.5ish years since I first began these interweb logs, my crowning achievement has been stringing together two 16-month streaks with at least one entry per month. (So far.)

You know it’s hard out here for a blogger. Specially when blogging doesn’t make that money for the rent. For most of us anyway. So yay for dedication.

But back to being critical about Miami’s blogosphere; CM might be gone, and SOTP, and Klotz, and Miami Vision, and Miamista (*sheds tear*), and yes even the dreaded Miami Metroblog, but the internets sure looks a lot different than when they got the ball rolling. Back when overloaded RSS feeds were strictly an NYC or LA thing, they got the ball rolling. Now, things are lovely. And will keep on getting lovelier (and prolly more terrifying all at once). But that’s how the internets goes.

So as others seem to take the helm of this blogging about Miami thing, Alesh goes on to More Blog About. And maybe one day I can decide what to dedicate my entire evenings to, or maybe even entire days. Interestingly enough, I was thinking/keep thinking about sticking with food and photography. Or something or other.

We’ll see how that goes.

this is what a blogroll looks like

Critical Miami gets a blogroll. FINALLY!!!!

I’m not sure if Alesh sees what the big deal is with it, but it’s always given CM a je ne sais quoi factor of annoyance to me, far from a deal breaker but rather like a love bug hovering around your face in the middle of the summer. It bothers you, but it’s a love bug for God’s sake. Now we can move onto other peeves like how he uses then instead of than.

As for the image above, it’s a graphical illustration of Critical Miami, with the top cluster representing its brand new blogroll (I think). Click the picture (or here -run your mouse over the image) for a breakdown.

Want to see what your blog’s soul looks like?

Here’s the link.

stuck on beating a dead horse

The saga continues.

It’s been ten days since the blog known as Stuck-on-the-Palmetto met its demise, yet it seems SOTP simply refuses to fade away. Alesh’s blog keeps piling them up and Carlos Miller even made three sequels to his original post. In the end, Rick and Alex’s blog keeps doing what it was doing before the unplugging, bringing everybody in the SoFla blogosphere together. Still, this mess being what it is, I couldn’t help myself but to round up all this chaos and blog about it.

And so it comes to this. If you want a concise account of the events, you’d be better off with Wizbang, a.k.a. The Florida Masochist (outed!) than the Herald. After that you’re on your own. Just take your pick:

• ipanemic
• Miami Vision Blogorama (r.i.p.)
• bark bark woof woof
• Miami Nights
• penultimos dias
• Miami-Forum
• rakontur
• Eye on Miami
• superbee’s philosophy
• Habla Mierda
• Florida Blog
• Fanless
• transit miami
• Riptide 2.0
• The Daily Pulp
• cuba independiente
• Florida Progressive
• Michael Mayo
• Miami-Dems
• Tail Rank
• 26th Parallel
• discourse.net
• Infomaniac
• Mambi Watch
• Miami Catfish
• Miamism
• The Cuban Triangle
• Computer Colonics
• Man or Maniac
• Klotz as in Steve
• (last but not least) yours truly

Enough relevant links to start a SoFla blogroll of your own or at least expand on it.

blogging starter kit

In honor of the 10th anniversary of the web-log, I’m posting 10 tips for n00bies courtesy of Jorn Barger, the man who coined the term blog, otherwise known as a guy who still posts like it’s 1999. I’ve taken the liberty of doing a little editing updating some of his tips to better reflect the blogging experience in the year 2008.

1. A true weblog as envisioned in 1997 is a log of all the URLs you want to save or share. Nowadays they call this a blogroll, del.icio.us, or Robot Wisdom Auxiliary.
2. You can certainly include links to your original thoughts, posted elsewhere … but if you have more original posts than links, you probably need someone other than your mom to read it. Links will likely help you get an audience if the material is there.
3. If you spend a little time searching before you post, you can probably find your idea well articulated elsewhere already, specially since there are some 112 million blogs worldwide. Just remember, plagiarism in 1997 is still plagiarism in 2008.
   
4. Being truly yourself is always hipper than suppressing a link just because it’s not trendy enough. Your readers need to get to know you. If you have any readers whatsoever. Or at least readers that think you’re hip and/or trendy. (?)
5. You can always improve on the author’s own page title (or material), when describing a link (or material). (At least make sure your description is full enough that readers will recognize any pages they’ve already visited, without having to visit them again.)
6. Always include some adjective describing your own reaction to the linked page (great, archaic, imaginative, clever, etc.)
7. Credit the source that led you to it, so your readers have the option of “moving upstream.”
8. Warn about “gotchas” — weird formatting, flash!, not-firefox-friendly, registration required, extra-long files, etc. Don’t camouflage the main link among unneeded (or poorly labeled) auxiliary links.
9. Pick some favorite blogs, websites, authors or celebrity stalkers  and create a blogroll or a Google News feed that tracks new mentions of them, so other fans can follow them via your blog.
10. Re-post your favorite links from time to time, for people who missed them the first time.

Link. (flash! ads)

we blog therefore we are

NPR’s Morning Edition is running a week-long series in honor of the 10th anniversary of the birth of the weblog as we know it. On Monday they ran a clever take on the blogging experience in audio format, although not exactly what I would call an audioblog. They’ve also outlined a timeline for the life of the blog (going all the way back to when Al Gore invented the interwebs 40 years ago). Interesting stuff.

Link.

please get with the program

I remember there was a time when I looked to upgrade my internet experience and turned to Microsoft for help. Just typing that felt right outta the Twilight Zone. I had just learned what the hell web browser meant yet somehow, instinctively, figured Internet Explorer had more to offer than the Netscape Navigator I was using. I take that back, there was a definite reason, but for the life of me, I cannot remember what it was.

Those were some crazy times or as some people like to refer to them, 1997.

Fast-forward 10 years (yeeesh) and I’m trying to figure out why anyone would knowingly use IE anymore over the alternative (although there are a few more) and yes there is an IE application for Firefox 2.0 (meaning you can view IE-only pages through a Firefox browser).

And why would I even bother about writing a rant like this? Just in the random chance someone ends up reading it and they end up overhauling their internets, just like I did one fateful day. Getting the word out just seems like the civilized thing to do, at least until something better comes out (i.e. when Firefox 3 comes out of its beta phase).

Looks promising.