theBubbler Blog

Dates: June 5, 6, 7 & 8, 2008

Location: Dells TimberLand Camping Resort, Wisconsin Dells

Who is Invited? All theBubbler staff, moderators and members are invited! Staff and mods (plus their significant others and kids) camp free. Members can receive 25% off campsite reservations by registering for the Dells TimberLand Newsletter!

What Will We Be Doing? See the Camping Weekend Itinerary for full details. This itinerary will be updated as events are added. Events include:

* A pontoon boat ride for staff and mods
* Potlucks
* The Camping for a Cause charity chili cookoff with Gilbert Brown
* Breakfast at Paul Bunyan’s Restaurant

How Do I Sign Up? If you are a staff member or moderator, please private message kris10 with the number of campers in your party.

If you are a registered member of theBubbler, you can receive your 25% off coupon and RSVP to Dells TimberLand at 800-774-1514. Just follow these steps:

1. Log in to your account. Not a member? Register for free!

2. Go to www.thebubbler.com/dells and fill out the form to subscribe to the Dells TimberLand newsletter.

3. You will receive an email asking you to confirm your subscription. Click the confirmation link in the email. You will be taken to the coupon page.

4. Call Dells TimberLand to RSVP at 800-774-1514 and give the Dells TimberLand staff the code on the coupon. The coupon is good for any dates in June 2008.

We hope to see you there!

Keep up to date on the camping trip in our forum thread titled “theBubbler Dells Camping Trip June 5 – 8, 2008!”

Blogs from our WisNetwork.com sites are aggregated at www.WisBlogs.com – and more are coming.

Andy L., former WebMaster for theBubbler.com and current programmer for OnYourMark, LLC, crafted a nifty aggregator that promises more fun and functionality for Members and Moderators of theBubbler.com beyond the current compilation of blogs from these Wisconsin Network sites:

blog.theBubbler.com
blog.WisCrafts.com
blog.WisEmployment.com
blog.WisEvents.com
blog.WisRummages.com
blog.WisTeens.com

We hope you’ll enjoy our Wisconsin Blogs and visit often!

Regards,
Keith

I’m pleased to introduce Nathan Klein to you.

Nathan is new to theBubbler.com team. He’ll be compiling the Water Cooler News and adding articles from WCN to this blog.

Nathan’s also adding a lot of events to the Calendar at theBubbler.com via the www.WisEvents.com calendar.

I hope you’ll all join me in welcoming Nathan to Wisconsin’s best online guide and directory, theBubbler.com!

Regards,
Keith

We just got hit with a wave of Nigerian-based and Israel-based scammers. We caught all or most of them that came through the regular classifieds response emails and private messages and I’m in the middle of cleaning them out of the classified ads and story comments, but they may also have sent you things directly if you put your email address in the text of your ad. So be very careful of the direct responses you get, esp. if it starts with “Dear Seller” or something similar. One that _looks_ vaguely legit (but isn’t) is someone using the name “Bobby Nelson” claiming to be selling parrots. That person is based in Kenya.

If you’re ever uncertain where a person is from who responds to your ads, get them to sign up on theBubbler.com and send you a Private Message, then use the Contact Us form to let us know what their user name is and that you suspect them and why. Unless they use a feature on the site (like PMs), we can’t get their IP address, but once they do, we can tell you if they’re actually from somewhere around here or somewhere overseas.

Here’s what’s in the works on the site right now:

* The Great Scammer Purge – I’m in the middle of weeding out fraudulent users who have been banned under a different user name, and reviewing the actions and posting locations for questionable users. It’s a delicate operation because I don’t want to accidentally ban, say, a soldier who’s stationed in Germany and uses the site to keep in touch with family, or any of GE’s employees in India who are coming to Wisconsin for training and would like to use the site as a resource while they’re planning their move here, or people in the Ivory Coast or in England who might want to peruse our geneology resources. That said, most of our scammers and spammers have IPs in India, Cote d’Ivoire, England and Germany. If you’re an active user in one of those locations and you’re not trying to solicit information from our other users, you’re not in danger of being added to that list (unless you’re on a shared computer and someone else is using it for scamming). Inactive users from those locations (who haven’t even logged in for months or more), will probably be deleted and banned. The ban will be lifted on a case by case basis at my and/or Keith’s discretion.

*Forum software – Our forums software is old and has nearly reached its maximum capacity for useage. This upgrade was much lower on the list, but since we’re reaching the upper limit on the software, I’m moving it up.

*Admins – There are some improvements in the works for the Administration of the site. You may not see the admin improvements, but it will probably mean that you will see more of the admins because it won’t take as long to do the regular maintenance that keeps the site running.

*Front Page Summary – Keep an eye on the front page of the site. We’re planning on changing the information that shows up on the front page to include a summary of all the most recent activity across the entire site.

*Fall theme – Wasn’t it just spring? Where did the summer go? The leaves are falling — time for some color and photo changes in the theme!

*Farther Goals – Among other long term improvements are an overhaul of the journals to make them more usable and user-friendly, changes to the navigation, some bug fixes that were caused when we changed something else (like the notification of new messages at the top of your Account page) and a user feedback system for the classifieds.

We’ve started a great new “look & feel” for theBubbler.com, our Wisconsin online guide and directory.

The new design is not a radical departure from the old design.

TheBubbler.com has a new sister site: http://www.WisEvents.com !

Everyone who is a Member (free) of theBubbler.com can post to our Wisconsin Events calendar at theBubbler.com for free. All sorts of events are shown, and you can see the events published at both theBubbler.com and at www.WisEvents.com.

Categories:

Arts & Entertainment (concerts, theatre, music, dance)
Business & Career (job fairs, trade shows, networking groups, seminars)
Civic & Government (voting, public meetings)
Clubs & Organizations (non-profits, hobby clubs, churches, charities, pet clubs, meetup groups)
Education & Youth (school events, events for kids)
Family & Reunions (genealogy, family reunions, anniversary parties)
Festivals & Fairs (fairs, festivals, parades, block parties)
Health & Wellness (flu shots, health screenings, clinics)
Holiday & Seasonal (Christmas plays, haunted houses, egg hunts)
Real Estate & Housing (open houses, homebuyer seminars, parade of homes)
Shopping & Rummage (farmer’s markets, craft fairs, rummage sales, estate sales, auctions, store sales)
Social & Support Groups (AA, OA, Red Hats)
Sports & Recreation (sporting events, marathons, outdoor activities)

The Wisconsin Events calendar entries will also be displayed at other sites in the www.WisNetwork.com – Wisconsin network of sites – as appropriate. New sites coming online soon include: www.WisMusic.com, www.WisDates.com, and more.

Come on over to WisEvents.com and get your event listed!

Another special feature: When you list an event, your event comes up on the pages for your County at theBubbler.com.

Regards,
Keith

Tell-A-Friend is a Feature in the black menu bar at the top and bottom of virtually every page of theBubbler.com.

JUNE TELL-A-FRIEND USAGE

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TELL-A-FRIEND USAGE GROWING !

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Here are the number of times Tell-A-Friend was used during June:

JUNE 2003: 20
JUNE 2004: 53
JUNE 2005: 41
JUNE 2006: 70

There were only two days in June when T-A-F wasn’t used, including Fathers Day.

Most TAF’s are used by Members telling others about a particular want ad in our Free Wisconsin Classifieds section.

We’ll give you a monthly update on TAF usage in this forum topic:

http://www.thebubbler.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=5801

Please, use this feature of theBubbler.com to tell all your friends, family and associates in Wisconsin about theBubbler.com.

Thanks.

Regards,
Keith

TheBubbler.com has over 1,500 free classifieds running right now.

You can place want ads for free at theBubbler.com as a Member.

TheBubbler.com has banner ads on a “Link to Us” page at http://www.thebubbler.com/ads/bannerads.php?domain=thebubbler.com

All you have to do to run one of the banner ads is copy the code under the banner you want and insert that code into your web page.

We hope you’ll tell all your friends about theBubbler, and link to us from your site, blog, myspance, friendster, myyahoo or other account as well.

Regards,
Keith