In case you’re wondering about the title of this post, here’s an explainer.
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The street finds its own uses for GitHub
Here’s the list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events for Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the final full week of January 2021 — Monday, January 31 through Sunday, January 30, 2022.
This coming week includes the start of Lunar New Year (which you might also know as “Chinese New Year”)! It starts on Tuesday, February 1, and it will be the Year of the Tiger, and more specifically, the Year of the Water Tiger.
(If you want to know the various new year’s greetings in Mandarin and Cantonese, this page has you covered.)
This list is a weekly service from Tampa Bay’s tech blog, Global Nerdy! For almost five years, I’ve been compiling a list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events happening in Tampa Bay and surrounding areas. There’s a lot going on in our scene here in “The Other Bay Area, on the Other West Coast”!
As far as event types go, this list casts a rather wide net. It includes events that would be of interest to techies, nerds, and entrepreneurs. It includes (but isn’t limited to) events that fall under the category of:
- Programming, DevOps, systems administration, and testing
- Tech project management / agile processes
- Video, board, and role-playing games
- Book, philosophy, and discussion clubs
- Tech, business, and entrepreneur networking events
- Toastmasters (because nerds really need to up their presentation game)
- Sci-fi, fantasy, and other genre fandoms
- Anything I deem geeky
By “Tampa Bay and surrounding areas”, this list covers events that originate or are aimed at the area within 100 miles of the Port of Tampa. At the very least, that includes the cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater, but as far north as Ocala, as far south as Fort Myers, and includes Orlando and its surrounding cities.
The mandatory omicron variant announcement
Prior to the omicron variant, there was still a pretty good chance that you didn’t personally know someone who’d caught COVID. Today, thanks to its contagiousness, omicron has made it so much more likely that someone you personally know has caught it — and probably has it now.
Omicron’s out there, and it’s not as “mild” as some people have described it. Be smart and responsible — get your booster, mask up in crowds, favor outdoor and online events, and we can get back to what passes for normal sooner!
This week’s events
I try to keep this list up-to-date. I add new events as soon as I hear about them, so be sure to check this page often!
Monday, January 31
| Group | Event Name | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Rafael Stuchiner | Blockchain, Bitcoin, Crypto! What’s all the Fuss?~~~Tampa, FL | |
| Thinkful Tampa | Thinkful Webinar || Free Crash Course: JavaScript Fundamentals | 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM EST |
| Rita Karpel | Pre-IPO Accredited Investor Luncheon in Tampa | |
| Thinkful Tampa | Thinkful Webinar || UX/UI Design: Designing A UX Case Study | 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM EST |
| Thinkful Tampa | Thinkful Webinar || Learn Data Analytics With Thinkful | 8:00 PM to 9:30 PM EST |
| Sarasota “Doctor Who” Fan Meetup | January Viewing Party | 7:00 PM |
| Thoughtful Writing | Philosophy in Writing | 2:00 PM |
| Tampa Cybersecurity Training | Tampa Bay’s Job Seeker Coffee Talks | 9:00 AM |
| Christian Professionals Network Tampa Bay | Live Online Connection Meeting- Monday | 11:30 AM |
| Professional Business Networking with RGAnetwork.net | St. Pete Networking Lunch! Fords Garage! Monday’s | 11:30 AM |
| Young Professionals of Tampa Bay Networking Group | South Tampa Referrals | 11:30 AM |
| Professional Business Networking with RGAnetwork.net | Monday Virtual Networking Lunch | 11:30 AM |
| Entrepreneurs & Business Owners of Sarasota & Bradenton | Virtual Networking Lunch Monday | 11:30 AM |
| Tampa / St Pete Business Connections | South Tampa Professional Networking Lunch | 11:30 AM |
| Entrepreneurs Empower Empire | Office Hour | 12:00 PM |
| Tampa St Pete Stocks and Options Trading Group | Vantage Point – Weekly Market Recap & Outlook of Future Market Conditions | 2:00 PM |
| The Tampa Chapter of the Society for the Exploration of Play | Critical Hit Games: Board Game Night | 5:30 PM |
| Tampa Bay Gaming: RPG’s, Board Games & more! | Open Painting at Warehouse 51 | 6:00 PM |
| Beginning Web Development | Weekly Learning Session | 6:00 PM |
| Toastmasters, Division D | ACE Your Contest: A 5th Monday Panel Discussion | 6:00 PM |
| Critical Hit Games | MTG: Commander Open Play | 6:00 PM |
| Magic the Gathering Tampa/Brandon/St Pete | Commander Night | 6:00 PM |
| Toastmasters Division G | Triple Crown Toastmasters Club 4147 (Virtual) | 6:30 PM |
| Tampa – Sarasota – Venice Trivia & Quiz Meetup | Trivia Night – Off the Wagon Kitchen & Brewery Smartphone Trivia Game Show | 6:30 PM |
| Toastmasters District 48 | North Port Toastmasters Meets Online!! | 6:30 PM |
| Florida Center for Creative Photography | FREE Lightroom Study Group | 7:00 PM |
| Learn-To-Trade Cryptocurrency (as seen on Orlando Sentinel) | Learn-To-Trade Q&A (0NLINE) | 7:00 PM |
| South Florida Poker, Music & Entertainment Group | FREE Texas Holdem Poker Tournaments at Fireside Lounge & Billiards 7 PM Start | 7:00 PM |
| Orlando Stoics | ONLINE: “The Stoics & Cynics: How Diogenes Influenced Zeno” | 7:00 PM |
| Nerdbrew Events | Anime Watch Party | 7:00 PM |
| Toastmasters District 48 | Time to Take Speaking Your Passion to the Next Level at South Tampa TM! | 7:00 PM |
| Library Book Clubs – OCLS | Virtual Event: Southeast Book Club, NEA Big Read: Call of the Wild | 7:00 PM |
| Tampa Flutter Meetup Group | In-Person Meetup | 7:00 PM |
| Central Florida AD&D (1st ed.) Grognards Guild | World of Greyhawk: 1E One-Shots | 7:30 PM |
| Wesley Chapel, Trinity, New Tampa Business Professionals | Lutz, Wesley Chapel, New Tampa Virtual Networking Lunch | 11:30 AM |
| Tampa Bay Tabletoppers | Monday Feast & Game Night | 5:30 PM |
| Divi Tampa | Divi Tampa: January 2022 | 6:30 PM |
| Board Game Meetup: Board Game Boxcar | Weekly Game Night! (Lazy Moon Location) | 6:00 PM |
| West Orange Comics & Video Games | Magic Mondays | 6:00 PM |
| Tampa Cryptocurrency Group | Discussing the world of crypto | 7:00 PM |
Tuesday, February 1
Wednesday, February 2
Thursday, February 3
| Group | Event Name | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Entrepreneur Collaborative Center | Selling for Startups – In-Person Event | |
| Thinkful Tampa | Thinkful Webinar || UX/UI Design: Creating A Design System | 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM EST |
| Thinkful Tampa | Thinkful Webinar || Intro to JavaScript: Build a Virtual Pet | 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM EST |
| Thinkful Tampa | Thinkful Webinar || Learn Data Analytics With Thinkful | 8:00 PM to 9:30 PM EST |
| Ironhack Tampa – Tech Careers, Learning and Networking | Ironhack Tampa Open House: Why Tampa is great for growing a career in tech! | 3:00 PM |
| Brandon and Seffner area AD&D Group | 1st ed AD&D Campaign. | 6:00 PM |
| Cult, Mystery & Suspense Movie Club | Modern Neo-Noir Thriller – A History of Violence | 5:00 PM |
| BNI Professional Alliance – Business Referral Group | BNI Professional Alliance – A Business Referral Group | 8:00 AM |
| St. Petersburg Crypto Investors and Miners Club | NFT’s for Creatives: Share your NFT project | 6:30 PM |
| Pasco County Young Entrepreneurs Meetup | Happy Hangar Early Bird Professionals Networking | 7:30 AM |
| Young Professionals of Tampa Bay Networking Group | Tampa Young Professionals Virtual Networking Thursday All WElCOME | 7:30 AM |
| Suncoast Credit Union Micro Enterprise Development Meetup | Business Morning Boost: Microsoft Excel Series | 8:30 AM |
| Orlando Unity Developers Group | Virtual Event: Importing Assets into Unity | 11:00 AM |
| Block Co-op – Crypto Blockchain Orlando & Beyond Club | Crypto Set-up Class -Limited to 5 Seats Only | 11:00 AM |
| Tampa Cybersecurity Training | Lunch & Learn – Leveling Up on LinkedIn | 12:00 PM |
| Free Video Production Classes – TV/Internet | YouTube Basics (ONLINE CLASS) – FREE for Hillsborough County Residents | 3:00 PM |
| Tampa Hackerspace | Shopbot Safety and Usage (Members Only) | 7:00 PM |
| Learn-To-Trade Cryptocurrency (as seen on Orlando Sentinel) | Learn-To-Trade Stocks, Options & ETFs- (ONLINE) | 7:00 PM |
| Business Networking for Entrepreneurs of Color | Virtual Business Networking – Entrepreneurs of Color | 7:00 PM |
| 3D Printing Orlando | Cura Slicer Settings – Fundamentals | 7:00 PM |
| Drunk’n Meeples the Social Tabletop (Board) Gamers | THURSDAY Game Night @ de Bine Brewing Co. | 7:00 PM |
| Books & Brews! | February – These Ghosts Are Family | 7:00 PM |
| The Remote Collective – A Social Club For Remote Workers | Happy Hour @ PAW [Pinellas Ale Works] | 9:00 AM |
| Sarasota Science and Technology Meetup Group | First Official Event – Lets meet over a drink! | 10:00 AM |
| St Pete Networking | St Pete Networking | 6:00 PM |
Friday, February 4
| Group | Event Name | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Thinkful Tampa | Thinkful Webinar || Data Science vs. Data Analytics | 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM EST |
| Computer Advantage, Apple Premier Partner | Advantage Talks: Apple Services Overview | 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM EST |
| Thinkful Tampa | Thinkful Webinar || Intro To Data Analytics: Tableau Basics | 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM EST |
| Thinkful Tampa | Thinkful Webinar || Free Crash Course: JavaScript Fundamentals | 8:00 PM to 9:30 PM EST |
| Tampa Japanese Meetup | FL JETAA Tsudoi | 7:00 PM |
| Dr. Phillips Chamber of Commerce | Friday Weekly Leads Group of Dr. Phillips FACE-To-FACE Networking | 8:30 AM |
| Project Codex: Orlando Junior Developers | Virtual Coffee | 9:00 AM |
| Toastmasters District 48 | Real Talkers #7306 | 9:15 AM |
| Tampa Bay Tech Career Advice Forum | Ask a Career Coach – Tampa Bay | 10:00 AM |
| Tampa Cybersecurity Training | Ask a Career Coach | 10:00 AM |
| West Orlando WordPress Meetup | WordPress Collaboration Meetup ONLINE ONLY | 10:00 AM |
| Florida Startup: Idea to IPO | How to Avoid an Intellectual Property Disaster | 12:00 PM |
| US Azure Virtual Desktop User Group | US Azure Virtual Desktop User Group: February Meetup | 12:00 PM |
| Tampa Bay IRA Investing Group | Pitch Promote and Prosper – IRA Investment Marketplace and Networking Forum | 12:00 PM |
| Meet me locally Tampa bay | Fergs game night | 6:00 PM |
| Florida Center for Creative Photography | USF Ice Bulls Hockey vs University of Florida | 6:30 PM |
| Gen Geek | Sunrise Lanes | 7:00 PM |
| Tampa Hackerspace | Learn to Solder — Valentine Message Heart | 7:00 PM |
| Oviedo Middle Aged Gamers (OMAG) | Tabletop: Friday Board Game Night | 7:00 PM |
| Cocktails and Convo: Book club for RomCom Lovers | Meet and Greet! | 9:00 AM |
Saturday, February 5
Sunday, February 6
Do you have any events or announcements that you’d like to see on this list?
Let me know at joey@joeydevilla.com!
Join the mailing list!
If you’d like to get this list in your email inbox every week, enter your email address below. You’ll only be emailed once a week, and the email will contain this list, plus links to any interesting news, upcoming events, and tech articles. Join the Tampa Bay Tech Events list and always be informed of what’s coming up in Tampa Bay!
Apple’s announcement of a support for unlisted apps in the App Store opens up some interesting possibilities. Here are a few that I can think of.
What are unlisted apps?
Apple’s new way to distribute apps via the App Store is an interesting one: unlisted app distribution. The simplest way to describe them is that they’re like unlisted YouTube videos, but for apps.
In other words, you can only get an unlisted app if you have its link. You won’t find it by browsing the App Store or using its search feature. They won’t appear as featured apps or recommended app. They will be accessible via Apple Business Manager and Apple School Manager. But for the most part, they’re invisible and inaccessible to the general public unless you have their link.
Keep in find that “unlisted” doesn’t mean “unexamined”. Unlisted apps are still subject to the regular the app review process; the unlisted status only affects how they can be found. This means that you can’t use it as a replacement for TestFlight or beta testing — unlisted apps must be ready for final distribution.
It also appears that you can convert any of your apps that are already in the App Store into unlisted apps.
How can you use unlisted apps?
1. Employee apps for smaller companies
Many companies produce dedicated, proprietary custom internal-use apps for their employees to use in order to get their work done. If your company has the required budget and people to do so, it can distribute those apps through the Apple Developer Enterprise Program.
The Apple Developer Enterprise Program be overkill for a lot of smaller organizations, who might just want to limit the availability and findability of their apps to their employees. This is where unlisted apps come in — the company could just send employees the link to the app.
2. School apps for students and teachers
Take the above scenario and replace “companies” with “schools” — especially smaller ones — and the same use case arises. It could be a simple way to limit the distribution of school-specific apps mostly to students, teachers, and staff.
3. Limited-time conference/convention/concert companion apps
Many conferences and concerts like to have their own custom apps, and it’s not unusual for developers to create conference apps that they wish existed (for example, Tampa’s 2020 Synapse Summit didn’t have its own watch app, so I created one).
These apps have a limited lifetime, and once the conference has come and gone, they just litter the App Store. Unlisted apps would be a good solution.
4. Limited-time research apps
Since smartphones and smartwatches are essentially sensor-laden, constantly-networked, always-on supercomputers that people keep within arm’s reach most of the time, they are useful tools for research project apps that either monitor test subjects or get input from them. These apps could easily be distributed as unlisted apps.
5. Portfolio/resume apps
There are times when a developer might want to present their portfolio in a memorable way, and an app that functioned as a portfolio would certainly be memorable! A portfolio app would be a good use case for unlisted apps.
Categories
What scares many programmers?
For me, regular expressions are like the rules for boardgames that I don’t play that often: As the game progresses, I understand the rules and think I have a firm grasp on them, and when the game gets put away and I don’t play it for a while, I forget almost everything.
These days, I keep a couple of “interactive notebooks” with working code featuring useful regexes, paired with notes written in Markdown:
- For Swift, Xcode Playgrounds does this well.
- For other languages — Python, JavaScript, Kotlin, and C# — I used Jupyter Notebook.
Categories
“I’m a professional crypto and NFT trader.”
Categories
The nightmare
Here’s the list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events for Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the final full week of January 2021 — Monday, January 24 through Sunday, January 30, 2022.
This coming week includes National Florida Day, January 25th, which falls on a Tuesday this year. It celebrates Florida’s arrival as the U.S.’ 27th state in 1845. I plan on celebrating by using my Wintel gaming laptop as my primary computer that day (the IBM PC was born in Florida, on IBM’s Boca Raton campus) and possibly making questionable choices in the spirit of Florida Man.
This list is a weekly service from Tampa Bay’s tech blog, Global Nerdy! For almost five years, I’ve been compiling a list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events happening in Tampa Bay and surrounding areas. There’s a lot going on in our scene here in “The Other Bay Area, on the Other West Coast”!
As far as event types go, this list casts a rather wide net. It includes events that would be of interest to techies, nerds, and entrepreneurs. It includes (but isn’t limited to) events that fall under the category of:
- Programming, DevOps, systems administration, and testing
- Tech project management / agile processes
- Video, board, and role-playing games
- Book, philosophy, and discussion clubs
- Tech, business, and entrepreneur networking events
- Toastmasters (because nerds really need to up their presentation game)
- Sci-fi, fantasy, and other genre fandoms
- Anything I deem geeky
By “Tampa Bay and surrounding areas”, this list covers events that originate or are aimed at the area within 100 miles of the Port of Tampa. At the very least, that includes the cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater, but as far north as Ocala, as far south as Fort Myers, and includes Orlando and its surrounding cities.
The mandatory omicron variant announcement
Prior to the omicron variant, there was still a pretty good chance that you didn’t personally know someone who’d caught COVID. Today, thanks to its contagiousness, omicron has made it so much more likely that someone you personally know has caught it — and probably has it now.
Omicron’s out there, and it’s not as “mild” as some people have described it. Be smart and responsible — get your booster, mask up in crowds, favor outdoor and online events, and we can get back to what passes for normal sooner!
This week’s events
I try to keep this list up-to-date. I add new events as soon as I hear about them, so be sure to check this page often!
Monday, January 24
| Group | Event Name | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Tampa Bay Times | Tampa Bay Job & Career Fair | 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM EST |
| Thinkful Tampa | Thinkful Webinar || What is UX/UI Design? | 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM EST |
| Thinkful Tampa | Thinkful Webinar || Bootcamp Alumni Success Secrets | 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM EST |
| Thinkful Tampa | Thinkful Webinar || UX/UI Design: Wireframes and Prototypes | 8:00 PM to 9:30 PM EST |
| Tampa Bay Tabletoppers | Monday Feast & Game Night | 5:30 PM |
| Board Game Meetup: Board Game Boxcar | Weekly Game Night! (Lazy Moon Location) | 6:00 PM |
| Tampa / St Pete Business Connections | South Tampa Professional Networking Lunch | 11:30 AM |
| Entrepreneurs & Business Owners of Sarasota & Bradenton | Virtual Networking Lunch Monday | 11:30 AM |
| Christian Professionals Network Tampa Bay | Live Online Connection Meeting- Monday | 11:30 AM |
| Professional Business Networking with RGAnetwork.net | Monday Virtual Networking Lunch | 11:30 AM |
| Wesley Chapel, Trinity, New Tampa Business Professionals | Lutz, Wesley Chapel, New Tampa Virtual Networking Lunch | 11:30 AM |
| West Orange Comics & Video Games | Magic Mondays | 5:00 PM |
| Tampa# – C# and .NET | Group Code Challenge [Virtual] | 5:30 PM |
| The Tampa Chapter of the Society for the Exploration of Play | Critical Hit Games: Board Game Night | 5:30 PM |
| Beginning Web Development | Weekly Learning Session | 6:00 PM |
| Tampa Bay Gaming: RPG’s, Board Games & more! | Open Painting at Warehouse 51 | 6:00 PM |
| Critical Hit Games | MTG: Commander Open Play | 6:00 PM |
| Orlando Adventurer’s Guild | [FR] Waterdeep: Dragon Heist – DM Carson (Tier 1) | 6:00 PM |
| Thoughtful Writing | Philosophy in Writing | 6:00 PM |
| Toastmasters District 48 | North Port Toastmasters Meets Online!! | 6:30 PM |
| Tampa – Sarasota – Venice Trivia & Quiz Meetup | Trivia Night – Off the Wagon Kitchen & Brewery Smartphone Trivia Game Show | 6:30 PM |
| Nerdbrew Events | Anime Watch Party | 7:00 PM |
| Toastmasters District 48 | Time to Take Speaking Your Passion to the Next Level at South Tampa TM! | 7:00 PM |
| South Florida Poker, Music & Entertainment Group | FREE Texas Holdem Poker Tournaments at Fireside Lounge & Billiards 7 PM Start | 7:00 PM |
| Orlando Stoics | ONLINE: “The Stoicism of Ben Franklin” | 7:00 PM |
| Coded For Money, Flow and Fame – Tampa Group | How to Get a Never-Ending Flow of Clients | 7:00 PM |
| Tampa Hackerspace | Intro to the Babylock Embroidery Machine (Members Only) | 7:00 PM |
| Florida Center for Creative Photography | FREE Lightroom Study Group | 7:00 PM |
| Learn-To-Trade Cryptocurrency (as seen on Orlando Sentinel) | Learn-To-Trade Q&A (0NLINE) | 7:00 PM |
| Central Florida AD&D (1st ed.) Grognards Guild | World of Greyhawk: 1E One-Shots | 7:30 PM |
| Tampa Flutter Meetup Group | In-Person Meetup | 7:00 PM |
Tuesday, January 25
Wednesday, January 26
Thursday, January 27
Friday, January 28
Saturday, January 29
Sunday, January 30
| Group | Event Name | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Thinkful Tampa | Thinkful Webinar || Intro to JavaScript: Build a Virtual Pet | 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM EST |
| Thinkful Tampa | Thinkful Webinar || What is UX/UI Design? | 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM EST |
| Thinkful Tampa | Thinkful Webinar || Intro To Data Analytics: Excel Basics | 8:00 PM to 9:30 PM EST |
| Lakeland Black Professionals | January Monthly Meeting and Book Club | 7:00 PM |
| Florida Center for Creative Photography | Birds on a Budget | 9:00 AM |
| Bradenton Photo Group | Bok Tower Gardens – Photo Walk | 10:00 AM |
| Nerdbrew Events | Illuminerdy Trading Card Game Con Trip | 12:00 PM |
| Tampa Hackerspace | 3D Printer Orientation: Prusa mk3s Printer (THS Members only) | 2:00 PM |
| Drunk’n Meeples West Pasco | Weekend Game Day | 2:00 PM |
| Learn-To-Trade Cryptocurrency (as seen on Orlando Sentinel) | Learn-To-Trade Using Trading Systems – (ONLINE) | 6:00 PM |
| Orlando Adventurer’s Guild | January New Player Nights – Various DMs (Tier 1) | 6:00 PM |
| The Historical History Book Club | Book Discussion: My Uncle Napoleon by Iraj Pezeshkzad | 7:00 PM |
Do you have any events or announcements that you’d like to see on this list?
Let me know at joey@joeydevilla.com!
Join the mailing list!
If you’d like to get this list in your email inbox every week, enter your email address below. You’ll only be emailed once a week, and the email will contain this list, plus links to any interesting news, upcoming events, and tech articles. Join the Tampa Bay Tech Events list and always be informed of what’s coming up in Tampa Bay!