If you haven’t heard of it yet, the first WordCamp for 2009 will be held this coming weekend, January 10-11 at the Palace Station Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. Why am I excited about this event? Only one reason. I’m attending it! Yes folks, I’ll be attending WordCamp: Las Vegas. I’m both surprised and happy that I’ll be accomplishing one of my blog goals for 2009 so soon, which is to attend a WordPress WordCamp.

To those who aren’t familiar with what WordCamp is all about, here’s a little info.

What is WordCamp:Las Vegas?
WordCamp:Las Vegas is a conference style event covering topics related to the WordPress software. We are also planning for Unconference style sessions in the afternoon to let the people attending WordCamp help choose the topics discussed at WordCamp:Las Vegas.

Who Should Attend WordCamp:Las Vegas?
No matter if you are a casual user, full time blogger, plugin developer, theme designer or if you are curious about getting in to blogging for the first time, WordCamp:Las Vegas promises to have a little something for everyone.

It takes about 4 hours drive to get to Las Vegas from our place. Me and my friend Allan will be driving there Sunday morning, so we’ll have to leave at about 3 AM to get there on time for registration and breakfast. If you plan to attend and stay overnight or the whole weekend so you could also do some sightseeing in Vegas, you’ll have to book your hotel as soon as possible because CES 2009 and Affiliate Summit are in town at the same time so most hotels are gonna be booked.

What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas right? NOT! There will be free WiFi so I plan to live blog the event and most definitely post photos while I’m there or when I get back home. I’m also excited coz I’m gonna get more WordPress schwag aside from the WordCamp: Las Vegas tshirt. I’ll be giving them away at the end of the month to my top commentators so if you’re interested, better start commenting now.

Although I’ll only be attending the Sunday session, I’m still looking forward to this event because of the great line up of speakers scheduled to talk on that day. Here’s the complete list of speakers for WordCamp Las Vegas:

• Matt Mullenweg
• Joseph Scott
• Aaron Hockley
• Lorelle VanFossen
• Jim Kukral
• Geoff Kleinman
• Liz Strauss
• Michael Dorausch
• Micah Baldwin
• Dave Taylor
• Micah Baldwin
• Shayne Sanderson
• Ethan Gahng
• Chris Brogan
• Jim Turner
• Niran Amir
• Warren Whitlock

Registration
WordCamp Las Vegas is a two day event and the registration fee is $20. There are limited seats/tickets so if you’re interested you better act right away.

Registration includes:
- Admission to all speakers & breakout sessions for both days
- WordCamp: Las Vegas T-Shirt
- Entry for door prize drawings throughout the weekend

Everyone is invited! For those of you who are in the area and are interested to attend, you still have until noon time of Friday, January 9 to register. Btw, registration is only available online because there will be no on-site registration.

Can’t make it to WordCamp Las Vegas? Don’t worry coz the event will be streamed live via UStream. You’ll have to register to UStream to be able to watch it. You can help spread the word and promote WordCamp: Las Vegas. You can also check the schedule or the list of attendees. I’m at number 80.

If you want to be updated to the progress and latest updates of WordCamp: Las Vegas, you can follow @lvwordcamp on Twitter.

Anyone else attending WordCamp: Las Vegas? I’d love to get to talk and meet you in person or even have a photo taken together.

Blogging

• 2008 was an amazing year for Yan Susanto, author Thou Shall Blog. On his latest post, he shares the 101 Blogging Tips he learned in 2008.
• Planning on moving your WordPress.com account to a self-hosted WordPress blog soon? You might wanna read this short but detailed tutorial by Jeff Chandler on how to move from WordPress.com to WordPress.org. via Problogger.net
• Pavel Ciorici of WP Zoom shares his 70+ RSS feeds for WordPress bloggers and developers. These RSS feeds are of blogs that are about WordPress themes, plugins, roundups, tips and tutorials and anything related to WordPress. Grazie Pavel!
• For those of you who have an “Advertise” page on your blog, you know that maintaining and updating it can be cumbersome. Jean-Baptiste Jung of WP Recipes has written a guest post over at Pro Blog Design on how to create an auto-stats page for advertisers.

Technology

• Zune Leap Year Bug Fixed. Over the weekend, owners of the 30 GB Zune reported that their devices just suddenly froze. It was caused by a glitch in the device’s internal clock that didn’t recognize a leap year.
• The most popular tech-related story during the holiday season was the release of YellowSn0w, the application that unlocks Apple’s iPhone 3G. CrunchGear has a step-by-step guide on how to unlock your iPhone 3G.
• With only 4 hours of compiling code, Mobilefacts founders Matthaus Krzykowski and Daniel Hartmann have turned Android, Google’s smartphone operating system into a desktop operating system. Watch out Microsoft!
• Hands-on review of Windows 7 Beta 1, the successor of Windows Vista and upcoming operating system from Microsoft. via ZDNet

Gadgets

• Remember Dick Tracy and his famous wristwatch? In this year’s CES, LG will be revealing the LG-GD910 wristwatch-phone. If you’ll get this device, the advantages you’ll have over Dick Tracy is that this device has 3G and a built-in mp3 player.
• Laptop Mag has an exclusive hands-on review on HP Voodoo’s Firefly concept gaming laptop What makes this device unique is the multi-touch touchpad that’s located at the right side beside the regular keyboard and the 4.3 inch LCD located beneath the 17 inch monitor.
• Garmin, popular for its gps navigation devices is entering the cellphone market with the upcoming nuvifone. The GPS Trackblog has a gallery of screenshots for the nuvifone user interface.
• If you’ve been following UMPC (ultra mobile pc) related news the past few weeks, I’m sure you’ve heard about Sony Viao P, Sony’s upcoming UMPC. The Sony Viao P specs include an Atom Z250 processor, 2GB RAM, Windows Vista, HDD (optional SSD) and a retail price less than $1,000. via UMPC Portal

Pinoy Blogs

• iManila, a Pinoy iPhone application makes it way to the Apple Apps store. iManila gives you easy access to an online phone “Yellow Pages Directory” for finding shops, businesses, restaurants and bars in the Philippines.
• Looking for a netbook? MSI has recently released the MSI U115 Hybrid Netbook which can operate on HDD or SDD. via Techy Kid
• If suddenly get the nostalgic feeling of playing an old classic video game, you can find these old gaming classics available for cheap at Gog.com. This site sells DRM-free, legal copies of classic video games for only $5.99. These games have also been updated to work on Windows XP or Vista. via Technograph
• Andrew Dela Serna, author of the Daily Top 10 Posts plugin has updated the plugin for WordPress 2.7. If you’re running WordPress 2.7 and are using this plugin, get the updated version now.

JaypeeOnline Weekly Recap

• JaypeeOnline Recap: The Year That Was 2008 – Year end post or recap of the stuff that happened was posted here on JaypeeOnline.
• Christmas Giveaway Winners – List of winners of my recent Christmas Giveaway.
• A Bad Round of Golf – Gold course mayhem between a mayor, his bodyguards, and his dad, the Dept of Agrarian Reform Secretary against a 56-year old father and his 14-year old son.

If you have any questions, comments, suggestions or want your article or find an interesting story that you want to be featured in the next Weekend Roundup, feel free to leave a comment or send me a message via the contact page.

Thank you for your time and hope you guys have a great week!

Blogging

• If you’re new to WordPress and would like to know the best WordPress plugins that you can use to start your blog, make sure you check out Andy Beal’s list of the 21 of the best WordPress plugins for new blogs.
• With the release of WordPress 2.7, many users are still getting used to the new layout and are also having some issues with their themes. Noupe has this great tutorial on mastering your WordPress 2.7 theme and admin area.
• Do you want to improve your link building skills? Then you need to learn the 7 habits of highly effective one-way link building.
• Need help in improving your WordPress blog’s SEO? Maybe you can start with these 9 SEO plugins that every WordPress blog should have. By Shawn Joose of Elite Blogger.

Technology

• Bad news for the Apple fanboiz. No Steve Jobs at Macworld Expo San Francisco. Apple has recently announced hat Steve Jobs won’t be giving out the keynote address and that 2009 will be the last year they’ll have an exhibit at Macworld Expo. via CrunchGear
• Recognizing the gaining popularity of social networking, Yahoo is slowly rolling out their “social” email inbox limited beta to a select number of users. For now, the new “social” email inbox features include Yahoo Buzz stories, Yahoo Travel reviews and Yahoo TV listings. Yahoo is also testing applications for other different services like Flickr photos and WordPress blogs.
• Another milestone in the solid state drive history. Toshiba recently launched a 512 GB SSD using 43nm MLC NAND which is an industry first.
• The first hybrid DVD/Blu-ray disc was recently revealed in Japan. The hybrid disc has a single-layer for Blu-ray on one side and a standard DVD on the same side.

Gadgets

• Unless you’re using a Wii, most gaming consoles tend to make you slouch or slump resulting in bad posture. Solution? The GAMEROX gaming chair which has a unique design and technology that trains core stability, tones muscle and improves posture. It would make a nice Christmas gift for gamers next year.
• One of Intel’s newest products that will be released at CES 2009 is the Convertible Classmate PC. Laptop.com got their hands on a “almost final production unit” and provided some photos a hands on review.
• Looking for a compact desktop pc with a Blu-ray drive for your small room or apartment? Epson got you covered with their Epson ST120 series. Specifications: Core 2 Duo P8400 (2.26GHz), 1GB of RAM, 80GB of HDD (upgradeable to 320GB), GM45 Express chipset, Digital TV Tuner MonsterTV HDU and a Blu-ray burner.
• The trend in technology and gadgets these days is portability and basically every type of device are shriking in size. If your work involves a lot of traveling, the Atek OnBoard travel keyboard might come in handy. Photos and hands on review by BGR

Pinoy Blogs

• E-TEN which changed its brand name to Glofiish in 2006, is now re-entering the Philippine market. Two of their new devices are the Glofiish DX900 and X610. Photos and hands on review by Jayvee Fernandez.
• If you’re doing a lot of shopping on eBay and would like to find a seller that caters to the Philippine market, you should check out the eBuyStore. They sell a wide variety of items from cellphones, to iPods and digital cameras. They accept credit cards, PayPal, GCash direct bank deposit and COD as forms of payment.
• Cyberzone, a local gadget hub in the Philippines has recently opened a new branch at the SM Mall of Asia. It’s not yet fully occupied as a few stalls are still vacant but expect new stores to open soon.
• Loy, one of my regular readers here has come up with his list of the best WordPress plugins for newbies. Some of the plugins though are no longer needed if you have WordPress 2.7 because the functions are already built-in.

JaypeeOnline Weekly Recap

• HowTo: Hide Affiliate Links on WordPress Blogs – tutorial on how to “hide” or beautify your affiliate marketing links.
• easyComment Firefox Extension – Firefox extension that makes leaving comments on blogs faster and easier.

If you have any questions, comments, suggestions or want your article to be featured in the next Weekend Roundup, feel free to leave a comment or send me a message via the contact page.

Thank you for your time and hope you guys have a great week!