This will be the second time that I’ll be doing a year ender post or recap here on JaypeeOnline. Even though its a bit late than what I wanted it to be, I decided to go on and finish this post because I wanted to look back at what me and my blog have accomplished. By doing so, I can be thankful for what I have received, be proud of what I’ve accomplished and learn from my failures and mistakes. Also, to share with you guys the past year’s events and experiences.

Here’s the list of the events and other stuff that took place and was published on JaypeeOnline for 2008.

• After hearing and reading much about this new service, I finally signed up with Entrecard.
• A victim of Dreamhost’s Billing Nightmare. Got accidentally billed for a year’s worth of hosting. Turns out it was caused by a “user error” from one of the Dreamhost staff.
• JaypeeOnline Theme Reboot. Purchased my first ever premium WordPress theme, the Magazine Style theme by Art Culture.
• Said goodbye to Dreamhost and hello to Mediatemple. Moved out of Dreamhost after hosting JaypeeOnline with them for almost a year.
• Received my PayPal Debit Card. Now I can use my PayPal funds to purchase stuff online even from sites that don’t accept PayPal or buy stuff from stores offline.
• Held my first blog contest by giving away 2,000 Entrecard credits. Wasn’t successful as I hoped it would be but it was a great learning experience.
• Another “bought by blogging” gadget, my first pocket pc phone the AT&T Tilt aka HTC TyTN II.
• Guess who’s back? First blog post after going on a blogging hiatus for more than 3 months.
• My Compaq Presario C714NR went dead and I didn’t think it was gonna get fixed so I bought a new laptop, the Toshiba A305-S6872. Again, another “bought by blogging” gadget.
• Purchased my second premium WordPress theme, the Fresh News theme by Woo Themes as a fresh new theme for JaypeeOnline.
• Held my second blog contest, the Christmas Giveaway which is a bigger and better contest than the first one. Gave away $1,000+ worth of premium WordPress themes and plugins courtesy of generous sponsors.
• Got an early Christmas present in the form of WordPress schwag. Courtesy of Maya from Automattic.

Although I didn’t get special mention or awards like last year, 2008 was still a very good year for me and my blog. Why? Because this past year was full of blessings and so many things that I am thankful for like good health, family and friends (both offline and online). Blogwise, I’m also happy because JaypeeOnline not only has more subscribers but the average traffic (visits and pageviews) has more than doubled since last year.

I’d like to take this opportunity to once again thank my family, friends and loyal readers for their continued support, because without you guys, all of this won’t be possible. Thank you very much!

I wish everyone a blessed Happy New Year and God bless!

[image source: Funny Web Comic]

Drum roll please! The winner of the 2,000 Entrecard credits is … Felex Tan of Felextan dot com. Congratulations buddy! I’ll be contacting you soon about the details and how you can claim your prize.

Even though the level of participation didn’t meet my expectations, I’m still glad I had this contest because it was a good learning experience especially with regards to running a blog contest. Now I can use what I learned for my upcoming contest and other future contests here on JaypeeOnline.

NOTE: Sorry for the late delay. I was about to publish this post when all of a sudden, I lost my Internet connection. I had to wait for several minutes before I got connected again.

Pinoy Blogosphere

• Remember the old Pinoy Top Blogs? Well it was re-launched last week and features an entirely new code-base and design. Previous accounts were imported so if you already have an account, all you need to do to get your blog listed is to get the new tracking code. Check out the new Pinoy Top Blogs.
• Karlo of Pinoyblogero shares his thoughts on why pinoy bloggers aren’t interested in coining a Tagalog/Filipino term for the word “blog”. I agree with him and those were my exact thoughts when I first read Paulo’s post.
• My good friend Jhay talks about a new tipping system called Scratchback that he recently installed on his blog. I’ve seen this widget on some blogs a couple months back but didn’t know what it was called or was interested to find out. Hehe now that I’ve read his article, I think I might give a try soon.
• PinoyTechGuy talks about what’s new in the recently released Windows Vista Service Pack 1 or SP1. I hope SP1 would enhance the performance of Vista and fix most if not all technical issues and bugs that are causing many Vista users headaches.

Around the Web

• Do you use lots of images on your blog posts? With Google Images and the Alt tags, you can use it’s full potential and increase your blog traffic and visitors by using .
• You just installed WordPress on your hosting account and you can’t wait to start posting. Before you do just that, you might wanna read this article by Jason Blanton of BloggingTips that lists the five things you should do after installing your self hosted WordPress blog.
• If you’re planning to move your blog to another web host, you might want to check out this guide written by Ades which is his documentation of the recent transfer of Adesblog.com to another host. This guide covers most if not all of the things you need to do when moving to a new web host.
• Running out of blogging ideas? Graham Jones has some tips on how to have a constant stream of blogging ideas. Via Problogger

Starting now, I’ll be adding a new section in the Weekend Roundup called the Weekly Recap which will list the posts I’ve posted during the week, giving you a chance to see all the posts in case you missed one or two of them.

JaypeeOnline Weekly Recap

• Win 2,000 Entrecard credits – still ongoing. deadline is on March 30th and winner will be announced on the 31st.
• Adobe CS3 Internal Error 2739 Fix – fix for an error I got when installing Adobe CS3 on my Vista powered laptop.
• KidZui: Browser for Kids – a browser that lets kids browse the Internet safely. CEO of KidZui left a comment on this post.
• Mimbo Pro Magazine Theme – premium WordPress theme by Darren Hoyt. Darren dropped by and shared some info about the theme.

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.

UPDATE: This contest is officially over as of April 1st, 2008.

Last month, I was fortunate to win 1,500 Entrecard credits and a blog review from BloggingMix’s contest. I haven’t used the credits since I received them and after thinking it over, I’ve decided to give it away to one lucky reader. That’s not all, I’ve added 500 more credits so that makes it a total of 2,000 Entrecard credits. The contest will start the moment this post is published and will end midnight of March 30, 2008 (US Pacific Time).

In order to join this contest, all you need to do is subscribe to JaypeeOnline’s RSS feed via email and leave a comment below using the email address you used for subscribing. Make sure you don’t forget to verify your subscription so that your entry would be valid.

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE AND HAVE A CHANCE OF WINNING 2,000 ENTRECARD CREDITS

I will announce the winner of the Entrecard credits on Sunday, March 31st (US Pacific Time) via a blog post.

Want to have more chances of winning? Here’s what you can do:

• Post and link back to this contest – 3 extra entries
• Post a recommendation for JaypeeOnline on Entrecard – 1 extra entry

These are optional and you can do either one or both to earn the extra entries. Also, you need to have an Entrecard account to be able to receive and use the credits. If you’re not yet an Entrecard user, you can sign up first before joining this contest. If you decide to post and link back to this post or write a recommendation for JaypeeOnline, make sure to include your post’s permalink and/or your Entrecard details in your comment so that you’ll be credited with the extra entries.

NOTES: Only verified email subscriptions are considered as valid entries and subscribing via RSS readers doesn’t count. If you’ve already subscribed via email, then all you need to do is leave a comment. For your questions, suggestions or feedback regarding this contest, just leave a comment below or send me a message via my Contact page.

What are you waiting for? Join now and you can have a chance of winning 2,000 Entrecard credits!

Pinoy Blogosphere

• Attention all bloggers in Cebu, there will be a Bloggers Meetup this coming February 7, 6:00 pm at the iBrowse Internet Cafe near Cebu Doctor’s University. For more information, check out Max Limpag’s post. I’m sure McBilly is already excited about it.
• My friend Jhay Rocas shares how he backs up his blog’s database automatically using the WordPress Database Backup Plugin.
• Studies show that Internet users are starting to get more and more ad-blind. If you’re making money online via clickthroughs and are worried about this issue, Manuel Viloria explains how you can come up with an alternative source of income using only your blog.
• Andrew Dela Serna talks about the recent rumors of Google setting up a data center in Malaysia and points out some reasons why the Philippines should be or shouldn’t be considered.

Around the Web

• Are trackbacks still useful? Weblog Tools Collection asks it’s readers this question. If you ask me, I believe that it is still useful inspite of the growing number of spam trackbacks in recent years. I love getting trackbacks! Also, with trackbacks I can know who are linking to my posts and find out if people actually like my posts.
• Too many blog categories occupying too much space on your blog? Solution: drop down menu. Anthology of Ideas has this cool tutorial on how to display blog categories in a drop down menu.
• Learn how to combine featured posts with the standard loop with this excellent tutorial by Darren Hoyt author of the Mimbo 2.0 WordPress theme.
• I’ve always wanted a quick and easy way to take screenshots in Windows like I used to do in Ubuntu. Thanks to Daily Blog Tips, I found out about two Firefox extensions that lets you take screenshots with the latest version of Firefox.

Before I forget, join Pinoy United‘s online raffle for a chance to win $250. To join the raffle or find out more about the mechanics, visit this page.

On another note, I’d like to thank Blogging Mix for the 1,500 Entrecard credits and blog review that I won in his recently concluded Entrecard contest. I’m still deciding whether I should use it to advertise on popular blogs or should I give it away as a prize. What do you think?