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]

Anyways, here’s this weeks edition of the Weekend Roundup. Hope you guys like it!

Blogging

• Jeff Chandler writes about a new WordPress plugin that takes WordPress widgets to another level. This plugin is called the Widget Context developed by Kaspars Dambis. via BloggingTips.
• If your blogs posts are mostly links to other sites and you would like your readers to be brought directly to the source site, this helpful tip will let you change a post’s RSS permalink using custom fields. via WPCandy
• If you’re experiencing write errors with your Google Sitemaps WordPress plugin after upgrading to WordPress 2.7, QuickOnlineTips has a short tutorial on how to fix it.
• Having a hard time looking for a nice new theme for your WordPress blog? Kyle Eslick of HackWordPress has compiled 150+ well designed Free and Premium WordPress themes.

Technology

• WIRED has a list of the Top 10 Technology Breakthroughs of 2008. Among the list are USB 3.0, Google Android and the memory transistor or memristor.
• In this age of technology, one of the most important resources is information. Countries like the US do their best to protect their information from attacks. What do they do to prepare for such type of info attacks? Cyberwargames!.
• Farewell VHS! After three decades of existence, the VHS tape era is winding down. Distribution Video Audio Inc, the last major supplier of VHS tapes rolled out the final truckload last week. Any remaining units in the warehouse would either be given away or thrown away.
• Do you want to know where the largest share of the world’s malware is coming from? According to Sophos, the Top 10 malware-hosting countries are: Thailand, Czech Republic, Turkey, United Kingdom, Ukraine, South Korea, Germany, Russia, China and the US at the top spot.

Gadgets

• Are you a fan of the Nintendo 64 game console? Check out this cool portable N64 called the Nintendo Sixtyfree Lite-R created by modder SifuF. Features include dual 3D sticks, D-Pad, L button, headphone socket and expansion pack! via Engadget
• If you’re an Apple fanboy or you like reading Tech related news the past week, I’m sure you’ve read or heard about the rumored iPhone Nano. In Thailand, you’ll see a lot of these iPhone Nanos for sale. Unfortunately, all of these are fake.
• The Nintendo Wii game console is the most popular gaming console right now and I’m sure its gonna be more popular with these new features. Wii owners in Japan will soon be able to order food and watch videos via the game console.
• What if you create a phone that looks like HTC, sounds like RIM, smells like Microsoft and tastes like Google? You’ll end up with China’s HKC Pearl. A dual-OS phone that can run on Windows Mobile or Android.

Pinoy Blogs

• If you’re new or just visiting Manila and are looking to buy a new mobile phone with bargain prices, Melo has a list of places where to buy mobile phones in Manila.
• In case you don’t know, Google now includes thumbnails for WordPress blogs in its search results. However, Google still needs to do some work on it because it still has a lot of bugs like associating different names/photos to some bloggers. Mike Abundo, shares how Google thinks he’s someone else.
• Brother Ambo of PinoyAmbisyoso is giving away a domain name for one year to one lucky voter. If you’re interested, head on over to his blog for further details.
• Looking for another way to track and follow your favorite blogs without having to subscribe to the RSS feed or newsletter? Jhay recommends Trackthis by Yotify. Trackthis sends links instead of full blog posts via email. You can also filter the content using tags or keywords.

JaypeeOnline Weekly Recap

• Griffin Technology iTrip Auto FM Transmitter – a good FM transmitter for your iPod.
• WordPress Schwag – got some cool WordPress pencils, stickers and pins last week.

For those of you who aren’t aware or haven’t heard of my Christmas Giveaway, I’m giving away $1,000+ worth of prizes (premium WordPress themes and plugins). You still have 2 more days to join and submit your entries before the deadline on Dec 30th.

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!

About three weeks ago, while reading and commenting on Mark Jaquith’s post about WordPress 2.7′s comment moderation keyboard shortcuts, I came across Jonathan’s blog and happened to read his post about WordPress stickers where I found out that Maya Desai of Automattic was giving away WordPress schwag in her WordPress.com blog. The only requirement is to leave a message explaining why you’d like to have some WordPress schwag. I didn’t wait any further, I immediately wrote my message and submitted it. The next day, I got an email from Maya asking me for my mailing address. I sent her my mailing details and a couple days later, here’s what I got:

Wanna know what was inside the package? I got the following stuff:

• WordPress pencils
• WordPress stickers
• WordPress pins
• WordPress temporary tattoo

These items are not available anywhere even in the WordPress Shop.

So what do I plan to do with it? I’ll use some of the stickers and pins myself but most of it I’ll be giving away to friends. I also plan to give some away to the top commentators of this blog for the next few months.

If you’re interested in getting these WordPress schwag yourself, you can ask Maya by visiting her blog and leave a comment on her WordPress schwag post.

*schwag is the slang term for promotional items or products that are used for marketing. schwag items usually have the company’s name, logo or slogan, and are given away at trade shows, conferences. other names include swag or loot.