JaypeeOnline

Blog Updates 11.09

Jaypee Habaradas — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:01:42 +0000

Did my last blog update post about a couple months back and I’ve done some changes to the blog so I decided to do another blog update post. These blog update posts have become a “regular” habit of mine here on JaypeeOnline and I consider it as some kind of “checkpoint” to help me remember the plugins I installed/uninstalled on the period of time. Its also a way for me to inform my readers of the changes I’ve made to the blog especially the changes I’ve made front-end wise, changes in the blog theme, design, layout, etc.

The changes I’ve listed below are the changes I’ve made since my previous blog update.

Uninstalled Plugins

LinkWithin – Displays recommended stories and associated thumbnails from your blog.
Most Commented – Retrieves a list of the posts with the most comments.
Popularity Contest – keeps a count of your post, category and archive views, comments, trackbacks, etc. and uses them to determine which of your posts are most popular.
Global Translator – automatically translates your blog in the following 41 different languages.

I removed LinkWithin because based on my observation, visitors weren’t using it that much and it uses up too much space and makes the overall post page layout more cluttered. Uninstalled the Most Commented and Popularity Contest plugins because my theme has built-in functions that make both plugins redundant. Removed the Global Translator plugin because of security issues and I will discuss more about it in an upcoming post.

Installed Plugins

Where did they go from here – Show “Readers Also Viewed” links on your page.
Theme Authenticity Checker – scans theme files for potentially malicious or unwanted code.
TweetMeme Button – Adds a button which easily lets you retweet your blog posts.
WP Super Cache – Very fast caching plugin for WordPress.
Yoast Breadcrumbs – Outputs a fully customizable breadcrumb path.

Installed the Where did they go from here plugin and placed it beside the Related Posts to display posts that readers visited after viewing/reading that current post. This is very useful because it lists some posts that aren’t displayed in the Related Posts and lists posts that may also be of interest to the new reader. I installed the Theme Authenticity Checker to help me verify the themes that I review in my WordPress Theme reviews. The TweetMeme button is the small graphic displayed on the upper left portion of each post and displays the number of times the post was RT’d (retweeted) and enables the reader to easily RT the post.

I installed WP Super Cache in the efforts of solving the problems I had with my previous web host. It didn’t work because the problem was not with my blog but with my web host its just that they didn’t want to admit it and they were trying to put the blame on my blog.

I’ve been planning on implementing breadcrumb navigation on my blog for a long time now but didn’t get to do it. I finally found time to install Yoast’s Breadcrumbs plugin. This plugin displays the path and location of the post/page that the reader is currently viewing. Helps users to easily navigate through the blog/website. The breadcrumb path is the text displayed at the top most part of each post and page (Home > Post).

Other Changes
I didn’t do much changes to the blog theme and layout except for some minor tweaks on the sidebar.

Added the JaypeeOnline Facebook Fan Page at the sidebar.
Removed the Entrecard widget. Still thinking about whether I should put it back or not.
Moved the Trackbacks/Pingbacks section below the Comment form.

I think thats it, I mean that’s all the changes I’ve done since my last blog update. Sometimes my memory fails me so I might have missed one or two changes and if I did, I’ll update the post later.

If any of you guys have comments, ideas or suggestions to make JaypeeOnline better, please don’t hesitate to share it with me via the comments section or if you want to remain anonymous, you can send me a message via the contact page. Thanks and you all have a great weekend!

Copyright © 2009 JaypeeOnline.net. This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me so I can take legal action immediately.

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WordPress Wins 2009 Overall Best Open Source CMS Award

Jaypee Habaradas — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:48:47 +0000

I was first introduced to WordPress about 5-6 years and it was love at first sight. From the time I started using it, I’ve never looked back or thought about shifting to another blogging platform/software. WordPress has gone a long way since then and I’ve witness it grow and mature from a blogging software into a full-featured CMS.

Being an avid WordPress user and advocate, I was happy when I found out that WordPress was recently awarded the 2009 Overall Best Open Source CMS Award by the Open Source CMS Awards. Matt Mullenweg himself was very excited about the award.

I was very excited last week to learn that WordPress has been awarded the Overall Best Open Source CMS Award in the 2009 Open Source CMS Awards. This is a landmark for us, as it is the first time we’ve won this award, and it marks a shift in the public perception of WordPress, from blog software to full-featured CMS. No small contest, the Open Source CMS Awards received over 12,000 nominations and more than 23,000 votes across five categories.

Aside from winning the Overall Best Open Source CMS category, WordPress was also 1st runner-up for the Best Open Source PHP CMS category. Making it to the #2 spot this year is a great feat considering that WordPress wasn’t even in the top 5 last year and puts WordPress ahead of Joomla. Another thing to note is that Drupal, the winner of the Best Open Source PHP CMS category, outranked WordPress only by a very slight margin, which means that WordPress has really become more popular with the users and developers over the past year.

I like Matt’s ending statement:

Every member of the WordPress community, from core developer to beginning user, should be proud to be part of this momentum: congratulations to us all!

As a user, advocate and a member of the WordPress community I’m happy and proud for this recent achievement of WordPress and I certainly feel that I’m a part of this success. Even though I’m not a core developer or theme/plugin developer, I believe that I’ve done my part with my WordPress news/updates, WordPress theme & plugin reviews and other WordPress-related posts which are my contributions to the community.

Congratulations to WordPress, the Automattic team and all the WordPress core developers, theme/plugin developers and users!

Btw, I just remembered that WordPress won Best Open Source Social Networking CMS in the 2007 Open Source CMS Awards two years ago.

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Digital Filipino Web Awards 2009 Winners

Jaypee Habaradas — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:09:07 +0000

Mid last month, I blogged about the Digital Filipino Web Awards call for nominations, which is an annual event sponsored by the Digital Filipino Club and headed by Ms. Janette Toral.

The winners for this year’s Digital Filipino Web Awards were recognized last November 13th during the Digital Filipino E-Commerce Summit at the Hotel Intercontinental’s Grand Ballroom in Makati City.

Here’s the complete list of winners with their respective categories:

Apparel / Fashion Category – UkayManila.com
Art Category – Pinoybiswalstyle
Association / Organization Category – National Council on Disability Affairs
Auction / Shopping Portal Category – Auction.ph
Automotive Category – AutoIndustriya
Beauty Category – VMV Hypoallergenics
Blog – Corporate Category – Nuffnang Philippines
Blog – Personal Category – Flair Candy
Blog – Professional Category – New Media Philippines
Books Category – OMF Literature
Community Category – Cebu Bloggers Society and Proudly Filipina
Computer / Consumer Electronics Category – Villman Computers Philippines
Corporate / Professional Category – LevelUp!
Events / Conferences Category – Philippine Blog Awards
Food Category – Patay Gutom
Games Category – My Brute Cheats
Gifts Category – Gifts2Pinas
Government – Official Website of Zamboanga City
Guides / Review Category – Spot.ph
Jobs / Employment Category – MyNimo
Magazine Category – PC World Philippines
Music / Movie/ Film Category – TitikPilipino
Newspaper Category – Inquirer.net
Politics Category – Filipino Voices
Real Estate Category – CDORealEstate.com
Restaurant – Centerstage Family KTV and Resto Bar
School / University Category – De La Salle University – Manila
Social Networking Category – Noypf Pinoy Social Network
Telecoms / Value Added Services Category – Smart Communications
Tourism Category – Experience Philippines
Travel Category – Pasyalera

Since I’m one of the “contributors” for Patay Gutom, winner of the Food Category, I guess that also makes me a “winner” in the recent 2009 Digital Filipino Web Awards. This makes me feel guilty that I still haven’t contributed a post on Patay Gutom. I know I’ve promised Jehzeel several times that I’d post something but somehow, I wasn’t able to. Sorry Jehz! Don’t worry, I will post something soon on PG, promise!

Anyways, congratulations once again to all the winners of the 2009 Digital Filipino Web Awards! I’d also like to extend my congratulations to Ms. Janette Toral, the rest of the organizers, members of the Digital Filipino Club and sponsors for the success of this event.

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Weekend Roundup #61

Jaypee Habaradas — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:43:51 +0000

Hi folks! Hope you all had a great weekend and are having a good week so far. My apologies for yet another late edition of the Weekend Roundup. The past weekend was quite busy with church-related programs and meetings. It was also marked by a special boxing event featuring the highly anticipated fight of the year between WBO Welterweight champion Miguel Cotto and Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao. Thank goodness for free live stream links, I was able to watch it for free at home without having to pay $60 for HBO’s PPV. I was very nervous at the start of the match and I was expecting Cotto to give Pacquiao a hard time. It was a great fight and congratulations to Manny Pacquiao for winning his 7th world title making him the first fighter to win 7 titles in different weight divisions.

Anyways, enough of that and on with this weeks edition of the Weekend Roundup. Hope you guys enjoy it!

Blogging

WordPress

Technology

Gadgets

Pinoy Blogs

JaypeeOnline Weekly Recap

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 are having a great week!

$1,500 Thanksgiving Giveaway

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WP Theme Review: One Room

Jaypee Habaradas — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:33:42 +0000

Time for another WordPress theme review. There are so many free WordPress themes released these days that its hard to keep track of all of them. The theme I’m reviewing today was release early this year. Its a 3 column, widget-ready theme called One Room created by Jeremie Tisseau of Web kreation.

Here’s a short intro from the theme author:

I am very pleased to release my new Wordpress theme, “OneRoom“, a three columns theme with fixed width and widget-ready.

I wanted to design a new theme months ago but actually never had time to work on it. And then, I was moving to Thailand and another couple of weeks past. But now I have settled in Thailand and had no reasons to postpone that job any longer.

I hope you will like this theme as much as I do.

Basic Features:

Widgetized Sidebars
Built-In Author Section in Sidebar
Built-in Gravatar Support for Comments
Custom 404 error page
Built-In Banner Ad Blocks
Left Sidebar for PostMetadatas

Screenshots:
Homepage

Post page

My Take:
The One Room WordPress theme is another excellent addition to the list of freemium (free & premium quality) themes available to all WordPress users. Design-wise, One Room is top notch and can easily be mistaken as a premium WordPress theme. I really like the gradient/texture used in this theme and also its typography.

Basic features include widgetized sidebars, built-in author section (top of sidebar), built-in gravatar support and built-in banner ad blocks. I like what the author did with the style of the comments section and how the gravatars are positioned and displayed on the left side of the comment. Gives the theme a different look from other WordPress themes. Also, trackbacks and pingbacks are separated from regular comments so you don’t have to worry about tweaking your theme to address that issue.

Aside from the readme.txt file in the theme download the theme author has provided a Usage page that contains a few FAQs to help users and also a link where you can download the logo PSD file so you can customize it for your blog. The author also provided a Typography where users can see samples of the different image classes, headers and other tags that you can use to manipulate the theme’s typography.

Another thing I like about this theme is the custom 404 page. The custom 404 page displays a custom message and displays a list of the recent posts, pages, archives and categories. A 404 page is something that many bloggers take for granted and its good to see that the theme author has included a cool custom 404 page in this theme.

One thing that I think some users might have an issue with on this theme is the left column. The author designed the left column that way to serve a purpose and to complement the overall design. However, some users like to maximize the space used by their themes and don’t like the amount of space used by the left column. This is something that will be a problem based on the user’s preference.

Overall, the One Room WordPress theme is an excellent theme. Kudos to Jeremie Tisseau for creating such a pretty theme and for sharing it to the WordPress community!

Preview or Download the One Room WordPress theme.

NOTE: This theme was scanned using the Theme Authenticity Checker and doesn’t contain any hidden or encrypted code.

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Free Google Analytics API Dashboard Application

Jaypee Habaradas — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 23:25:12 +0000

To keep track of the different blog statistics here on JaypeeOnline, my analytics service of choice is Reinvigorate. I’ve been using it for about 3 years now. Aside from that I also use Clicky which I started using early this year. The first free analytics service I tried/used was Google Analytics, but I stopped using it because I didn’t like how it worked and it didn’t have certain features that I wanted/needed and thats why I moved to Reinvigorate. Recently, I started using Google Analytics again so that I have another source of data that I can use to compare with the other analytics services that I use.

Last week, the Google Analytics blog published about a new Free Google Analytics Dashboard Application called Trakkboard. Trakkboard is a free, easy to use desktop application that allows analysts to create dashboards that pull data across different Google Analytics logins and different Google Analytics profiles to display top level metrics all within the same view. Trakkboard is created by German-based company Trakken GmbH and is available in English, Spanish and German.

Screenshots:
Trakkboard Dashboard

Trakkboard Add a Widget

If you want to get your hands on Trakkboard, first you’ll have to submit your email address to get a license key. Once you have your license key, you can proceed with downloading and installing it. Once its finished installing, you’ll be asked to create a login password for Trakkboard and later on, it will ask for your license key. Next step is to provide your Google Analytics profile login details and once you’ve logged in, you can proceed with adding widgets to your dashboard. Available widgets are: Visits, Visitors, Pageviews, Medium, Source, Top/Flop Keywords, Pages/Visits, Bouncerate, TimeOnSite, All Goals, Goal 1, Goal 2, Goal 3, Goal 4 and Notes. You can also specify the timeline or timespan of the stats displayed on each widget.

Trakkboard is an Adobe AIR app so you’ll need Adobe AIR to be installed on your computer. Since this app is powered by Adobe AIR, it means that its cross-platform and you can install it on any OS (Windows, Mac or Linux).

Trakkboard is ideal for those users who manage several Google Analytics profiles because with this app, you don’t have to login/logout from each profile to check on other profiles. With Trakkboard you can access all those profiles on one single app or window. It’s simple and straightforward so Google Analytics users won’t have a hard time using this app.

Anyone here who’s using Google Analytics? What do you guys think of Trakkboard? If you had a Google Analytics account, would you use Trakkboard? What are the features you like/dislike? What additional features/options would you like to see on Trakkboard? Please share your thoughts.

Web Tools

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Weekend Roundup #61

WordPress 2.8.6 Security Release

Jaypee Habaradas — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:50:39 +0000

Just as I finished publishing my previous post, I saw the notification that WordPress 2.8.6 security release is now available for download. Here’s what the official WordPress blog has to say about this new release:

2.8.6 fixes two security problems that can be exploited by registered, logged in users who have posting privileges. If you have untrusted authors on your blog, upgrading to 2.8.6 is recommended.

The first problem is an XSS vulnerability in Press This discovered by Benjamin Flesch. The second problem, discovered by Dawid Golunski, is an issue with sanitizing uploaded file names that can be exploited in certain Apache configurations. Thanks to Benjamin and Dawid for finding and reporting these.

If you were having problems accessing this blog earlier, it was because I was upgrading my WordPress install to 2.8.6. Although I trust the other authors on my blog, there’s always a possibility that some hacker or malicious user can obtain their login details and use that to compromise my blog. I just want to be sure, play safe and prevent any problems or headaches. As I always say, “better safe than sorry”. If you have other authors on your blog other than yourself, I strongly encourage you to upgrade to WordPress 2.8.6 now.

Get WordPress 2.8.6.

WordPress Visual Cheat Sheet

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WordPress Visual Cheat Sheet

Jaypee Habaradas — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:25:19 +0000

Aside from the core developers, individual or corporate WordPress theme and plugin developers work with a lot of WordPress codes, template tags, hooks, etc. I don’t know how these developers work and how they can memorize all the pieces of code and tags. I guess some of them have some sort of list or cheat sheet or maybe a custom local database that they use to look up the different tags and stuff.

Antonio Lupetti of Woorkup.com has created a WordPress visual cheat sheet that would come in very handy for any WordPress theme/plugin developer.

Here’s a short description of the visual cheat sheet from the author himself:

WordPress Visual Cheat Sheet is the new document, of the Visual Cheat Sheet family, that contains a practical reference guide to WordPress 2.8. This cheat sheet (5 pages) contains the full reference guide to WP Template Tags with detailed descriptions and sample code. The simple visual style I used to design this sheet allows you to find at a glance everything you are looking for.

The WordPress visual cheat sheet is divided into the following tag categories: include, blog info, list & dropdown, login/logout, post, comment, category, tag, author, date & time, edit link, trackback, permalink, links manager, query and title.

The WP visual cheat sheet is in PDF form and contains 5 pages of the full reference guide to WordPress Template Tags. Aside from WordPress theme and plugin developers, this visual cheat sheet would be useful for users who want to tweak their blog theme or some plugin they’re using on their blog and also for those who want to dig deeper and learn more about how WordPress works “under the hood”. I’ve downloaded it and kept it for future reference. I also plan to print it and keep it in my file or maybe stick it on the wall near my workstation. Btw, this visual cheat sheet is based on WordPress 2.8 so some tags might become obsolete when WordPress 2.9 or other future versions gets released.

Kudos to Antonio for creating this beautiful visual cheat sheet and sharing it to other WordPress users! You can download the WordPress visual cheat sheet here.

If this doesn’t work for you, you might want to try out the WordPress Function/Tag Lookup Tool.

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Weekend Roundup #60

Jaypee Habaradas — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:28:36 +0000

Wassup guys? How’s everyone doing? Hope you’re all doing fine. My apologies for the very late roundup. I was kinda busy last weekend and was too tired to finish the draft and publish this edition of the Weekend Roundup. Played a couple of basketball games last Saturday night and went home past 11 PM. I was dead tired and spent the following day resting and sleeping. Btw, don’t worry coz I’ll be updating the blog with some new posts by today and will be replying to all your comments and contest entries.

For this edition of the Weekend Roundup, I’ve decided to add a new topic under WordPress. I did this because I didn’t want to put WordPress related news under Blogging because not all bloggers use WordPress and there are times when I already have filled up the Blogging topic and I still have some WordPress related news to share with you guys. Anyways, I hope that you guys like it and if you do, I’ll make it a permanent part of the Weekend Roundup.

Blogging

WordPress

Technology

Gadgets

Pinoy Blogs

JaypeeOnline Weekly Recap

Btw, today – November 10th is my wife’s birthday so I’d like to send a special greeting to my beautiful wife, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”

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

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WordPress Warriors Worldwide

Jaypee Habaradas — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:34:37 +0000

Wouldn’t it be cool to find out how many WordPress fans, users, bloggers, developers or core developers come from your area or country? With WordPress World Map, you can do just that. WordPress World Map is a Google Maps powered map with a draggable window that lets WordPress users pin their location. To sign up, you can either use the site’s own registration form or you can choose to sign in using Twitter (you’ll need to allow the site/app access to Twitter). If you sign up/in with Twitter you can follow other users using a Twitter follow icon.

Aside from displaying the location of different WordPress users around the world, WordPress World Map also displays upcoming WordCamps (represented by a WordPress icon on the map). Hovering your mouse over the WordPress icon would display the WordCamp name, date and location. You can change the map view according to your location, region or the different continents – Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America. You can also use filters to view registered users according to roles – fan, user/blogger, developer, core developer or company.

Here’s a screenshot of WordPress World Map with my profile.

Based on the screenshot above, you can see that the Profile displays the user’s name, WordPress role, date of registration, website or blog URL, Twitter name with follow link/icon and other WordPress users that are located within a 200 mile radius of the user. So far, I only know one person who’s located near me and that’s Frosty – Austin Passy, the organizer of WordCamp LA.

WordPress World Map totally depends on the cooperation and participation of WordPress users, so if you’re a WordPress fan, user/blogger, developer, core developer or company that uses WordPress, I strongly encourage you to join and sign up. I’m thinking that WP World Map would be most useful for people who plan to organize WordCamps or regular meetups in their area.

What do you think of WordPress World Map? Have you signed up already? Have you checked how many WordPress users are located in your area? In what other ways do you think WordPress World Maps can be used for aside from organizing WordCamps and meetups? Please share your thoughts.

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