I have followed the instruction above to the letter, and still only 8 connections. not sure what else i can try.
Check if it is reachable. Go to the
https://bitnodes.21.co and scroll down to check node. It will automatically full in your public IP address. If your node is reachable, then it will say so and all you can do is wait and hope people connect to you. If it is unreachable (shouldn't be) then you have done something wrong.
You can also give us your IP address and we can try to connect our nodes to yours. If it works then you've done everything correctly and just need to wait for other people to connect to you.